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Art. IV.—The Theory of ‘Soul’ in the Upanishads

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

There is no work to which a student who wished to study the doctrine of Soul as set forth in the Upanishads could be referred. There are excellent popular accounts of later Indian beliefs. Professor Deussen has written a very complete and scholarly exposition of the views of the great Vedantist Śankar Āeārya. And Professor Garbe has now given us an equally valuable presentation of the Sānkhya philosophy. But Śankara is of the eighth century of our era (about 760–820 a.d.); and the earliest corresponding commentary on Sānkhya—that of Gandapāḍa—is approximately dated by Garbe between 700 and 750 a.d. The very curt texts which these old commentators expound, though of quite unknown date, are probably at least three centuries earlier. What the student would want would be the views on the subject current in the Valley of the Ganges 1,200 years earlier, before the time when Buddhism arose.

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1899

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References

page 71 note 1 Das Vedānta-system (Leipzig, 1883)Google Scholar.

page 71 note 2 Die Sānkhya phiosophie (Leipzig, 1894)Google Scholar.

page 72 note 1 Indische Studien, vols. i, ii, and ix (Berlin, 18491865)Google Scholar.

page 72 note 2 Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire de la Philosophie de l'lnde (Paris, 18761878)Google Scholar.

page 72 note 3 “Sechzig Upanishad,” 1898.

page 72 note 4 Loc. cit., pp. 20–30.

page 76 note 1 Bṛhad., iv, 3. 7; v, 6: compare ii, 4. 11. Ch., viii, 3. 3. Tait., i, 6. 1. Kaṭha, 2. 20; 3. 1; 4. 6; 6. 17. S'vet., 3. 11, 20.

page 76 note 2 Bṛhad., v, 6; Ch., iii, 14. 3.

page 76 note 3 Kaṭha, iv, 12, 13; vi, 17; S'vet., iii, 13; v, 8.

page 76 note 4 Kaṭha, v, 3.

page 76 note 5 Tait., ii, 2, 3, 4, 5: compare Bṛhad., i, 4. 1 = S'at. Br., xiv, 4. 2. 1.

page 76 note 6 Bṛhad., ii, 3. 6.

page 76 note 7 Kaṭha, iv, 13.

page 76 note 8 Bṛhad., iv, 4. 5: compare iii, 7. 14–22.

page 77 note 1 (Manas) Bṛhad., i, 4. 17; v, 6.

page 77 note 2 (Vijñāna) Bṛhad., ii, 1. 17; iii, 7. 22; iv, 3. 7; iv, 5. 13.

page 77 note 3 Tait., ii, 2–5.

page 77 note 4 Bṛhad., i, 5. 3; ii, 1. 17; iv, 3. 7; iv, 4. 5; Ch., 3. 15. 1, 3.

page 77 note 5 Bṛhad., iv, 3. 14.

page 77 note 6 Dhyāna at Ch., vii, 6. 1 is perhaps ecstasy of meditation on one object only, but not trance, which is first mentioned in the Maitrī Up., vi, 18–25.

page 77 note 7 Bṛhad., iv, 3. 9–13; Ch., viii, 12. 3.

page 77 note 8 Bṛhad., iv, 3. 19.

page 78 note 1 Praśna, iv, 5.

page 78 note 2 Bṛhad., ii, 1. 19; iv, 3. 20; Ch., viii, 6. 3; Kaush., iv, 19. Compare Bṛhad., i, 4. 7; Praśna, iii, 6; iv, 1 6; Kaṛha, vi, 16.

page 78 note 3 Bṛhad., v, 14. 3, 7. So two of the other names in the Māṇḍūkya occur already (in a different sense) in the Chāndogya, v, 12.

page 79 note 1 Bṛhad., iii, 2. 13; iv, 4. 6; Kaṭha, v, 7 (compare vi, 4, and Ait. Ār., 2. 3. 2).

page 79 note 2 Tait., i, 6. 1; Ait., 3. 12.

page 79 note 3 Ait. Āraṇyaka, 2. 1. 4. 1–8.

page 79 note 4 Bṛhad., vi, 3. 16; Kaush., i, 2; Ait, ii, 1–4. Compare Ait. Ār., 2. 3. 7. 3, and Ch., ii, 13; v, 8; Bṛhad., i, 5. 7.

page 79 note 5 Chāndogya, v, 9. 1 = Bṛhad., vi, 2. 13.

page 79 note 6 Bṛhad., iii, 2. 17.

page 79 note 7 Bṛhad., vi, 2. 15 = Ch., iv, 15. 5, 6; and Bṛhad., vi, 2. 1–16 = Ch., v, 3–10.

page 80 note 1 It is probably only as a parallel to this mention of the ether that the Chāndogya inserts ether also in the last list.

page 80 note 2 This is one of the fivefold mystic explanations of the sacrifice (Bṛhad., vi, 2. 12 = Chāndogya, v, 7).

page 80 note 3 That souls pass from man to woman in seed is often referred to elsewhere: Bṛhad., v, 5. 2; Kaush., 1. 2; Ait., 4; Ait. Ār., iii, 2. 2. 4.

page 81 note 1 Compare Ch., vi, 9. 3; vi, 10. 2, on rebirth as animals.

page 81 note 2 Bṛhad., iv, 4. 1–6: compare Praśna, i, 9–16; iii, 10. Kaush., iii, 3.

page 81 note 3 Chāndogya, viii, 6. 6; Kaṭha, vi, 16; Tait., i, 6. 1. Compare Praśna, 3. 6, 7.

page 82 note 1 Kaushītakī, i, 2.

page 82 note 2 So the rays of the sun in one passage of the S'atapatha Brāhmaṇa (i, 9. 3. 10), and the stars of heaven in another (vi, 5. 4. 8), had already been identified with the souls of the righteous.

page 82 note 3 Tait., 1. 6 (ii, 8 is only about abandoning the world, in the sense of becoming a recluse).

page 83 note 1 Muṇṭ., 1. 2. 10, 11: compare iii, 2. 6, 7.

page 83 note 2 Kaṭha, i, 13.

page 83 note 3 Ibid., i, 17.

page 83 note 4 Ibid., iii, 7, 8.

page 83 note 5 Ibid., v, 7.

page 83 note 6 Ibid., vi, 15, 16: compare S'vet., i, 8.

page 83 note 7 S'vet., i, 7; iii, 10; iv, 11–17; v, 14.

page 83 note 8 S'vet., v, 7, 11, 12.

page 83 note 9 Praśna, i, 9, 10.

page 84 note 1 Praśna, i, 15, 16. Compare Chāndogya viii, 4. 3.

page 84 note 2 Ibid., iii, 6, 7.

page 84 note 3 Ibid., iii, 10. Compare the obscure passage in the Chāndogya Upanishad, iii, 5–10, where the soul becomes in succession one of different sets of gods whose colour he has understood.

page 84 note 4 Ibid., v, 3–5.

page 84 note 5 Chāndogya, viii, 15.

page 84 note 6 Just as the contrary doctrine is in Chāndogya, iii, 11. 4.

page 85 note 1 Chāndogya, vi, 8. 6.

page 86 note 1 The authorities are quoted by Muir, , “Sanskrit Texts,” v, 284313Google Scholar, and by Zimmer, , “Alt-Indisches Leben,” 408422Google Scholar.

page 86 note 2 See the passages quoted by ProfessorWeber, in the Z.D.M.G., ix, 237 follGoogle Scholar., and by Muir, loc. cit., 314 foll.

page 86 note 3 S'atap. Br., x, 5. 4. 15.

page 86 note 4 Taittirīya Br., iii, 10. 11. 6; iv, 10. 9. 11. Ait. Br., iii, 44.

page 86 note 5 S'atap. Br., xi, 4. 4. 1.

page 86 note 6 Ibid., xi, 5. 6. 9.

page 87 note 1 See ProfessorGarbe's, article in “Nord und Sud,” 1893Google Scholar, “Die Weisheit des Brahmanen oder des Kshatriya?”; and Muir, , “Sanskrit Texts,” vol. ivGoogle Scholar.