Last
time, looking at the Vedas, we saw that many different traditions and
interpretations flourish in Indian thought and Hinduism. We also
briefly discussed that the Vedas were followed by the Upanishads and
then by Vedanta, both which extended the interpretations of the Vedas
toward philosophical monism beyond any specific deity or dogma.
In
the sections of the Vedas in your reader, we can see several passages
that foreshadow the Upanishads and their more monistic understanding of
the metaphoric narratives. This is also how we can understand the Hindu
Epics we will examine this session. Often, teachings of the ancient
world that are legendary can be understood by the common person as a
real and miraculous event of history while the elite and wise could
understand the legend as containing a deeper truth that can be
transmitted to the common people as a story to be taken as history but
which is more properly revealed as a metaphor. Particularly aided by
the plurality of stories and traditions accepted into Indian and Hindu
thought, there is much room for skepticism and subjectivism concerning
conflicting truths and the shared common meaning having more importance
than the conflicts in literal meaning. This is reflected in these Vedic
passages, which were then extended in the Upanishads and Vedanta.
In
a hymn to Indra, the storm father god who was often the chief sky
father all god until unseated by Brahman (a more abstract, all-godhead),
we find that we should praise Indra, if indeed he does exist. It asks,
if someone wishes to purchase Indra from me for a modest price, you can
return him after he has slain the demons. This is surprising humor
found in the central Veda, the Rg Veda. A hymn to Vishvedevas asks,
“Who hath beheld him as he sprang to being, seen how this boneless One
supports the bony? Where is the blood of earth, the life, the spirit?
Who may approach the man who knows, to ask it?”. The boneless One, a
humorous portrayal of the monistic All which has no bones because it is
one without any articulation or part, supports all the many things with
their many parts. Whenever we say, “All” or “reality”, we are summing
everything together effortlessly without any divisions and without
leaving any particular thing out. A hymn to frogs tells us that, just
as Vedic priests gather together with their rituals, so too do the frogs
gather around the pond croaking to celebrate the first rain. This is
remarkably similar to a passage of Zhuang Zi, the Daoist patriarch, who
asks if the supreme wisdom of humans is any different from the chirping
of baby birds we will read much later in the course. Another hymn asks
for blessings for the “liberal worshipers”, who will hopefully turn in
faith to the gods rather than doubt their existence with philosophical
monism. Notice that the hymn refers to these skeptical and
philosophical individuals as “worshipers”, not as atheists or heathens.
It
is just these sort of individuals who would go on to write the
Upanishads, the Vedanta and both the orthodox and unorthodox schools of
Indian thought, including the Jainism and Buddhism we will study in the
next few weeks. As the Upanishads continued to gain teachers and
followers, there was a new flowering of many schools of thought between
700 and 400 BCE that took much from the Vedas and Upanishads but
developed the teachings in new directions. These new schools often
rejected the caste system (still in place today in spite of these
ancient rebellions) and thus gained massive followings among all classes
and castes of India. Jainism was one of the first, but it was quickly
developed and transformed itself into a religion that is possibly the
most popular system of thought in history, Buddhism.
The
Upanishads (beginning in 800 BCE, most having been written by 600 BCE)
were philosophical teachings about the soul/self (atman) and how to
release the soul from desire and identity to merge with the great One
and All (the goal of moksha or nirvana, discussed last time). The
Upanishads frequently interpret the stories of the Vedas as metaphoric
teachings, instructions for the truly wise on how to develop the
mind/soul/self. The self (atman) was to be united with the supreme
reality, oneness, and spirit of all, Brahman. ‘Upanishad’ means
“sitting down near/beside”, (upa, ‘near’, ni, ‘down’, sad, ‘sit’) as
these are the close teachings of the priest, philosopher or master who
has taught the Vedas for a long time and knows their secret and hidden
‘inner’ meaning. The students who were talented and advanced would sit
down beside the teacher after the normal lecture to get the advanced,
inner teaching that the normal students were not ready to hear.
Unfortunately, there are no authors to which the texts are ascribed,
having been lost to history. Perhaps some of these teachings are as old
as the Vedas, and were only written down after 800 BCE. There are over
200 Upanishad texts, though there are 10 central Upanishads.
One
of the most famous sayings from the Upanishads is Tat Tvam Asi, “That
is you”. No matter what “that” you are looking at, it is in fact your
own self because all is one and there are no complete or permanent
separations between any two things. This means there is no complete
distinction between any ‘this’ or ‘that’, and thus no complete
distinction between atman and Brahman, or between any of the gods and
Brahman. This is similar to another passage of Zhuang Zi the Daoist,
one of my favorite skeptical passages of philosophy, which says, “A sage
too has a this and a that, but his that has a this, and his this has a
that”. Notice the monism that unites all connecting not only the
various Hindu gods together but all individuals in the singular One of
reality.
In
Indian artwork, for all schools of Indian thought including both
Hinduism and Buddhism, one of the most common hand gestures or ‘mudras’
is the thumb and index finger touching forming a circle with the rest of
the fingers extended, much like the ‘OK’ hand sign. The thumb and
index finger are symbolically pinching the seed, grain or essence of a
thing. While we may be skeptical of spiritual powers associated with
hand gestures, hand and finger positioning has been shown to stimulate
the same areas of the brain as counting, numbers and language. This is
likely because the development of number and language systems went ‘hand
in hand’, so to speak, with the earliest gestures for primitive
communication. We naturally begin and often continue counting on our
fingers, and use our fingers to point, intend and indicate. The sages
instructing students in the Upanishads and the Buddha are often
portrayed displaying the essence/grain mudra, as it is associated with
not only teaching, and teaching about essences (such as, the self is
essentially, at bottom, basically an illusion), but also on a deeper
level the supreme One which is the true undifferentiated reality
supporting and consisting of all particular things and all individual
selves.
Just
like the unorthodox systems of Jainism and Buddhism would do later, the
Upanishads point beyond particular duties to ritual, sacrifice, caste
or class to the supreme goal of self-liberation. This had a great
appeal to those who were not Brahmins, the priests who formed the top
level of the caste system. While the Upanishads did not say to abandon
the caste system, the teachings were applicable to all. As we will see,
Mahavira who founded Jainism and the Buddha both had great appeal as
they openly said that one did not need to be reborn as a priest to have a
shot at nirvana. Rather, one could have it in this very life and not
need to reposition oneself for a better life through karma. Both
Mahavira and Buddha were warrior’s sons and so were second class
themselves. We can see that, as the Upanishads caught on and became one
of if not the most influential source in the further developments of
Indian thought, people increasingly questioned the Vedas and the caste
system even as they continued to retain them as many still do today.
Let us read selections from the Upanishads. In the Isha Upanishad, we find:
“Onward,
descending, go whoever are slayers of the self. Unmoving, the One is
swifter than the mind…It moves. It moves not. It is far, and it is
near. It is within all this, and it is outside of all this….What
delusion, what sorrow is there, of him who perceives the unity! The
bright, the bodiless, the scathe-less, the sinew-less, the
pure…Appropriately he distributed objects through the eternal years.
Into blind darkness enter they that worship ignorance. Into darkness
greater than that they that delight in knowledge. Other, indeed, they
say, than knowledge! Other, they say, than non-knowledge!...Knowledge
and non-knowledge: He who this pair conjointly knows, with non-knowledge
passing over death, with knowledge wins the immortal. Into blind
darkness enter they who worship non-becoming. Into darkness greater
than that they who delight in becoming. Other, they say, than origin!
Other, they say, than non-origin…Becoming and destruction: He who this
pair conjointly knows, with destruction passing over death, with
becoming wins the immortal.
Notice
this passage suggests that the One moves and does not move, is
knowledge and the opposite of knowledge, is the permanent and eternal as
well as endless transformation, both evolution and decomposition. It
warns that you can fall into ignorance by preferring any one of these to
its opposite, as you would then be following a part, not the whole.
Remember that Vishnu is the great savior and preserver god in the Hindu
tradition, and Shiva is the great destroyer and transformer god. This
Upanishad is quite compatible with seeking a union of Vishnu, Shiva and
all of their incarnations as not only Brahma, the singular One
personified as a god, but Brahman, the One as un-personified, as beyond
personifications and anthropomorphism.
In
the Katha Upanishad, a dialog between the sage Naciketas and Yama, god
of death, the good is praised above the pleasant. As the sourcebook
points out, this is very similar to what Socrates argues in dialogues
written by Plato. The highest mind is to be pursued, rather than the
simple passing pleasures. Naciketas says to Death, after being taught:
“Ephemeral things! That which is a mortal’s, O End-maker, even the
vigor of all the powers, they wear away. Even a whole life is slight
indeed. Yours are the vehicles! Yours is the dance and the song!”.
This passage uses ‘vehicles’ as vessels or individual things that
convey pleasure or anything else. The vehicle is a popular metaphor for
teaching or school in Indian thought, and as we will see the various
schools of Buddhism are known as vehicles.
Yama
replies that those who teach that reality is some part rather than the
whole are blind men led by a blind man. This is, in fact, the origin of
the phrase, “blind leading the blind”. Yama says, “Him who is the
bodiless among bodies, stable among the unstable, the great,
all-pervading self, on recognizing him, the wise man sorrows not”. Yama
uses a metaphor used by Plato through the mouth of Socrates, the self
as charioteer, the body as a chariot, and the senses and passions as the
horses. Yama tells of a complex stack of higher and truer selves:
“Higher than the senses are the objects of sense. Higher than the
objects of sense is the mind, and higher than the mind is the intellect
(buddhi, also ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness’, just as the Buddha is the
‘awakened one’). Higher than the intellect is the great self. Higher
than the great is the un-manifest. Higher than the un-manifest is the
great person. Higher than the person is nothing at all. That is the
goal. That is the highest course.”
In
the Mundaka Upanishad, we read: “There are two knowledges to be known,
as indeed the knowers of Brahman are wont to say: a higher (para) and a
lower (apara). Of these, the lower is the Rg Veda, the Yajur Veda, the
Sama Veda, and the Atharva Veda (the four principle Vedas, the central
canonical and dogmatic texts above which there is no other). Now, the
higher is that whereby that Imperishable is apprehended. That which is
invisible, ungraspable, without family, without caste, without sight or
hearing is It, without hand or foot, eternal, all-pervading,
omnipresent, exceedingly subtle, that is the imperishable, which the
wise perceive as the source of beings…He who knows that, set in the
secret place of the heart, he here on earth, my friend, rends asunder
the knot of ignorance…What that is, know as being and non-being, as the
object of desire, higher than understanding, as what is the best of
creatures!...Taking as a bow the great weapon of the Upanishad, one
should put upon it an arrow sharpened by meditation. Stretching it with
a thought directed to the essence of that, penetrate that imperishable
as the mark, my friend…As the flowing rivers in the ocean disappear,
quitting name and form, so the knower, being liberated from name and
form, goes unto the heavenly person, higher than the high. He who knows
that supreme Brahman, becomes very Brahman.”
In
the Chanddogya Upanishad, we see Jabala leaving to study sacred
knowledge and seek a teacher, so he asks his mother what family he comes
from. This is important, as family is caste and ethnicity according to
the tradition and purity laws. His mother tells him, and he in turn
tells his teacher and sage, that when she was young she was a maid and
got pregnant and does not know who his family is. His teacher replies
that he will accept him as a student, as only a Brahmin, the top
priestly caste, could answer that way. This is an interesting reversal,
considering that the Brahmins are supposed to be pure and preserve
their purity, while his mother’s story seems anything but top caste or
pure. He then begins to be taught:
“In
the beginning, this world was just being (sat), one only, without a
second. To be sure, some people say in the beginning this world was
just non-being (asat), one only, without a second, from that non-being,
being was produced. But verily, how could this be?...It bethought
itself, would that I were many. Let me procreate myself…As the bees
prepare honey by collecting the essences of different trees and reducing
the essence to a unity, as they are not able to discriminate, ‘I am the
essence of this tree’ or ‘I am the essence of that tree’, even so,
indeed, all creatures here, though they reach being, know not ‘We have
reached being’. Whatever they are in this world, whether tiger or lion,
or wolf, or boar, or worm, or fly, or gnat, or mosquito, that they
become. That which is the finest essence, this whole world has that as
its self. That is reality. That is self. That art thou. (This is the
place where this central thought, ‘Tat tvam asi’, is written.)
The
sage asks Jabala to bring him a fig, and then cut it up. He asks what
is inside, and Jabala says seeds. He asks Jabala to cut the seeds, and
asks what he sees inside, and Jabala replies, ‘Nothing’. The sage
responds, “That is the essence that you do not perceive, and it gives
rise to the entire fig tree”.
Then
the sage asks Jabala to put salt in water so it dissolves and asks him
to sip from several sides, and each time Jabala replies that he tastes
salt. Like the inside of the fig seed, the sage says that the essence
of all is hidden yet perceivable in all things equally.
In
a hilarious passage of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, a student questions
that master about how many gods there are repeatedly, and the master
keeps changing his answer. At first, he says that the Vedic hymn to all
the gods says there are 303 and 3003, which would be 3306 all together.
Then he says there are 33, then 6, then 3 (likely Vishnu, Shiva and
Brahma), then 2, then one and a half, and finally one, which is breath
and Brahman.
The
sage goes on to teach the student: “There are two conditions: being in
this world and being in the other world. There is a third condition
that is being in sleep. By standing in this condition one sees both of
the others…When one goes to sleep, one takes along the material of this
all containing world , himself tears it apart, himself builds it up, and
dreams by his own brightness, by his own light. Then this person
becomes self-illuminated. There are no chariots there, no spans, no
roads, but he projects from himself chariots, spans, roads. There are
no blisses there, no pleasures, no delights, but he projects from
himself blisses, pleasures, and delights. There are no tanks there, no
lotus pools, no streams, but he projects from himself tanks, lotus pools
and streams, for he is a creator. While he does not there know, he is
truly knowing, though he does not know, for there is no cessation of the
knowing of a knower, because of his imperishability…There is on earth
no diversity. As a unity only is it to be looked upon, this
indemonstrable, enduring being, spotless, beyond space, the unborn self,
great enduring.”
In
the Maitri Upanishad, we read, “In this cycle of existence I am like a
frog in a waterless well…In thinking ‘This is I’, and ‘That is mine’,
one binds oneself with oneself, as does a bird with a snare…Therefore,
by knowledge (vidya), by austerity (tapas), and by meditation (cinta),
Brahman is apprehended…For thus has it been said: He who is in the fire,
and he who is here in the heart, and he who is yonder in the sun – he
is one”.
The Hindu Epics: The Ramayana and Mahabharata
As
the Upanishads gained prominence and pushed towards philosophical
monism, for Brahman beyond even the personification of Brahma, the Hindu
tradition simultaneously gathered theistic traditions together in the
great epics. These tails tied many gods together along with Hindu
traditional law and philosophical teachings of the Upanishads. This is
why these texts have such a key role in Hinduism.
The
Ramayana is a story of Rama, incarnation of Vishnu, and his quest with
Hanuman, the monkey god, to rescue his wife Sita from the demon Ravana.
There are two moments of the Ramayana that fit with what we are
studying. In the beginning of the story, Ravana is a demon but also a
sage who meditates for an impossibly long time and grows nine other
heads that give him all the magical powers in the world. Having
obtained everything achievable, he decides to end his existence and
proceeds to cut off one head at a time and throw them into a fire. Just
as he is about to cut his original and final throat, Brahma appears and
says that he will grant Ravana whatever he desires, and Ravana asks to
never be killed by gods, spirits or demons. Brahma grants this, and
from this moment on Ravana is the villain of the story. The first thing
Ravana does is go to Shiva, who is portrayed as stoned on bhang (milk
steeped in pot), and demand Shiva, the destroyer, submit to him. Shiva
responds by lifting a finger and imprisoning Ravana in stone for
thousands of years. When Ravana finally breaks free he is quite pissed,
Vishnu decides to be incarnated as Rama so that Ravana can be killed by
a mortal human.
In
the second moment, when Rama is following Brahma and his consort
goddess Gayatri through the jungle, and as the goddess sways as she
walks Rama (who is, of course, identical with Brahma not only as an
individual but an incarnation of a central god himself) catches glimpses
of Brahma. This is clearly symbolizing desire as in motion (as the
hips of a goddess), and even though it too is one with all you can see
glimpses of the All amidst and beyond the motions of desire.
The
Mahabharata is ridiculously long. It is almost two million words, ten
times the length of the Odyssey and the Iliad, the two Greek Epics. The
central and most celebrated part of the Mahabharata is the
Bhagavadgita, the story of crown prince Arjuna hesitating before
fighting a civil war against his family and former friends and teachers,
and then being counseled by Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu that as
a warrior it is Arjuna’s duty to fight the just fight even if is
against everyone else. Along the way, Krishna explains Hindu doctrines
of past lives, karma, liberation, the caste system, and duty. In the
peak moment, Krishna reveals his true self to Arjuna, which is so
dazzling, complex and monstrous that Arjuna trembles with fright.
Krishna teaches Arjuna that if you do your duty not for yourself but
for the cosmos, you are free of doubt and death.
