R.

MORTON SMITH

F R O M R I T U A L TO P H I L O S O P H Y IN I N D I A

This article is not expository or evaluating; it is historical, being interested in the development, and the effect of the past on the classical culture. In this respect it may be most beneficial to those who least wish to read it. But while atman/brahma may be beyond context in itself, that is not true of its discovery. The distinctive feature of Indian culture is its intellectual cast, which it received from the philosophy. The philosophy took its unique development in the 6th century B.C., and kept to that path. But we should not think of it as an abnormal development, for the signs are that the early Italic and Celtic Druidical mentalities were very similar. But while the Celtic was first exposed to Greek/Etruscan influences, and latterly obliterated by Roman conquest and Christianity, the Indian was an uninfluenced development. The urban life of Harappa had collapsed (from within or without) by the time of our .RgVeda, and in their penetration south and east the Aryans met no culture higher than their own. What was absorbed from the lower may be expected to be found in the lower levels of society rather than dominating the upper strata. Just as religion may be sublimated from some very unedifying origins in the childish unconscious, philosophy too has its less admirable antecedents, in the Indo-European magic and sacrifice, developed through the Vedic period. As far as the gods are concerned, the sacrifice begins as a bribe and ends as a magic spell. I suspect that the personalized gods do not form the oldest parts of Indo-European religion (reflecting rather developing chiefdoms) anti their novelty is being liquidated in the Brfihman.a period. The other element is the sacrifice of sympathetic magic, much older, in which the desired order of nature and society must be imitated. Life is a contradictory and complementary cycle, life and death, of which last there is as much need as of birth hence probably the classical demonic nature of the asuras. In winning life from death, death must be transferred, since being, it cannot be destroyed. When the rite is celebrated nationally/tribally, by a number of cooperating social units, death and its pollution can easily be passed round to the (apparently physically kin, bhr~trvya) cooperating rival. But in interdependence the benefits are going to be shared, and this is only tolerable in a society of
Journal of lndian Philosophy 4 (1976) 181-197. All Rights Reserved Copyright 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dorclrecht-Holland

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equals: when one aspires to dominance politically, the situation must be changed. This brings us to the most important development of the Br~hmana period, which has been developed and explained, unfortunately mostly in journal articles by J. C. Heesterman, whose understanding of ancient ritual matters is dearly superior. He has demonstrated the development whereby the benefit of the sacrifice became monopolized by one party, the ya]am~na, institutor of the sacrifice, who expelled the cooperating adversary/rival, originally by means of his employee, the brahmin. The traces of the old system are in the Black YajurVeda, and it is significant that the White goes back to Y~jfiavalkya and Tura K~vas.eya, who learnt from Praj~pati, who is especially connected with the transition, which we can therefore date to the second half of the lOth century B.C., and relate to the difficulties of Janamejaya III with his brahmins. It is completed when Svetaketu ( also of the White YV), ft. c 780, discovers the non-necessity of actual performance of the ritual by one who knows. Here the king has himself been expelled from the sacrifice, and it is very likely to this development that the effective gap between brahman and ks.atriya goes back. In the 9th - or the 7th - century B.C. the supernatural world needs no proof; it is the experience and assumption of everyone. But just as relations between human societies need careful preparation, so do those between human and super-human. This involves consecration and deconsecration. Since the consecration is a passage to the 'different' ritual pure world, it involves the death of a previous this-world self, and so implies the impurity of death, which is transferred to the brahmin officiant by the gift/fee, daksi.n~. The receiving of gifts is a confession of inferiority until one can call them tribute; nothing shows the early subservience of the brahmin to the ksatriya so clearly as his having to receive the impurity and the gifts; not evidently without protest, for in SpB I 3/1.26.9/ 1"21 ~the brahmin is not contented with getting only the death; Y~jfiavalkya answers his protest, "Whatever blessing the priests utter in a sacrifice is the sacrificer's only". The brahmin however comes to find out how to pass his impurity on through the sacrifice, just as the gods removed death (and its impurity) and became immortal by knowledge of the sacrifice (SpB IV 3/2-5). The Cand.~la had not this knowledge, and became to remain untouchable. In the situation of equal alternation that saves one party from bankruptcy and the other from perpetual inferiority, we have the ground for the agonistic festival, which develops into the

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Games in Greece; but in India with the expulsion of the equal rival for the brahmin officiant, the games and the chariot-race disappear. Gifts may tempt avarice, but they retain death. Since we came into this world naked, we should be born also into the 'different' world in the same state; for the patron the gifts can be a token sarvadana, donation of all property, and in the giving he has monopolized the benefits of the sacrifice. To avoid impurity the brahmin must avoid gifts (hence ultimately, avoid killing the gift/fee cow). This means duality must be expelled from the sacrifice, and patron and priest, yajant and yajarnana, must be one. The most famous example of this is re-recorded in KathU. with the token sarvadana of Vajagravas Gautama (fl. c 900, in Janamejaya's reign). Collectively this is done in the sattras - the rs.is' sattra in the Naimis.a forest could be an answer to Janamejaya - where the individuals unite their sacrificial fires and are jointly and severally patron and officiant simultaneously; the pollution/death has nowhere to go, like a ghost at a crossroads. But the sacrifice must be done singly if it is not undertaken collectively, and it is at this point where patron and priest are one, but the labour not less were it to be undertaken physically, that Svetaketu discovers the efficacy of knowing the rite without actual performance - it is significant that we hear of his father Udd~laka (ft. c 830) being chosen as purohita by kings, but not the son. When knowledge thus becomes the sacrifice, it is desirable to expel duality from knowledge; this is one of the factors of the Indian aim to know by being and the preference for philosophical monism in later times. Knowing by being also inhibits the development of epistemology, since it answers the question; Indian epistemology develops rather from logic. But also when the successful sacrificer integrates the universe in himself ('wins the three worlds') and so has the brahman perfection, the other party, duality, cannot be of significance for him; here the way is opened to the truthful intellectual but not basically ethical culture. This transition, the expulsion of duality, separating the thinking class, the brahman patron-officiant, from the other classes of society, goes a long way to explain the later self-centeredness of Indian thought, despite an anti-individualist social structure, and the eccentric position of ethics in the culture as compared with their central importance to Confucius or Zoroaster. But besides socio/political development of the sacrifice there was also intellectual; one strain elaborates sacrifices, but the other is introvert, and asks its nature. So may we. The word sacrifice has today connotations unfortunate for our purpose, suggesting selfless foregoing or giving to a higher being or

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purpose, and like creation, it is very good. All the word originally meant was that some word or thing was being made sacer, placed in special connection with the superhuman 'different' world. There is no ethical act or judgement involved, but something is now the gods', and it is dangerous to meddle with it. Making sacer by giving does not arise till the superhuman is personified; but once the gift is made, it is so under the ordinary rules of social intercourse between units individual or collective. That is, the sacrifice is a sort of unglorified potlatch, where acceptance ratifies a status and imposes an obligation of reciprocity. With the growth of individualism the compact may be transgressed by the stronger (the divine), and the weaker (the human) has to accept; he must depend more on prayer, the appeal to the emotional side of the god, and theistic religions can develop. Varuna showed signs of going this way, and it remains in the popular cult. But on the higher level the power of the word reasserted itself. Without words the actions of sympathetic magic cannot be made sacer, i.e., communicated as such to the superhuman; that is, the sacred word activates/contains power. But by the sacrifice the gods are in a contractual situation, and in the RV or SOktav~akarite we may find the prayer 'Come' ensured by the compelling statement 'Agni has come to our sacrifice'. When the power of the words compels the gods, there is no reason for gratitude or subservience to them; the brahma tool at one's command makes them unnecessary, existing but irrelevant. This explains the late development of art in India; it was not necessary to the thinking or ruling class for religious purposes, and for all its remarkable manifestations, art never did attain the prestige of the word in Indian culture. The purpose of the sacrifice is originally to attain material well-being, whether by gift or compulsion, from god or by (sympathetic) magic. Not less important than attaining is securing and keeping the worldly welfare; insecurity is very real in a state of undeclared peace, and it extends far beyond the military aspect of life - which seldom lasted more than 40 years. The brahmin is the early technologist defending against the unceasing struggle of the demons/asuras to assure the prevalence of death, hunger, famine, pain and disease; the gods on man's side enable man to continue the struggle without finality. Nor is the fear only for this life, where at least the counter action of the sacrifice can be undertaken, but also for the after-life; for the dead are as alive as the quick, but have not the immortality of the gods, and death in their world would be final. But though on one level of stories necessary for divine

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sanction of the sacrifice, the gods did sacrifice and taught sacrifices, on the ordinary level they need sacrifice, which only the human can do, just as later ~tman/nirv~.na can only be attained in the human state, not by gods or beasts, i.e. only the human can perform the sacrifice of knowledge. While life is a succession of fears, one after another, abhaya, freedom from fear, strikes a deep chord in India from the R.gVeda on, and the main object of seeking the brahman - later atman - is to secure it. In such a prevalence of material fears the sublimation of freedom from fear must tend to the immaterial and the cessation of life as we know it, to be being, without its deficiencies, namely qualities and limitations, Only when Buddha has given freedom from fear can life be sublimated in Amit~bha's non-recycling paradise Paradoxically though the sacrifice is only for material ends, it is one of the sources of asceticism and consequent turn of interest to the mental from the physical world. Contact with the non-human 'different' world needs care, and the worlds must not be mixed. Hence one must/must not do things which one does not/does in ordinary life; so there are taboos, including ones on sexual intercourse - for loss of semen is loss of life, death. Study of the 'different' world, of the Vedas or brahman/~tman, is equally a religious act, and taboos again apply. Life is a manifestation of the creative brahma power, and is interconnected with heat, tapas: as the loss of semen is death, one will have more life/heat, tapas if the semen is retained; hence the original meaning of ftrdhvaretas that the semen is up but not out; - on emission sages like Vi~v~mitra lose their tapas. Hence the need of sexual taboo to retain brahma power, and the insistence on chastity in the ascetic movements. The 'different' world possesses the brahma power, which, having entered into that world, we can share by the sacrifice. It is expressed by the word, and we might ask, "Why is speech not brahman?" It may have been, and Jitvan ~ailini (c 820?) still says so in BAU 4/1 "2. There are Indo-European traces, e.g. Latin j~turn, the solemnly spoken word is one's fate; in fairy tales the instantaneous transformation occurs at the end of the spoken spell, as the transformation from single to married takes place at the end of the last sv~h~. The exact words (only) make the sacrificial act efficacious, just as in Rome law and ethic were supplied by the ritualistic word. This stage is continued in the rise and importance of grammar which is carried through all periods of brahmin literature. The truth-act whereby one solemnly declared truth makes another fact may well be a residuary trace, surviving as usual in India, the ensuing fashion, this time for Breath, pra.na.

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One would naturally connect the equation pran.a = brahman with the rise of yoga, which had keen exponents in Brahmadatta of P~fic~la (c 11002) and is still the doctrine of Udafika Saulb~yana (c 820?) in BAU 4/1.3. It may be that as the vajra was a short cut to nirvana, yoga became a short-cut to brahman, not without justification in view of the trance experience. And as pointed out in BAU 1/3, the most sacred speech, the udgFtha needs breath. Since knowledge permits control, an analysis of breath is made, and in KS 3/7.233 there are three, pra.na, vy~na, apana, which are to be like Indra's. We soon get to 5 or 6 breaths, the number being chosen for the senses, and by 600 B.C. pr~.na is being used as a synonym for sense-faculty. When the breaths are the sense-faculties, that which unites them, i.e. coordinates them is the sam-~na; this is the action of the manas, and in ChU 3/13.4 (cf. 5/22.2) manas is the samana, and in BAU 4/3.7 we read 'The individual soul, consisting of discrimination, among the breaths in the heart having internal light, being the sarr~na, roams both worlds (of sleeping and waking)'. Manas, Satyak~ma J~b~la's candidate in BAU 4/1-6 (though he is an anachronism with Yajfiavalkya), is another failed brahman. There is a contest between mind and speech, manas and v~c over superiority found in TS II 5/11.4, SpB 14/5.8-12 (known also to the Kausitaki school according to the commentary on PvB 6/4.7). 4 Praj~pati found in favour of manas on the rational ground that intention is prior to utterance "You (V~c) are the messenger ofmanas for what one thinks with manas, one speaks with speech". This decision is reflected in SpB X 5/3. lff, which adducing RV 10/129 says: 'There was neither formed nor unformed existence in the beginning, there was only manas. Then that manas desired to become manifest as this evolved universe; it evolved itself, as.rjata, into speech, speech into breath, breath into sight, the eye, the eye hearing/the ear, hearing work (the sacrificial act), and work the (sacrificial) fire'. This is the old order of faculties except that manas has gone from bottom to top; that normally it comes last suggests that it was not always on the same level as sight or taste. The word used for work is karman, but the original was probably dpas; there is a pun on apds, waters, the old source of fire, lightning in nature and semen in man. It may well be that in the bitterness aroused by the emergence of the White YV, (involving Vaigamp~yana's curse), Tura K~vaseya was boycotted, and unable to get qualified assistence at his rites, had to fall back on his mentor Praj~pati for help. But the priority of manas, the analysis that no action can be set in motion without a prior activity of mind, assures the

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greater importance of the study ofmanas, and ultimately ~tman than that of grammar; but as always, the old is not rejected, and grammar retains status differently justified in SpB XI 2/3.1-6, 'Prajapati made order among things by reducing them to name and form; form is rnanas, name is speech, i.e. it is the grammatical connections that determine the significance of the word in context, and these must continue to be exact for the sacrifice. The right name can still control on the tongue of the thus-knower. Praj~pati did not make action unnecessary; Svetaketu made that extension. But if it is enough to know the rite, further ritual elaboration is unnecessary; hence it is not surprising and may be significant that during and soon after his lifetime, evidently first in the White YV to which his father Udd~laka ~,runi and presumably himself belonged, independence in manipulation and explanation of the ritual ceases. Udara S~n.d.ilya of c 720 may have reformed the Ekatrika rite, but after that time the Br~hmanas (as indicated by the names of their authorities) are dosed. Brahmin originality is transferred to the psychological and incipient philosophic. Why are these definitions of brahman insufficient? By impermanence; speech needed a source; breath is not in the dead, but they live, whether as pretas or in Yama's world; manas changes, ends, and can be knocked out in unconsciousness. But brahman is in the beginning, and there is no evidence of its ever changing its nature or losing its power. Therefore the identification of brahman must be with something that is permanent and unchanging. In the last respect the name suffices - Buddha may well have left the name to transmigrate - and a thing without a name is a contradiction in terms in early thought. The self then is a suitable candidate, since it does not dissolve on death, as the spirit world proves, but it must be without its temporary qualities (including manas). The permanent must be existent; so it is not surprising to hear S~n.d.ilya (c 850 B.C.) saying so in SpB X 6/3.1ff: s " 'Brahma is the existence/connected with existence'. Now the soul is conative. Willing what it goes out from this world, going into the next world willing that, it comes into complete being. One should sit silently taking no notice meditating on the self consisting of/ (supporting?) rnanas, having breath for its body, light for its form [ether/ space for its body] having shape at will, having the speed of thought, whose will becomes true, having resolution that becomes a fact, having all smells, all tastes, prevailing in all directions, having embraced this whole universe (by the sacrifice?). Like rice or corn or millet or a grain of millet, golden like

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smokeless light, is stronger/better than sky, ether, this earth, than all things that have come into being. It is the self of breath/sense faculty. 'This is my self. Into this self having passed on from here I will come into full being.', of one who can say this, there is no further desire to seek. Thus S~.n.dilya. So it is." SEgd.ilya's ~tman-pumsa has all the powers of the primitive divine; is instantaneous, comprehensive, gets everything it wants, and can change form at will - it has in fact the powers of the brahman. Some rite or other with the brahman-word carried in its mantra will meet any contingency, and from the third sentence it would appear that S~nd.ilya is trying to solve the problem of punarm.rtyu, redeath. In Yama's world the pleasures of this life were to continue, and there is no sign in this passage of the ~tman renouncing them. The priority ofmanas has already been asserted, and so the k.ratu, will, of the mantra can itself be effective. We may have an extension of the truth-act into the future. If one makes his soul, puru.sa, his kratu, let him make his kratu satyam; this is on the one hand 'truth', (the sincerity of which search only the seeker can know, thus qualifying it for the truth-act), and on the other (ensuring success in the old-style sacrifice) 'everything/the universe' by the esoteric Brahmana etymology, sa + tyam, that here and that yonder. But what comes into being does so by the brahman creative power, which is sat-ya, adjectivally connected with being. Though the brahman can be directed to sensual things, it is beyond sense and change; so must the dtman be if it is identified with it. But its nature must still be known for success in the sacrifice, and to be beyond change it must be beyond the senses. Hence the inevitability of yoga and asceticism remains. But one might ask: What degraded the will/manas to a sense like sight? I suggest that this reduction is due to the fact of yogic trance, where existence continues, but there is certainly no will or direction. Trance is the nearest a human being can get to state/being: the vacuum of imperfection is Idled by assertion, and is therefore always beyond the notion of time. Trance does not appear in Greece, so that there the vacuum is filled in a timedimension, of becoming, and we have an ideology of purpose, i.e., that demands a reason for entities' being. Though the sacrifice and study of it had begun for material ends, between trance and ~tman the material lost its value. Approved by S~nd.ilya, it is irrelevant to S~yak~yana in BAU 4/4.22 (c 560 B.C.), rejected in KathU. I (of 450 B.C.?); since nature abhors a vacuum, it becomes positively bad, and is fiercely denounced in Maitr~yan.a U. of c 120 B.C. While physical desires

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and satisfactions retain their value, it is their gratification, not their origin that is important in their self-centred world. Once ~ltman is brahman a psychology/physiology becomes necessary to explain how the permanent gets united/entangled with the impermanent. When sense experience is devalued by the thinking class, the question arises: How does it come about? There is a physiology, probably by 600 B.C., which remains unchallenged in its field, and can be found in BAU 2/1"17ff. The soul with its intelligence resides in the heart whence it goes out (and if it is only dreaming) comes back, taking the senses with it through minute hita veins - there a r e 2 3 X 3 2 X [2(2 -I-3)] 3 = 72,000. These veins were originally coloured with the five colours of soul (BAU 4/3-20, cf KausU 4.19) white, blue/black, green, yellow, red. These channels remain for the senses, and thus sense-impressions unite in the heart when they are made of the superfine matter, akd~a. This is the stage of the atomic theory of Prakudha K~ty~yana and the early heresies, of which the word Rsrava is a trace. When the senses were 'breaths', they were obviously material; and when manas is a sense, its productions also, thoughts, actions, willings, are also material, and the old soul colours of Jaina karma make sense. Immaterial existence is nowhere easily conceived, but supra-sensible very easily, as are changes in form. The divine power of changing form is merely the same kind of change as happens in nature made instantaneous under the direction of will/brahman. Since the mind was never a sense like smell in Greece, it had a possibility of permanence and acquisition (and ultimately the unconscious; there is somewhere to store a thought or habit, and memory offers no serialist difficulty). When the mind is an ordinary sense, there is a greater tendency to identify it with its content, which therefore loses permanence and so ultimately, value. But the reduction has very important effects on ~tman, since it empties it of content/mental activity, and ~tman becomes a substratum like Locke's matter. The brahmin might deny this saying that pure ~tman can be experienced by being it as in deep sleep sus.upti, pure consciousness without object. The experience is its own validity, and can hardly differ significantly from the Buddhist/Jaina nirv~n.a/kaivalya/arhatship. All use the language of sight - indeed the classical use of dargana for the systems does not indicate the thinker's arbitrary point of view, but rather what causes the ~tman to be seen in dhL illumination. This state of supreme consciousness of no object is blissful. This cannot be fitted into Western categories of thought; it is not sublimated emotion, for

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that has been removed with manas, and it is not Aristotle's bliss of selfconsciousness of the godhead, since consciousness of self would involve duality by the object sell But only the self can be asserted if only the self exists; and if that self is available to human limitation its perfection and totality is only possible by negation, since positive total perfection is impossible for the human animal. The Western criticism would be that nothing can be said of a state of consciousness of nothing, since consciousness of nothing, not even being, is the same as no consciousness, obviously so on a serialist theory of the self, or where the sense-datum is the vij~ana/~ttman. It is probably to avoid this dilemma that the phrase 'beyond being and not-being' is finally evolved. But the Indian is very firm on the reality of the state he illustrates by sus.upti, basing his argument on potentiality: in BAU 4/5 (of c 580 B.C.) there is consciousness even though there is nothing to be conscious of; and this state is bliss. The mark of yoga on philosophy is indelible. The Greek version of Indian atman is given by the Stoics, and in an emotional culture they seek complete freedom from emotion, ataraxia: this might be the proper translation ofananda. But ananda begins crudely enough in TaitU 2/8 (which has been made respectable by the addition of a priest free from desire) and 3/6.1 where 'Brahma is ananda, pleasure/joy, for creatures here are born from pleasure; born with pleasure they live they go forward, they enter fully into it.' The joy of physical procreation and birth is stated: babies like life, they go forward and enter fully into enjoyment (with an old pun on the root meaning of nad/nand, they make a noise). Another magical and auspicious assumption of the word may be seen in the name of Buddha's favourite disciple, ~manda; this would be a religious name assumed on his joining the order, like the king's throne-name, assuring and announcing that he would attain the bliss of nirvana. Ifatman is separated from thinking, and can only be known by being, asceticism is inevitable: reason compels it. This has its effect on the orientation and nature of all intellectual activity. There is the heritage of the old magical reasoning of the sacrifice for material prosperity, that of pun and assertion, which it is unnecessary to challenge so long as the final aim of the reasoning is unchanged and uncontroversial. Thus the nature of wealth or cows is not in dispute, and the sacrifice continues to give these on the old logic; the natural order of day and year is agreed, and the agnihotra, imitating the phenomenon, continues to help the sun to rise. But the nature ofatman or nirvana are controversial, and the old magical reasoning will not suffice for understanding

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or attainment, and in moving the centre of emphasis the rise of the heresies in the 6th century B.C. must have forced orthodoxy to discard magical and primitive kinds of reasoning. The heresies did not create abstract philosophic thought, for they are only developments of positions arrived at by orthodoxy in the 6th century; but they forced the pace. Thus the atomic theory which takes definitive form with Prakudha Kfity~yana, ft. 540, removed the need for aetiologies, just as evolution, biological or material, in tile last century, changed the creation stories of current religions from historical to spiritual or psychological truths. The atomic theory may well have spread from physiology, accounting for awareness of sense experience. Thus in SpB 1II 1/2"13 we have a very old story from people living very close to their herds, why human skin is so thin and easily cut, but a cow's so thick, and also why do cows run away from a naked man (= hunter?). Man's original skin was put by the gods on a cow; so one should not be naked in front of a cow, who runs away thinking the man will take his skin back. This is not the expression of an urban society. Compare BAU 2/4" 12 of c 590 B.C.: ~tman is diffused in everything like salt in water, we do not hear a story of why ~tman/Praj~pati diffused himself, or why salt diffuses: nature has a rational mechanism, and the method is now rational/adult. Aetiology graduates to analogy: analogy remains of greater importance in Indian than Greek thought, surviving as the instance desirable in the classical syllogism. When all is forms of one, analogy may claim greater validity. But it had had a long history in the ritual, for the closer the analogy the better the magic. Another casualty of progress is the cosmology. With an atomic theory and a mechanistic evolution, and with a qualityless ~trnan one is going to be, there is very little the knowledge of a cosmology can do that is worth doing: when it gave food, it was worth knowing: kevalins are not interested in food. When the individual is dtman/brahman he is not a creation, so impersonal evolution/ emanation of atoms is more satisfactory than creation. Thus in BAU 1/2" 16 death/hunger moved round worshipping; from him worshipping water was produced. The passage depends on forgotten Indo-aryan puns, lk = be hungry, lq = speak, and vad/ud = water, vad/ud (cf perf. ~dima) = speak, address (the word ~pas has been substituted for uda, cf-later udaka). The passage is very confused. The surface of the water became earth: by the union of speech and mind the semen became the year; speech, food, the metres, sacrifice are all produced in -4-5, I suspect not without more aid of puns. TaitU 2/1 "1 is much less primitive. We begin with the old benefit of knowing: He who knows

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the endless brahman hidden in the heart attains all his desires. From this self

akdga/ether has come into complete being, from a/aTs'a air, from air, fire, from
fire water, from water earth, from earth plants, from plants food, from food the soul/purus.a activating principle. In this order matter gets coarser and coarser, except for the last, purus.a: we are not told how it does, or that it does, since the process does not interest, but the sequence follows an adult connection. With the idea of atoms and their flux there becomes no need for a purusa in everything: the Jainas may try to retain it in the one-sense ]rvas, but these do not seem capable of initiative. In BAU 2/5 (c 575) we find a purusa in earth, water, fire, wind, the quarters, the moon, lightning, thunder, ~k~Ja, dharma, manusa/(man/human body) and ~tman; the author is trying to tell us they are all one, but clearly this had not always been the case even in his own lifetime. In BAU 3/7 (c 560) the phrasing has advanced, for we are told of the unity of him who dwelling in each of these (and more) is other than these. Knowledge retains its reward though that changes. Finally it is moksa but time and again we are told in the br~hman.a He wins x who knows thus, ya eva~n veda. In Ait.Ar 1/3.7 He obtains whatever he desires who knows thus, in 2/7"8 he becomes deathless in the next world who knows thus. In BAU 1/5.16 one wins the gods' world by knowledge... / therefore men praise knowledge. In early society knowledge is the power of technology; technology is secret, and scarcity ecojaomics applies also to knowledge. Access is restricted. The sacred nature of knowledge is one of these restrictions; brahman knowledge (which is much more than a repetition of propositions), requires a consecration as a religious act, before learning. In ChU 3/11"5 one should teach 'this' only to an eldest son (or 'worthy pupil' has been added). The heresies extend the possible range of pupils because their knowledge has nothing to do with wealth or technology. But the brahmin varngas continue through the period of the heresies down to the 2nd century B.C., and the pupil-teacher relationship remains through the whole Hindu period. Esoteric abstruseness is another safeguard of knowledge, which is not effective without the understanding only a consenting teacher could impart. Since the name is the essence, and power in the brahman word, it is not surprising if words contain hidden truth - the gods like the arcane (Ait.Ar 2/4-3, BAU 4/2"2). Hence we find etymologies such as Plato ridicules in the Cratylus, save that knowledge of his did not involve power, only the pleasure of one-upmanship. In Ait.Ar 2/4.3 Indra = idam + dra for drL 7 In BAU 1/3-8.

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Breath (here, ayam) is in the mouth (dsya), and is the juice in the limbs (rasa, and ahga), so it is the priest Ay~sya Afigirasa. Similarly in Ait.Ar 2/1.5 truth, satya is sat = b r e a t h + ti = food + y a m = the sun yonder. In BAU 5/5-1 it is sa (originally sat) + ti + yam, first and 3rd syllables being truth and the 2nd untruth, a In ChU 8/3-5 sat = immortal, ti = mortal and y a m holds them together. In KausU 1/6 it is sat = the self, what is different from the gods and senses, + tyam = the rest, the gods and the senses. The last two passages (ChU 3rd century B.C. and Kaus.U 4th?) are good instances of trying to give a new look to old material. So too ChU 8/3.3 updates BAU 5/3"1: In ChU hrdayam = hrdi ayam, this one here, the ~tman, is in the heart, cf BAU, hrdayam = hr = his own and others offer (hr) to the thus-knower, + da = his own and others give to the thus-knower, + yam = he goes to the heavenly world who knows thus. These secret etymologies flourish during the br~hmana period, down to the 7th/6th century, and doubtless later where the old desire of worldly wellbeing remains. But when the aim of the thinkers is not the patron's wealth, they lose their raison d'dtre. The passages cannot be renounced or denounced by the orthodox, and we can see efforts to bring them up to date. The importance and power of knowledge is probably the reason for the unimportance of the root man = think in philosophic terminology. Thinking implies becoming, which is imperfect; seeing or knowing are complete, and such words dhyai, vid, ] ~ show desideratives but not inceptives in Sanskrit. The compounds are mostly ofjhd. ~-]~d is to know towards, and 'full knowledge' would be a possible translation in AitU 3(5).2; this is the Buddhist meaning, the full knowledge of enlightenment, arhatship, sa/n-]a~ should mean 'complete knowledge'; since the name is the essence of a thing, he who knows the name has complete knowledge of it, and later s a & j ~ means name. S a f n j ~ is much developed in Buddhism, and in the sense of perception, could indicate an early serialist description of the self (at one time the vij~na transmigrated, and it was at least later not generically different from the sa&ja~), abhi-ja~ is the supernatural perception of a Buddha. vij~na analyses, separates, prajh~ is active continued knowing (cf. pra-~na, the continued breathing), and here we may translate BAU 4/5.13 'As pure salt has no inside, no outside, is all pure taste, so indeed, friend, this ~tman having no inside or outside is all pure continued knowing.' There are words from the root cit (also originally meaning 'see'), cit, citta, citti, cetas, all occurring in VS of White YV; the Buddhist use may be geographical. Knowing, that is, the permanent is demanded. With manas an ordinary

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sense like sight or smell, emotion and conation are on an equal level with sensing, and so emotion is to be removed, not sublimated. This was never so in Greece, and therefore emotion could retain its value however flesh might be degraded. This means that on the physical plane beauty is available to compensate for other deficiencies like transience, and it receives a rationale which the brahmin never gave it - it was not necessary to religion. Asceticism is not Greek because it is not beautiful, and when it occurs it is emotional, not 'true' and intellectual as in India. In its transience India has a good intellectual argument against the physical, since what changes must contain a-sat, nonbeing/falsehood, impossible in the brahman. But even in the 6th century, besides the unemotional dismissal as irrelevent of the physical, e.g., in BAU 4/4"22 we find an emotional resentful attitude in the heresies. Physical pleasures are impermanent even if you get them, and their loss on passing is a pain; so there is no need to add to the pains which are pains anyway, which are numerous. One does not get Socrates' positive attitude, that pain over is pleasure, or Virgil's Forsitan haec olim meminisse iuvabit (it will be nice to remember this). Hence besides the ritual and intellectual reasons for renunciation/asceticism, the emotional is added too. This is not surprising, since there has always been a strong Puritan strain in orthodoxy, illustrated by the veiling and Bowdlerizing of sexual meanings in many Vedic and Brahmana passages, e.g. BAU 5/1-19 and the obsolescence of certain rites. It is also significant that the course of art in India coincides with the long and continued struggle to create an uninferior status for the emotional in the intellectual ideology; recognition/integration of the emotional involves finding a place for beauty. There is another transition going on during the Bffthmana period, that provides the clientele for philosophy, the sociological. When it became pronounced is not easy to say, but the old tribal society, which as in ancient Ireland worked in the absence of cities, was not running smoothly by the time of Rama Margaveya (Ait.Br 7 . 2 7 - 9 ) , who should be c 800 B.C., - cities are beginning by the 9th century; Nr.caks.as retreated from Hastin~pura to Kausambi c 810. With cities kingdoms grow, and there are fewer kings hence fewer purohitas. But it is easier to seek new patrons than new employment, and a new clientele becomes available, the wealthy bourgeois with initiative, who want private rites. It is therefore significant that besides the household ritualism that comes to its climax around 600 (exemplified in the L~t.ygyana or Brghy~yan.a Srauta SQtras of the generation after R~dha Gautama of c 610),

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the AtharvaVeda seems to be claiming and winning equal status with the other three Vedas in the 8--6th centuries. But the self-confident bourgeoisie is no longer content to become mosquitos, kTta patahga, after death; they want spiritual equality, with their betters if not with their inferiors, and thus provide the sympathy and support for the independent thinkers, orthodox or heretic, in the 6th century and after. The third important transition of these centuries, is the redeployment of brahmins, whereby the Epic and Purina are turned over into their hands. This involves the subsequent brahmin control of secular literature also. It may also partly explain why even with non-brahmin thinkers, Indian philosophy begins in the 6th century in a completely brahmanic mould. Questions, aims and assumptions are all completely brahmanic, and the great search is to win their creation, the ~trnan. With the control also of secular literature, there remains no counterpoise to brahmin values, of which the highest is the ~tman. Accordingly it can be said generally that in the whole culture, what is connected with the self receives attention, and what is not is marginal. Thus, while the ineffable is the highest achievement, and is the brahman, that connected with it, the word comes next, i.e. philosophy, grammar and the philosophy of literature, aesthetics. The ornamental word, secular literature, comes next, for the sacred Sanskrit has brahman power. But while to the Greek Homer equalled Plato, Kalid~sa is not of equal value to Safikara. Since the manas is not part of the Rtman, and what we know by it is tainted by impermanence, there is no intellectual reason to produce the physical sciences - mathematics does not play in Indian philosophy the part it did for Plato. Astrology/astronomy and medicine are practical, and while the latter might be the most efficient of its day, their borrowed Hellenistic theories do not receive continued development. But the brahman value, the qualityless dtman, besides determining what was thought about, also influenced how. The prestigious literature and art make the assertion of the true type, and in doing so act as the old sacrifice correctly performed, helping the order of nature and society to maintain its course. University o f Toronto

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i SpB 13/1'26, 9/1"29. y~rh v~ii k~fitca yajfi~i rtvfja fi~isam ~ s a t e y~ijamfinasyaiv~i s~. Eggeling in his translation (SBE) includes this in Yajfiavalkya's words, but it is not so in the Madhyandina recension. 2 Pargiter, Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, reprinted by Motllal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1962 p. 316 n. 6; MBh 12/330"38. 3 aindrah, pr~l.lo 'fige'fige nid~dhyad I Aindro vy~no 'hge'fige nid~dhyad I aindro 'pfino 'flge'fige nididhyad. BAU 4/3'7 is normally facilely mistranslated. Mfidhyandina text: y6'y~irh vij~nam~iyah. ptirusah, pr]nesu hrdi ant~irjyotih, s~ saman~h, s~nn ubh~u lok~u s~rhcarati. vijfifina does not mean 'knowledge'; the sense-data unite in the heart, and the manas/ sam~ina knows them separately, vi-, sorts them out. ant~rjyotis is accented as a bahuvn'hi adjective and should not be translated as a tatpurusa noun. samfin~.h san is translated as 'remaining the same'; as does not mean to remain. The question of the soul being a different soul in dream does not arise: it would have no relevance to the nature of the self. It is being the sam~na that it consolidates and appreciates the experiences. 4 TS II 5/11"4 looks the earlier account from its brevity. Mind and Speech (rnanas, vhc) were contending with one another. 'I will carry the oblation to the gods' said Speech. 'I (will) to the gods', said Mind. They went to Prajfipati to question him. Prajfipati said: 'You are the messenger of Mind; for what one thinks with mind, that one speaks with speech.' Speech said 'Then indeed they shall not offer to you with speech.' Therefore they offer Praj~pati with mind/mentally (in a low voice, SpB). (Is this an early instance of 'Knowing' the rite?) 5 saty~im br'zlhm~ty fip~sfta I ~tha kh~ilu kratum@o'y~m pflrusah. I s~i y~vatkratflr ayfim asm~l lok~t pr~iity evarhkratfir hfimfifia lok~im pr6ty~bhisfirnbhavati I szl fitm]nam flp~sita manomfiyam prfin~ariram bh]rfapam [~k~]tmanarh] kfimarupfnam mfinojavasarh saty~isafiakalparia s~ityadhrtifia sfirvagandharh s~irvarasarh s~irvfi ~inu d~a.h pr~ibhfatarh sfirvam id~m ~ibhy~ptam avakk~m anfidar~im I y~ith~ vr-uhfr vfi y~ivo v~ ~y~nfiko vfi lyS.mfikatan.dul6 vaiv~im ayfim ant~ir ~tm~in pfiruso hiranmhyo y~th~ jy6tir adhfimfim ev~irh jy~y~n div6 jy]yfin f i k ~ j jyayan asya~ prthwya~ jyayan s~irvebhyo bhfit~bhyah s~i id pranasyatma I es'a ma a t m a i ~ m itfi ~tm]nam pr&yfibhisfimbhavisyfim iti yfisya syfid addh~ ml vicikitsfistiti ha sm~ha Sfind.ilya .h I ev~m et~id iti BAU 1/2"1 . . . mrtyunaivedam fivrtam fisit I a~anfiyay~ I a~anayfi hi m.rtyu.h I tan mano'kurut~tmanv~ sy~n iti I so'rcann acarat I tasyarcata ~po'j~iyanta... tad yad ap~tfia ~ara fis~t tad ahanyata, s~ p.rthivy a b h a v a t . . . 7 Ait.Ar 2/4"3 sa etam purusam brahma tatamam apa~yat I idam adar~am lti I tasm~d ~d idafiadro nfima I idafiadro ha vai n~ma I tam ida~hdrafia santam lndra iti ~icaksate paroksena I paroksapriy~ ira hi devfi.h Ait.Ar 2/1"5 tat satya~h sad iti prfi.nas 6tyannarh yam iti fidityas BAU 5/5"1 satiam iti sa ity ekam aksaram tity ekam ak.saram yam ity ekam aksaram I prathamottame aksare satyam, madhyato 'nrtam The middle syllable is originally -i-; i = go, r = go, hut i is not r and so is an-rtam. ChU 8/3"5 sattiyam iti I tad yat sat tad amrtam atha yat ti tan martyam atha yad yam tenobhe y a c c h a t i . . . t~ is martyam, as presumably, a syllable thereof. Ka .us.U 1/6 yad anyad devebhya]ca pr~nebhya~ca tat sad atha yad d e v ~ c a prfinS~ca tat tyam
z , . . , . z _ , _ z

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9 BAU 5/1" 1 pfirnam adah p~r.nam tdam pfin.aat pfirnam udacyate pfirnasya pfir.nam ~d~ya prim.am evatigi.syate That (world) is filled, this (world) is filled; from the filled the filled is raised up / it is gone out to the filled. Taking the filled of the filled it is left just filled. Brahman is not quantitative. The verse is based on AV (Saunaka) 10/829, pfirn~t pfir.nam udacati pfir.nam pfirn.ena sicyate I uto tad adya vidy~ma yatas tat parisicyate. We suggest the passage is dealing with the life-force, Visnu/PrajapatL Translate He/it goes out from the filled (penis) to the filled (womb); the filled (womb) is sprinkled by the filled (penis). May we know today/now that from which it is sprinkled (Le. may our erection be effectwe).

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHRONOLOGY ct: R. Morton Smith: The Vamga o f the White Yalur Veda. East & West, Rome 1966, pp. l l2fL R. Morton Smith. 'The spread of Vy~sa's Vedas', Pur~.na, Varanasi 1965, p. 229. FOR BRAHMANIC DEVELOPMENT, R. Morton Smith, 'Tile Early Heresies', Indologia Taurinensis 11 1975. R. Morton Smith : 'Remeaning Philosophy', ABORI XLVIII/LX pp. 123ff. 1968. FOR SACRIFICE, cf. J. C. Heesterman WZKM, lndo-Iranian Journal, 'The Ancient lndia~ Royal Consecration', 'S Gravenhage 1957.

ABBREVIATIONS ABORI Ait.Br/Ar. AV BAU ChU KathU Kaus.U RV SpB TS/TB Tait Ar. U WZKM Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Aitareya Br~hmana/Aranyaka AtharvaVeda B.rhadArany aka Upanisad Ch~ndogya Upanisad Katha Upani.sad Kausitaki Upani.sad RigVeda Satapatha Br~hmana Taittir iya Sarhhita/Brahmana Taittir~ya Ara~)yaka Upani.sad Wiener Zeitschrift ffir die Kunde des Morgenlandes