A Manual of Hindu Pantheism

THERE INTRODUCTORY STANZA. To the Self, existent, intelligence, bliss, impartite, beyond the range of speech and thought, the substrate of all, I resort for the attainment of the desired thing.* * Emancipation. NOTES ON INTRODUCTORY STANZA. "All philosophy strives after unity. It is its aim, its task, to reduce complexity to simplicity, the many to the one." The Upanishads tell us that this was the aim of Indian philosophers, and they not always...
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THERE INTRODUCTORY STANZA.
To the Self, existent, intelligence, bliss, impartite, beyond the range of speech and thought, the substrate of all, I resort for the attainment of the desired thing.*

* Emancipation.

NOTES ON INTRODUCTORY STANZA.
"All philosophy strives after unity. It is its aim, its task, to reduce complexity to simplicity, the many to the one." The Upanishads tell us that this was the aim of Indian philosophers, and they not always Brahmans, in very early times. In the Mundaka, for example, it is related that the illustrious son of Sunaka approached the sage Angiras with due ceremony, and inquired of him what that was which, being known, all things would be known. He was told in reply that the wise regard "the invisible, intangible, unrelated, colourless one, who has neither eyes nor ears, neither hands nor feet, eternal, all-pervading, subtile and undecaying, as the source of all things." This is, of course, Brahma, the so-called Absolute of the Vedanta, the Self of the verse before us; and the system then evolved from the inner consciousness of those early thinkers, but modified it would seem by Sankaracharya, and so stereotyped by his successors, continues to the present day; and not only so, but whilst the other five schools have well-nigh ceased to exert any appreciable influence, this "has overspread the whole land, overgrown the whole Hindu mind and life."

In this opening verse Brahma is described as

I. Existent (sat).

The Vedanta postulates three kinds of existence, which it terms true (paramarthika), practical (vyavaharika), and apparent (pratibhasika). Brahma is the sole representative of the first. The second includes Iswara, individual souls, heaven, hell, and all phenomena. These are said to be imagined by ignorance, and to have no more true existence than things seen in a dream; but men have practical dealings with them as if they truly existed, so they are admitted to exist practically or conventionally. The third class comprises such things as a mirage, nacre mistaken for silver, or a snake imagined in a rope, which are the result of some defect, such as short-sight, &c, in addition to ignorance. Yet it is believed that "when a man on seeing nacre, takes it for silver, apparent silver is really produced!" All these then are, from certain standpoints, real existences; but, to him who has true knowledge, the first alone is real. This theory of existences is intended to explain away the finite and establish the infinite; but it cannot be admitted to have been successful. The existence of an invisible Being, who is entirely out of relation to the world, and devoid of apprehension, will, activity, and all other qualities, cannot possibly be established.