[The Religions of India by Edward Washburn Hopkins]@TWC D-Link book
The Religions of India

CHAPTER X
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Some of these are integral parts of Br[=a]hmanas, and apparently were added to the ritualistic works at an early period.[6] While man's chief effort in the Brahmanic period seems to be by sacrifice and penance to attain happiness hereafter, and to get the upper hand of divine powers; while he recognizes a God, who, though supreme, has yet, like the priest himself, attained his supremacy by sacrifice and penance; while he dreams of a life hereafter in heavenly worlds, in the realm of light, though hardly seeking to avoid a continuation of earthly re-births; nevertheless he frees himself at times from ritualistic observances sufficiently to continue the questioning asked by his Vedic ancestors, and to wonder whither his immortal part is definitively going, and whether that spirit of his will live independently, or be united with some higher power, such as the sun or Brahm[=a].
The philosophical writings called Upanishads[7] take up this question in earnest, but the answer is already assured, and the philosophers, or poets, of this period seek less to prove the truth than to expound it.

The soul of man will not only join a heavenly Power.

It is part of that Power.

Man's spirit (self) is the world-spirit.

And what is this?
While all the Upanishads are at one in answering the first question, they are not at one in the method by which they arrive at the same result.


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