6. Real and Unreal Reality in Vedanta
Corresponding to the two views of Brāhman, the cosmic and the acosmic, there are in the Upaniṣads two conceptions of the world, one which considers the world to be a real emanation of Brāhman, and the other which regards it as an appearance of the Absolute.
The treatment of the topic of creation is neither full nor frequent in the Upaniṣads; nor is there consistency of detail among the different passages that deal with the subject of creation.
But on one point there is unanimity of view, i.e. the origin of the whole world is traced to the self, and not to a material source.
The Śvetāśvatara begins by asking such questions as:
“What is the cause? Whence are we born? Whereby do we live? On what are we established? And by whom supervised do we experience our pains and pleasures?"
It finds that an adequate answer to these questions cannot be given in terms of any material or finite principle.
Time (kāla), nature (svabhāva), necessity (niyati), chance (yadṛcchā), the elements (bhūta), the womb (yoni), or the male (puruṣa) cannot serve as the first cause.
The Upaniṣad discovers that over all these, which may be regarded only as the secondary causes, there rules the self-power (ātma-śakti) of God (deva), hidden in His own qualities (guṇa).
A second point on which most of the creation-texts of the Upaniṣads are agreed is that Brāhman does not create the universe out of an extraneous matter, but that the universe is a manifestation of an aspect of Brāhman.
That is, Brāhman is immanent as well as transcendent. In the terminology of later Vedanta, it is the material as also the efficient cause of the world (abhinna-nimittopādāna-kāraṇa).
In the Chāndogya text: “All this, verily, is Brāhman. Tranquil, let one worship it as tajjalān” the expression tajjalān is interpreted by Śankara to mean:
"that (tat) from which the world originates (ja), into which the world dissolves (lī) and in which it breathes (an) and lives.”
The Taittirīya explicitly says that Brāhman is the cause of the origination, sustentation and destruction of the universe. The Īśa and the Kena Upaniṣads together seek to establish the causality of Brāhman in relation to the world.
The Īśa opens with the statement that all this (the universe), is enveloped by God. That is, the universe derives its substance from God.
The Kena teaches that Brāhman is the prime mover of all things.
The very first word kena (by whom?), from which the Upaniṣad gets its name, is cast in the instrumental case, showing thereby that the Scripture is concerned with the teaching about the efficient cause of the universe.
That the efficient cause of the world is non-different from the material cause may be shown also by a study of the texts which deal with the procedure of creation, and by the analogies employed in the Upaniṣads for explaining the emergence of the many from the One.
In the Taittirīya it is said:
"He desired, ‘May I procreate myself!' He performed austerity. Having performed austerity, he created all this, whatever there is here. Having created it, into it, indeed, he entered."
The Chāndogya, similarly, declares :
"It thought: ‘Would that I were many! Let me procreate myself,’ ’’ and then proceeds to describe the emergence of fire, water and food in succession.
The Brihadāraṇyaka describes how the world was at first unmanifest, and how later it was made manifest through names (nāman) and forms (rūpa).
Having manifested the worlds the self, in the words of the Upaniṣad, entered it, even to the nail-tips, as a razor would be hidden in a razor-case, or fire in a fire-holder.
The manifestation of the world out of Brāhman is likened to the ejection of the thread from a spider or the scattering of sparks from fire, to the sprouting of herbs from the earth, and the growth of the hair of the head and body on a living person.
Though the world of plurality has emerged out of the one inner self (antarātman), the latter is not affected by the defects of the former.
After mentioning the analogies of the one fire and the one wind assuming different forms, the Kaṭha says:
"As the sun, the eye of all the world, is not sullied by the external defects of the eyes, so the one inner self of all things is not sullied by the misery of the world, being external to it."
The self is the source of both the inorganic and the organic components of the world. The Chāndogya text quoted already refers to three elements, fire, water and earth, emerging in succession from Brāhman.
In the Taittirīya there is mention of five elements:
ether (ākāśa), air (vāyu), fire (agṇi), water (ap), and earth (prithivī).
These are said to have evolved from the self (ātman) one after the other.
The basis of the five-fold classification of the elements is the five-fold character of sense organs whose distinctive objects - sound, touch, colour, taste and odour, are respectively the distinctive features of ether, air, fire, water and earth.
These elements, however, are not to be identified with the elements which we experience. The latter are not pure elements, but mixed ones, and, therefore, are said to be gross (sthūla). The basic elements are subtle (sūkṣma). Out of these, by a process of mutual mixture called quintuplication (pancīkaraña), the gross elements are formed.
In the Praśna-Upaniṣad, the subtle elements are called ākāśa-mātrā, vāyu-mātrā, tejo-mātrā, āpo- mātrā and pṛthivī-mātrā.
Though the terms “quintuplication” (pañcī- kāraṇa) was coined later, the principle of the intermixture of elements is not unknown to the Upaniṣads, for in the Chāndogya, where there is mention of three elements, it is said that each is made threefold (tri-vṛta).
The world of things that is evolved from the five elements provides the souls with the objects, instruments and locations of enjoyment.
The organic bodies are classified into three groups, those born from eggs (aṇḍaja), those born from germs (jīvaja), and those born from sprouts (udbhijja). To these a fourth class was added later, those born from sweat (svedaja).
In the earlier Upaniṣads there is no mention of the repeated alternation of creation and dissolution. The Śvetāśvatara, however, refers to it in more than one place:
Rudra, it is said, after creating all beings, merges them together at the end of time; it is also stated that He repeats the act of spreading the net of illusion many a time.
From the standpoint of a-cosmism, there is no real creation.
As Gauḍapāda says, the creation which is taught in different modes, with the illustrations of clay, metal, sparks, etc., is only a means of introducing (the truth of non-difference). In no way is there any difference.
The world only appears; it is not real.
Such a view naturally involves the notion of māyā, the principle which accounts for the apparent conditioning of the unconditioned Absolute.
It is true that the doctrine of māyā is not to be found in the Upaniṣads in its full-fledged form. But the thought itself is not unknown to some of the seers of the Upaniṣads.
The teachings of Yājñyavalkya, for instance, imply such a notion. The sage declares that there is duality as it were (iva). Here the expression “as it were” implies that the world of duality is not real, that it is illusory, māyā.
The Chāndogya characterizes all modifications to be mere names, verbal expressions (vācārambhaṇam, nāmadheyam).
In the Maitrāyaṇīya, the Absolute is compared to a wheel of fire, an analogy which was developed later by Gauḍapāda to explain the illusory nature of the world.
The term “māyā" itself can be traced to the Ṛig-Veda where the assumption of many shapes of Indra through his illusions (māyā) is mentioned. And it is significant that this text is quoted in the Brihadāraṇyaka in a context where real difference is denied.
When we come to the Śvetāśvatara, we find the term māyā used in the sense of illusion, and the Lord of all beings is described as māyāvin.
As for the term avidya which is an equivalent of māyā, it occurs in quite a few of the Upaniṣad texts. That the manifestation of the world is a marvel is what terms like māyā and avidya tell us.
The production of the pluralistic universe does in no way affect the integrity and absoluteness of Brāhman:
That is full; this is full.
The full comes out of the full;
Taking the full from the full, the full itself remains.