History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

Page 49

32
The Earlier Upanisads
[CH.
systems in astronomy. The direct translation of Viśvakarman or Hiranyagarbha into the ātman and the Brahman of the Upanişads seems to me to be very improbable, though I am quite willing to admit that these conceptions were swallowed up by the atman doctrine when it had developed to a proper extent. Throughout the earlier Upaniṣads no mention is to be found of Viśvakarman, Hiranyagarbha or Brahmanaspati and no reference of such a nature is to be found as can justify us in connecting the Upanisad ideas with those conceptions'. The word puruşa no doubt occurs frequently in the Upanisads, but the sense and the association that come along with it are widely different from that of the purusa of the Puruṣasūkta of the Rg-Veda.
When the Rg-Veda describes Viśvakarman it describes him as a creator from outside, a controller of mundane events, to whom they pray for worldly benefits. "What was the position, which and whence was the principle, from which the all-seeing Viśvakarman produced the earth, and disclosed the sky by his might? The one god, who has on every side eyes, on every side a face, on every side arms, on every side feet, when producing the sky and earth, shapes them with his arms and with his wings....Do thou, Viśvakarman, grant to thy friends those thy abodes which are the highest, and the lowest, and the middle...may a generous son remain here to us?"; again in R.V.x.82 we find "Viśvakarman is wise, energetic, the creator, the disposer, and the highest object of intuition....He who is our father, our creator, disposer, who knows all spheres and creatures, who alone assigns to the gods their names, to him the other creatures resort for instructions." Again about Hiranyagarbha we find in R.V. I. 121, “ Hiranyagarbha arose in the beginning; born, he was the one lord of things existing. He established the earth and this sky; to what god shall we offer our oblation?... May he not injure us, he who is the generator of the earth, who ruling by fixed ordinances, produced the heavens, who produced the great and brilliant waters!--to what god, etc.? Prajapati, no other than thou is lord over all these created things: may we obtain that, through desire of which we have invoked thee; may we become masters of riches." Speaking of the purusa the Rg-Veda
1 The name Viśvakarma appears in Svet. IV. 17. Hiranyagarbha appears in Svet. III. 4 and IV. 12, but only as the first created being. The phrase Sarvāhammāni Hiranyagarbha which Deussen refers to occurs only in the later Nrsimh. 9. The word Brahmanaspati does not occur at all in the Upanisads. 3 Ibid. p. 7. + Ibid. pp. 16, 17.
2 Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. IV. pp. 6, 7.