Upnishad

SR No.: 007670
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1879
Total Pages: 1835
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 35 MB

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AITAREYA-ARANYAKA.
FOURTH ADHYÅYA.
FIRST KHANDA. With this adhyâya begins the real Upanishad, best known under the name of the Aitareya-upanishad, and often separately edited, commented on, and translated. If treated separately, what we call the fourth adhyâya of the second Aranyaka, becomes the first adhyâya of the Upanishad, sometimes also, by counting all adhyâyas from the beginning of the Aitareya-aranyaka, the ninth. The divisions adopted by Såyana, who explains the Upanishad as part of the Aranyaka, and by Sankara, who explains it independently, vary, though Sảyana states that he follows in his commentary on the Upanishad the earlier commentary of Sankara. I have given the divisions adopted by Såyana, and have marked those of Sankara's by figures in parentheses, placed at the end of each paragraph. The difference between this Upanishad and the three preceding adhyâyas is easily perceived. Hitherto the answer to the question, Whence this world? had been, From Prâna, prâna meaning breath and life, which was looked upon for a time as a sufficient explanation of all that is. From a psychological point of view this prâna is the conscious self (pragñatman); in a more mythological form it appears as Hiranyagarbha, 'the golden germ,' sometimes even as Indra. It is one of the chief objects of the prânavidyå, or lifeknowledge, to show that the living principle in us is the same as the living principle in the sun, and that by a recognition of their identity and of the true nature of präna, the devotee, or he who has rightly meditated on prâna during his life, enters after death into the world of Hiranyagarbha.
This is well expressed in the Kaushitaki-upanishad III, 2, where Indra says to Pratardana: 'I am Prâna; meditate on me as the conscious self (pragtiâtman), as life, as immortality. Life is prâna, prana is life. Immortality is prâna, prâna is immortality. By prâna he obtains immortality in the other world, by knowledge (pragña) true conception. Prâna is consciousness (pragfia), consciousness is prâna.'
This, however, though it may have satisfied the mind of the Brahmans for a time, was not a final solution. That final solution of the problem not simply of life, but of existence, is given in the Upanishad which teaches that Atman, the Self, and not Prana, Life, is the last and only cause of everything. In some places this
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