Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 2174

INTRODUCTION.
xxxix
the personified Brahman. Thus we read before, III, 4, 'He the creator and supporter of the gods, Rudra, the great seer (maharshi), the lord of all, formerly gave birth to Hiranyagarbha;' and in IV, 11, we have the very expression which is used here, namely, 'that he saw Hiranyagarbha being born. Unfortunately, a new adjective is applied in our verse to Hiranyagarbha, namely, kapila, and this has called forth interpretations totally at variance with the general tenor of the Upanishad. If, instead of kapilam, reddish, fiery 1, any other epithet had been used of Hiranyagarbha, no one, I believe, would have hesitated for a moment to recognise the fact that our text simply repeats the description of Hiranyagarbha in his relation to Brahman, for the other epithet rishim, like maharshim, is too often applied to Brahman himself and to Hiranyagarbha to require any explanation.
But it is a well known fact that the Hindus, even as early as the Brahmana-period, were fond of tracing their various branches of knowledge back to Brahman or to Brahman Svayambhú and then through Pragâpati, who even in the Rig-veda (X, 121, 10) replaces Hiranyagarbha, and sometimes through the Devas, such as Mrityu, Vayu, Indra, Agni?, &c., to the various ancestors of their ancient families.
In the beginning of the Mundakopanishad we are told that Brahman told it to Atharvan, Atharvan to Argir, Angir to Satyavâha Bhâradvâga, Bhâradvâga to Angiras, . Angiras to Saunaka. Manu, the ancient lawgiver, is called both Hairanyagarbha and Svâyambhuva, as descended from Svayambhu or from Hiranyagarbha 3. Nothing therefore was more natural than that the same tendency should have led some one to assign the authorship of a great philosophical system like the Sânkhya to Hiranyagarbha, if not to Brahman Svayambhů. And if the name of Hiranyagarbha had been used already for the ancestors of other sages, and the inspirers of other systems, what could be more natural than that another name of the same Hiranya
1 Other colours, instead of kapila, are nila, harita, lohitâksha ; see IV, 1; 4. ? See Vamsa-brâhmana, ed. Burnell, p. 10; Brihadâranyaka-up. pp. 185, 224. 3 See M. M., India, p. 372.
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