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CHAPTER XI
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through which the concept of the inexpressible has evolved in Indian philosophy. An account of the evolution will not merely give us an estimate of the general significance of the concept, but also will indicate the relation in which the concept stands to similar concepts in other Indian schools. A brief account of it may, therefore, be attempted here.
We may distinguish four stages through which the concept of the inexpressible has passed in its evolutionary process. These stages, it should be noted, at the outset, do not necessarily represent a chronological order of development but a logical one.
In the first place, we meet with a tendency in the Rgveda which is suggestive of a negative attitude to the problem. The seer, confronted with the mystery of the universe which reveals both sat (being) and asat (non-being), tends to feel that the universe is neither being nor non-being (cf. the primal state of reality, he says. “Then was not non-existent nor existent...." Rgveda, the "Song of Creation", Bk. X, Hymn 129, E. T. by R. T. H. Griffith). This somewhat naïve and negative attitude that the real is neither being nor non-being may be described as one of anubhaya.
The next tendency is a positive one, and is represented by certain Upanişadic utterances like : "sadasadvarenyam" ("The great Being'as“being and not being', Mundakopanişad, II. 2.1; tathākṣāt dvividhāḥ somya bhāvāḥ prajāyante.... Ibid., II. 1. 1) and “samyuktametat kşaramakşaram ca vyaktāvyaktam bharate viśvamāśaḥ” (That which is joined together as perishable and imperishable, as manifest and unmanifest—the Lord ... supports it all. Svetāśvataro
