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xxxiv
UPANISHADS.
view, the Upanishads, which still show these rudera of the ancient temples, would have to be considered as more primitive even than those in which the idea of the Brahman or the Highest Self has reached its utmost purity..
It has been considered a very strong argument in support of the modern and sectarian character of the Svetasvatara-upanishad, that it inculcates what is called Bhakti?, or implicit reliance on the favour of the deity worshipped.' Now it is quite true that this Upanishad possesses a very distinct character of its own, by the stress which it lays on the personal, and sometimes almost mythical character of the Supreme Spirit ; but, so far from inculcating bhakti, in the modern sense of the word, it never mentions that word, except in the very last verse, a verse which, if necessary, certain critics would soon dispose of as a palpable addition. But that verse says no more than this : If these truths (of the Upanishad) have been told to a high-minded man, who feels the highest devotion for God, and for his Guru as for God, then they will shine forth indeed.' Does that prove the existence of Bhakti as we find it in the Sândilya-sútrása?
Again, it has been said that the Svetâsvatara-upanishad is sectarian in a philosophical sense, that it is in fact an Upanishad of the Sânkhya system of philosophy, and not of the Vedanta. Now I am quite willing to admit that, in its origin, the Vedânta philosophy is nearer to the Vedic literature than any other of the six systems of philosophy, and that if we really found doctrines, peculiar to the Sânkhya, and opposed to the Vedânta, in the Svetâsvataraupanishad, we might feel inclined to assign to our Upanishad a later date. But where is the proof of this?
No doubt there are expressions in this Upanishad which remind us of technical terms used at a later time in the Sânkhya system of philosophy, but of Sânkhya doctrines, which I had myself formerly suspected in this Upanishad,
1 Weber, Ind. Stud. I, 422; and History of Indian Literature, p. 238.
· The Aphorisms of Sândilya, or the Hindu Doctrine of Faith, translated by E. B. Cowell, Calcutta, 1878.
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