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THE BRAHMANICAL DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION
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upon to go to the wind and his eyes to the sun. It was believed that fire (agni) transported the life to the other world or heaven. The fathers, it was believed, enjoyed life with Yama in the highest heaven. Those who make liberal offerings in sacrifices, and those who practice tapas, go to heaven. The gods dwell in heaven. Heavenly life is full of joys. The Vedic conception of heaven was that of a glorified world of material joys; not only gods but the fathers (pitrs) also dwell in heaven. The Vedic people also believed that while the good men went to heaven, the evil doers went into the abyss of darkness. The idea of the sufferings of hell does not seem to have been known during the old Vedic period. The great doctrine of the immortality of the self appeared first in the early Upanişads.11 THE EARLY UPANIŞADIC IDEAS
With the emergence of Upanişads, we are confronted with a new ideology. Although the Upanişads continue the old Vedic tradition in some respects, they offer new interpretations of old concepts and myths, and introduce some of the great ideas which later on became the central doctrines of India's perennial philosophy. On the one hand, the Upanisads offer a symbolical interpretation of sacrifice, on the other hand several Upanisadic passages criticise and I sacrificial ritualism altogether. Thus the Mundaka-Upanişad refers to the sacrificial path as an insecure boat,
“But frail, in truth, are those boats, the sacrifices, the eighteen, in which this lower ceremonial has been told. Fools who praise this as the highest good, are subject again and again to old age and death."'12
At another place this text attacks the sacrificial theologians and compares them with blind people.
“Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind."'18
The Upanișadic thinkers were chiefly concerned with the supremacy of the knowledge of brahman and therefore they disapproved the way of ritualism leading to heavenly enjoyments. The same text states that :
11. Harbans Singh and L.M. Joshi, An Introduction to Indian Religions, pp. 37-39. 12. Mundaka Upaniş ad, I. ii. 7. Tr. by Max Müller, 13. Ibid., I. ii. 8. Tr. by Max Müller.
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