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The Earlier Upanişads The Uktha (verse) of Rg-Veda was identified in the Aitareya Āranyaka under several allegorical forms with the Prāņa', the Udgitha of the Sāmaveda was identified with Om, Prāna, sun and eye; in Chāndogya II, the Sāman was identified with Om, rain, water, seasons, Prāna, etc., in Chāndogya III. 16-17 man was identified with sacrifice; his hunger, thirst, sorrow, with initiation; laughing, eating, etc., with the utterance of the Mantras; and asceticism, gift, sincerity, restraint from injury, truth, with sacrificial fees (daksiņā). The gifted mind of these cultured Vedic Indians was anxious to come to some unity, but logical precision of thought had not developed, and as a result of that we find in the Āranyakas the most grotesque and fanciful unifications of things which to our eyes have little or no connection. Any kind of instrumentality in producing an effect was often considered as pure identity. Thus in Ait. Āran. II. 1. 3 we find “Then comes the origin of food. The seed of Prajāpati are the gods. The seed of the gods is rain. The seed of rain is herbs. The seed of herbs is food. The seed of food is seed. The seed of seed is creatures. The seed of creatures is the heart. The seed of the heart is the mind. The seed of the mind is speech. The seed of speech is action. The act done is this man the abode of Brahman?.”
The word Brahman according to Sāyana meant mantras (magical verses), the ceremonies, the hotpriest, the great. Hillebrandt points out that it is spoken of in R.V. as being new, “as not having hitherto existed," and as “coming into being from the fathers." It originates from the seat of the Rta, springs forth at the sound of the sacrifice, begins really to exist when the soma juice is pressed and the hymns are recited at the savana rite, endures with the help of the gods even in battle, and soma is its guardian (R. V. VIII. 37. I, VIII. 69. 9, VI. 23. 5, I. 47. 2, VII. 22. 9, VI. 52. 3. etc.). On the strength of these Hillebrandt justifies the conjecture of Haug that it signifies a mysterious power which can be called forth by various ceremonies, and his definition of it, as the magical force which is derived from the orderly cooperation of the hymns, the chants and the sacrificial gifts. I am disposed to think that this meaning is closely connected with the meaning as we find it in many passages in the Aranyakas and the Upanişads. The meaning in many of these seems to be midway between Ait. Āran. 11. 1-3.
? Keith's Translation of ditareya Āranyaka. 3 lillebrandt's article on Brahman, E. R. E.
