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MAY, 19271
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE UPANISHADS
So, on the strength of Sayana's statement that Paramesthi is the Rsi of Rk., X, 129, and Anila that of Rk., X, 168, to regard them as historical persons and to compare them seriously with Thales or some one else, is a parody of historical research. The Anila in question is described by Sayana as 'belonging to the family of Air' (váta-gotrasya). Does it look like a human genealogy? It cannot be unknown to Dr. Barua that Paramesthi is a deified name and that Anila is the ordinary as well as deified name of air itself. Dr. Barua could certainly utilise the teachings contained in the Rk. verses in question without being guilty of the extravagant notion-that every Vedic Rşi can be looked upon as a real person.
When, however. Dr. Barua speaks of the philosophies of Satyakama Jabala, Jaivali, Gårgyâyana, or Uddalaka, i.e. of people whose names occur in the Upanigads, as distinguished from the Rsis of the Vedas, he is within more reasonable limits. And if we give up the practice of lumping a few Upanißuds together and constructing a philosophy out of them, the ultimate logical conclusion of our procedure would be nothing short of a numerous list of more or less incomplete systems obtained from the teachings of individuals whose identity has been preserved in the Upanişads.
These would not be systems in the strict sense of the term; they would not give us more than the stray sayings of the ancient Greek thinkers. Besides, all the names in the Upanitads also are not names of teachers, properly so called ; and a discrimination would be necessary. For instance, Prof. Radhakrishnan in his Philosophy of the Upaniçads (p. 19), gives a brief list of names which will stand out " when the history of the great thinkers of the Upanişadic period with their distinctive contributions comes to be written." But this list contains the names of Gârgi and Maitreyi also. These are no doubt very important names in Upani. gadic literature; they were certainly earnest enquirers whose questionings evoked the profoundest philosophy; but it is difficult to place them on the pedestal of teachers properly so called. They cannot be credited with laying the foundation of a philosophy in the same sense as Uddalaka or Yâjõavalkya.
To resume: The extreme step of taking each individual thinker of the Upanisads by himeelf and weaving a philosophy out of the stray sayings ascribed to him, would introduce & needless disorder, where order and system have already been established. As a third alfer. native, however, we might take each book of the Upanigads by itself and construct a philosophy out of it. We would then have a philosophy of the Praśna, and of Katha, and of Chandogya, and so on. Dr. Das Gupta has suggested this procedure as the best. "It will be better," he says, "thet a modern interpreter should not agree to the claims of the ancients that all the Upanigads represent a connected system, but take the texts independently and separately and determine their meanings, though keeping an attentive eye on the contexts in which they appear." (History of Indian Philosophy, p. 42.) Dr. Das Gupta speaks of the texts of the Upanişads and not their teachers, and presumably he means that each of the dissertations should be taken by itself and interpreted independently of the idea that it is part of a system of which the other texts also are parts.
But it is doubtful if even this procedure would meet the requirements of a scientific basis for a philosophy of the Upanigads. What philosophy, not to speak of a comprehensive system, can be evolved out of the twelve sentences of the Mandúkya? And how much philosophy can the 18 verses of the fed really yield? The Brhadaranyaka or the Chandogya, no doubt, could be tapped for more, and a system built upon either of them, which would be more comprehensive than a mere philosophy of Yajñavalkya or Jaivali or Uddálaka ; but it is open to question if even that would be comprehensive enough to deserve the name of a system.
It seems inevitable, therefore, that we should take more than one Upanigad together in order that a system of thought may be attempted. Shall we then take them according to
1 04. Mahabharata, 1, 66, especially for Anila.
