Samayasara OR Nature of Self

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 67

Ixvi
were associated with heretical antisacrificial civilisation. In an interesting chapter in the Satapata Brahmana there is mentioned an attempt by the Kurupanchalas to reconvert the Kosalas and the Videhas to Vedic traditions. Such a successful reconversion most probably marks the period of the Brihadaranyakas One of the champions of the old traditional culture studies the new thought successfully and finally assimilates it so completely that the theosophic Brahma jnana once originated by the rival school dominated by the Kshatriyas ccases to have an independent existence. This personality who contributes to the complete annihilation of the rival school by the successful assimilation of the same by the old culture is Yagnavalkya. From the point of view of culture and philosophic insight he is head and shoulders above his contemporaries. He is looked upon with awe and reverence by other priests. He is welcomed and honoured by kings Having studied the new thought and made it his own he is able to reassert the supremacy of the traditional Vedic cult thus in this Upanishad. We have all the characteristic conflicts symptomatic of a transition period. The Upanishad begins with the conception of Aswamedha. Here it has only a symbolic meaning. The whole world is compared to one grand process of cosmic sacrifice. There is an account of the creation which starts from asat-non-being-and evolves into being. Here we have merely an echo of the Vedic hymn which describes the origin of the world sat from asat. After comparing the evolution of the world to the grand horse sacrifice, the Upanishad goes to describe the nature of human personality. Breath or Prana is said to be superior to the other bodily functions. This leads indirectly to a glorification of the chanting the Vedic hymns which is possible only because of breath. In the next section there is another account of the creation of the world. Starting with the lonely Purusha who is the beginning of all things the narrator proceeds to describe the appearance of a mate from himself. From these primaeval pair the whole of the human race is supposed to have originated. But the primitive mother all of a sudden develops a resentment to the unconventional matrimonial alliance and tries to hide herself from her companion. Thus
SAMAYASARA