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17
BRAHMAN, MASCULINE AND NEUTER, IN THE
PRE-BUDDHIST UPANISADS
Harvey B. Aron on
A. Brahman and the World of Brahman in the Pre-Buddhist
Upanişads
In the “Discourse to Those Who Possess the Threefold Knowledge” it is told how two Brāhmaṇa youths named Vāseţtha and Bhāradvāja came to the Buddha wishing to learn the path to communion with Brahman (Brahmasahavyatā, D.i. 236). The Buddha is shown teaching them to relate to all beings with love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity in order to achieve communion with Brahman. In the "Discourse Concerning Mahāsudassana" it is said that Mahāsudassana related to all beings with love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity and after his death he was reborn in the pleasant fate of the world of Brahman (sugatim Brahmalokam uppajji, D.ii. 196).
What did Vāsettha and Bhāradvāja have in mind when they were seeking the path to communion with Brahman ? In the period preceding the formulation of the canon, what thoughts did new students have in mind when they heard that through relating to beings with love, cɔmpassion, sympa. thetic joy and equanimity an individual could achieve communion with Brahman, or he could be reborn in world of Brahman ? The answers to these questionss can be inferred from the pre-Buddhist Upanişads. A. K. Warder in Outline of Indian Philosophy says that the Brhadāranyaka, the Chāndogya and the Kausitaki Upanişads can all be assigned to the period of 850-750 B.C.E. (Warder, p. 21). This would place these Upanişads two hundred years before the time of the Buddha,
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