Theories Of Parinama

Author(s): Indukala H Jhaveri
Publisher: Gujarat University

Page 23

Seeds of Pariņāma in the Earliest Literature
as Prof. Belvalkar puts it, “the most thorough-going elevation of the Sacrifice into a world-principle. The only advance beyond this made by the Brāhmaṇas was the substitution of Prajāpati in place of the Virāt Puruşa”. 15 The life-activity of this Prajāpati is symbolised as a continuous process of sacrifice, which exhausts him and takes the juice out of him which loss is made up again and again through the sacrifice.16 What is more Prajapati himself is often identified with the sacrifice, and the latter again with the universe - thus - The soul of all beings, of all gods, is this the sacrifice'.17 In this way by elevating the sacrifice into an omnipotent world-principle – the Creative Force, and by indentifying it with Prajāpati and the universe, a sort of mystical unity between the three was sought to be established. Such mystical interpretation of the sacrifice greatly tended to divert the minds of the thinking people from the actual performance of the sacrifices to the inner sacrifice in the form of meditations. Thus, in the Br. A. I.1 we find that instead of a horse-sacrifice, the visible universe is conceived as a horse and meditated upon as such.
This transformation of Yajña (47), it is significant to note, is responsible for another important development. We know that the word 'brahman' (neuter) was used in the sense of a 'prayer' in the Rgveda. As this simple prayer assumed the importance of a magical or mystical formula, in the AV, the word 'brahman' also came to have that sense. In the Brāhmaṇa age we find the word used for the sacrificial act and mystery. So when the identity of Prajāpati, yajña and the whole universe came to be mystically postulated, the word 'brahman' came to have this connotation also i.e. signifying the identity of the three). This development, one might say, paved the way for the brahma' philosophy of the Upanişads, traces of which already begin to appear in the later part of the Brāhmaṇas - as for example in the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa XI.2.3.1. where 'brahma' is mentioned as the prius of the world
15 History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 25. 16 Tāņdya -Brāhmaṇa, IV. 10.1. 17 Satapatha-Brāhmaṇa, XIV, 3.2.1; III, 6.3.1.