Theories Of Parinama

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

Page 25

Seeds of Pariņāma in the Earliest Literature
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sacrifice', seems to have appealed very much to the Upanişadic thinkers and almost accepted as a method of discovering the truth about reality. With the ascendency of this kind of outlook, it is but natural that the conception of an extraneous personal creator should pale into the background and that of an abstract absolute principle like "Brahman' already foreshadowed in the “Tadekam' of the Rgveda, should assume considerable prominence. Thus the very same "Tadekam' comes to be variously expressed as 'Brahman', 'Ātman' or 'Sal' around which centres the whole of the Upanişadic philosophy. What is more, the important problem of "One' and ‘Many' - which was raised in the later part of the Rgveda but for which no satisfactory solution was found, assumes a more coherent and determinate form in so far as the nature of the ‘One' and its relation to the 'Many are more clearly brought out. Next, the terms like, brahman, śāśvata, dhruya, puruşa, atman, which are a rarity in the Rgveda and the Brāhmaṇas find frequent mention here and express some of the fundamental concepts of the Upanişads. They have not yet assumed the character of technical concepts of the later philosophical systems but are nonetheless significant as furnishing the basis for the same.
With these general observations we may turn to the passages themselves which throw light on the nature of the 'One and the *Many', and their relation. I 'तद्धेदं तमु व्याकृतमासीत्तन्नामरूपाभ्यामेव व्याक्रियतासौ नामाऽयमिदंरूप
इति... । स एष इह प्रविष्ट आनखाग्रेभ्यो यथा क्षुरः क्षुरधानेऽवहितः FITRI HII ai faire
que l' Br. Up. I. 4. 7.
| 'वो देवोऽग्नौ योऽप्सु यो विश्व भुवनमाविवेश ।
37 379ig gargfag ../ S've. Up. II 17.
।
at different periods of time. Hence it is that we find divergent currents. of thought often contradictory in nature in one and the same Upanişad. In our above account of the Upanişads, however, we have not considered all these varied currents of thought that are reflected in them, but only those that bear upon Qur problem: