Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 4

Author(s): R P Poddar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

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Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin No. 4
side. Hence we find in the Mundaka the metaphor of the urganābhi (spider), and in the Chandogya the causal formula of Satkārya-vāda maintained by the examples of earth, the iron mass etc. The Vedic concept of the Unity of the gods and of existence was not a mere haphazard poetic flash or a sudden temporary intuition. No doubt, the logical ratiocinative processes are not found here as we find in the later metaphysical Vedantic works or even in the Upanisads, but the manner of presentation shows that the Vedic seers were conscious of the revelation that had dawned upon them.
We feel that this concept of unity was attained in three stages. First, the total supremacy of the individual godheads like Indra, Agni or Varuna was visualised, -the stage of 'Henotheism' as Max Muller calls it. But this Henotheism is not the highest pronouncement upon the Vedic religion and philosophy. The second stage was reached when all the great gods were identified.
The third stage was reached when the unity of the gods was expanded to cover the unity of the entire cosmos, the transition of the notion of unity from the realm of religion to the realm of philosophy. Some of the hymns of the Atharveda and the Ṛgveda contain such notions. The other ancient religions of Egypt, Western Asia and South Eastern Europe stopped with an anthropomorphic monotheistic supreme deity,-Amen-Ra or Marduk or Zeus. In those countries the religion of the monistic absolute did not develop. The Upanisads, specially the Katha and the Svetasvatara contain references to monotheism. In the Upanisads, when the Brahman is contemplated mystically, we find that in the empiric sphere the way is naturally being prepared for a monotheism which the general mind will associate with cosmic functions. Thus in the Upanisads we find both monotheism and monism.
The development of monistic thought in the Veda and the Upanisads, not merely for the purposes of logical abstraction but also for the purposes of meditation shows the psychic advance of the Vedic Aryans during these early times. Compared to this the Chinese Tao which shows great approximations to the impersonalistic absolutistic ideal is a late development.
In the Vedic cosmological accounts we find the ideal of monotheism. The cosmological argument for theism we find maintained in many of the great religions, and although it has been criticised on philosophical grounds by Kant, it has been advocated by other thinkers. The later Nyaya philo