Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
View full book text
________________
assumes the form of Agni who is the Brāhmin of gods. The phenomenal division is just a shadow of the divine system, like the Platonic ideas and their shadows.
The next large one, the Chāṁdogya, also belongs to the Brāhmana part of Sāmaveda, namely, Talavakāra Brāhmana. The first two chapters of this Brāhmana deal with sacrifices and other forms of worship. The other eight chapters constitute the Chandogya Upanisad. The term 'chanda means singing the Sāma: chando sāma gāyati iti chandogyaḥ.
This Upanisad, as noted above, has got eight chapters. The 6th, 7th and gth chapters are of philosophical importance. Its expository style is rational and successive. Towards the end of the 1st chapter there is a satire about the chantation of hymns by dogs for getting food. We find the Raikva-Jānaśruti episode, Satyakāma-Jābāla episode, Āruni-Uddālaka Svetaketu episode, IndraVirocana episode and Närada-Sanatkumāra dialogue in it. King Jānaśruti is imparted saṁvarga-vidyā by the cart-man Raikva in spite of humiliation. This shows that the higher knowledge could be obtained even from a person belonging to lower caste. Likewise, Uddālaka goes, with five saints, to King Aśvapati for the knoledge of Vaisvānara Atman. It also enumerates five types of patits (fallen in moral sense) who are not worthy of such knowledge, namey,
steno hiranyasya surām pivansca gurostalpamāvasanbrahmahä сaite
patanti catvārah pañcamaścăcarastairiti (Chand. Up. V.10, ix)
Aruni of this Upanisad is a great Upanisadic philosopher only next to Yājñavalkya (his disciple) of the Brhadāranyaka Upanisad.
We shall discuss, very briefly, other remaining upanisads of the group of the eleven Upanisads having commentaries by Sankara, and also the Bhagavadgitā, which is also designated as an Upanisad, although categorized as a Smrti text.
Isa is called Mantropanisad (Prayoga Kālīnartha Smārakatvam Maítratvam, Sāyana-bhāsya-bhūmikā), since it is the only Upanisadic text that belongs to the Samhitā (hymn) portion of the Veda-trayi ( Rg, Sāma and Yajuh). It is called Vājasaneyi Upanisad, as it belongs to the Vājasaneyi Samhita. Kena and Brhadāranyaka (and also the Bhagavadgītā) are virtually commentaries on it. Therefore, it has a great value for the Vedic tradition. Gandhi is said to have made a comment on it that even if all other texts of the Hindu tradition are lost and only the first verse of the Isa Upanisadis retained in our memory, not much will be lost and the tradition will remain alive for ever. That verse runs as follows:
476
