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INTRODUCTION.
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more than one place, has in recent times been advocated with much force by Mr. Gough in the ninth chapter of his Philosophy of the Upanishads.
In his Matériaux, &c. M. Paul Régnaud remarks that the doctrine of Maya, although implied in the teaching of the Upanishads, could hardly become clear and explicit before the system had reached a stage of development necessitating a choice between admitting two co-existent eternal principles (which became the basis of the Sankhya philosophy), and accepting the predominance of the intellectual principle, which in the end necessarily led to the negation of the opposite principle.'—To the two alternatives here referred to as possible we, however, have to add a third one, viz. that form of the Vedanta of which the theory of the Bhagavatas or Râmânugas is the most eminent type, and according to which Brahman carries within its own nature an element from which the material universe originates; an element which indeed is not an independent entity like the pradhana of the Sankhyas, but which at the same time is not an unreal Mâyâ but quite as real as any other part of Brahman's nature. That a doctrine of this character actually developed itself on the basis of the Upanishads, is a circumstance which we clearly must not lose sight of, when attempting to determine what the Upanishads themselves are teaching concerning the character of the world.
In enquiring whether the Upanishads maintain the Mâyâ doctrine or not, we must proceed with the same caution as regards other parts of the system, i. e. we must refrain from using unhesitatingly, and without careful consideration of the merits of each individual case, the teaching--direct or inferred -of any one passage to the end of determining the drift of the teaching of other passages. We may admit that some passages, notably of the Brihadâranyaka, contain at any rate the germ of the later developed Mâyâ doctrine', and thus render it quite intelligible that a system like Sankara's
1 It is well known that, with the exception of the Svetasvatara and Maiua. yaniya, none of the chief Upanishads exhibits the word måyå.' The term indeed occurs in one place in the Bribadåranyaka; but that passage is a quotation from the Rik Samhita in which maya means'creative power.' Cp. P. Kégnaud, La Maya, in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, tome xii, No. 3 1885).
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