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INTRODUCTION.
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substance. And with regard to the clause 'the Self thinks as it were' it has to be noted that according to the commentators the as it were' is meant to indicate that truly not the Self is thinking, but the upâdhis, i.e. especially the manas with which the Self is connected. But whether these upådhis are the mere offspring of Mâya, as Sankara thinks, or real forms of existence, as Râmânuga teaches, is an altogether different question.
I do not wish, however, to urge these last observations, and am ready to admit that not impossibly those iva's indicate that the thought of the writer who employed them was darkly labouring with a conception akin to-although much less explicit than—the Måyå of Sankara. But what I object to is, that conclusions drawn from a few passages of, after all, doubtful import should be employed for introducing the Mâyâ doctrine into other passages which do not even hint at it, and are fully intelligible without it
The last important point in the teaching of the Upanishads we have to touch upon is the relation of the gîvas, the individual souls to the highest Self. The special views regarding that point held by Sankara and Råmânuga have been stated before. Confronting their theories with the texts of the Upanishads we must, I think, admit with Lim out hesitation, that Sankara's doctrine faithfully represents the prevailing teaching of the Upanishads in one important point at least, viz. therein that the soul or Self of the sage -whatever its original relation to Brahman may be is in the end completely merged and indistinguishably lost in the universal Self. A distinction, repeatedly alluded to before, has indeed to be kept in view here also. Certain texts of the Upanishads describe the soul's going upwards, on the path of the gods, to the world of Brahman, where it dwells for unnumbered years, i.e. for ever. Those texts, as a type of which we may take the passage Kaushît. Up. I-the fundamental text of the Ramânugas concerning the soul's
1 I cannot discuss in this place the Mayê passages of the Svelasvatara and the Maitrayaniya Upanishads. Reasons which want of space prevents me from setting forth in detail induce me to believe that neither of those two treatises deserves to be considered by us when wishing to ascertain the true uninixed doctrine of the Upanishads.
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