Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/223

Rh "The son did as he was commanded. The father said to him: 'Bring me the salt which you placed in the water last night.' The son, having looked for it, found it not, for, of course, it was dissolved.

"The father said: 'Taste it from the surface of the water. How is it?' The son replied: 'It is salt.' 'Taste it from the middle. How is it?' The son replied: 'It is salt.' 'Taste it from the bottom. How is it?' The son replied: 'It is salt.' The father said: 'Throw it away and then wait on me.'

"The son waited on the father, and the father explained to his son that the Universal Being, though invisible, dwells in us, as the salt is in the water."

These extracts from the Chhandogya bring home to us the Hindu idea of a Universal Being. We will now quote one or two passages from the Kena and the Isa Upanishads:—

"At whose wish does the mind, sent forth, proceed on its errand?" asks the pupil. "At whose command does the first breath go forth? At whose wish do we utter this speech? What god directs the eye or the ear?"

The teacher replies: "It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of the speech, the breath of the breath, and the eye of the eye.

"That which is not expressed by speech, and by which speech is expressed; that which does not think by mind, and by which mind is thought; that which does not see by the eye, and by which one sees; that which does not hear by the ear, and by which the ear