Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/295

 a A! i i 3 3

un- uh uﬁlmﬂmﬁrﬂ

The: Final PhilosoPhy of the: Vctla 279

um an gunﬁr- u— m“... m

But we are concerned with the value of the Upani— shads as religion, in a world which for practical purposes must be admitted to be real, for man who for practical purposes must ht: admitted to he rcal. The chtﬁgvzttara Upauishad starts out. with tho old question:

Wlicncc are Wt: horn? thrahy do we: live, and whithcr (lo we go ? 0 yo who know Brahma, toll us at whose command we ahitlo hero, whether in pain or in pleasure? Should Time, or nature, or necessity, or

chance, or the elements lac considered as the cause, or he who is called Purusha, that is, the Supreme Spirit?

The Upanishads answer for practical purposes: The Suprcmc Spirit that is alike: in the universe, and in mammthat is the essence of all. It is Bcing, without a second, without beginning and without end, without limitations of any kind. Whatever there is, or seems to be, mind and matter, nature and man, is one substancc only, namely, Brahma. The same: Yajnavalkya, whose desperately ration~ alistic answer to his wife Maitrcyi we have just heard, talrcs also a more: human View of the Atman. This is told in the frame of a quaint little story, as follows-3‘:

YEjnavalkya had two wives, Maitreyi‘ and Katyayani. Of these two Maitreyi‘ knew how to discourse about the

1 Brihadt‘iranyaka Upanishad 2. 4 and 4.. 5.