The Doctrine Of The Upanisads And The Early Buddhism

About the Book:

This book was first published in 1908

Oldenberg describes in the Introduction the life and Philosophy of the Vedic Indians. In this period, a magician rose to the position of a priest in the course of development. This was the period of the Vedas and the Brahmanas.

Chapter I which discusses the older Upanisads, viz., the Brhad Aranyaka Upanisad and the Chandogya Upanisad, describes at the outset how the idea of the Supreme Being, the Unique mystic power, was conceived in the words Brahman and Atman and how these two entities merged with each other and became identical. it then discusses the doctrine of metempsychosis as evolved from the relation between the Supreme Being and the world of plurality. In this period, the magician-priest begins to become a philosopher.

Chapter II deals with later Upanisads like Kathaka Upanisad, Maitrayana Upanisad and Svetasvatara Upanisad. This period clearly reveals beginnings of the formulation of a system in the form of Samkhya Doctrine and the Yoga. Here the ultimate goal of human yearning, the salvation from suffering, becomes visible. In short, we perceive the development of thought of the Indian Philosophy from an impersonal god ( of impersonal powers) to personal god.

But interestingly, a system strongly enforcing the elements of Yoga decisively rejected theism and adhered to the pessimistic thought of Indian mysticism: the Doctrine of Buddhism. This is described in Chapter III.

About the Author:

Hermann Oldenberg (1854-1920), One of Germany's greatest Indologist, was interested in the history was equally at home in Vedic and Buddhist studies and made outstanding contributions to both subjects.

After studying at Berlin and Gottingen, he became Professor of Indology at Kiel. His first book, Buddha, Sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde (1881), has now become a classic. His other, equally famous books are Die Religion des Veda (1894), Die Literatur des alten Indiens (1903) and Das Mahabharata, seine Entstehung, sein INhalt, seine Form (1922).

Dr. Shridhar B. Shrotri studied German at Pune. After serving there as a Lecturer in German, he came over to Karnatak University, Dharwad in 1962 and rose there to the position of Professor of German in 1985.

His translation of Oldenberg's Die Religion des Veda into English was published in 1988.

An enquiry into the otherworldly order of things behind and beyond this world, the related problems of death and everything that comes after death has seriously occupied the minds of the Indian thinkers from very ancient times. We Endeavour to describe here a few phases, which form a natural homogeneous unit, of the history of these thoughts.

They begin where the chaos of ancient concepts of life in the world and happenings clears up. These concepts emerge mostly from the primitive past, paving the way for the powerful idea of the Brahman, the Supreme Being. Here emerges, beside the hope of joyful afterlife in the company of divine world-rulers, an outsoaring longing for departing into the peaceful quietude of eternity.

This stage of development exists in those older texts which are attributed to the Veda and which are called ‘Upanisads’.

Upanisads of later origin reveal the same thoughts in a progressive development. The-pressing questions of the relationship of the Brahman to the world appearing to the naked eye are heeded with greater attention. We find here the oldest, Vedic form of the Sãmkhya-doctrine. The philosophical contemplation of the Indians has created for the first time a system in it. When the times of the Vedic antiquity had already run their course, this system was molded into a modern form by the sophisticated science of India which had now gathered strength and knew how to describe astutely and artistically complicated structures of thoughts as in Papini’s grammar. New motifs were skillfully interwoven. In this way, the Sãmkhya-doctrine, it may be said, acquired a classical form. We shall be falling in our duty if we do not, at least, cast a glance at it.

But even before the aforesaid course of events took place in the close circles of philosopher-thinkers, there developed creations of an altogether different kind in the other environs of the same nuclei. The philosophemes gave a foundation which was strong enough to bear the burden of mighty religious creations. Buddha appeared on the scene bringing with him the solace of his doctrine to those tormented by the misery of life and the fear of death. He promised deliverance from suffering and death and an entry into the mysterious otherworld of Nirvana. It should be our Endeavour to examine the doctrine of the most ancient Buddhism in the light of its association with those works which preceded it.

Let us pause with our description for a while. It will not take in its purview the philosophical systems merging later with a movement now firmly established, nor the later religions of India, those of Visnu, Krsna or Siva. It is also not our intention to strive for perfection within the confines of our limits. We wilt rather be attempting to understand the basic dialectical motifs with which the old thinking worked, their coordination and their development. We would also like to understand the predominant mental exigencies and dispositions here. We shall further attempt to bear in mind the serious and often bizarre personalities of thinkers, who feeling strong and in a mood of renunciation, could feel that they were victors in their struggle to lift the veil from the otherworld and to overcome death.

Can one succeed “among books and papers” in a room into which looks the pale sky of the north, in cogitating upon the thoughts deliberated in the blazing heat of the Indian sun or in the downpour of the Indian rain, near sacrificial places of the villages or in the huts of the ascetics, under the wide canopy of leaves of mighty trees? Thoughts whose main features were carved out in a past, when so much was alive of the strange, shapeless phantoms of pre-historic fantasies, and so little of thoughtfully probing and plainly and ingeniously constructive sciences? Difficulties as they must have been faced by the researchers of Plato, appear here with quite a different force. A historical continuity leading to our intellectual life helping to bridge even more negligible distances, is altogether missing here. These thoughts, as if excavated from the depths of the earth, appear before us abruptly, and they are quite baffling. And suddenly, familiar features appear to be looking at us again. We should not try to conceal their faults. But at many a point, we feel like bowing our head before them in reverent silence.

Land and People Brahmana Caste

Chronological and Geographical Information

In what particular era did the developments of thinking occupying our mind begin? Of course, this cannot be definitely ascertained, since the entire older chronology of India is totally dark. Hypothetical estimation may lead us to the times around the beginning of the pre-Christian millennium.’ The geographical locale, as it can be explained from the history of origin and spread of the Vedic culture, is situated wholly in northern India: mainly in the fertile lands on the banks of the two sister-rivers, Ganga and Yamunà. But soon the movement begins to force its way to the cast beyond the confluence of these two rivers. We may have in our mind the higher classes of Aryan Indians, assumed to have immigrated from Iran—perhaps a millennium before—as yet not being too deeply affected by miscegenation with the despised dark aborigines of the land. Even today, Brahmanas of pure or almost pure fair type have continued to exist. Thus, with respect to racial character, the Brahmanas of that age still resembled their relatives: the Iranian priests who experienced perhaps at the same time the Zoroastrian reform and yet the different between the Indian intellectual and spiritual character and that of the Iranians was obviously sufficiently pronounced. The nature the climate of Indian their easy domination over the aboriginal people and the absence of great historical battles spread around the Brahmanas an atmosphere of undisturbed peace. This helped the blossoming of a penchant for contemplation cultivation of complicated knowledge for play of unrestrained imagination which indulged again and again in the dreadful and the monstrous.

Of Related Interest:

Early Buddhism and the Bhagavadgita

Hinduism and Buddhism