Ethics of the Upanishads

THE QUEST AFTER PERFECTION: Prof. M. Hiriyanna; Kavyalaya Publishers, Jayanagar, Mysore-570014. Rs. 70 (ordinary); Rs. 100 (calicobound).

THE BOOK under review, like its companion, Popular Essays in Philosophy is a republication by the sons of Chidambaram of Kavyalaya, who was a dedicated servant of the world of letters. His sons are carrying on the good work of their father with rare zeal and devotion. The book under review is a real treasure house. It starts off with a fine essay on the ethics of the Upanishads. It shatters western missionary criticism, marked by cretinous ignorance and prejudice, that the Indian scriptures do not teach about right and wrong and have no ethical content. One such missionary, Dr. A. G. Hogg of the Madras Christian College, was caught in the act by his most alert and distinguished pupil, late Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan who took for his M.A. dissertation, the subject of the ``Ethical presuppositions of Vedanta''. Alas! no copy of this extraordinarily valuable refutation of the Christian missionary propaganda and affirmation of the ethical values of Vedanta is extant today.

Prof. Hiriyanna's essay is a marvellous exposition of the subject of the ethics of the Upanishads and basing himself largely on the Brahmanandavalli of the Taithiriya Upanishad, he starts off with the telling affirmation that the Brahman which the Brahmavit achieves is ``satyam, jnanam and anantam''. The hunger which drives the seeker is the hunger for knowledge of the Self. The Maitreyi Brahmana of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad reinforces this when Yagnavalkya tells his wife Maitreyi that Vittham (wealth) will not bestow Amrutaham on one. The lower hunger for food and the pleasures of the senses is a danger to be guarded against. A Tamil poet stresses this weakness in human beings when he says, ``manam, kulam, kalvi'' and seven other values of life will vanish into nothing when one is troubled by ``pasi'' (hunger for food).

The Upanishads are far from being unethical. The Western ignoramus has now been replaced by his Eastern counterpart, especially the Indian, who says Vedanta will not feed the hungry! Of course, it would not. It will raise the human being far above such physical hunger and anguish and make him a Brahmagnani, a liberated atman, liberated from samsara. Max Mueller noted that the word ``Sat'' which describes the Brahman, is a notable word, for it conveys the sense of what is both real and good.

Emerging far beyond the lower self and its physical and sensual anxieties and desires is what the Upanishads prescribe. One notes that this is apparent in a witty bishop's question and answer: ``What is the Cross? It is the `I' crossed off.'' The lower self must be conquered and suppressed in the process of realisation of the true self which, by the way, is the universal Self.

The article ``Indian conception of values'' has been reproduced in this book from the massive masterpiece of knowledge of our culture, The Cultural Heritage of India of the Sri Ramakrishna Mission. The stress on asceticism, renunciation, plain living and on high thinking is ages old. But it bears continuous stress. For the ``Nivritha marga'' emphasised by Adi Sankara in his famous prologue to his Gita Bhashya is the only real safeguard against the pointless accumulation of wealth and such other secular goods which the current social system traps us into.

The piece de resistance of this excellent book is the Miller Lecturers delivered in 1940 at the University of Madras. Only two other sets of Miller lectures can come somewhere near the two reproduced in the book, Dr. Radhakrishnan's The Spirit in Man and Dr. Hogg's The Challenge of the Temporal Process. The subject matter of these two Miller lecturers, gives the title of this excellent book. The lectures are little masterpieces of critical examination of the ideals which inspire human striving.

The author examines the philosophical implications of the idea that there is a purpose running through history. Dr. H.A.L. Fisher, in his preface to his History of Europe, speaks of one intellectual excitement denied to him, that of perceiving in history the working out of the purposes of an all-wise compassionate providence instead of merely the contingent and unforeseen.

Christopher Dawson, one of the most distinguished writers of our age, sees an unfolding purpose. Rationalists see little purpose and no plan in history. But it is left to Indian philosophers to see beyond the contingent and the unforeseen and emerging ideal towards which we are travelling, though the journey may seem a perversely designed obstacle race. The very fact that man can, in the poet's words, look before and after, is evidence that whatever hurdles we may cross, however huge the murder of multitudes, by weapons of mass destruction, there is a spiritual goal towards which the human pilgrim is struggling, straying now and then, halting too with many a pilgrim's regress on the difficult way.

The Indian scriptures view progress as spiritual progress, progress in increasing knowledge of one's inner self, progress towards a state of self-illumination which carries with it a thrilling sense of self-fulfilment. All true progress is progress in the sphere of spirit and morals. Modern rationalism is baby talk before Jabala's in the Valmiki Ramayana. Carlyle may have summed up the story of man on the earth by saying the soul is a gas, the world an illusion and the next world the coffin. They lacked vision.

Prof. Hiriyanna discusses with the magnificent authority of rich and ripe experience that rationalist Buddhist and hedonistic views of the processes of the universe are just baby talk and the spirit in man is relentlessly progressing towards man's fulfilment of himself at the level ``Aham Brahmasmi''. The slimness and slenderness of this book disguise but feebly the magnificent strength and substance of its rich content.

S.R.

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