Vedas & Upanishads

There are four Vedas: Rig, which is about knowledge (gyan), Sama about chanting (music), Yajur about rituals and Atharva about sciences.

Upanishads are answers to questions. Thus, in Manduka Upanishad, Shaunaka ( a householder) asks Rishi Angiras: What is that by knowing which all can be known? The question proclaims the depth and profundity of the Upanishads. Angiras replies that knowledge exists at two levels—a lower level and a higher level. The study of the Vedas and arts belong to the lower level, and the study which leads to self-knowledge (Shankara’s atma bodha) is the higher level. Only atma bodha can liberate man, not recitations of the Veda.

About 108 Upanishads are said to have existed. Of them, six are very important. Called “Darshanas” (Philosophic systems), they form the majestic core of Hinduism. They are Sankya, Nyaya, Yoga, Vaisesika, the Purva and Uttara Mimamsas (or Vedanta).

Of the six systems, four tend to materialism and atheism! Such was the liberal mind of Hinduism.

Sankhya of Kapila is the oldest and most profound philosophic system known to man. Even the Buddha had taken advantage of it. But Sankhya is a materialistic philosophy. It opposed the Vedas and the Brahminical rituals. Sankhya asserts that the universe was not created by God. It evolved from the interaction between Purusha (eternal spirit) and Prakriti (nature). Thus, it undermined the foundation of supernatural religion by substituting evolution for creation.

Kapila denies the efficacy of Vedic rituals. He said everything could be known by three methods: Perception, inference and testimony. Prakriti is made up of three gunas—Satva, Rajas and Tamas. When their equipoise is disturbed, evolution begins through aggregation and segregation.

Nyaya of Gautama, based on Sankya, is more a system of logic than philosophy. It mentions God only in a casual manner. It adds one more way of perception—Analogy. Nyaya discusses methods of reasoning with the greatest subtlety. The Jains took nyaya to its logical heights.

Vaisesika of Kanada is anterior to nyaya. It also precedes Buddhism and Jainism. It tends to atheism. Buddhism and Jainism were influenced by it. It did not see any need to introduce God into the cosmic system. Vaisesika believed that substances which are aggregates of atoms are perishable. But atoms are eternal, invisible and intangible.

When Patanjali wrote his Yoga Sutra, the way to salvation was through sacrifices. In other words, through rituals. He changed all that. Yoga claims that one can see and know without the use of the senses. In fact, it teaches how to raise consciousness by stilling the senses. It is this steadying of the mind which Patanjali was chiefly concerned with. Yoga can restrain the vagaries of the mind.

Purva Mimamsa represents Hindu orthodoxy. It maintains that the Vedas are eternal and revealed. Man’s duty is to perform the sacrifices as prescribed in the Brahmanas.

Uttara Mimamsa (or Vedanta) of Vyasa Badarayana repudiates rituals. Vedanta is more a religion than philosophy, but the most philosophical religion in the world. It would probably be no exaggeration to say that the Vedanta concept of the Supreme Spirit (Monism) is the highest that humanity has been capable of. One cannot go beyond Shankara’s Advaita. Vedanta is the world view of the Hindu. Here duality is given up for a single reality (Advaita). A plurality of true infinities is not possible, says Vedanta.