A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India: 2.1 - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Saturday 14, June 2025, 07:50.
Books
Srimad Bhagavad Gita
A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India: 2-1.
Chapter 1: The Vedas
The Vedas as Fountainhead of Development
Chapter 2: The Upanishads:
The Period of Transition:
Swami Krishnananda.

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The Vedas as Fountainhead of Development:

The Vedas may be regarded as the source and fountain to which the later developments of thought can be traced. The bold speculative trend and philosophic flights of the Vedas culminated in the Upanishads and the system of the Vedanta. Their descriptions of religious ecstasy in divine contemplations inspired the formulation of the school of Yoga which was codified in the aphorisms of Patanjali. Their visions of the creation of the universe helped the rise of the Sankhya doctrine which regularised the prevalent notions on cosmology and psychology. The logical trend in the Vedas stimulated the development of anvikshiki (application of reason) and the rationalistic bias of certain systems among the darsanas. The ritualistic and sacerdotal emphasis in the Vedas laid the foundation for the purely authoritarian Mimamsa school. The forms of meditation and prayer predominant in the Vedic hymns sponsored the building up of the Bhakti schools among the Vaishnavas, Saivas and Saktas. The accounts of sages, anchorites and kings which the Vedas furnish, formed the beginnings of the elaborate Itihasas or epics, and the Puranas. The social rules and customs of the time of the Vedas became the cornerstones for the systematisation of conduct and law in the Smritis or Dharmasastras. The social, political and religious institutions were all meant to help the gradual evolution of the individual, according to each one's capacity and aptitude, towards the realisation of spiritual universality.

Chapter 2: The Upanishads:

The Period of Transition:

The predominant tone of the Samhitas and Brahmanas was one of piety and ceremonialism, interspersed with raptures of religious feeling and contemplative ecstasy, which led occasionally to a spiritual vision of the Virat or the Cosmic Almighty. Though the undercurrent of the thought of the Vedic Rishis had an overtone of a spiritual vision in the things of the world, and their idea of sacrifice reached its zenith in a meditation on the Universe itself as a sacrifice of the Supreme Purusha, the tendency to material sacrifices or yajnas for propitiating the gods hymned in the Samhitas still continued to receive great stress in the ordinary life both of the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, who formed the upper classes of the social strata. Side by side with the concept of sacrifice and an obedience to the laws of rita and satya, the concept of samsara or worldly existence as a part of the requirements of the principle of reincarnation of souls due to karma received more and more attention, and the thoughtful began to feel a need for discovering a way of redemption from transmigratory life, since it was realised that transmigration is the result of subjection to a law which was being violated in life by the individual. The necessity felt for an austere achievement of freedom from desire, which was the cause of the violations of law, crystallised itself in the doctrine of tapas or asceticism and self-control which finds expression in the Aranyakas as a fruit ripening from the Brahmanas and Samhitas. The Tapasvin or anchorite, living a life of retreat in the forest, began to command more respect than the priest of the Brahmanas and the hymnist of the Samhitas. The tendency to regard the Vedic sacrifice more as an act of internal meditation than outward oblation gained firm ground and the ceremonial piety of the earlier part of the Vedas flowed into a mystical contemplation of creation, while, at the same time, it was discovered that the inner sacrifice is more powerful than the outer in producing results.

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Next

The Quest for Reality

Continued

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