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Philosophical Brahmanism

The second phase of Brahmanism, called Philosophical Brahmanism, cannot be marked off by any decided line from the other phases of Hindu religious thought. Its rudimentary ideas are found running through the earlier system, and even had their germ in Vedism. It is the purely spiritual doctrine of a universally diffused essence (Brahma), divested of all ritualistic incrustations, and carried into lofty regions of transcendental speculation. In fact, a reaction from an overdone ritual was inevitable.' People became wearied with sacrifices and sacrificers. The minds of thinking men found no rest in external rites and turned away with disgust from every form of sacerdotalism. It only remained to take refuge in speculative inquiries and metaphysical investigations. The Upanishads are the special bible of this phase of Brahmanism. Many treatises so called were added to the Mantra and Brahmana portion of the Veda (such as the Isa, Chandogya, Katha, Mundaka, and Brihad-aranyaka Upanishads). The aphorisms (sutras) of the three systems of philosophy with their three branches (that is, the Nyaya with Vaiseshika; Sankhya with Yoga; Vedanta with Mimansa) were founded on these writings. These are paths to liberating the spirit of man from the bondage of repeated bodily existence, and reuniting it with the Supreme Spirit as a river is reunited with the ocean.

Most Philosophical Brahmanism thinkers agree that spirit or soul1 is eternal, both retrospectively and prospectively. The Spirit of God and the spirit of man must have existed and must continue to exist from all eternity. The two spirits are not really distinct; so says the Vedantist. The living spirit of man(jlva) — the human Self (Atman) — is identical with God's Spirit. It is that Spirit limited and personalized by the power of Illusion; and the life of every living spirit is nothing but an infinitesimal arc of the one endless circle of infinite existence. The union of spirit with a succession of bodily forms is dreaded as the worst form of bondage. The spirit, so united, commences acting, and all actions, good or bad, lead to consequences, and these consequences must have their adequate rewards or punishments.

The so-called pantheistic theory of the Vedanta philosophy is attractive to the majority. It is true that the Sahkhya and Vedanta together underlie Brahmanism; but the Vedanta is the more orthodox. It is a belief in the non-duality and non-plurality of Spirit—that is to say, in one eternal Spirit called Atman (nom. Atma) or Brahman (nom. Brahma) instead of in many , —a belief in the identification of the human spirit and of all the phenomena of nature with that one Spirit, when enveloped in illusion. In other words, the separate existence of man's soul and of all natural phenomena is only illusory. Pure Vedantism is not only a belief in one unconscious, impersonal Spirit made' up of three essences. It is a belief that a kind of threefold trinity—to wit, three spiritual essences, three corporeal envelopes, and three dominating qualities—together constitute one personal God, as well as every human personality.

These three Qualities or conditions are the same as those which in the Sarikhyan system are the constituents of Prakriti— namely, Activity, Goodness, and Indifference (Rajas, Sattva, Tamas). They are those which in the later doctrine of the Puranas are held to separate the one Supreme personal God into the three divine personalities of Brahma (nom. case), Vishnu, and Rudra-Siva, each accompanied by his own consort. Dominated by Activity (Rajas), the Supreme Being is Brahma, the Creator; by Goodness (Sattva), he is Vishnu, the Preserver; by Indifference (Tamas), he is Rudra, the Dissolver.

Buddhism, like philosophical Brahmanism, was a disbelief in the efficacy of ritual, and, like it, taught the uselessness of sacrificial ceremonies and even of austerities for the attainment of true knowledge. It taught that knowledge was only to be obtained through self-suppression. It substituted a blank for God; it denied the existence of soul or spirit, whether personal or supreme, and of everything but body, mind, and sensations,—of everything but earth, heavens, and hells, which, according to the Buddha, are always, through the force of works, tending to disintegration and re-integration in perpetual cycles. But while it repudiated priestcraft and sacrificing priests, it supplied the people with an object of veneration in its own founder Gautama—afterwards styled 'the Enlightened' (Buddha). Its success was in a great measure due to the reverence the Buddha inspired by his own personal character. He was the ideal man—the perfection of humanity. He practised faithfully what he preached effectively. Adherents gathered in crowds around his person, and Gautama himself became the real god of his own popular faith. Everywhere throughout India thousands were drawn towards his teaching. His doctrines of universal charity, liberty, equality, and fraternity were, irresistibly attractive.