FIRST KHANDA.

With this adhyaya begins the real Upanishad, best known under the name of the Aitareya-upanishad, and often separately edited, commented on, and translated. If treated separately, what we call the fourth adhyaya of the second Aranyaka, becomes the first adhyaya of the Upanishad, sometimes also, by counting all adhyaya from the beginning of the Aitareya-aranyaka, the ninth. The divisions adopted by Sayana, who explains the Upanishad as part of the Aranyaka, and by Sankara, who explains it independently, vary, though Sayana states that he follows in his commentary on the Upanishad the earlier commentary of Sankara. I have given the divisions adopted by Sayana, and have marked those of Sankara's by figures in parentheses, placed at the end of each paragraph. The difference between this Upanishad and the three preceding adhyayas is easily perceived. Hitherto the answer to the question, Whence this world? had been, From Prana, prana meaning breath and life, which was looked upon for a time as a sufficient explanation of all that is. From a psychological point of view this prana is the conscious self (pragnatman); in a more mythological form it appears as Hiranyagarbha, 'the golden germ,' sometimes even as Indra. It is one of the chief objects of the pranavidya, or life-knowledge, to show that the living principle in us is the same as the living principle in the sun, and that by a recognition of their identity and of the true nature of prana, the devotee, or he who has rightly meditated on prana during his life, enters after death into the world of Hiranyagarbha.

This is well expressed in the Kaushitaki-upanishad III, 2, where Indra says to Pratardana: 'I am Prana; meditate on me as the conscious self (pragnatman), as life, as immortality. Life is prana, prana is life. Immortality is prana, prana is immortality. By prana he obtains immortality in the other world, by knowledge (pragna) true conception. Prana is consciousness (pragna), consciousness is prana.'

This, however, though it may have satisfied the mind of the Brahmans for a time, was not a final solution. That final solution of the problem not simply of life, but of existence, is given in the Upanishad which teaches that Atman, the Self, and not Prana, Life, is the last and only cause of everything. In some places this

doctrine is laid down in all its simplicity. Our true self, it is said, has its true being in the Highest Self only. In other passages, however, and nearly in the whole of this Upanishad, this simple doctrine is mixed up with much that is mythological, fanciful, and absurd, arthavada, as the commentators call it, but as it might often be more truly called, anarthavada, and it is only towards the end that the identity of the self-conscious self with the Highest Self or Brahman is clearly enuntiated.

Adoration to the Highest Self. Hari, Om!