section 9. ORIGIN OF UNIVERSE FROM BRAHMA.--I. Upanishads.--The Upanishads, being the work of Brahmans, are naturally influenced to a great extent by the naturalism of Vedic myth, especially in their conception of the origination of the universe from Brahma. As we saw ( section 4), the Veda already speaks of a primal Being that created a phenomenal world from itself and became its indwelling soul; and thus, by its empiric distinction between the first Being as cause and the world as its effect, the Veda has arrived at a pantheistic standpoint.

From this the Upanishadic authors started, and struggled slowly towards the strictly idealistic position from which the universe, organic and inorganic, subjects and objects, is regarded as a single Idea which is the same as the Idea of the

individual subject of thought. In this progress they still made frequent use of the Vedic ideas and the mythical forms embodying them; they admitted their distinction of Brahma as cause and the world as effect, but admitted it as a mode of empiric thought of merely relative validity, while from the standpoint of transcendental reality they asserted the identity of the two.

Brahma (Atma), causing the hitherto unconditioned universe to become conditioned as Name and Form (the elements of cogitable being), entered into it "up to the nail-tips" as immanent soul, B.A. I. iv. 7; cf. Ch. VI. ii. 3, iii. 3, Ait. I. i. 11 f., Taitt. II. 6. Brahma is wholly present as its soul in every living thing, B.A. II. i. 16, iv., III. iv., v., Ch. VI. viii.-xvi. The Cosmic Soul, Hiranya-garbha or Brahma (masculine), enters into creation as firstborn of Brahma (neuter), or highest manifestation, B.A. II. v. ("the brilliant immortal Male," Purusha), Ait. III. iii. (Brahma-Atma is intelligence), Kau. I. Brahma is Cosmic Soul, universal subject of thought from which arise the principles of finite thought (mahan atma, Kath. III. 10, mahan purushah, S'vet. III. 19). The world is created from and by Brahma as the web from the spider, sparks from fire, B.A. II. i. 20, S'vet. VI. 10, Mund. I. i. 7, II. i. 1. Brahma is "the Eternal cloaked by (empirical) reality," B.A. I. vi. 3, cf. I. iv. 7, II. iv. 12, v. 18, etc., Ch. III. xiv. 1, IV. iv.-ix., VI. xiii., etc. The

individual soul, according to the Upanishads, does not exist previous to the creation by Brahma.

The universe is created from water, B.A. I. v. 13, Ch. VII. x. 1, Ait. I. 1. Three elements, B.A. I. ii. 2, Ch. VI. ii. (heat, water, and food, successively created one from the other, after which each was blended with part of the others). Five elements (adding ether and wind), Taitt. II. i., Pra. IV. 8.