V.~C.

4RAMBHANAM

RECONSIDERED

by
J. A. B. V A N B U I T E N E N

University of Chicago

In his recent contribution to this journal 1 Professor Kuiper has clarified the linguistic issues involved in the interpretation o f the crucial vdcdrambha.nam o f C h U p . 6.1 and 6.4. The distinguished scholar discusses lucidly the derivation o f drambha.na f r o m a r o o t rambh, its connection with d-rabh, d-labh, a-lamb, and he decides himself in favor o f a reference o f our term to RV. 10.81.2 which I had proposed in an earlier paper. ~ Reviewing m y suggestions he remains uncertain about m y precise analysis o f vdcdrambha.nam. ~ As a result both o f Kuiper's fresh inquiry and o f a personal correspondence with Professor Edgerton who declared himself unconvinced by m y general interpretations as given in m y brief and here and there ambiguous ~ paper, I have studied the phrase anew. The conclusions to which I was led were unexpected but, I believe, rewarding. It m a y be opportune, n o w that the matter is fresh in the reader's memory, to submit them to his judgment. Kuiper at the outset rejects summarily the possibility that vdcdrambha.ham is anything but a c o m p o u n d s with as first m e m b e r an d-stem vdcd built on vdc f. This is certainly defensible, t h o u g h one should like to see more adstructive material for the assumption o f vdcd or a similar a-stem that is preferred to vdc etc. in composito. Yet, since vdcd drambha.nam is also defensible I would be inclined to postpone the assumption o f an exceptional vdcd f. until a perfect understanding o f the entire phrase had shown that the more obvious instrumental o f vdc f. really makes no sense. x "Vacarambha.nam", IIJ, I (1957), 155 iT. 2 "Vacarambha.nam", Indian Linguistics, 16 (Festschrift Chatterji, 1955), 157 ft. 8 It never occurred to me that vacar~ was a compound and I took vaca as instrumental to the action of arambha.na; but since I allowed other connotations of arambha.na to be implied in the phrase the precise relationship had to remain vague. Both Edgerton and Kuiper misread on 158-59: "Usually it [vacarambha.nam] is taken adjectivally with namadheyam: 'the effect is (just) a name deriving from speech.' One objection is that the word-order rather reads: 'the name is the effect'." I could and should have stated more clearly my meaning that n. must be the grammatical subject. 5 This convention seems to start from ~afikara who no doubt considered vac- for vaga chandasa peculiarity; not so Ramanuja who takes vaca as an instrumental and paraphrases vyavahdre.na.

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This brings us back to the meaning o f the whole phrase. Beside our expression the phrase contains two more problems: the precise function o f ndmadheyam, and the positively extraordinary use o f satyam in m.rttikety eva satyam. However one prefers to read the phrase, it is equally clear that it consists o f two abbreviated sentences and that vikdra is the logical subject o f the first, e Yet ndmadheyam seems to be the grammatical subject. A n d no usage o f satyarn in the older upani.sads quite prepares us for a satyam that describes any cause o f any vik~ra; and, although unconcerned with the explanation o f vikdra etc. in the first sentence which seems to remain unconnected with his evolution account, ~ the author is at pains to identify the satyam in all seven occurrences o f the phrase. Let us consider all seven. The first three are in ChUp. 6.1, introductory to the instruction proper which posits an original sat evolving three rapas, reanimating these rapas by entering into them, s and thereupon embarking u p o n a process o f vikdra, ~ or the creation o f names and forms. After this the principal instruction is set forth in 6.4. In 6.1 Udd~laka had questioned Svetaketu: " D i d y o u ask to hear the dde~a in what m a n n e r the whole is k n o w n t h r o u g h one?" A n d in 6.4 the ancients are said to exclaim: " N o w no one can quote us any thing that we cannot classify according to these three r~pas: if we k n o w something red, we k n o w it for the rohita r~pa o f tejas etc." W h a t occasions this exclamation which plainly marks the conclusion o f the instruction Udd~laka had promised in 6.1 ? The preceding lines read:

yad agne rohita.m r~pam, tejasas tad r~pam / yac chukla.m tad apdrn / yat k.r.s.nam, tad annasya / apdg~d agner agnitvam / v~c~rambha.na.m vikdro ndmadheyam, trLni rfipdn,fti satyam. Curiously all translators felt so sure
about the meaning o f the disputed phrase that they interpreted the preceding apdgad agner agnitvam in a sense which derives from their (i.e. gafikara's) interpretation o f the phrase but is obviously w r o n g : " T h a t e Oldenberg's solution, to take all nominatives as predicates to an understood subject, is not satisfactory; it amounts to taking vikara as the subject without allowing the text to express exactly this directly. For the subject can only be m.rtpi.nd, am/m.rnmayam, as "any clay ploduct" contradistinguished from the cause "clay" (m.rttiketyeva satyam), so that the proposition runs: "[any clay product,] being a vikara, is vac. nam." 7 Since the phrase is usually interpreted from 6.1 which is expressediy out of context, attempts have rarely been made to connect vikara with sat's process of vikara in 6.3.2; this connection must surely exist (see below), though vac's role is not further enlarged
upon.

8 For a discussion of this important phase of the doctrine see my discussions in Ramanuja's Vedarthasa.mgraha(Poona 1956), Introduction ch. I; "Studies in Sh.mkhya, I: Ahaq~.k~ra", .IAOS, 1956, and "II: Sattva", JAOS, 1957.

9 vyakaravagi, vyakarot.

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which makes fire what it is - the 'phenomenal entity' fire- disappears from fire, (for) the effect is but a verbal handle, a mere name: what is real are the three rftpas." Thereupon the ancients exclaim that now they can classify all things. Let us distantiate ourselves for a moment from an admittedly prejudiced exegesis dating from a later miliennium and agree that this makes no sense. What the text really says is this: "The red in fire is the red of tejas, the white that of dpas, the black that of annam. Issues (from these three rgtpas) that which makes fire fire." apdg6t at the beginning of the sentence conveys the immediate connection of the action with what precedes. agner agnitvam cannot be separated from the well-known br~hma.na usage: Rudra's Rudratvam consists in this t h a t . . . (rudrasya rudratvarn). What makes agni agni? The three rftpas. There is positively no justification for denying the "reality" of agni; the fact that these three rf~pas are described as satyam does not mean that their effects are "unreal". lo apdgdt is not "disappears", but "issues, goes forth, arises"; what the three rf~pas "let off" (apa-srj), "goes off" (apa-ga). Without pronouncing on their ontological reality the author wants to emphasize that such highranking principles as fire, sun, moon, lightning - sometimes themselves considered the supreme - are in fact produced by the supreme, i.e. the three rftpas. Having completely made this point he adds the disputed phrase. The significance of satyam in it had already been illustrated by three different examples (6.1): the three rftpas are the "cause" of such effects as agni etc. just as clay, copper, iron are the causes of clay etc. products. Just as all clay products are recognized through clay as being of clay, so all red entities are recognized through redness as being of the red rftpa tejas. As clay, so each of the three rftpas and all rftpas mixed. ~vetaketu has been presented with a viable scheme of world classification and the ancients declare themselves satisfied with it. When we now consider the phrase we remark 1. that it summarizes a point already completely made and fully illustrated; 2. that consequently it could be missed entirely without leaving a gap in the exposition; yet it is three times adduced illustratively and four times applied in the doctrine proper; 3. that the first part remains unconnected with the author's account and goes unexplained, but satyam is 7 times explicitly identified. All this makes for one conclusion which we can also reach in a different manner. Udd~laka wonders if his son has asked for a certain ddega such that all x0 Be repeated what should have been clear from the treatment of satyam in the early upani.sads, that satyam never means "real" as opposed to "unreal, illusory."

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is k n o w n t h r o u g h one. H e has n o t a n d n o w asks his father. The latter t h e r e u p o n gives a w o r l d l y example o f h o w one thing o f a k i n d m a k e s for k n o w l e d g e o f all things o f t h a t kind. This is obviously n o t the ddeAa itself, 11 b u t a n illustration. T h e n the w o r d d e n o t i n g the k i n d itself, resp. clay, copper, iIon, is fitted into a severely a b b r e v i a t e d phrase, r e d u c e d to its bare nouns, a n d fitted thus t h a t s a t y a m in it is m a d e to describe this clay, c o p p e r a n d iron. U d d ~ l a k a i m m e d i a t e l y after that phrase concludes: " S u c h is the ddeAa, m y son." There can be n o d o u b t t h a t the phrase v d c ~ r a m b h a . n a m . . , s a t y a m is the ~deAa, t h a t it is a n ddega. T h e t r a n s l a t o r s have ignored t h a t ddeAa is n o t j u s t "teaching, instructi o n " generally, b u t s o m e t h i n g m o r e precise. It is a doctrine in a nutshell, a briefly indicated c o n c e p t i o n which requires further i n t e r p r e t a t i o n for the p u p i l b u t for the initiated contains a world o f meaning. T h e y generally t a k e the f o r m o f severely a b b r e v i a t e d sentences describing equivalencies a n d identifications (so two words, subject a n d predicate usually suffice), which, if the upani.sadic c o m m e n t a r y does n o t h a p p e n to survive, sometimes remain obscure: t a d vanarn, Iz d3 d3, ~ t a j j a l d n , 14 kapydsat.n pun..darikam? 5 to quote a few. Others are explained, d d i t y o b r a h m a . ~6 Others u Not only does 6.4 make clear that the real teaching is the causality of the three
rf~pas - to which the cause-effect relation of clay etc. is adduced as d.r.st.anta -, but it is

also inconceivable that ~vetaketu's teachers failed to observe the relation between clay and pot, nail-cutter and iron; so that is very evidently not the problem. 12 KenUp. 4.6 tad dha tadvana.m n~ma tadvanam ity up4sitavyam. ~a KenUp. 4.4 tasyais.a dde~o yad etad vidyuto vyadyutad 43 itinnyamfmisad ~3 iti. Renou (KenUp., Paris 1943) translates "(le cri) ah! (qu'on pousse) quand il a 6clair6 des 6clairs, ah! quand les yeux ont clign6 (iti nya~ '', but the better translation is: "its (brahman's) ~de~a is d3 that flashes from lightning, t~3 that blinks". The brahman/ purusa is, as so frequently, thought to be connected with celestial luminaries, usually the sun. The mystic name is OM3 = ud-gi-tham, in which a = ud (ChUp. 1.1.1 ; 1.3.1 ; 1.3.6-7; 1.5.1.; 1.6.6-8), ud standing for the first of the three orders, i.e. heaven and the heavenly lights. To the macrocosmic flashes of lightning corresponds microcosmically the blinking of the eye, "43's" adhy~tma abode; the connection with t~raka, the spot of reflected light in the eye, is of course well-known. On vidyut esp., note Kau.sUp.
1.1.2 tasya vidyutam eva tejo gacchati v4yu.m pr4.na etad vai brahma dipyate yad vidyud vidyotate; 4.2 vidyuti satyam; 4.5 ya evais.a vidyuti puru.sas tam evop~se; 4.18 vidyuta ~tm~. . . aha.m tam up~se; ChUp. 4.13.1 prdna ~ k ~ o dyaur vidyud iti ya e.sa vidyuti puru.so d.rs'yate so 'ham asmi saiv~ham asmfti ( ~ BAUp. 5.15.1 for sun); B,~Up. 2.1.4 ya ev~sau vidyuti puru.sa etam ev4ha.m brahmop4se. The blinking of the eye and of lightning combined in Mah~n~trUp. 1.8 sarve nime.sa jaj~ire vidyuta.h puru.s~d adhi. - I have developed this adega a little to show how much, and what kind of, upani.sadic sense even such a bizarre one as the "a3 o f lightning and blinking" can make if one takes

it seriously; very soon it involves the whole upani.sadic tradition; which makes it a true
ade~a.

x4 ChUp. 3.14.1. ~5 ChUp. 1.6.7; a brief paper on this notorious expression is to appear from the Deccan College, Poona, in the Taraporevala Commemoration Volume. ~6 ChUp. 3.19.1 4dityo brahmety ~de~at.~ / tasyopavyakhy4narn . . .

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are q u o t e d m o r e t h a n once a n d a p p a r e n t l y a l l o w o f different interpret a t i o n s : neti neti is a f a m o u s example. 17 C h U p . 3.5.1 ft. gives a clear i d e a o f their significance. In a m e t a p h o r o f bees a n d flowers, rea.h, yajfo.n.si, sdmdni, atharvdtigirasa.h are respectively bees to the flowers .Rgveda, Y a j u r v e d a , S~maveda, a n d itihdsa-purdn, am. T o g e t h e r these f o u r (or five) c o m p r i s e the sacred lore. T h e n follows: guhyd evdde~d madhuk.rto brahmaiva pu.spam : b r a h m a n " s a c r e d l o r e " has as principle the secret ddeias; they are higher t h a n the b r a h m a n , which itself is higher t h a n the Vedic texts. 18 The ddeAa is the briefsignalement, as R e n o u excellently renders, b o t h o f the supreme a n d o f the c o n c e p t i o n o f the supreme, o f t h a t which the p u p i l then m u s t updsiturn. Thus dde~a a n d updsand/upani.sad are very n e a r l y s y n o n y m o u s ? 9 SatBr. 10.4.5 (agnirahasya) describes as upani.saddm dde~a.h a series o f updsands: agni is v~yu, agni is aditya, agni is year, a l t a r is v~c, vfic is sun, a l t a r is d e a t h etc. etc. A n dde~a therefore is the i n d i c a t i o n in a few w o r d s o f a n esoteric thesis a b o u t a great cosmic connection. Their origins m a y be r e m o t e a n d the phrases a l l o w o f different r e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s , tad vanam " t h e w o o d is t h a t ( b r a h m a n ) " m u s t refer to b r a h m a n as cause a n d is likely to be a n ddega built o n TaittBr. 2.8.9.6, 20 b u t is r e i n t e r p r e t e d (or also interpreted) as having to d o with desire (vd~ch-). tajjaldn for tajjaldni 21 m u s t be a similar e q u a t i o n o f b r a h m a n with the p r i m e v a l waters (Safikara: tajjaldn = tajja, talla a n d tadana), d3 d3 very p r o b a b l y refers to the initial a s o u n d in O M , itself a n ddeda o f i n o e d i b l e fecundity. F r e q u e n t l y t h e y exploit the w o r d s b e y o n d their a c t u a l m e a n i n g to convey esoteric d e p t h : O M 3 is ud-gi-tham, 1~ B/~Up. 2.3.6 ath~ta ade~o neti neti / na hy etasm~d iti nety anyat param asti; B,~,Up. 3.9.26 sa es.a neti nety atmagrhyab etc. xs The passage is again pregnant with connotations, notably of the madhu-vidya (ChUp. 8,1). x9 The synonymy of adega and upani.sat proper is plainly shown by TaittUp. 1.11.4 where a teacher explains to his pupil: e.sa ade~a e.sa upadega es.a vedopani$ad etad anukasanam evam upasitavyam evam u caitad upasyam, where adega and vedopani~ad are evidently synonymous. It is useful to make the distinction between upani.sad "brief secret formula for knowing certain equivalencies, generally," and "exposition of this formula" (upadega, upavyakhydna), and "texts containing such formulae and expositions, particularly bearing on brahman etc." The distinction is exemplified in the titles of the Jaiminiya-Upani.sad-Br~hman. a and the Kena Upani.sad which is taken from the former, which means "brfthma .ha on the ritual equivalencies according to the Jaiminiyas :" the latter: "text dealing with an esoteric knowledge of brahman." The KenUp. has been lifted out of the JaimUpBr. as an "upani.sad" because that discussion concluded with upani.sada.m brrthity ukt~ ta upanis.ad br~hmi v~va ta upanis.adam abrf:meti; but this upani.sad is really the formulae a3 and tadvanam which is the only, and unexpounded, teaching of the prose portion (3 ; 4) of the KenUp. 2o brahma vana.m brahma sa v.rksa asid etc. ; see below. 2x This seems to be the most economical correction of taj]alaniti; however, jala is only attested for later texts.

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brahman is gayatri, 2~ the supreme's name is sat-tyam, sat-ti-yam, ti-yam. 23

sa-

Although by discovering that our phrase is an ddeda in the precise meaning of the term we may have aggravated our problem, at least we have now identified it. That Uddhlaka quotes the ddega (for an ddega is almost by definition a current key-phrase ~4 interpreted for himself by every thinker, all of them together constituting an amorphous collection of, comparatively speaking, proto-s~tras of which the upani.sads embody the various commentaries), that Udd~laka therefore probably QUOTESthis ddega must have a particular significance; and this significance must have lain in the second part, that about satyam. For the author is at pains to identify this satyam with the three rftpas, illustrating his mea .ning in the introduction in terms which sound tantalizingly new to the initiated ~vetaketu whose teachers did not know of this application of the ddega. And in fact, Udd~laka presents his own doctrine of satyam as something different, something new. In ChUp. 6.2 we have what is I believe the first attempt of an Indian theologian to use logic in reforming a doctrine. "Sat was here alone originally, nothing else. There are those who say that asat was here originally and that sat arose from asat: but how is it possible that something which EXISTS arises from something that EXISTS NOT? No, sat was here alone." Udd~laka here challenges the current doctrine of satyam. This old doctrine, as old as the .Rgveda, states the primacy of asat from which sat came forth. This at one point became formulated in the ddega of the supreme's "name satyam." satyam describes the supreme which is both sat and tyad/tyam, i.e. asat, sat being the "embodied", asat the "disembodied". The speculations about this ~dega " b r a h m a n ' s or satyam's name is satyam", are, with those on O M and dtman, the most numerous of all upani.sadic commentaries on single ~de~as. ChUp. 8.3.4 tasya ha va etasya brahman, o ndma sat-ti-yam iti, sat is am!'tam, ti is martyam, yam what connects both. BAUp. 2.1.20 tasya (brahma.na) upani.sat satyasya satyam iti. lb. 2.3.6 atha ndmc~dheyan.~ satyasya satyam iti. 4.1.4 satyam ity etad (brahma) updsita. 4.5.1 te devd.h satyam evopt~sate / tad etat tryak.saram, sa-ti-yam iti. TaittUp. 2.6.1 where the creator (corresponding
** ChUp. 3.12; BAUp. 5.14.

*~ See below. z4 Which does not, of course, mean that there was a standard expression; but since in these ade~as/upani$adsa certain word or sound was so frequently made the vehicle of the conception, there must have been a remarkable constancy of expression, as is abundantly illustrated just for the "Name Satyam".

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to asat as appears from 2.7.1) has created the world by tripartition s a t y a m abhavad y a d idan.~ k i m ca / tat s a t y a m ity dcaks.ate. There are more instances, but these will suffice. Let us n o w return to a previous point. In the first sentence o f our phrase vikdrah must be the logical subject. Can it also be the grammatical subject, and be so in the proper place, that is f o l l o w i n g the predicate? There is not the slightest d o u b t in m y mind that it can be and is. There is absolutely no authority 2s for the traditional punctuation which by placing a c o m m a after n d m a d h e y a m makes it the grammatical subject, instead o f the logical ~'ikdraO. A n d after our demonstration that the phrase is an ddeAa, our recognition o f Udd~laka's preoccupation with sat and s a t y a m , and our quotations f r o m other texts on the name o f the s a t y a m that Uddfilaka declares to change, there will be no one who does not feel the immediate rightness o f the sentence in the ~de~a: n d m a d h e y a m . . , satyam. We have now identified at least one ddeAa, happily a most popular one, and simultaneously rephrased more satisfactorily the other one. The whole phrase n o w reads: vdcdrambhan, an..~ vikdra.h / ndmadheya..m tr~n.i rftpdn. ~ty eva satyam. U d d a l a k a has something new to say a b o u t s a t y a m , and as so m a n y others he uses the well-known 6de~a to say it with. Several stages can be discerned in the interpretation o f the " N a m e is S a t y a m " ddega before him. First, s a t - t y a m / t y a d ~ sat-asat. This asat first becomes sat, then (or thus) evolves creation3 ~ Thus essentially TaittUp. 2.6.1, but already uncertain about the meaning o f a s a t Y Second, s a t - t y a m , sat being the solidly, palpably existent, mftrtam, m a r t y a m ; t y a m " y o n " replacing asat, particularly continuing the primacy, transcendence, subtlety o f asat, not tangible (atmosphere, prfn. a), amftrtam, am.rtam.

s5 After BShflingk (ChUp. 1889) had r e a d . . . ~'ikarab / namadheyam... ("Lehm ist der Name in Wirklichkeit"), Deussen (60 Up. 1897) punctuated after namadheyam in ~afikara's footsteps. The correctness of this punctuation has never been questioned since, but remains based upon nothing but a preconceived idea of what the text ought to say. zs I refer to my discussions in the studies quoted supra note 8. ~7 TaittUp. 2.6-2.7.1 ; the ~loka heading 2.6 (but really belonging to 2.5, such being the curious arrangement of the anuvgtkas throughout till 2.8) declares that brahman cannot be asat, but asti brahmeti: clearly the same problem as UddAlaka faced, and disposed of, in 6.2.1-2, the old asat being no longer understood and now regarded as just "nonexistent." But in the creation account immediately following in 2.7, a "personal" creator is introduced (brahman/atman) who creates himself as creation: idarp sy~t.va tad evanuprftvigat [ tad anupravidya sac ca tyac cabhavat . . . satya.m can.rta.m ca / sat-tyam abhavat yad idarn kirv ca / tat sat-tyam acak.sate / tad apy e~a gloko bhavati - (2.7) asad va idam agra asit taro vai sad ajayat / tad atmana~l~ svayam akuruta tasmat tat sukrtam ucyata iti, which is the old view again.

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Brahman is both at once: dye rape. Thus ChUp. 8.3.4 f.,28 B.g,Up. 4.5.1; basically '29 BAUp. 2.3.6). Third, sat and tyam in the second formulation do no longer constitute the entire brahman (or this brahman is not the highest): there is an order above it, the flaming puru.sa in sun and eye (BAUp. 2.1.20; 2.3.6); so brahman (or the "more supreme" puru.sa) is satyasya (sat-tyasya) satyam. Note that in all three stages a triadic pattern underneath is given and maintained. Upon this Udd~laka presents a new interpretation of satyam, of which ~vetaketu's teachers had never heard. He does away with the two brahmans, keeps the triad, but bolder even than the third interpretation, lifts sat above the triad. This is one way of looking at it. Another way z~is that he returns to the very oldest view, substitutes sat for asat which starts creation by self-tripartition, this creation being asat's sattva, dtman or puru.sa: for Udd~laka's sat, too, really only becomes a creator when the has entered the three rpas fivendtman~. The translation of the sentence
N,~MADHEYAM TRINI RISIPSkNiTY EVA SATYAM THE THREE RISIPAS.''al

therefore is:

"THE NAME

(of

the ~upreme) IS SATYAM, I. E. (as analysed in three syllables sa-ti-yam) On vdcdrambhan, a.m vikdra.h a little remains to be said. Since drambhaearn must be a noun predicative of vikdra.h the disputed expression can, if Kuiper is right and the word is a compound, only be a tatpuru.sa. It is an dde5a not so far met with. vikdra a2 must principally refer to the creation by sat or saD,am, that is the great creation, 8~ not the effectuation of any
28 In spite of the fact that there are only two orders, am.rtam and martyam, the triadic pattern was so influential that satyam still was analysed into three: sat-ti-yam; here ti, the dispensable svarabhakti syllable, is the martyam, sat the amrtam; comparably in TaittUp. 2.6 satyam seems to correspond with sat, an.rta.m to tyad/tyam. 20 This text retains the two orders of brahman, sat and tyam, but adds a higher order of puru.sa (thus also restoring the triad); hence satyam ( = brahman) has for this puru~a to be extended to satyasya (sat-tyasya) satyam. a0 And this is what UddNaka himself says: the supreme is not represented by one syllable, as in the second stage, nor as a third order beyond sat-tyam as in the third stage, but as all three orders which, as satyam (sa-ti-yam) constitute sat. ax Paraphrased: the supreme's name is indeed Satyam, since the three orders summed up in sa-ti-yam are the three orders that constitute sat the creator. *~ The use for "product generally" is late, only after the S~.mkhyakgrikAs where vikara/vik.rti is "evolute in a creation process." sa In the early prose upani.sads, including the original MaitrUp., vi-kr/vya-kr occurs only to describe the primary world creation of the supreme (vi- BAUp. 1.2.3; MaitrUp. 6.3; vy~- ChUp. 6.3.2; 6.3.3 - our c o n t e x t - , BAUp. 1.4.7). One Aitareya Up. (6.1) passage is quite relevant: katarab sa ~tma, yena vfz r~pa.m pa~yati yena va ~abdaro g.r.noti yena va gandhan 6jighrati yena va vaca.m vyakaroti yena va svadu casvadu ca vijanati; on the relation between vya-hr and vya-kr see some remarks in my Aha~nkara. Considering the general use of vi/vya-k.r it is wholly unjustified to assume for our vikara another meaning than its own context concerned with evolution suggests.

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product, and evidently vdc plays a leading role in the eventuation of creation. But Uddfilaka's doctrine with regard to vdc, as far as we have it at least, remains undeveloped; yet its very inclusion and repetition must point at the great significance the author attached to v~c. This significance is still recoverable from the further chapters. V~c, according to 6.5 is the very subtlest product of the very subtlest rflpa, tejas, of sat. The order of creation is therefore Sat ~ three rQpas constituting sat ~ vac. ChUp. 6.5 suggests the following order in creation: 1. sat - tejas, dpas, annam; 2. tejas - vdc, manah. , bone ; 3. dpas-prdn, a, blood, urine; 4. a n n a m - manat.~, flesh, faeces. This order is curious but we can now reconstruct its basis. We have basically four reflections of the third stage of s a t y a m speculations. Structured in those terms we have three orders: 1. tejas - vac - (roans.h)
2. dpas - prdn. a 3. a n n a m - bone/blood/flesh/urine/faeces. The second order is the t y a d / t y a m order, dpas cosmically corresponding to antarik.sa "atmosphere" and p r ~ j a as tyarn constituting the amf~rtam, am.rtam. The third corresponds with sat, the very obviously mf4rtam, "embodied," and mortal. On the highest order remain tejas, representing heaven and sun, abode of the flaming puru.sa, and vdc. 34 M a n a s certainly belongs there too, 85 but is significantly put after vdc in one series. When

we therefore take the second stage of tripartitions as simple triads moved down, which they certainly were in the speculations that furnished the basis for 6.5, the fact stands out that vdc was filst as the filst creature. This is sound old doctrine. It remains recoverable from the jumble of second-stage tripartitions (which we now stress with particular significance occur in a t e x t f o l l o w i n g after Uddalaka's first promised instruction 6.1-6.4 was concluded) and is moreover expounded seven times in Udd~laka's first teaching in vdcdrambhan, am. vikdrat.1. Assuredly we have in the teaching ascribed to Udd~laka son of Arun. a and father of Svetaketu only a digest of a more circumstantial exposition, which may, or may not, have originated from Udd~laka. It is for instance inconceivable that the real Udd~laka, an udggtar of note, could possibly have so systematically avoided references to ritualistic trains of thought as the present text represents it. It is entirely credible that further explanations of vt~c have been digested out in later times when we see the ancient notions of vdc as the creator's self-expression, as the progenitrix of creation, become ob84 I may dispense with quoting on the relation between vac and akaga. a5 Though the view of the pranamaya.m mana.h may have occasioned manas's degradation when pra.na was demoted.

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solete, leaving surviving terms, n o t a b l y aha.mkdra, to be reinterpreted in a context o f m o r e newly developed notions. But as so often, j u s t b e l o w the surface we find here t o o u n c o v e r e d the ancient doctrines. F r o m the context o f associations o f the N a m e o f the supreme c a n n o t be excluded the speculations a b o u t a b r a h m a n t h a t becomes c r e a t i o n by recognizing itself for an ~ t m a n a n d n a m i n g itself Aham. 8~ This near relationship between the s u p r e m e ' s c r e a t i o n a n d the s u p r e m e ' s self-articulation m a y quite well have furnished the link between the two dde~as in o u r phrase, o f which the parallelism is striking. I f we n o w a t t e m p t a t r a n s l a t i o n o f the first sentence we m u s t preface t h a t the exigencies o f translating into a n o t h e r language necessitate a definiteness at variance with the comprehensiveness o f the original; f r o m a m o n g all the c o n n o t a t i o n s o f drambha.na we m u s t m a k e a choice which does n o t p r e t e n d to include all t h a t is included in it. Still, since we have to settle on some t r a n s l a t i o n this will d o : V3.C~RAra~rtAN. A.MVIK.~RA .rI "(the S u p r e m e ' s ) CREhTION IS (his) TAKINC HOLt) OF V~C." Several others c a n be suggested: " c r e a t i o n is the S u p r e m e ' s basis on V a t , " " c r e a t i o n is the t a k i n g h o l d b y V~c." drambha.nam is no d o u b t a reference to R V 10.81.2, where it is j u x t a p o s e d with adhi.st.hdnam; b u t I believe t h a t K u i p e r is t o o cautious when he wishes to exclude different c o n n o t a t i o n s o f drambhan.am f r o m the c o n n o t a t i o n s the t e r m has here. aT The " b a s i s " is also the beginning; for j u x t a p o s e d with RV. 10.81.2 is in stanza 4 also the vanam a n d the se See my Aha.mkara. 37 I doubt if arambha.nam of K~thS. 7.15 quoted by Kuiper as meaning "point of support" is really only that (o.c. 157). In GopBr. 1.2.15 the same quotation occurs in the following context: aditir vai pra]akamaudana.m apacat / tata ucchi~t.am a~nat / sa garbham adhatta / tata aditya ajayanta / ya e~a odanab pacyata arambha.narn evaitat kriyata akrama.nam eva. The significance of the odana being an arambhat~a can hardly be separated from the odana's instrumentality in the procreation described. [But now el. infra p. 309, where Professor Kuiper stresses the explicit parallelism between arambhatta and akrama.na and the absence of indications that the word connotes also something else. I felt that the very justification of the odana's being an arambha.na lay in the fact that Aditi uses it to produce the ,~dityas. Whether one wishes to consider this a connotation or a denotation (but where, one could ask also Thieme, stops one and begins the other?), the fact remains that the initiating role ascribed to "basis", and particularly arambhat.ta, caused the word to be treated as a form of a-rabh, and that this "connotation" caused a change in "denotation". The occurrences ofarambha.na where it is at once a "basis" and a "starting-point for producing or initiating activities" should in my opinion not too exclusively be identified with a meaning "basis" but rather noted as stages to a final meaning of initiating, getting a hold on, etc., which certainly partly resulted from the existence of a closely resembling a-rabh, but only partly: unless the meanings were sufficiently close, mere formal resemblance would not necessarily affect semantic changes, as the existence of homonyms demonstrates. Kuiper's view and mine are not fundamentally at variance, but reflect at most a difference in degree of emphasis, discernible only in border-cases.]

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v.rk.sa.h which underlies as an adhi.st.hdna the worlds; and wood and tree are obviously the materials of which the creator took hold to fashion the world. As must have become clear, etymological exactitude was hardly a prime concern of these thinkers who in their dde~as or upani.sads summed up as many connections as the terms themselves could possibly provide in their sounds and their meanings. If one insists on a grammatically satisfying explanation of vdcd, Kuiper's suggestion of a vdcd f., in composito, may be considered; one may also think simply of an irregular sandhi of vdcas before d ~ vdca d ~ becoming vdcd ~ But the instrumental vdcd thus suggested could, though 'erroneous', undoubtedly be excellently accounted for as V~c's instrumentality in creation by these masters of the mystifying Word whose unsurpassed capacity of envisioning a whole and expressing it totally is singularly well illustrated by the great variety of meanings that later exegetes have discovered from our famous phrase.