<原報>ウパニシャッドの根本特徴 : ウパニシャッド研究序説

概要

論文の詳細を見る
It has long been held in the academic circles that upanisad comes from upa-ni-sad, "sitting down near". Radhakrishnan, one of the most distinguished philosophers of present-day India, says : upanisad gradually came to mean what we receive from teacher a sort of secret doctrine or rahasyam (Cf. Indian Philosophy, Vol. I., pp. 137-138). This is the most prevailing theory of upanisad at present, and most scholars at home and abroad follow that theory without any criticism. In defiance of such a predominant interpretation, I do not shrink from asserting that upanisad has nothing to do with the secret doctrine whatsoever. I am of opinion that the fundamental thought of upanisad would have been open to the public at that time. Upanisad has been, I believe, based on public debates and mutual criticism. If we examine in detail the extant oldest documents such as Brhadaranyaka-Upanisad and Chandogya-Upanisad, we shall be able to confirm that the profoundest ideas of upanisad were, as it were, exposed to the glaring daylight of reason. It has to be kept in mind that the newly rising idea of brahman or atman peculiar to upanisad had been searched for in public by means of forum of the intellectual atmosphere. Even in dialogues between teacher and pupil, husband and wife or father and son, there is no evidence of concealing the truth from its seekers. There is every reason to believe that the spirit of free discussion or thoroughgoing tournament is the underlying tone of such dialogues. The second features of upanisad will be the knowledge (jnana, vijnana, or vidya), which plays all-important role there. But, I did not discuss this problem in this place, because I had dealt with it elsewhere. The third features of upanisad will be the religious vein running through the whole upanisads. In short, the ideal of upanisad is to be found in the dissolution of fear and anxiety (abhaya) in virtue of knowledge. Bhaya is based on the sufferings from hunger, thirst, affliction, sorrow, delusion, old age or death, etc. Escape from such psychophysical pains is the moksa (freedom) in terms of Indian philosophy. The sages of upanisads looked out for no positive goods in the form of paradise in heaven or happy life here on earth. In ancient India, the goal of the sages, no doubt, consisted in dissolving the anxiety and fear of individual beings and removing sufferings in mundane life. To sum up, what I have tried to set forth in this small paper was only these two : in the first place, with regard to upanisads, the knowledge was open to all who seek to obtain the highest wisdom of life, in so far as they were competent enough; secondly, everyone was able to dissolve the anxiety and fear of life with the necessary help of true Self within ourselves (atman).
1973-12-25

<原報>ウパニシャッドの根本特徴 : ウパニシャッド研究序説

スポンサーリンク

概要

論文 | ランダム

スポンサーリンク