ce to place with great eagerness
in search of a teacher competent to instruct them about the nature
of Brahman. Where is Brahman? What is his nature?

We have noticed that during the closing period of the Sa@mhita
there were people who had risen to the conception of a single
creator and controller of the universe, variously called Prajapati,
Vis'vakarman, Puru@sa, Brahma@naspati and Brahman. But this
divine controller was yet only a deity. The search as to the
nature of this deity began in the Upani@sads. Many visible objects
of nature such as the sun or the wind on one hand and the various
psychological functions in man were tried, but none could render
satisfaction to the great ideal that had been aroused. The sages
in the Upani@sad had already started with the idea that there was
a supreme controller or essence presiding over man and the
universe. But what was its nature? Could it be identified with
any of the deities of Nature, was it a new deity or was it no deity
at all? The Upani@sads present to us the history of this quest and
the results that were achieved.

When we look merely to this quest we find that we have not
yet gone out of the Ara@nyaka ideas and of symbolic (_pratika_)
forms of worship. _Pra@na_ (vital breath) was regarded as the most
essential function for the life of man, and many anecdotes are
related to show that it is superior to the other organs, such as the
eye or ear, and that on it all other functions depend. This
recognition of the superiority of pra@na brings us to the meditations
on pra@na as Brahman as leading to the most beneficial results.
So also we find that owing to the presence of the exalting
characters of omnipresence and eternality _akas'a_ (space) is
meditated upon as Brahman. So also manas and Aditya (sun)
are meditated upon as Brahman. Again side by side with the
visible material representation of Brahman as the pervading Vayu,
or the sun and the immaterial representation as akas'a, manas or
pra@na, we find also the various kinds of meditations as substitutes
for actual sacrifice. Thus it is that there was an earnest quest
after the discovery of Brahman. We find a stratum of thought

44

which shows that the sages were still blinded by the old ritualistic
associations, and though meditation had taken the place of sacrifice
yet this was hardly adequate for the highest attainment of
Brahman.

Next to the failure of the meditations we have to notice the
history of the se