iscard when deeper and more
advanced speculations began in their turn to be embodied in literary
compositions, which in the course of time likewise came to be looked
upon as sacred. When the creative period had reached its termination,
and the task of collecting and arranging was taken in hand, older and
newer pieces were combined into wholes, and thus there arose collections
of such heterogeneous character as the Chandogya and B/ri/hadara/n/yaka
Upanishads. On later generations, to which the whole body of texts came
down as revealed truth, there consequently devolved the inevitable task
of establishing systems on which no exception could be taken to any of
the texts; but that the task was, strictly speaking, an impossible one,
i.e. one which it was impossible to accomplish fairly and honestly,
there really is no reason to deny.

For a comprehensive criticism of the methods which the different
commentators employ in systematizing the contents of the Upanishads
there is no room in this place. In order, however, to illustrate what is
meant by the 'impossibility,' above alluded to, of combining the various
doctrines of the Upanishads into a whole without doing violence to a
certain number of texts, it will be as well to analyse in detail some
few at least of /S/a@nkara's interpretations, and to render clear the
considerations by which he is guided.

We begin with a case which has already engaged our attention when
discussing the meaning of the Sutras, viz. the question concerning the
ultimate fate of those who have attained the knowledge of Brahman. As we
have seen, /S/a@nkara teaches that the soul of him who has risen to an
insight into the nature of the higher Brahman does not, at the moment of
death, pass out of the body, but is directly merged in Brahman by a
process from which all departing and moving, in fact all considerations
of space, are altogether excluded. The soul of him, on the other hand,
who has not risen above the knowledge of the lower qualified Brahman
departs from the body by means of the artery called sushum/n/a, and
following the so-called devayana, the path of the gods, mounts up to the
world of Brahman. A review of the chief Upanishad texts on which
/S/a@nkara founds this distinction will show how far it is justified.

In a considerable number of passages the Upanishads contrast the fate of
two classes of men, viz. of those who perform sacrifices and meritorious
works only, and of those who in add