A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

BRHADARANYAKA UPANISAD

acts of voluntary sacrifice, “himself unto himself.” “Who sees Me, sees the Father”” may be compared to Maitri Up., V1, 4, and VII, 11, where the One Enlightener (eka sambodhayitr), the Single Tree (eka asvattha), is called an “ everlasting basis for the vision of Brahman.” From the standpoint of comparative religion, from His point of view who “ left not himself without a witness,” Acts, XIV, 17, and however distasteful this may be to individual persuasion, the Messiah is One Person.

That the equivalence of the Vedic and Christian Sons of God, of Horse and Lamb for example, is not even more apparent depends primarily on the diversity of scale in the imagery. The Indian embodiment of the only begotten Son is cosmic : human (paurvusya) only ideally as Eternal Man, the single mirror of all existences, not human (manisa) asaman amongst men. Whereas the Christian Son of God is presented historically precisely in the guise of aman amongst men, born of a woman amongst women, in the fashion of terrestrial avatavas, having given names, such as Rama or Gautama. The same applies to every case in which a religion seems to have been established by a single Founder; for example in Buddhism, where we are given to understand that the man Gautama, Siddhartha, became Comprehensor (Buddha) at a given time and place. These historical and local points of view are later on transcended: and when it has come to be understood that Christ’s birth is eternal, that the enlightenment of the Tathagata ‘‘ dates from the beginning of time,” then it becomes not merely evident, but can be accepted without anguish, that all alternative-formulations (pavyaya) are utterances of one and the same Word or Wisdom.

These considerations are of paramount importance for a correct comparative theology. For on the one hand the Year, Brahma-Prajapati, is no more and no less a “ demiurge’’ than is Christ-Logos “who causes the whole emanation ” and “ effects all things,’ Eckhart, I, 130 and

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