Criticism of Upanishads

Template:Wikify-date The philosophy of the Upanishads can be stated in very few words, well summarized by Thomas Huxley when he says that the Upanishad philosophy agreed:— "In supposing the existence of a permanent reality, or `substance', beneath the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind. The substance of the cosmos was `Brahma’ that of the individual man `Atman'; and the latter was separated from the former only, if I may so speak, by its phenomenal envelope, by the casing of sensations, thoughts and desires, pleasures and pains, which make up the illusive phantasmagoria of life. This the ignorant, take for reality; their `Atman' therefore remains eternally imprisoned in delusions, bound by the fetters of desire and scourged by the whip of misery.” (Evolution and Ethics, Page 63)

Huxley questioned the very use of such philosophy. According to him, the philosophy of the Upanishads meant withdrawal from the struggle for existence by resort to asceticism and a destruction of desire by self-mortification. As a way of life it was condemned by Huxley in scathing terms :—

"No more thorough mortification of the flesh has ever been attempted than that achieved by the Indian ascetic anchorite; no later monarchism has so nearly succeeded in reducing the human mind to that condition of impassive quasi-somnambulism, which, but for its acknowledged holiness, might run the risk of being confounded with idiocy." (Evolution and Ethics, Page 64)

But the condemnation of the philosophy of the Upanishads is nothing as compared to the denunciation of the same by Lala Hardayal himself a great proponent of Hindu nationalism. In his own words

"The Upanishads claim to expound `that, by knowing which everything is known '. This quest for ' the absolute ' is the basis of all the spurious metaphysics of India. The treatises are full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations. And we have not learned that they are worthless. We keep moving in the old rut; we edit and re-edit the old books instead of translating the classics of European social thought. What could Europe be if Frederic Harrison, Brieux, Bebel, Anatole France, Herve, Haekel, Giddings, and Marshall should employ their time in composing treatises on Duns, Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and discussing the merits of the laws of the Pentateuch and the poetry of Beowulf? Indian pundits and graduates seem to suffer from a kind of mania for what is effete and antiquated. Thus an institution, established by progressive men, aims at leading our youths through Sanskrit grammar to the Vadasvia the Six Darshanas! What a false move in the quest for wisdom! It is as if a caravan should travel across the desert to the shores of the Dead Sea in search of fresh water! Young men of India, look not for wisdom in the musty parchments of your metaphysical treatises. There is nothing but an endless round of verbal jugglary there. Read Rousseau and Voltaire, Plato and Aristotle, Haeckel and Spencer, Marx and Tolstoi, Ruskin and Comte, and other European thinkers, if you wish to understand life and its problems." (Modern View, July 1912),

These denunciations apart, Dr B. R. Ambedkar questioned whether the Upanishad philosophy had any influence on Hinduism as a social and political system? As per his analysis in “Philosophy of Hinduism”, he leaves no doubt that the Philosophy of Upanishads.. “turned out to be most ineffective and inconsequential piece of speculation with no effect on the moral and social order of the Hindus.” Among the many reasons why the philosophy of Upanishads became ineffective the most prominent one is that “The philosophers of Upanishads did not realise that to know truth was not enough. One must learn to love truth. The difference between philosophy and religion may be put in two ways……Philosophy is static because it is concerned only with knowing truth. Religion is dynamic because it is concerned with love of truth. To support this analysis, He quotes Max Plowman (The Nemisis of Ineffectual religion, Adelphi, January 1941)

". . . .Unless religion is dynamic and begets in us the emotion of love for something, then it is better to be without any thing that we can call religion; for religion is perception of truth and if our perception of truth is not accompanied by our love for it then it were better not seen at all; The Devil himself is one who has seen the truth only to hate it."

He says as per Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson "We must love the highest when we see it". It does not follow. Seen in pure objectivity the highest repels by its difference and distance; what we fear it, and what we fear we come to hate. . . . ."

This is the fate of all transcendental philosophies, says Dr. Ambedkar. They have no influence on the way of life. William Blake confirms "Religion is politics and politics is Brotherhood. Philosophy must become Religion that is it must become a Working Ethic. It must not remain mere metaphysics." Dr. Ambedkar further used Max Plowman theory that

"If religion were a Metaphysic and nothing else, one thing is certain, it would never be the concern of the simple and humble men. To keep it wholly in the realm of Metaphysic is to make non-sense of it. For belief in religion as in something not directly and vitally effective of politics is ultimately belief that is strictly speaking idiotic; because in the effective sense such a belief makes no difference, and in the world of time and space what 'makes no difference' does not exist."

Dr. Ambedkar based his arguments on the works of these renowned philosophers and concluded that these were very reasons that the philosophy of the Upanishads proved so ineffective. He says “….They were ineffective and powerless to erase the infamy preached by Manu (Manu Smriti) in the name of religion…”