CHANDOGYA UPANISHAD

The Chandogya Upanishad provided one of the earliest descriptions of the return of the soul after death in the story of King Pravahana Jaivali’s instruction to a great sage, Uddalaka Aruni. This instruction was known as the doctrine of the five fires.

The king explained that the world of the heavens was the first fire. The rain from the sky was the second fire, the earth the third, the male the fourth, and the female was the fifth fire. Two paths lay before the soul after the death of the person on earth. The first path took the soul to the gods and their abodes. This northern path of the gods (devayana) was for those who sought the wisdom of Being, said King Pravahana.

For those who gave alms, a second path led them to the heavenly regions of their ancestors (pitryana), eventually returning them to earth as rain, where some of them are born again as grains, shrubs and herbs to be eaten by living beings. The form the souls took on earth depended on their previous conduct: good works meant they were born again in good families; evil conduct meant being born again as animals. A third path existed for people who neither sought wisdom nor gave alms, where the soul revolved endlessly in small creatures that were born and died quickly on earth. Thus, the world became full of creatures.

The doctrine of the five fires is interestingly similar to Heraclitus’s argument that the “being” of beings is ultimately an eternal change that is like “fire.” The doctrine’s process of differentiation based on earlier conduct also recalls Deleuze’s eternal differentiating process for creating a multiplicity of beings.

Uddalaka Aruni (8th century BCE) was the chief philosopher of the Chandogya Upanishad. In a famous dialogue with his newly educated son, Uddalaka asks about Being: “Svetaketu, since you seem very arrogant about your learning, did you ask for that teaching by which the unknowable is knowable, the unperceivable is perceived, and the unhearable is heard?”

At Svetaketu’s astonishment over such learning, Uddalaka replied that first there was only Being, “until it thought may I become many and grow.” Being sent forth fire, which wanted to become many and grow, then water, then food. “Being then thought, let me enter into these three divinities of fire, water and earth and let names and forms be developed. Whatever is red is the form of fire or heat, whatever is white is the form of water, and whatever is dark is the form of the earth.” By combining these three primary forms of red, white and dark, all the other forms in the world were produced.

Uddalaka’s main argument was that Being that is Self is the essence of everything in the world, which is a multiplicity of names and forms. He told Svetaketu, “You are That.” To illustrate, he described the giant banyan (nyagrodha) tree growing from a seed containing an essence invisible to the naked eye. Similarly, when salt is mixed in water, it becomes an invisible essence that makes all the water taste salty. In the same way, the Self that is Being is the essence of the world.

Uddalaka’s simple three-word teaching of “You are That” (tat tvam asi) was the great saying of the Sama Veda to which the Chandogya Upanishad belongs, along with three other great sayings of Rig, Yajur and Atharva Vedas. Together, they encapsulated three propositions central to all the Upanishads:

1. The Self (Atman) is the essence of all living beings.

2. Being (Brahman) is the foundational principle of the universe.

3. The Self and Being are the same.

While Self and Being are gender neutral, almost all the key players of the Upanishads were male. For a view of Being that emphasizes the feminine aspect, we need to turn to the Shakti tradition with roots in the Mother Goddess practices of ordinary people in ancient India.