As to Bauddha doctrines, including the very name of Nirvâna (p. xlvi, 1. 19), we must remember, as I have often remarked, that there were Bauddhas before Buddha. Brihaspati, who is frequently quoted in later philosophical writings as the author of an heretical philosophy, denying the authority of the Vedas, is mentioned by name in our Upanishad (VII, 9), but we are told that this Brihaspati, having become Sukra, promulgated his erroneous doctrines in order to mislead the Asuras, and thus to insure the safety of Indra, i.e. of the old faith.
The fact that the teacher of King Brihadratha in our Upanishad is called Sâkâyanya, can never be used in support of the idea that, being a descendant of Sâka[1], he must have been, like Sâkyamuni, a teacher of Buddhist doctrines. He is the very opposite in our Upanishad, and warns his hearers against such doctrines as we should identify with the doctrines of Buddha. As I have pointed out on several occasions, the breaking through the law of the Âsramas is the chief complaint which orthodox Brahmans make against Buddhists and their predecessors, and this is what Sâkâyanya condemns. A Brâhman may become a Sannyâsin, which is much the same as a Buddhist Bhikshu, if he has first passed through the three stages of a student, a householder, and a Vânaprastha. But to become a Bhikshu without that previous discipline, was heresy in the eyes of the Brâhmans, and it was exactly that heresy which the Bauddhas preached and practised. That this social laxity was gaining ground at the time when our Upanishad was written is clear (see VII, 8). We hear of people who wear red dresses (like the Buddhists) without having a right to them; we even hear of books, different from the Vedas, against which the true Brâhmans are warned. All this points to times when what we call Buddhism was in the air, say the sixth century b.c., the very time to which I have always assigned the origin of the genuine and classical Upanishads.
The Upanishads are to my mind the germs of Buddhism,
- ↑ Sâkâyanya means a grandson or further descendant of Sâka; see Ganaratnâvalî (Baroda, 1874), p. 57n.
