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There was creation. Let us take it for granted. Therefore, there must be a Creator. How
can there be creation without a Creator? The Creator was the Absolute Being. This is
what I posit as the Ultimate Reality. And what would be the process of creation and the
cause for creation? The intention of the Creator is the cause of creation. The will of the
The Chhandogya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda
49
artist is the cause of the manufacture of the effect or the product in the form of
sculpture, architectural piece, painting, etc. The intention, the will, the original
meditation or tapas, as sometimes it is called, of the Supreme Being is the cause of
creation. It willed.
3. Tad aiksata, bahu syam prajayeyeti, tat tejo srjata: tat tejo aiksata,
bahu syam prajayeyeti, tad aposrjata, tasmad yatra kva ca socati
svedate va purusah tejasa eva tad adhy apo jayante.
 May I see the drama of my own manifestation. This is the Will, and it alienated itself
into an effect, like the pot being created out of clay. So, an interesting assumption is
already made that the effect is not really substantially different from the cause. Just as
pot is not different from clay essentially, the effect in the form of this creation and every
stage in the process of creation is not different in essence from the cause which is pure
Being. And according to the doctrine of this particular teaching in the Chhandogya
Upanishad, the original creation, the first creation, was of agni (fire) tat teja aiksata
and at every stage of the argument Uddalaka refers to this effect as God or deity, devata.
They are not material objects. The fire or the water or the earth that we will be speaking
of are not material things. Devata is the word used to designate these items. They are, in
essence, identical with the Supreme Being Himself. So how can you not identify their
importance with the importance of the Supreme Being Himself? Teja aiksata: There is a
chain action taking place in creation. The Supreme Being, whom you may tentatively
call A, willed,  May I become B. Now, the original will of A charged into the being of B
has a tremendous effect upon B. The creative will of A works through B. It again willed,
 May I become C. C willed,  May I become D. So there is a downward descent into
greater and greater forms of particularisation and diversification until the largest
considerable diversity in the form of this world is here before us. The Supreme Being or
Sat, the pure Being willed,  May I be another. It then became the Fire Principle
operating universally everywhere. That, in turn willed, and It became the Water
Principle operating everywhere, tat teja aiksata, bahu syam prajayeyeti, tad
apo srjata. The waters congealed into solid objects and became the Earth Principle, not
necessarily this little globe of the earth but anything that is of earth anywhere or
anything physical in its nature. Tasmad yatra kva ca socati svedate va purusah tejasa
eva tad adhy apo jayante.  Whenever there is heat felt in the body there is an
expression of liquidity like perspiration, says the Upanishad. Heat in the form of fever
or for any other reason whatsoever is seen to produce an effect in the form of water
oozing out. The example given here is, that when you are grieved or when you are
perspiring, you feel that the heat generated within yourself either due to sorrow or due
to fatigue becomes the cause of the water of perspiration. By this, the connection
between fire and water is explained. From water comes earth.
4. Ta apa aikaanta, bahvyah syama, prajayemahiti, ta annam,, asrjanta,
tasmad yatra kva ca varsati, tad eva bhuyistham annam bhavati,
adbhya eva tad adhy annadyam jayate.
Water produced food anna. In the language of the Upanishad, food means matter.
Anything physical or material is called food. Ultimately, anything that is external to
consciousness is food. An object of thought is food. That is food which comes out of the
condensation of the water principle. Now, these elements mentioned here, fire, water
The Chhandogya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda
50
and earth, are what are usually called the subtle elements. They are the pure principles
of creation. Later on they get mixed in certain proportions for the manifestation of
grosser elements, namely, the fire and the water and the earth that we see with our eyes.
So, what the Upanishad speaks of here as fire, water and earth are not the physical fire,
water and earth that we see. They are the super-physical elements called tanmatras.
These tanmatras are mixed or blended in certain proportions. For the purpose of the
expression of the physical fire, three elements have to be joined in a certain proportion.
This is called trivritkarana in Sanskrit. Trivritkarana is the threefold mixing of the
original principles, tanmatras, namely, fire, water and earth, in such a way that a
particular element contains half of itself and one-fourth of the other two. So you have
got in every element an element of every other element also. Pure elements are never
available in this world. They are all a mixture of the original three. This is called
trivritkarana triplication the mixing of three attributes, three substances, in certain
proportions. When there is water in plenty, there is food also in plenty. This is what the
Upanishad tells us in this connection. Tasmad yatra kva ca varsati, tad eva
bhuyistham annam, bhavati, abdhya eva tad adhy annadyam jayate: Everything is
produced out of these elements. All the variety in this world, whatever be the number
and the quality of the variety in this world, all this is an expression of these three
elements, just as we are told that every colour is but a mixture in some proportion by
permutation and combination of the three essential colours. There are only three
colours, only three substances, ultimately. Everything else is constituted in some way or
the other in some proportion of these three elements alone. Every form of creation is a
manifestation thereof. What are these creations? Let us see. Apart from the triplicated
gross elements, fire, water and earth, which we may call inorganic existence in our
language, there are organic bodies also.
SECTION 3
THREEFOLD DEVELOPMENT
1. Tesam khalv esam bhutanam triny eva bijani bhavanti, andajam,
jivajam, udbhijjam iti.
The organic bodies also have originated on account of the mixture of these three
elements only. There are various types of organisms. Those which sprout up from the
earth, like the plant, the tree, the vegetables, etc., are called udbhijja. That is one kind of
organic creation the vegetable kingdom. There are other beings that come out bursting
through the egg, not like plants coming from the earth, but egg-born beings. This is
another type of organic beings; they are called andaja. There are others that come out of
the womb of the mother; they are called jivaja or jarayuja. There is a fourth type which
is called svedaja, coming out of dirt, dust, sweat, etc. All these varieties of organic [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]