z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 04.indd MK SJ YS 23 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 155
APPENDIX II 155
whom he chooses. The soul chooses that man’s body as his own abode”.
“Although this soul is difficult to know, still it may easily be known by the use of proper means. This is what (the author) proceeds to say. This soul is not to be attained, known by instruction, by the acknowledgement of many Vedas; nor by understanding, by the power of recollecting the contents of books; nor by much scripture alone. By what, then, is it to be attained? This he declares”.
How great was the repugnance to the Upanishads and the philosophy contained in them will be realized if one takes note of the origin of the words Anuloma and Pratiloma which are usually applied to the marriage tie among the Hindus. Speaking of their origin Mr. Kane points out that [1] :
“These two words Anuloma and Pratiloma (as applied to marriage or progeny) hardly ever occur in the Vedic literature. In the Br. Up. (II. 1.15) and Kausitaki Br. Up. IV. 18 the word ‘Pratiloma’ is applied to the procedure adopted by a Brahmana of going to a Kshatriya for knowledge about “Brahman”.
Anuloma means according to the heir that is in the natural order of things. Pratiloma means against the heir that is contrary to the natural order. Reading the observations of Mr. Kane in the light of the definition of the word Pratiloma it is obvious that the Upanishads far from being acknowledged as part of the Vedic literature were if not despised, held in low esteem by the Vedic Brahmins. It is a riddle to find that the Brahmins who were opponents of the Vedanta should become subsequently the supporters and upholders of the Vedanta.
II
This is one riddle of the Vedanta. There is another. The Vedantists were not the only opponents of the Vedas and its doctrine of ritualism as a means of salvations. Madhava Acharya the author of the Sarva Darshana Sangraha mentions two other opponents of the Vaidikas, Charvaka and Brahaspati. Their attack on the Vaidikas was quite formidable in its logic and its …..
The opposition of Charvaka can be seen from the following quotation which reproduces his line of argument against the Vaidikas [2] :
“If you object that, if there be no such thing as happiness in a future world, then how should men of experienced wisdom engage
1 History of Dharmasastra Vol. II. Part I p. 52.
2 Sarva Darshan Sangraha (Translated by Cowell) p. 64.