Its system of practical Religion, calculated to secure the Highest End and Bliss, was also progressive, commencing from the simplest rituals in the adoration of God to the highest Yoga, adapted to the means and capacity of the lowest and the highest of human beings. Readers of Svami Vivekananda's lectures would have noted how these four paths are essential to any system of thought or religion which claims to be universal; and it is the peculiar boast of the Agma or Tantra that it was the first to systematise this fourfold teaching. And it is in modern Saivism and in the Siddhanta Philosophy, this fourfold aspect of Religion and Philosophy is wholly and fully preserved. Saivism is a ritual marga, a bhakti marga, a yoga marga, a jnana marga. And need we wonder that the Siddhanta Philosophy of to-day is as much a puzzle to outsiders, as the Philosophy of our Upanishat and the Gita? The Siddhanti's definition of Advaita as 'neither one nor two nor neither' will bring out the puzzle more prominently. It is a System of dualism, it is also a system of non-dualism, but it differs from the other schools of dualism and nondualism.

What was upheld in the Siddhanta as mere paths or marga, or Sadhana or means to reach the Highest End, had come to be each and individually mistaken for the End itself; what was upheld as the mere symbol of the Highest Truth had come to be mistaken for the Truth itself. What was declared as unprovable, indescribable, unknowable and unenjoyable as long as man was in the condition of bondage was held by these sectaries as proved and seen. What was the purest and most transcendent monotheism degenerated into a most crude anthropomorphism and blatant pantheism.

Saivism is not anthropomorphic, but symbolic. How can it be otherwise, when it draws such minute distinction between God and Soul and Matter? And a system of symbolism is quite consistent with the Highest Transcendental Religion and Philosophy; in fact, all our real knowledge is more truly symbolic than otherwise. In the view of the Siddhanti, the Upanishats, though they deal with all the four paths, are especially the text books of the Yogapada or Sahamarga, where certain Bhavanas or Vidyas calculated to create and bring about the Highest Nirvana and Union, and Freedom from Pasa, are more fully explained and illustrated.

The above cursory view of the past history of the Indian philosophy will clear the ground a good deal for the proper understanding of our particular Upanishat in question.

We may therefore state that the Svetasvatara Upanishat is a genuine Upanishat of the Black Yajur Veda, and is one of the oldest of its kind. It is not a sectarian Upanishat. It more properly belongs to the Yoga Pada stage of teaching, though the other Padas are also briefly touched and alluded to. It expounds both a theoretic philosophy and a practical religion, all-comprehensive and all-embracing; a system which was at once Sankhya and Yoga, dualistic and monistic, and appealing to all classes of society.

It lays down the distinction of three padarthas or categories in clear terms. And these are, God, the many souls, and matter or Pasa.

"Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruits, the other looks on without eating" (iv. 6) which is explained in less figurative language in the next mantra.

"On the same tree, man (Anisa) sits grieving, immersed, bewildered, by his own impotence. But when he sees the other, Isa, contented, and knows His glory, then his grief passes away."

That this is the Highest teaching of the Rig Veda is pointed out in the next verse.

"He who does not know that indestructible Being (Akshara,) of the Rig Veda, that Highest Ether (Parama .Vyomam) wherein all the Gods reside, of what use is the Rig Veda'to him? Those only who know It rest contented."

And need it be pointed out that the 6th verse is itself found in the Rig.Veda (1, 164-20) and it is repeated in the Atharva Veda and the passage is so popular a one that Katha (iii. 1) and Mundaka (iii. II also quote it.

These verses bring out the distinction of God and soul, Isa and AniSa, as the spectator and enjoyer respectively. The soul enjoys and performs karma while encased in the body, tree; but though God is immanent in the soul and in the body, yet the works and their fruit do not cling to Him and taint Him. After the due eating of the fruits, the soul knows the greatness of God, and his own insignificance, then his sufferings cease.

The previous mantra (iv. 5) is also a famous 'and much debated passage, and it is badly translated by Prof. Max Muller. The translation by G. R. S. Mead and Chattopadhyaya is literal and correct. "Aye, that one unborn (Aja-soul) sleeps in the arms of one unborn (nature. Pradhana), enjoying (her of nature, red, white, and black), who brings forth multitudinous progeny like herself. But when her charms have been enjoyed, he (soul) quits her (prakriti) side, the unborn other, Anyata (Lord)."*

There is absolutely no mistaking this plain statement of the three Padartas as eternal, as well as their relation; and all three are called Unborn, Aja or uncreated. But the word to be noted here is the word 'other' 'Anya' which is almost a technical term or catch word to mean God, the Supreme. And it occurs again in (V. 1).

"In the imperishable, and infinite highest Brahman, wherein the two, Vidya (Vijnana-Atma) and Avidya are hidden, the one, Avidya, perishes; the other, Vidya, is immortal: but He who controls both Vidya and Avidya, is another (Anyatha)." And in the subsequent verses, this another is clearly pointed to be the only One God, without a a second, the ruler of all, the generator of all, and the supporter (ripener) of all. This forms the subject of discussion in the hands of Badarayana in I, ii, 21. And the famous passage in Brihadaranyaka is referred to. "He who dwells in Atma (Vjnana) and different from Atma, whom the Atma does not know, whose body Atma is, and who pulls (rules) Atma within, He is thy Atma, the puller within, the immortal" (iii, 7, 22).