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		<b><i>The Beautiful in the Upanishads</i> </b></p>
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WHEN the Rigveda says

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<i>idam srestham jyotisam jyotih agat<br>
citrah praketo ajanista vibhva</i>

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Lo! the supreme Light of lights is come, a varied<br>
awakening is born, wide manifest

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<i>rusadvasta rusati swetyagat</i>

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<i>araigu krisna sadananyasyah</i>

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The white Mother comes reddening with the ruddy
child; the dark Mother opens wide her chambers,

the feeling and the expression of the beautiful raise no
questioning; they are authentic as well as evident. All will
recognise at once that we have here beautiful things said in a
beautiful way. No less authentic however is the sense of the
beautiful that underlies these Upanishadic lines:

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<i>na tatra suryo bhati na candratarakam</i>

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<i>nema vidyuto bhanti kuto'yam<b> 
</b>agnih<b><br>
</b>tameva bhantam anubhati sarvam</i>

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<i>tasya bhasa sarvam idam vibhati</i>

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There the sun shines not, nor the moon, nor the stars; these lightnings too there shine not; how then this fire!
That shines and therefore all shine in its wake; by the
sheen of That, all this shines.

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Only, to some perhaps the beauty may not appear as
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evident and apparent. The Spirit of beauty that resides in the
Upanishadic consciousness is more retiring and reticent.<b> 
</b>It<b> 
</b>dwells in its own privacy, in its own home, as it were, and
therefore chooses to be bare and austere, simple and sheer.
Beauty means usually the beauty of form, even if it be not
always the decorative, ornamental and sumptuous form. The
early Vedas aimed at the perfect form <i>(surupakrtnum},</i> the
faultless expression, the integral and complete embodiment;&nbsp;
the gods they envisaged and invoked were gleaming powers
carved out of harmony and beauty and figured close to
our modes of apprehension <i>(supayanah).</i> But the Upanishads
came to lay stress upon what is beyond the form, what the
eye cannot see nor the vision reflect:

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<i>na sandrsi tisthati rupamasya</i>

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<i>na caksusa pasyati kascanainam</i>

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Its figure does not lie in the field of vision, none can see
it with the eye

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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The form of a thing can be beautiful; but the formless too
has its beauty. Indeed, the beauty of the formless, that is to
say, the very sum and substance, the ultimate essence, the
soul of beauty—that is what suffuses, with in-gathered colour
and enthusiasm, the realisation and poetic creation of the
Upanishadic seer. All the forms that are scattered abroad in
their myriad manifest beauty hold within themselves a secret
Beauty and are reflected or projected out of it. This veiled
Name of Beauty can be compared to nothing on the phenomenal hemisphere of Nature; it has no adequate image or
representation below:

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<i>na tasya pratima asti—</i>

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it cannot be defined or figured in the terms of the phenomenal
consciousness. In speaking of it, however, the Upanishads invariably and repeatedly refer to two attributes that characterise
its fundamental nature. These two aspects have made such an
impression upon the consciousness of the Upanishadic seer
that his enthusiasm almost wholly plays about them and is
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centred on them. When he contemplates or communes with
the Supreme Object, these seem to-him to be the mark of its
authenticity, the seal of its high status and the reason of all
the charm and magic it possesses. The first aspect or attribute
is that of light—the brilliance, the solar effulgence—<i>ravitulya-arupah—</i>the bright, clear, shadowless Light of lights—<i>virajam 
subhram jyotisam jyotih.</i> The second aspect is that of delight, the
bliss, the immortality inherent in that wide effulgence—<i>anandarupam amrtam yad vibhati.</i>

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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And what else is the true character, the soul of beauty than
light and delight? &quot;A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.&quot; And
a thing of joy is a thing of light. Joy is the radiance rippling-
over a thing of beauty. Beauty is always radiant: the charm, the
loveliness of an object is but the glow of light that it emanates.
And it would not be a very incorrect mensuration to measure
the degree of beauty by the degree of light radiated. The
diamond is not only a thing of value, but a thing of beauty
also, because of the concentrated and undimmed light that
it enshrines within itself. A dark, dull and dismal thing, devoid of interest 
and attraction becomes aesthetically precious and significant as soon as the artist presents it in terms
of the values of light. The entire art of painting is nothing but
the expression of beauty, in and through the modalities of
light.

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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And where there is light, there is cheer and joy. <i>Rasamaya
</i>and <i>jyotirmaya</i> are thus the two conjoint characteristics fundamental to the nature of the ultimate reality. Sometimes these
two are named as the solar and the lunar aspect. The solar
aspect refers obviously to the Light, that is to say, to the
Truth; the lunar aspect refers to the <i>rasa</i> (Soma), to Immortality, to Beauty proper,—

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<i>yatte susamam hrdayam adhi candramasi sritam<br>
tenamrtatvasyesena</i>

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0 Lord of Immortality! Thy heart<b> </b> of beauty that is
sheltered in the moon—

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or, as the Prasna Upanishad has it,

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<i>rayireva candramah.. .murtireva rayih</i>
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The Moon means Delight... and Delight means the created form.

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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The perception of beauty in the Upanishadic consciousness
is something elemental—of concentrated essence. It silhouettes
the main contour, outlines the primordial gestures. Pregnant
and pulsating with the burden of beauty, the <i>mantra</i> here
reduces its external expression to a minimum. The body is
bare and unadorned, and even in its nakedness, it has not the
emphatic and vehement musculature of an athlete; rather it
tends to be slim and slender and yet vibrant with the inner
nervous vigour and glow. What can be more bare and brief
and full to the brim of a self-gathered luminous energy than,
for example:

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<i>yat pranena na praniti yena pranah<br>
praniyate tadeva brahma—</i>

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That which lives not by Life, but which makes Life live—<br>
That is Brahman.

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or<b>,</b>    <i>&nbsp;&nbsp; nalpe sukhamasti bhumaiva sukham.. .yo vai</i>

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<i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; bhuma tadamrtam atha yadalpam tanmartyam—</i><p align=justify style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
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In the Little there lies no happiness, the Vast alone
is the Happiness. The Vast is the Immortality, the Little
is the Mortality.

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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The rich and sensuous beauty luxuriating in high colour
and ample decoration that one meets often in the creation of
the earlier Vedic seers returned again, in a more chiselled and
polished and stylised manner, in the classical poets. The
Upanishads in this respect have a certain kinship with the
early poets of the intervening age—Vyasa and Valmiki. <i>Upama Kdliddsasya—</i>Kalidasa revels in figures and images;
they are profusely heaped on one another and usually possess
a complex and composite texture. Valmiki's images are simple
and elemental, brief and instinct with a vast resonance, spar
and full of power. The same brevity and simplicity, vibrant

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with an extraordinary power of evocation, are also characteristic of the Upanishadic <i>mantra.</i> With Valmiki's

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<i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; akasamiva dusparam—</i><p align=justify style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<i><br>
</i>
like the sky<b> </b>hard to cross over,

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or<b>,</b>      <i>&nbsp;gatarcisamivanalam—</i>

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like a fire whose light of flame is<b> </b>      gone,<p align=justify style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<b><br>
</b>      or<b>,</b>      <i>&nbsp;tejasadityasamkasah ksamaya prthivisamah—</i>

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fiery as the burning sun, full of forbearance like the
earth,

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can be compared, in respect of vivid and graphic terseness and<br>
pointedness and suggestive reverberation, the Upanishadic

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<i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; vrksa iva stabdho divi tisthatyekah—</i>

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The One stands alone in the heaven motionless, like a<br>
tree against the sky,

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or<b>,</b>      <i>&nbsp;Saravat tanmayo bhavet—</i>

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Be wholly fixed on That, like an arrow on its target,

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or again, <i>&nbsp;yathema nadyah syandamanah samudrayanah—<br>
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like these rivers that flowing journey towards the sea.

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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Art at its highest tends to become also the simplest and the
most unconventional; and it is then the highest art, precisely
because it does not aim at being artistic. The aesthetic motive
is totally absent in the Upanishads; the sense of beauty is
there, but it is attendant upon and involved in a deeper
strand of consciousness. That consciousness seeks consciousness
itself, the fullness of consciousness, the awareness and possession
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of the Truth and Reality,—the one thing which, if known,
gives the knowledge of all else. And this consciousness of the
Truth is also Delight, the perfect Bliss, the Immortality where
the whole universe resolves itself into its original state of <i>rasa,
</i>that is to say, of essential and inalienable harmony and
beauty.
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