Uddalaka Aruni
All things are transformations of one underlying Being, and your own self is that Being – as salt dissolved in water is everywhere in it.
Placement
Vedic teacher of the Chandogya Upanishad: all things are transformations of one Being (sat), and the self of each is that Being – “you are that”.
Key ideas
- Sat (Being) as the origin of all
- Tat tvam asi
- Teaching by observation and analogy
Students: Yajnavalkya
Influence
Influenced 2
Yajnavalkya taught
taught later tradition ✓
Known only from the Upanishadic tradition: a lineage of teachers in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (6.3.7) makes Yajnavalkya Uddalaka’s pupil, while in 3.7 the two meet as rivals in debate; outside these texts nothing is known of either. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 6.3.7, 3.7, tr. P. Olivelle, Upaniṣads, 1996
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Yajnavalkya › traditionally c. 800–720 BCE
Arthur Schopenhauer
influenced
Schopenhauer made Uddalaka’s ‘tat tvam asi’ (that art thou) from the Chandogya Upanishad, read in the Oupnek’hat, the formula of his ethics of compassion (1819, 1840). A. Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1819); Über die Grundlage der Moral (1840); U. App, Schopenhauer’s Compass (2014)
Evidence: AI draft
Arthur Schopenhauer › 1788–1860
Works
- c. 650 BCEChandogya Upanishad
In its sixth chapter Uddalaka teaches his son Shvetaketu that all things are forms of one Being – like salt dissolved in water: “you are that”.
Position
In the sixth chapter of the Chandogya Upanishad Uddalaka instructs his son: in the beginning there was Being (sat) alone, one without a second – not non-being, for how could being arise from non-being? Being brought forth heat, water and food, and from their mixture came all things, just as all clay pots are only clay. He teaches through observation: salt dissolved in water cannot be seen yet is tasted everywhere; the tiny seed of a banyan holds the whole tree. Each lesson ends with “tat tvam asi” – “you are that”, whose exact sense scholars debate. Shankara later made it a “great saying” of Advaita.
Life & context
Uddalaka Aruni is known only from late Vedic texts – the Shatapatha Brahmana and the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads – which portray him as a renowned Brahmin teacher, father of Shvetaketu and, in one lineage, teacher of Yajnavalkya. He probably lived in northern India in the 8th or 7th century BCE, but his dates are uncertain, and whether the teachings put in his mouth record a historical person is unknown.
Further main works
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (appears as debater and teacher; c. 7th–6th century BCE)
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