This is the oldest and latest Hindu explanation of the matter of the physical universe.  From the time of the Vedas to mediaeval times, as is recorded by the Greek travellers, water is regarded as the original element.]

     [Footnote 18:  The Gandh[=a]ra might indicate a late
     geographical expansion as well as an early heritage, so that
     this is not conclusive.]

[Footnote 19:  Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads, has sought to show that the pure Vedantism of Cankara is the only belief taught in the Upanishads, ignoring the weight of those passages that oppose his (in our view) too sweeping assertion.]

[Footnote 20:  See the Parimara described, [=A]it.  Br.  VIII. 28.  Here brahma is wind, around which die five divinities—­lightning in rain, rain in moon, moon in sun, sun in fire, fire in wind—­and they are reborn in reverse order.  The ‘dying’ is used as a curse.  The king shall say, ‘When fire dies in wind then may my foe die,’ and he will die; so when any of the other gods dies around brahma.]

     [Footnote 21:  Compare sterben, starve.]

     [Footnote 22:  The androgynous creator of the Br[=a]hmanas.]

[Footnote 23:  We cannot, however, quite agree with Whitney who, loc. cit. p. 92, and Journal, xiii, p. ciii ff., implies that belief in hell comes later than this period.  This is not so late a teaching.  Hell is Vedic and Brahmanic.]

[Footnote 24:  This, in pantheistic style, is expressed thus (Cvet. 4):  “When the light has arisen there is no day no night, neither being nor not-being; the Blessed One alone exists there.  There is no likeness of him whose name is Great Glory.”]

     [Footnote 25:  Brihad [=A]ranyaka Upanishad, 2.4; 4. 5.]

     [Footnote 26:  Na pretya sa[.m]jn[=a] ’sti.]

[Footnote 27:  Some of the Upanishads have been tampered with, so that all of the contradictions may not be due to the composers.  Nevertheless, as the uncertainty of opinion in regard to cosmogony is quite as great as that in respect of absorption, all the vagueness cannot properly be attributed to the efforts of later systematizers to bring the Upanishads into their more or less orthodox Vedantism.]

     [Footnote 28:  In 4. 10. 5 kam is pleasure, one with ether
     as brahma, not as wrongly above, p. 222, the god Ka.]

     [Footnote 29:  This Upanishad appears to be sectarian,
     perhaps an early Civaite tract (dualistic), if the allusion
     to Rudra Civa, below, be accepted as original.]