the task of collecting and arranging was taken in hand, older and newer pieces were combined into wholes, and thus there arose collections of such heterogeneous character as the Chandogya and B/ri/hadara/n/yaka Upanishads.  On later generations, to which the whole body of texts came down as revealed truth, there consequently devolved the inevitable task of establishing systems on which no exception could be taken to any of the texts; but that the task was, strictly speaking, an impossible one, i.e. one which it was impossible to accomplish fairly and honestly, there really is no reason to deny.

For a comprehensive criticism of the methods which the different commentators employ in systematizing the contents of the Upanishads there is no room in this place.  In order, however, to illustrate what is meant by the ‘impossibility,’ above alluded to, of combining the various doctrines of the Upanishads into a whole without doing violence to a certain number of texts, it will be as well to analyse in detail some few at least of Sa@nkara’s interpretations, and to render clear the considerations by which he is guided.

We begin with a case which has already engaged our attention when discussing the meaning of the Sutras, viz. the question concerning the ultimate fate of those who have attained the knowledge of Brahman.  As we have seen, Sa@nkara teaches that the soul of him who has risen to an insight into the nature of the higher Brahman does not, at the moment of death, pass out of the body, but is directly merged in Brahman by a process from which all departing and moving, in fact all considerations of space, are altogether excluded.  The soul of him, on the other hand, who has not risen above the knowledge of the lower qualified Brahman departs from the body by means of the artery called sushum/n/a, and following the so-called devayana, the path of the gods, mounts up to the world of Brahman.  A review of the chief Upanishad texts on which Sa@nkara founds this distinction will show how far it is justified.

In a considerable number of passages the Upanishads contrast the fate of two classes of men, viz. of those who perform sacrifices and meritorious works only, and of those who in addition possess a certain kind of knowledge.  Men of the former kind ascend after death to the moon, where they live for a certain time, and then return to the earth into new forms of embodiment; persons of the latter kind proceed on the path of the gods—­on which the sun forms one stage—­up to the world of Brahman, from which there is no return.  The chief passages to that effect are Ch.  Up.  V, 10; Kaush.  Up.  I, 2 ff.; Mu/nd/.  Up.  I, 2, 9 ff.; B/ri/.  Up.  VI, 2, 15 ff.; Pra/s/na Up.  I, 9 ff.—­In other passages only the latter of the two paths is referred to, cp.  Ch.  Up.  IV, 15; VIII 6, 5; Taitt.  Up.  I, 6; B/ri/.  Up.  IV, 4, 8, 9; V, 10; Maitr.  Up.  VI, 30, to mention only the more important ones.