The Buddha's familiarity with upanisadic ideas

[Peter M. Scharf]

Dear Mathew,
Exactly what passage in Chandogya 8 contains a usage of the verb upa- 
labh?  I don't see it on a quick read nor do I find it in the TITUS  
word list.  I don't see any evidence Buddhist precursors to the ideas  
there either.  The asat of RV 10.129.1 as described by Alfred collins  
certainly implies the idea of anupalabdhi.
Peter

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On Dec 12, 2006, at 5:39 AM, mkapstei at UCHICAGO.EDU wrote:

> The passage from the Chaandogya that concerns me is
> book 8, not book 6. Here, the question
> is specifically the perception of the
> self (aatman). Now, the verb used here
> is upa-labh, and the problem that is raised
> concerns the non-apprehension, anupalabdhi, of the
> self. Though, as is well known, anupalabdhi becomes
> a widely ramified problem in later Indian philosophy,
> so far as I can determine, the use of upa-labh we
> find here is unknown throughout the Vedic corpus, including
> the Braahma.nas and Upani.sads, with the sole exception
> of this passage. The problem of whether the self
> can or cannot be the object of upa-labh is, however,
> found throughout early Buddhist literature. Given that
> Chaandogya 8 is at pains to refute a view that
> looks much like a simplified version of
> Buddhist anaatmavaada, my assumption is that this
> book of the Upani.sad is in fact a response to
> Buddhism. This, at least, seems a far more compelling
> explanation than it is to posit that early Buddhism,
> with its problematic of aatmaanupalabdhi, was inspired
> by an Upani.sadic passage that, if it is not responding
> to Buddhism, seems altogether anomalous.
>
> Matthew Kapstein
> Chicago and Paris
> Matthew T. Kapstein
> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies
> The University of Chicago Divinity School
>
> Directeur d'études
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris