In The Cradle of the Upanishads (An Old and Rare Book)

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I am very glad in having been called upon to introduce the book, IN THE CRADLE OF THE UPANISHADS, an essay written by Sri P. Kunhikannan Master, expounding the basic ingredients of the Upanishadic Philosophy, such as Brahman, Jeeva, Jagat and Moksha.

Time, with its maddening onrush, sweeping away eras and ages behind it. stands in adoring stillness before the Upanishads. The undying wisdom of history has always seen the Upanishads as the profoundest depth of human speculative originality or as the sublimest height reached by the human Soul. It is an edifying experience to go through the worshipful salutations showered upon these sacred books of India by greatest intellects of the orient and the occident, and of the ancient and the modern periods. They salute the Upanishads with folded hands, when they find their minds unfolded by their unforgettable impact.

It was given to the Spanish writer. Juvan Mascaro, to describe them, in a study of the Upanishads, as the 'Himalayas of the soul The Himalayan myth could have sprung from the un-named Rishi of the Kenopanishad who traced the source of Brahma Vidya to Uma, the daughter of the Himalayas It was she, according to the Rishi, who taught the gods that the Greatest God was the Unknown. called the Brahman. Weber, the celebrated German Indologist of the last century, thought that the Uma-legend presumed the gradual descending of the knowledge of the Brahma down the slopes of the Himalayas. Paul Deussen.

Swami Vivekananda, the great Apostle of the Bharatiya Vedanata, once mentioned about the 'spiritual childhood. This mention was made in his paper on Hinduism presented before the luminous audience at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago on the 19th September, 1893. It was after 8 days of his famous Chicago Address (11 September 1893) that he had presented his paper on Hinduism.: "Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols or temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps of his spiritual childhood; but on and on he must progress."

= Swami Vivekananda (Complete Works" Volume. I. Pp. 16)

This "spiritual childhood is described as a stage attained by each individual during his life time. There is no uniform age or period by which a Jeevi or living individual, may attain such a development. It depends upon so many factors including the heredity and circumstances prevailing. In the case of the majority. It happens at their old or ripe age. In the case of a good number of people, that auspicious stage or development never occur at all. So, the blessed individuals at their ripe old age may turn at a matrix point towards the Eternal Reality that is to be realised during this short span of life.

Here, Swamiji names that stage as spiritual childhood. but I take the liberty with all my humility to make a little change in the word as the "Spiritual infancy to suit my intention of providing a cradle to such 'spiritaul infants'. Normally, a child is considered to be a grown up baby. A grown-up child may not be in need of a cradle.