Identity and Experience_Hamilton_1996

CHAPTER VI
Niirnariipa
THE EXPRESSION N&UXZDPA IS AN important one in ancient Indian psychology.
The term nima (name) on its own is first found in the Rg fida where
the pis gave names to things.' The expression used for this is nimadhya -
'conferring a name'. Later, in the Byhadiranyaka Upani?ad, when
Yajfiavalkya is asked what it is that does not forsake a man when he dies,
his answer is 'name'.* Name-conferring must, then, have been an important
enough process for Yajfiavalkya on this occasion to state that the name
is eternal, a characteristic one might expect to be attributed to itman rather
than nii~na.~ Yet in the giving of a name, some sort of abstract or notional
identity is established which is independent of the empirical thing or individual.
We need only consider that when someone we know dies, their
name and all that is associated with it does not die, but conceptually represents
that person to us in our memories. Likewise with, say, a book: its
name persists even if the book itself is destroyed.
The earliest instance of the pairing of nirna with riipa is probably in the
Satapatha Briihmap, and it continues to be found in Aranyaka literature and is
not uncommon in the Upani~ads. Scholars of Buddhism have commonly
interpreted nZmanipa as a metaphor for 'mind (naina) and body (riipa)', but
the original meaning in the Briihmaps and UpanSads is nearer to its literal
meaning: 'name (nima) and (visible) form (riipa)'. The two examples given
above clearly indicate that this is how nima on its own is understood. And
we shall see from the following examples that this is also the case with the
compound niimariipa.
In the earliest reference in the Satapatha Brtilmap we read that when the
universe consisted just of undifferentiated Brahman (neuter), it differentiated
itself by means of nZmarfipa: whatever has a name, that is nima;
whatever one knows by its form (even if it has no name), that is riipa.* NZma
and riipa are Brahman's two means of manifestation or representation,
described as the two great forces (or monsters) of Brahman, and the two
great tempting appearances of Brahman.= Similarly, we read in the
&rhad6ranyaaka Upani!ad (which is the last part of the Satqpatha Bramapa) that
the unmanifest or undifferentiated (auyiibta) world became differentiated
(zy&tu) by means of nrima and riipa (n&wmipZbhjva'm); even today, it states, the