dran@cs.albany.edu (Paliath Narendran) (03/05/91)
The Upanishads
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Ramesh Sitaraman had, some time ago, written about the upanishads
in one of his postings on soc.religion.eastern. I thought the
following facts about them may be of interest to readers of this
net.
The upanishads have an important place in Indian
philosophical/religious thought, especially in the school known
as Vedanta. The word `upanishad' means "secret teaching" or "the
secret meaning of the Vedas." (There are some other meanings as
well.) There is some debate as to whether the upanishads are
part of the Vedas or merely appendices in some sense. In any case
they are now found in various sections of the Vedas *towards the
end* (and hence the name `Vedanta' - Veda + anta ("end") for the
school of philosophy).
The ten principal upanishads are:
Name Appears in
------------------------------------
Isa Yajur Veda
Kena Sama Veda
Kattha Yajur Veda
Prasna Atharva Veda
Mundaka Atharva Veda
Mandukya Atharva Veda
Aitareya Rg Veda
Taittiriya Yajur Veda
Chhandogya Sama Veda
Brhad-aranyaka Yajur Veda
All except Mandukya are believed to be pre-Buddha. Chhandogya and
Brhad-aranyaka are also believed to be older than the rest.
There are two more upanishads, which, though not considered as
important as the above ten, are quite ancient.
Svetaasvatara Yajur Veda
Kaushitaki Rg Veda
There are many more upanishads, but most of them are more recent
than these. It also seems that they (the later ones) only have
the status of `smrti' (tradition) and not that of `sruti'
(revelation) in many schools of thought. The principal ones are
accepted to be sruti by all the Vedanta schools. (It should be
mentioned here that there is no general consensus on what is
sruti and what is smrti. This in itself is a fascinating
subject.)
Sri Sankara (`Sankaracharya') has written `bhasya's (commentaries
or exegeses) for the ten principal ones named above. He seems to
have been the first one to do so. Svetaasvatara also has a
bhashya believed to have been written by Sankara. I don't think
Ramanuja has written any commentaries on the Upanishads. Madhva
has written commentaries on the above ten.
Upanishad Brahma Yogin (who was also the spiritual guru of the
great composer Thyagaraja) of Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu (in South
India), has written commentaries on 108 upanishads, including the
major ten.
Most of the information here was obtained from some books in
Malayalam that I have been reading. I have not mentioned anything
about the subject matter of the upanishads, because I haven't
read any of them in its entirety except for Kena (#2) which is
short and sweet. The contents of most of them are metaphysical,
but there are also stories and maxims for ethical living in them.
Paliath Narendran
P.S. Dates of:
----
Sankara 788-820 A.D.
Ramanuja 1017-1137 A.D.
Madhva 1199-1278 A.D.
Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva are the most famous exponents of (different
schools of) Vedanta philosophy.muttiah@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah) (03/06/91)
[My mail server has been very flaky for a few days and I'm not sure what has actually gotten out. Sorry if this is a repeat. --- Bill Mayne, acting moderator.] In article <9103041951.AA12701@panini.albany.edu> dran@cs.albany.edu (Paliath Narendran) writes: >well.) There is some debate as to whether the upanishads are >part of the Vedas or merely appendices in some sense. In any case >they are now found in various sections of the Vedas *towards the The interested reader may find the book titled "Vedic Literature" by Jan Gonda of pertinence in regard to this question.