Principal Upanishads

Manuscript of one of the Principal Upanishads - Mandukya Upanishad

The Principal Upanishads, also known as the Mukhya Upanishads, are the oldest and philosophically most influential texts of the larger Upanishad canon in Hinduism. The Upanishads consist of the concluding portion of the Vedas, referred to as Vedanta ("end of the Vedas"). There are hundreds of texts that claim the title Upanishad, however, classical scholarship prioritize a subset of ten (and sometimes thirteen) primary texts.

Commentaries (bhashyas) composed on the Principal Upanishads, along with the Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutra, are universally accepted to establish classical Indian philosophies. The Principal Upanishads are geared towards internal contemplation versus external rituals, which aid in the formulation of philosophies regarding the ultimate reality (Brahman), the self (atman), morality (karma), rebirth, and ultimate liberation (moksha).

Etymology and overview

The Upanishads are a vast collection of Sanskrit texts and consist of the concluding portions of the Vedas, the most ancient scriptures of Hinduism. The Upanishads are also referred to as Vedanta, which translates to "the end of the Vedas." Over time, hundreds of texts claimed the title Upanishad, however, tradition dictates a small group of Principal Upanishads, or Mukhya Upanishads. These select Upanishads are consistently regarded as evolving from the Vedas and accepted across all major schools of Indian philosophy. The Principal Upanishads are separated into three categories: early prose, verse, and late prose.

Terminology

The Sanskrit adjective mukhya means "principal" or "chief". William Mahony defines the major Upanishads as those that most classical Indian philosophers interpreted and that nearly all Indian commentators regarded as connected to the Vedas. The term is a matter of tradition and scholarly convention rather than a single fixed list, and the number counted as "principal" varies between sources.

Canon

The Principal Upanishads are linked to individually linked to a specific Veda and within the context of its specific recension. Each is traditionally linked to one of the four Vedas and to a particular branch (śākhā) of Vedic learning.

Upanishad Sanskrit (IAST) Associated Veda Form
Isha Īśā Shukla Yajurveda Verse
Kena Kena Samaveda Verse and prose
Katha Kaṭha Krishna Yajurveda Verse
Prashna Praśna Atharvaveda Prose
Mundaka Muṇḍaka Atharvaveda Verse
Mandukya Māṇḍūkya Atharvaveda Prose
Taittiriya Taittirīya Krishna Yajurveda Prose
Aitareya Aitareya Rigveda Prose
Chandogya Chāndogya Samaveda Prose
Brihadaranyaka Bṛhadāraṇyaka Shukla Yajurveda Prose

The thirteen-text canon

Scholars writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries often extended the list to thirteen by adding theŚvetāśvatara (Shwetashvatara) Kauṣītaki (Kaushitaki) and Maitrāyaṇīya (Maitrayaniya). Robert Ernest Hume's 1921 translation helped fix this thirteen-text set in English-language scholarship. The Muktikā canon of 108 Upanishads, a later Indian list, places the principal texts first among its entries.

Date and compilation

The chronology of the Upanishads is a subject of ongoing scholarly debate, largely because these texts were transmitted orally before being compiled in written form. Scholars primarily estimate their dates by analyzing literary style, vocabulary, and the development of philosophical concepts. Patrick Olivelle asserts that assigning a precise date more specific than several centuries is highly unreliable, characterizing such efforts as "as stable as a house of cards."

Within that uncertainty, Olivelle proposes that the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya are the earliest, probably predating the Buddha and falling in roughly the seventh to sixth centuries BCE, followed by the Taittiriya, Aitareya and Kaushitaki, probably in the sixth to fifth centuries BCE. Stephen Phillips, summarising Indological opinion, gives a wider range of about 800 to 300 BCE for the early Upanishads and notes that the Shvetashvatara and Mandukya may overlap with the earliest Buddhist and Jain literature.

Philosophical themes

The Principal Upanishads shift focus away from external rituals to internal contemplation and inquiry. A central theme is the investigation into ultimate reality and the true inner self, sometimes known as Brahman and atman, respectively. Early doctrines of action and causation (karma), cycle of birth and death, and liberation (moksha) are also formulated in the Principal Upanishads. Themes of meditation, breath control, and withdrawal of the senses are also found which eventually lead to the establishment of classical Yoga by Patanjali.

The Principal Upanishads represent a significant shift in ancient Indian thought, moving the focus from external Vedic rituals also known as karmakāṇḍa to internal contemplation, meditative practices i.e.upāsanā, and questions about existence jñānakāṇḍa. Instead of rejecting Vedic sacrifice, the early prose Upanishads turn it inward, interpreting bodily functions like breath (prāṇa), speech (vāc), and mind (manas) as connected to cosmic and ritual processes.

Brahman, Atman, and the Mahāvākyas

The main philosophical focus of the Principal Upanishads is the nature of Brahman, the ultimate and unchanging reality, and Ātman, which is the innermost self or consciousness of each person. The texts describe Brahman using both negative (apophatic) and positive (cataphatic) approaches. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, the sage Yājñavalkya explains the absolute with the phrase neti neti ("not this, not that"), showing that ultimate reality goes beyond all descriptions (nirguṇa). Other passages, like those in the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad, describe a personal, all-knowing Lord (īśvara or saguṇa Brahman) who rules the world.

Later Vedantic traditions summarized the connection between Ātman and Brahman in four key sayings called the Mahāvākyas ("Great Sayings"). Each comes from one of the four Vedas found in the Principal Upanishads.

Karma, samsara, and moksha

The first organized explanations of the ideas of karma (moral causation), Saṃsāra (rebirth), and mokṣa (liberation) are found in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka (3.2.13; 4.4.5–6) and Chāndogya (5.3–10) Upanishads. The "Doctrine of the Five Fires" (Pañcāgnividyā) describes two paths after death: the "Path of the Ancestors" (pitṛyāna), where ritualists are reborn on earth after using up their merit in the lunar world, and the "Path of the Gods" (devayāna), where those with true knowledge (vidyā or jñāna) escape rebirth completely.

Psychology, consciousness, and proto-yoga

The Principal Upanishads present ways of understanding human psychology and consciousness that later became central to classical Indian philosophy:

Commentarial tradition

The Principal Upanishads have served as a foundational root text for major schools of philosophy. Post-Vedic Indian philosophies developed through the authorship of commentaries (bhāṣyas) on the Principal Upanishads, along with the Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Sutras, collectively known as the Prasthantrayi lit. "three points of departure") Major schools of Vedanta were established through the commentarial tradition. In the classical Indian scholastic tradition, establishing an independent school of Vedanta required an ācārya to compose formal Sanskrit commentaries demonstrating how the diverse statements of the Principal Upanishads harmonize (samanvaya) to support their metaphysical system.

Historical context and literary structure

Geography and socio-political milieu

The early prose of the Principal Upanishads reflects a geographical shift in the Vedic world from the Kuru-Panchal heartland i.e modern Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh to the Kosala-Videha region eastern Uttar Pradesh and northern Bihar in the Gangetic plain. This eastward movement coincided with the emergence of the Mahājanapadas ("great realms"), the "second urbanisation" of the Gangetic plain, and the rise of royal courts that sponsored formal theological and philosophical debates. A distinctive feature of the early prose is the involvement of the Kṣatriya (warrior/royal) class in equal measure with the Brāhmaṇa priests. Janaka of Videha (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.4), Ajātaśatru of Kāśī (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.1; Kauṣītaki 4), Pravāhaṇa Jaivali of Pañcāla (Chāndogya 5.3; Bṛhadāraṇyaka 6.2) and Aśvapati Kaikeya (Chāndogya 5.11) are all depicted not merely as patrons of ritual but as guardians and teachers of the Pañcāgnividyā (Doctrine of the Five Fires) and the Vaiśvānara-vidyā.

Global impact

In the early modern period, the Principal Upanishads exerted a global intellectual influence. In 1657, Dara Shikoh, the Mughal prince, translated fifty Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian titled "Sirr-i-Akbar" (The Greatest Secret).

In the 1800s, Dara Shikoh's Persian translation was later translated into Latin by French Indologist Anquetil-Duperron. This Latin translation impacted German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and declared that the Upanishads as "the solace of my life" and predicted they would become central in European studies. The Upanishads have also been known to influence American writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Theoreau.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Brereton, Joel (1990). de Bary, William Theodore; Bloom, Irene (eds.). The Upanishads. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 115–135. ISBN 0231070047.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Lindquist, Steven (2016). Johnston, Sarah Iles (ed.). Narrating the Upanishads. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks on Religion. Macmillan Publishers. pp. 303–316.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  3. 1 2 3 Olivelle, Patrick (1998). The early Upanishads: annotated text and translation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195124354.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  4. ↑ Patton, Laurie (2004). Veda and Upanishad. London: Routledge. pp. 37–51.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  5. ↑ Mahony, William K. (1998). The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination. State University of New York Press. p. 271. ISBN 978-0-7914-3579-3.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Flood, Gavin (1996). An introduction to Hinduism (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521438780.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  7. ↑ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli (1994) [1953]. The Principal Upanishads. HarperCollins India. ISBN 978-81-7223-124-8.
  8. ↑ John G. Arapura (2012). Gnosis and the Question of Thought in Vedānta: Dialogue with the Foundations. Springer. p. 57. ISBN 978-94-009-4339-1.; Quote: "These are the Isa, Kena, Katha, Prasna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Aitareya, Taittiriya, Brhadaranyaka, Chandogya and Svetasvatara. To this list is usually added the Kausitaki and Maitrayaniya (or Maitri) to make the thirteen Principal Upanishads, a canon which has found favour with most scholars of the present day."
  9. ↑ Hume, Robert Ernest (1921), The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, Oxford University Press
  10. ↑ Edward Fitzpatrick Crangle (1994). The Origin and Development of Early Indian Contemplative Practices. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 8, 12. ISBN 978-3-447-03479-1.
  11. ↑ Crangle, Edward Fitzpatrick (1994). The Origin and Development of Early Indian Contemplative Practices. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 8, 12. ISBN 978-3-447-03479-1.
  12. ↑ Olivelle, Patrick (1996). Upaniṣads. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283576-5.
  13. ↑ Olivelle, Patrick (1996). Upaniṣads. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283576-5.
  14. ↑ Olivelle, Patrick (1996). Upaniṣads. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283576-5.
  15. ↑ Phillips, Stephen H. (2009). Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14485-8.
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  17. ↑ Olivelle, Patrick (1998). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Oxford University Press. pp. 23–27. ISBN 978-0-19-512435-4.
  18. 1 2 Olivelle, Patrick (1996). Upaniṣads. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283576-5.
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  20. ↑ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli (1994) [1953]. The Principal Upaniṣads. HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 52–77. ISBN 978-81-7223-124-8.
  21. ↑ Grimes, John A. (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. State University of New York Press. pp. 178–179. ISBN 978-0-7914-3067-5.
  22. 1 2 Olivelle, Patrick (1998). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Oxford University Press. pp. 34–36. ISBN 978-0-19-512435-4.
  23. ↑ Phillips, Stephen (2009). Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy. Columbia University Press. pp. 28–33, 309. ISBN 978-0-231-14485-8.
  24. ↑ Deussen, Paul (1966). The Philosophy of the Upanishads. Dover Publications. pp. 97–98. ISBN 978-0-486-21616-4.
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  28. 1 2 3 Radhakrishnan, S (1968). The Principal Upanishads (2nd ed.). London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
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  31. ↑ Stephen Phillips (26 June 2009). Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy. Columbia University Press. p. 309. ISBN 9780231144858.
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  33. ↑ Potter, Karl H. (1981). Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Vol. 3: Advaita Vedānta up to Śaṃkara and His Pupils. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 103–105. ISBN 978-81-208-0310-7.
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  53. ↑ Schopenhauer, Arthur (1969). World as will and representation. Vol. 2. Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0486217628.

Further reading