It is just this truth which has so long been ignored by the Hindu society with regard to the religious life of most of its members. It has been well said that “ideas are forces and they must be broadcasted if the ageing to death of a nation is to be avoided”. Is it not tragic that with such a treasure house as the as the Upanishads at our disposal, we are still weltering ignominiously in the quagmire of gross materialism and superstitious rituals. Who can doubt the fact that spiritual inheritance of the Hindus is as great, if not greater than, that of any living nation of the world? And yet no people are so poor in truly religious life as Hindus are at the present time. The aim of the authors in writing these scriptures was not, however, so much propagation of their metaphysical findings as to bring peace and freedom to anxious and struggling humanity through right living based on spiritual experiences. The Upanishads are magnificent movements of ancient Indian wisdom, being the grand outpourings of the spiritual experiences of those unique seekers of truth who, having risen above the chaos of ritualism and word spinning of scholastic philosophy, saw the truth directly through intuitive insight and thus gave to the thinking world what no philosophy based merely on logical reasoning could possibly give. This little article is an attempt to place the main the principal Upanishads within the reach of every man and woman. The most recent of the Vedas is the Atharvana Veda which contains the Mandukya and Kaivalya Upanishad. Next comes the Yajur Veda which contains the most: four of the Upanishads namely, Katha, Taittiriya, Brihadaranyaka and Svetasvatara. The next in antiquity is the Sama Veda which contains the Kena Upanishad and Chandogya Upanishad.
Of these, the oldest of the Vedas, the Rig Veda contains the Aitreya Upanishad. The Bhagavad Gita, the epics the Ramayana and Mahabharat, and the Brahmanas, and the four Vedas were put into writing in this period, the culmination of a hoary millennia-long oral tradition which was passed down from Guru to Shishya or Master to disciple. The Mauryan period was in fact a golden age when many of the ancient Indian texts were put down in writing, probably in reaction to the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. The earliest of the Upanishads are known to be pre-buddhistic, written within 1,000 B.C. Generally though, the number is accepted as 108.Įach of the Upanishads belong to different periods of Indian history and are the works of different authors. This resulted in different books giving varying numbers for the Upanishads, some running up to 300. Later, from the 15-19th centuries, other texts were composed and were claimed to be Upanishads. According to the muktika tradition or the Muktopanishad, there are 98 other Upanishads aside from the chief ones, totaling 108. Most of these are found towards the ends of the Brahmana and Aranyaka texts. They were commented upon and annotated by Adi Shankaracharya.
Of these, 10 of the earliest or Dashopanishads are considered the mukhya Upanishads and are accepted to be of chief importance. The Upanishads are generally believed to be 108 in number. They are considered some of the most refined pieces of philosophical literature not just in India, but indeed in the world. The Upanishads are extracts of Vedanta, or material from the Vedas, and represent the philosophical essence of the Vedas. The Relationship of the Upanishads and the Vedas Get chants, stories, temples, wallpapers and more. The Lord Shiva app is a one-stop guide to Lord Shiva.