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The
Upanishads
Manuscript of Isa Upanishad, from the
library of the Wellcome Library, London and its shelf mark
is Indic MS alpha 37. It measures 11.5 x 26.5 cm, and is
complete in a single folio.
There are 108 Upanishads currently
known to be extant, of which the following are the most read
and most popular. Of the early Upanishads, the Aitareya and
Kausitaki belong to the Rig Veda, Kena and Chandogya to the
Samaveda, Isa and Taittiriya and Brhadaranyaka to the
Yajurveda, and Prasna and Mundaka to the Atharvaveda.
(Associated Upanishad and Vedic book information taken from
Radhakrishnan Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1.) In addition, the
Mandukya, Katho, Svetasvatara are very important. Others
also include Mahanarayana and Maitreyi Upanishads as key.
THE UPANISHADS - AN INTRODUCTION
BY
The Upanishads form the final part of the Vedas of
India, which are among the oldest and most incisive
religio-philosophical works of mankind, known to us
today. The Vedas are four in number namely, the Rg,
Yajur, Sama and Atharva. They are composed in poetic or
musical metres as also in prose, in an archaic form
of Sanskrit generally referred to as Vedic Sanskrit.
That form of the language got reorganised into the
form that exists today, referred to as Classical
Sanskrit, under strict and comprehensive rules of
linguistics and grammar by Panini, who is believed to
have lived in the 8th Century AD. Words and concepts,
especially those having religious or philosophic import,
whether expressed in Vedic or Classical Sanskrit, pose
considerable difficulty of understanding to people of
other linguistic or cultural groups. Even modern Sanskrit
scholars of today, familiar with the classical form,
have occasional difficulty with the Vedic form, and have
often to take the help of related works of the great
commentators of the post-Vedic centuries.
Vidya Vrikshah presents the Upanishads here, in a
uniform format, where the original text of each sloka
or stanza in Sanskrit, is followed in English, first by
a word-by-word meaning, then a running translation of
the stanza, and finally, a brief explanation where we
have attempted to convey the sloka’s essential purport
in as simple a manner as possible. Our intent is to
bring an understanding of the Upanishads within the
reach of common people today, across linguistic and
cultural barriers. These presentations are prepared as a
labor of love by ordinary members of the community who
have studied these texts and wish to share their
understanding with others who have not read them. In
other words, they are prepared by lay people for lay
people, not, as is more usual, by scholars for
scholars. But scholars may nevertheless find them
useful because they provide ready access to the original
texts, and facilities for viewing or printing them in
any language script, as also the help of some useful
referencing tools that are included with the
presentations. The effort is simply to promote wider
study and understanding of the texts in their cultural
context, by anyone, anywhere in the world. They do
not seek acceptance, justification or rationalization
of any kind for what the texts convey or teach.
Ancient Indian tradition has it that the Vedas were
first "heard" (meaning, received as inspiration or
revelation) by Brahma the Creator, at the dawn of
creation of the Universe. Passed down the Yugas or ages
through a teacher-disciple chain, this knowledge got
scattered and perhaps diluted, and parts of it were
even lost with the passage of time. The Yugas
mentioned here refer to a cosmic time cycle of four
Yugas, namely, the Krita, Treta, Dvapara and Kali Yugas
(we are currently in the Kali Yuga) which together
last 12000 cosmic years, one cosmic year being equal
to 300 human years. The ancient Indians did indeed have
well defined concepts in relation to the cosmic and the
human scales of space and time !
At the beginning of the Dvapara Yuga then, finding
the Vedic knowledge in disarray, the sage Vyasa
collected the knowledge corpus together again, arranged
them into the four Vedas, and imparted them to four of
his disciples, to be preserved, propagated and passed
down to posterity. Six supporting disciplines were
also evolved, namely, Siksha (Phonetics), Vyakarana
(Grammar), Chandas (Poesy), Nirukta (Etymology), Kalpa
(Ritual procedures) and Jyotisha (Astronomy and Astrology,
dealing respectively, with details of the postions and
influences of the stars, which were used for determining
the calendar and timing of all human activities). These
disciplines, called the Vedangas (or limbs of the Vedas)
were intended to provide the strict framework in which
observance, propagation and preservation of the Vedas in
their pristine purity could be ensured for all time,
despite the oral mode of transmission. The accuracy and
authenticity
of the texts available today, despite the passage of
so many centuries, provide living testimony to the
remarkable efficacy of these disciplines. In particular,
the techniques of memorising and recciting the texts,
however voluminous, are so carefully designed, that even
today, it is common for priests and scholars, who have
been trained in this tradition, to pick on any word at
any point in any text, and recite it from memory from
that point onwards, for hours !
Successive generations of teachers and disciples carried
the Vedas to different parts of India, and over long
periods of time, the processes of their observance,
propagation and preservation got institutionalised into
Sakhas or Schools, each preserving and carrying forward
a particular Vedic rescension. The Muktikopanishad has it
that at one time, there were 1180 Sakhas in existence.
Today, scattered segments remain, of only 8 Sakhas.
The texts of each Veda falls broadly into four
sequences. The first is the Samhita or Mantra text of
all prayers and rituals Next comes the Brahmana portion
that provides the explanatory text. These two portions
provide a framework of religious discipline of daily
rituals and periodic special observances for the large
majority of common people, that would influence them to
lead simple, honest and purposeful lives. Next come the
Aranyakas, which contain reflections on the inner meaning
of the rituals, and are meant to provide food for
introspection by people in their later years, when
they could retire to forest hermitages for the purpose.
(Aranya means forest) Last come the Upanishads for
those exceptional people who are seeking the true
meaning of life in terms of the highest philosophical
truths behind all existence. The Muktikopanishad says
that each Veda Sakha had its own Upanishad. Today only
around 200 Upanishads are known, and 108 of them are
considered worthy of serious study. Of these again only
10 have come to acquire central importance, as they
were singled out for detailed commentaries by Sankara in
the 7th. Century AD, and by the line of great
commentators who followed him in later centuries. Our
presentations here cover only these ten Upanishads, and
they are the Isa, Kena, Katha, Prasna, Munda, Mandukya,
Taittari, Aitareya, Chandogya and Brhadaranyaka Upanishads.
The Upanishads, together with the Bhagavad Gita and the
Brahma Sutras are referred to as the Prastanatraya, or
three-fold Ultimate authority on which the religio-philosophical
canon of Vedanta rests. They are also referred as the
"Sruti", or that which was "heard", implying knowledge
received by inspiration or revelation directly from God,
first by Brahma at the dawn of Creation, and later, by
the many seers of later ages. Higher Knowledge thus
intuited, was always considered heard directly from God,
and hence named "Sruti", in contradistinction to
"Smriti", or texts of lower levels of Knowledge that
originated, as this name suggests, from man’s own
mind.. And when seers who were deeply revered and seen
to be in constant communion with God, declared that
certain knowledge was heard, that is, received direct
from God, it was accepted to be so by all people.
Thus, over the ages, "Sruti" came to be regarded as
the infallible, absolute and ultimate authority for
whatever knowledge they conveyed. All later works had
indeed to establish their credentials only by drawing
from the authority of "Sruti".
If the overall body of the Vedic texts today
sometimes show deviation from a clearcut structure, or
occasionally present mixed sequences or even seeming
contradictions of fact and thought, it could well be
because they were built by additions to the knowledge
corpus from time to time, over long periods of time,
by different seers, based on the unique intuitions or
spiritual experiences of each of them. The traditional
description of the Vedas as "anadi" or without
beginning, "ananta", or without end, and "aupurusheya",
or of divine origin, is quite simply an affirmation
that knowledge itself is eternal, self-existent and ever
available to be discovered and articulated from time to
time by the seers. If nothing is known of the personal
identities of these seers of remote antiquity, it is
because they considered that their own identities was
of no consequence, and that they were no more than
conduits through whom the word of God got articulated.
How far have we travelled, or should we say, how much
have we descended, in our values, that we we make
personal claims to knowledge in terms of authorship,
copyrights and intellectual property ! !
Every human being has to survive in an external
world of events. The individual experiences the external
world through his external sensory organs of sight,
smell, sound, taste and touch, all of course, within a
constantly changing context of space and time. He
responds to external events in the light of his
internal understanding and evaluations, and in this he
is aided and influenced, not only by his faculty of
reason, by a whole range of other faculties like
intellect, instinct, inspiration, faith and even emotion.
His inner faculties suffer none of the physical
limitations that characterise his external faculties of
perception His internal faculties enable him to visualise
states of infinity, eternity and total bliss. When his
responses to the external world are influenced by these
inner perspectives and values, his actions acquire deeper
purpose and value and his life becomes one of greater
harmony, joy and fulfillment.
Different cultures and societies have pursued the goal
of human fulfillment in different ways. Inspired by the
Greeks, Western civilisation has sought an objective
materialistic destiny for man through the path of
Science, a path determined by exclusively committing the
capabilities and potential of the mind to study of what
was strictly within the reach of man’s external sense
organs and what was observable, demonstrable and
replicable in the external world. The explorations of
the external world within these self-imposed parameters
of scientific validity have certainly given phenomenal
results in pressing Nature into the service of man. But
today, at the final frontiers of the physically
observable or measurable, these self-imposed parameters
are proving to be barriers to further scientific
exploration, and their utility and validity are coming
into serious question. Traversing the world of matter
through successive discoveries, first of the elements of
matter, then of atoms and finally of sub-atomic
particles, science has reached a point where the
ultimate particle of matter has disapppeared and has
reappeared as a pulse of energy. In science today,
the principle of certainty has yielded place to the
principle of uncertainty, and the reality of matter
contends with a new reality called anti-matter. Turning
our gaze into outer space, we see today the light of
stars that have themselves perhaps ceased to exist long
ago And turning the search into the internal world of
all living matter, science has reached the cell as the
ultimate unit of living matter, but beyond it’s
molecules, atoms, sub-atomic particles, and content of
energy, no answer is in sight of what it is that
divides the living from the lifeless.
Clearly science has reached a point where its
explorations cannot proceed much further if consciously
confined to the reach of the external physical senses,
however much such reach can be extended by the
instruments and methods of science. There is
incidentally, a curious self-contradiction in the
operation of science here. The phenomenal capabilities of
the mind have been single-mindedly (a language usage
reflecting restriction imposed on the mind !) pressed
into designing instruments and methods to extend the
reach of the external senses. but not to study the
reach of the mind itself. What studies have been made
of the mind is again within the same self-imposed
constraints of the instruments and methods used to study
matter. And within the brain itself, there is no clue
in sight as to where matter ends and thought begins or
what joy and sorrow really are, though these impact so
deeply on our lives. No effort has been made to
explore the virtually limitless reaches of the mind, by
using the mind itself, to see beyond the reach of the
external senses. No effort has been made to explore
other inner faculties and capabilities that add several
dimensions to the capabilities of the mind – things
like intellect, instinct, inspiration, faith or even
emotion, despite the obvious role these have played in
the extraordinary accomplishments of scientists, saints.or
even in the every day heroism of thousands of common
people. On the other hand these faculties have been
consciously excluded from the scope of science and
relegated as appropriate only to the field of
metaphysics and religion, simply because they were not
measurable.
Seers of ancient India recognised that an integrated
understanding of our internal and external world
required an integrated understanding of our internal and
external faculties of perception. And their very first
direct and obvious conclusion was that the external
faculties, could serve only to study the external, not
the internal world. Even what these faculties recorded
of the external world were restricted by their own
physical structure to narrow confines of time and space,
and hence could only provide a partial view. Internal
faculties, however, could transcend all these limitations,
and could provide a fuller view of the totality of
experience, both internal and external. Uncompromising
observation and experience, analysed and understood in
the light of logic taken to it’s ultimate limits, led
the ancient seers to the conviction that all existence,
living or otherwise, sprang ultimately from one single
Reality that they called Brahman; and that all seemingly
individual existences sprang from the very same Reality,
which was referred to as the Atman in the individual
context. This finding found it’s loftiest expression in
the Vedas, often in what are called the Mahavakyas or
Great Aphorisms, like "Tat Tvam Asi", or "That Art
Thou", where That refers to the Brahman and Thou to
the Atman, meaning that it is the same Ultimate Reality
that pervades our internal and external worlds.
It is not as if the ancient Indian seers paid less
attention to an understanding of the external objective
Universe. They studied it with as much meticulous
attention as they did the internal world of man. They
were able to advance knowledge in subjects like
Astronomy, Mathematics and Medicine, far in advance of
other contemporary human societies and also project facts
and concepts that Science is finding relevant today..
But they realised that Knowledge by itself was of
little worth unless it remained integrated with the
highest internal values and unless these values were
reflected in our responses to the external world. And
they insisted that it was all of man's internal
faculties together with their potential, that raised an
edifice of worth and value within man. It is this
that could guide his thoughts, words and actions in
ways that could contribute far more to personal and
social well-being than any one-sided materialistic pursuit
divorced from value. This vision fortunately remains
embedded to this day, in the psyche of India’s
millions, despite the inroads over the centuries of
other faiths, cultures and races, and also the inroads
in contemporary times, of the materialist culture,
fostered by the self-limiting outlook and methods of
science.
The Upanishads tell us repeatedly that Brahman or
Atman are not just sterile intellectual constructs of a
theoretical philosophy but are realities that can be
experienced by every individual. In simpler terms they
can be described as a destination of perfection, a
conscious and very real goal, which the individual must
constantly endeavour to reach. Life provides the
opportunities and faculties, the means to reach that
destination. The Upanishads provide a ringing
reaffirmation of the inner strengths and potentials of
man and that it is through them that man can elevate
himself and find fulfillment.
The Upanishadic declaration of the identity of the
Atman of the individual and the Brahman behind all
existence is also a declaration of the identity of all
living beings across the separating lines we have
created within mankind, between individuals, neighbours
and members of different areas, religions, races and
of the different social, political and economic entities
of the world. A living commitment to this higher
identity alone can end the conflicts between man and
man, which is the source of all human sorrow and
suffering. This commitment alone can lead mankind to
it’s true destiny.
Every Upanishad starts and ends with an invocation,
which is generally in the form of a prayer or
affirmation of a philosphical truth. The first Upanishad
that we present here is the Isavasya Upanishad. It
would be fitting to quote it’s invocation at this
point, because it virtually sums up the central message
of the Upanishads :
`
p:ÜN:üm:dH
p:ÜN:üem:dø p:ÜN:aüt:Î
p:ÜN:üm:Ødcy:t:ð
p:ÜN:üsy:
p:ÜN:üm:aday: p:ÜN:üm:ðv:av:eS:\y:t:ð
` S:a¡nt:H
S:a¡nt:H S:a¡nt:H
OM, Purnmadah purnamidam purnaat purnamudacyate
Purnasya purnamaadaaya purnamevavasishyate
OM Shantih Shantih Shantih.
This translates as follows : THAT is Infinite. THIS
too is Infinite.
And though it is from THAT which THIS has manifested,
THAT alone remains unchanged. Peace ! Peace ! Peace !
The meaning is as follows :THAT refers to the one
ultimate
eternal existence. THIS refers to this transient
existence which
subsists in and which manifests from THAT. Yet all
such transient
manifestation does not alter THAT which remains infinite
and eternal.
Mahaavaakyas
The Mahaavaakyas are the four "Great Sayings" of the
Upanishads, foundational religious texts of Hinduism.
These four sayings encapsulate the central Truth of
Hinduism.
The Mahaavaakyas are:
1) Prajnanam Brahma - "Conscious is Brahman" (Aitareya
Upanishad 3.3).
2) Ayam Atma Brahma - "This Self (Atman) is
Brahman" (Mandukya Upanishad 1.2)
3) Tat Tvam Asi - "Thou art That" (Chandogya
Upanishad 6.8.7)
4) Aham Brahmasmi - "I am Brahman" (Brhadaranyaka
Upanishad 1.4.10)
All four of these, in one way or another, indicate the
unity of the individual human being with Brahman. Brahman is
Absolute Reality, Cosmic Consciousness, the fundamental
God-stuff from which all divinities and all worlds arise and
Hinduism asserts that each human being, in her or his innermost
self, is this ultimate transcendent God-Reality. It is through
practices like yoga, and meditation that the individual can
realize her or his unity with the Divine and escape bonds of
this world.
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