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Updated: May 26, 2025
The exalted character of Vedantic philosophy has been as widely recognized among European students as the subtle beauty of many of the Upanishads, in which the cryptic teachings of the Vedas have been developed along different and often conflicting lines of thought to suit the eclecticism of the Hindu mind. But the Arya-Samaj has not been content to assert the ethical perfection of the Vedas.
The appendix on the doctrines of the Upanishads may, I hope, serve to give an idea, intimate even though inadequate, of the third Stage that which follows on the stage of self-consciousness; and to portray the mental attitudes which are characteristic of that stage.
All the gems and precious jewels, the four Vedas with the histories as the fifth, the Upavedas, the Upanishads, with all their mysteries, and the compilations, and Vasuki, and Citrasena, and Takshaka, and Upatakshaka, and all the mountains, and all the offspring of Kadru with their children, all the great snakes endued with poison, and the Nagas, took the side of Arjuna.
Thus an apologue proving that the breath is the essential vital constituent of a human being is found in five ancient Upanishads . The Chândogya and Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka both contain an almost identical narrative of how the priest Âruṇi was puzzled and instructed by a king and a similar story is found at the beginning of the Kausîhtaki . The two Upanishads last mentioned also contain two dialogues in which king Ajâtaśatru explains the fate of the soul after death and which differ in little except that one is rather fuller than the other . So too several well-known stanzas and also quotations from the Veda used with special applications are found in more than one Upanishad .
The early Upanishads relate without disapproval how kings such as Ajâtaśatru of Kâśi, Pravâhaṇa Jaivali and Aśvapati Kaikeya imparted to learned Brahmans philosophical and theological knowledge previously unknown to them and even women like Gârgî and Maitreyî took part in theological discussions.
Fortunately the darkness which would have been otherwise Cimmerian is illuminated, though with a partial and often uncertain light, by the wonderful body of sacred literature which has been handed down to our own times in the Vedas and Brahmanas and Upanishads.
Akbar's religion did not long survive his death and never flourished far from the imperial court, but somewhat later Muhammad Dara Shukoh, the son of Shah Jehan, caused a Persian translation of about fifty Upanishads, known as the Oupnekhat, to be prepared.
The older Upanishads are connected with the other parts of the Vedic canon and sometimes form an appendix to a Brâhmaṇa so that the topics discussed change gradually from ritual to philosophy . It would be excessive to say that this arrangement gives the genesis of speculation in ancient India, for some hymns of the Rig Veda are purely philosophic, but it illustrates a lengthy phase of Brahmanic thought in which speculation could not disengage itself from ritual and was also hampered by physical ideas.
So we read in the Upanishads of those great Kshattriya Teachers to whom Brahmans came as disciples. Poets made their verses; and what of these were good, really inspired, suitable what came from the souls of Poet-Initiates, would be used at such ceremonies: sung by the assembled multitudes; and presently, by men specially trained to sing them.
Now the classic doctrine of pantheistic idealism, from the Upanishads down to Josiah Royce, is that the finite knowers, in spite of their apparent ignorance, are one with the knower of the all. In the most limited moments of our private experience, the absolute idea, as Dr. McTaggart told us, is implicitly contained. The moments, as Royce says, exist only in relation to it.
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