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It grew up in the various parishads, or communities of learned Brahmans, and perhaps flourished most in north western India . There is of course a common substratum of ideas but they appear in different versions: we have the teaching of Yâjñavalkya, of Uddâlaka Âruṇi and other masters and each teaching has some individuality.
Yajnavalkya devoted to Brahma became the Adhyaryu, and Paila the son of Vasu and Dhaumya became the Hotris. And O bull of the Bharata race, the disciples and the sons of these men, all well-acquainted with the Vedas and the branches of the Vedas, became Hotragts.
Those persons, learned in the scriptures, who succeed in apprehending Eternal Brahma who is higher than Unmanifest Prakriti, succeed in obtaining that which transcends birth and death, which is free from attributes, and which is both existent and non-existent. I got all this knowledge from Janaka. The latter had obtained it from Yajnavalkya. Knowledge is very superior.
But his claim was challenged: seven Brahmans and one woman, Gârgî Vâcaknavî, disputed with him at length but had to admit his superiority. A point of special interest is raised by the question what happens after death. Yâjñavalkya said to his questioner, "'Take my hand, my friend. We two alone shall know of this.
He stands before us more distinctly not only than Yâjñavalkya and Śankara, but than modern teachers like Nanak and Râmânuja and the reason of this distinctness can I think be nothing but the personal impression which he made on his age.
But though he teaches that in the beginning there was one only without a second, yet he seems to regard the subsequent products of this Being as external to it and permeated by it. But to Yâjñavalkya is ascribed an important modification of these doctrines, namely, that the Âtman is unknowable and transcendental.
But the anecdotes respecting the Buddha and women, whether his wife or others, are not touched with sentiment, not even so much as is found in the conversation between Yâjñavalkya and Maitreyî in the Upanishad. To women as a class he gave their due and perhaps in his own opinion more than their due, but if he felt any interest in them as individuals, the sacred texts have obliterated the record.
Uddalaka asks, 'Dost thou know that Ruler within who within rules this world and the other world and all beings? &c. tell now that Ruler within'; and Yajnavalkya replies with the long passus, 'He who dwells in the earth, &c., describing the Ruler within as him who, abiding within all worlds, all beings, all divinities, all Vedas, and all sacrifices, rules them from within and constitutes their Self, they in turn constituting his body.
The most distinguished is Yâjñavalkya who, though seen through a mist of myths and trivial stories about the minutiae of ritual, appears as a personality with certain traits that are probably historical. Many remarks attributed to him are abrupt and scornful and the legend indicates dimly that he was once thought a dangerous innovator.
Yâjñavalkya appears in the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka as the respected friend but apparently not the chaplain of King Janaka. This monarch celebrated a great sacrifice and offered a thousand cows with a present of money to him who should prove himself wisest. Yâjñavalkya rather arrogantly bade his pupil drive off the beasts.
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