DIVINE INFORMATION PART 87 Respected friends,
While goingthrough one of my external memory device, I came across some good information stored from websites. I thought ofsharing interesting ones from them as a series. In part 87, I amstarting with 307th item in this posting. Kindly note the series is a compilation. Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan 28-08-21 307 ABOUT THE VARIOUS UPANISHADS:- TheUpanishads are found as the concluding part of the Brahmanas and in the Aranyakas.All Upanishads havebeen passed down orally. Morethan 200 are known and the oldest and most important are referred to as theprincipal Upanishads. The Muktikupanishad gives a list of 108Upanishads.Withthe Bhagavad Gita and the Brahmasutras (known collectively as thePrasthanatrayi) the main Upanishads provide the foundation for several laterschools of philosophy (vedanta). Historiansbelieve the chief Upanishads were composed over a wide period ranging from thePre-Buddhist period to the early centuries BC, though minor Upanishads werestill being composed in the early modern period. However, there has beenconsiderable debate among authorities about the exact dating of individualUpanishads. 307 a Main Upanishads:- Eachof the principal Upanishads can be associated with one of the shaakhas of the fourVedas. Many Shakhas are said to haveexisted, of which only a few remain. Thenew Upanishads often have little relation to the Vedic corpus and have not beencited or commented upon by any great Vedanta philosopher: their languagediffers from that of the classic Upanishads, being less subtle and moreformalized. 307 b New Upanishads:- Thereis no fixed list of the Upanishads as newer ones have continued to be composed. Onmany occasions, when older Upanishads have not suited the founders of new sects,they have composed new ones of their own. 1908marked the discovery of fournew Upanishads, named Bashkala, Chhagaleya, Arsheya and Saunaka, byDr. Friedrich O. Schrader, who attributed them to the first prose period of theUpanishads. Textscalled "Upanishads" continued to appear up to the end of British rulein 1947. The Akbar Upanishad and Allah Upanishadare examples, having been written in the 17th century in praise of Islamicideas at the insistence of Dara Shikoh. The Brihadaranyaka and theChandogya are the most important of the mukhya Upanishads. They representtwo main schools of thought within the Upanishads. TheUpanishads also contain the first and most definitive explications of thedivine syllable Aum, the cosmic vibration that underlies all existence. Themantra Aum Sh─Бnti Sh─Бnti Sh─Бnti, translated as "the soundless sound,peace, peace, peace", is often found in the Upanishads. Thepath of bhakti or "Devotion to God" is foreshadowed in Upanishadicliterature, and was later realized by texts such as the Bhagavad Gita. 308 Someof the Mah─Бv─Бkyas (Great Sayings) from the Upanishads Sanskrit quote English meaning Upanishad Praj├─Бnambrahma "Consciousnessis Brahman" Aitareya Upanishad Ahambrahm─Бsmi "Iam Brahman" Brihadaranyaka Tattvam asi "ThatThou art" Chandogya Ayam─Бtm─Бbrahm─Б "ThisAtman is Brahman" Mandukya TheUpanishads are primarily presented as conversations between two persons ratherthan expository statements of philosophy or ideology. 309 VEDANTA SCHOOLS:- Thesource for all schools of Ved─Бnta are the three texts by the Upanishads, theBhagavad Gita and the Brahmasutras. Twodifferent types of the non-dual Brahman-Atman are presented in the Upanishads: Theone in which the non-dual Brahman-Atman is the all inclusive ground of theuniverse and The one in which all reality in the universe is but an illusion. The three main schools of Vedanta areAdvaita, Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita. Otherschools of Vedanta made possible by the Upanishads include Nimbarka'sDvaitadvaita, Vallabha's Suddhadvaita and Chaitanya's Acintya Bhedabheda. ShreeAdi Sankara has provided commentaries on 11 mukhya Upanishads. 309-1 Advaita is considered the mostinfluential of the Ved─Бnta schools of Hindu philosophy. Gaudapadawas the first person to expound the basic principles of the Advaita philosophyin a commentary on the apparently conflicting statements of the Upanishads.Gaudapadalived in a time when Buddhism was widely prevalent in India. hismain work is infused with philosophical terminology of Buddhism, and usesBuddhist arguments and analogies. Advaitaliterally means non-duality, and it is a monistic system of thought.It dealswith the non-dual nature of Brahman and Atman. The Advaita school is said tohave been consolidated by Shankara. He was a pupil of Gaudapada's pupil Sri Govindabhagavatpada. Shankara'sviews of Advaita are straightforward developments of the Upanishads and theBrahmasutra and he offered no innovations to these, while other scholars foundsharp differences between Shankara's writings and the Brahmasutra. 309-2 The Dvaita school was founded byMadhvaacharya. 309-3 The third school of Vedanta is theVishishtadvaita, which was founded by Ramanujaacharya. Visistadvaitais a synthetic philosophy of love that tries to reconcile the extremes of theother two monistic and theistic systems of vedanta. It is called Sri-Vaisanavism in its religious aspect. Whilethe Dvaita insists on the difference between the Brahman and the Jiva,Visistadvaita states that God is their inner-Self as well as transcendent. 310- Authorship The Upanishads have been attributed toseveral authors: Yajnavalkya and Uddalaka Aruni feature prominently in theearly Upanishads. Otherimportant writers include Shvetaketu, Shandilya, Aitareya, Pippalada andSanatkumara. Importantwomen discussers include Yajnavalkya's wife Maitreyi, and Gargi. 311 Thoughts:- Whilethe hymns of the Vedas emphasize rituals and the Brahmanas serve as aliturgical manual for those Vedic rituals, the spirit of the Upanishads isinherently opposed to rituals.The older Upanishadslaunch attacks of increasing intensity on the ritual. Anyonewho worships a divinity other than the Self is called a domestic animal of thegods in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. TheCh─Бndogya Upanishad parodies those who indulge in the acts of sacrifice bycomparing them with a procession of dogs chanting Om! Let's eat. Om! Let'sdrink. TheMundaka launches the most scathing attack on the ritual by comparing those whovalue sacrifice with an unsafe boat that is endlessly overtaken by old age anddeath. Thepattern of reducing the number of gods in the Vedas becomes more emphatic inthe Upanishads. When Yajnavalkaya is asked how manygods exist, he decrements the number successively by answering thirty-three,six, three, two, one and a half and finally one. godssuch as the Rudras, Visnu, Brahma are gradually subordinated to the supreme,immortal and incorporeal Brahman of the Upanishads. In fact Indra and thesupreme deity of the Brahamanas, Prajapati, are made door keepers to theBrahman's residence in the Kausitaki Upanishad. In short, the one reality or ekam satof the Vedas becomes the ekam eva a-dvitiyam or "the one and only and sansa second" in the Upanishads.Thenewer Upanishads are known to be imitations of the mukhya Upanishads. NewUpanishads were composed in the medieval and early modern period: discoveriesof newer Upanishads were being reported as late as 1926. TheMuktik─Бaa Upanishad contains a list of 108 canonical Upanishads, includingitself as the last. However,several texts under the title of "Upanishads" originated right up tothe first half of the 20th century, some of which did not deal with subjects ofVedic philosophy. Dara Shikoh, son of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, translated 50Upanishads into Persian in 1657. Thefirst written English translation came in 1805 from Colebrooke, who was awareof 170 Upanishads. ABOUT THE VARIOUSUPANISHADS. Posted by: "shivashankara rao"[email protected] Date:Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:46 am ((PDT)) I will continue in next posting -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1253847147.87006.1630135583198%40mail.yahoo.com.
