Unit 9 · The Upanishads

Picture a student sitting on the ground at a teacher’s feet, asking questions. Many scholars link the word Upanishad to this picture: sitting down near. Others explain it as a hidden teaching. Both ideas fit the texts.

The Upanishads are the last layer of the Vedas. Tradition lists more than a hundred, but about a dozen are called the principal Upanishads. They include the Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Katha, Isha and Mundaka.

Scholars date the oldest ones, the Brihadaranyaka and the Chandogya, to about 800–500 BCE. Others came later, some after 200 BCE. Many Hindus regard them, like all the Vedas, as shruti, eternal truth that was heard by seers rather than invented.

The Upanishads are not a single story. They mix dialogues, riddles, lists and short poems. Many follow a teacher and a student, a husband and a wife, or a king and a sage as they ask what is truly real.

Remember the four layers of each Veda. The Upanishads come last. So they are called Vedanta, which means the end of the Veda. Many Hindus also read end as goal: the Upanishads show what the whole Veda aims at.

Later, Hindu thinkers built whole schools on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras. These three are called the three starting points. The schools are also called Vedanta.

The most famous teachers include Shankara (c. 8th century CE), Ramanuja (c. 11th–12th century) and Madhva (c. 13th century). Each read the Upanishads differently. Their followers still debate these readings today.

In the 1870s, a German-born scholar at Oxford named F. Max Müller began a huge project. He edited a series called the Sacred Books of the East. It put texts from many Asian religions into English, fifty volumes in all.

Müller himself translated the Upanishads in volumes 1 (1879) and 15 (1884). These books are now in the public domain, so they can be quoted freely. They helped many Western readers meet the Upanishads for the first time.

Müller’s English sounds old today, with thee and thou. Some of his views about India reflected the attitudes of his time. Modern translators such as Patrick Olivelle offer newer versions. Readers often compare them.

Ask yourself: who am I? My body? My thoughts? My name? The Upanishads ask this again and again. Their answer points to the atman, the true self. It is a word you will meet on almost every page.

Many passages say the atman is not the body, which changes and dies, and not even the mind, which changes all day. The Katha Upanishad says the self is not born and does not die. Hindus who follow these texts believe the atman is what passes from life to life in samsara.

The Upanishads say the atman is hard to see, like the salt in water. Knowing it, they teach, brings freedom. This knowing is not just learning facts. The texts describe it as a deep, direct understanding.

In the salt story, Uddalaka speaks of a fine essence in everything. The Upanishads name the deepest reality Brahman. It is not one god among many. The texts describe it as the source and ground of all that is.

The Upanishads often say Brahman cannot be fully described. One famous phrase in the Brihadaranyaka is neti neti, not this, not this. Whatever you point to, the teacher says, Brahman is more than that.

Other passages describe Brahman positively, as being, awareness and bliss. Later Hindu teachers joined these as sat-chit-ananda. Many Vaishnavas and Shaivas identify Brahman with Vishnu or Shiva as a loving, personal God.

Nine times in Chandogya Upanishad chapter 6, Uddalaka ends a lesson with the same Sanskrit words: tat tvam asi. Many readers render them ’That art thou’ or ’You are that.’ The first time is in 6.8.7.

What is that? Uddalaka has been speaking of the fine essence in all things, the true being. So many readers take the phrase to say that the self, atman, is linked at its root to Brahman.

Not everyone reads the grammar the same way. Some later readers split the words differently to mean ’you are not that.’ This small difference shows how one line can carry very different ideas. You will see the main readings in the next section.

Shankara, a teacher from Kerala generally dated to the 8th century CE, wrote commentaries on the Upanishads, the Gita and the Brahma Sutras. His school is Advaita Vedanta. Advaita means not two.

Shankara taught that Brahman alone is fully real. He read ’That art thou’ to mean the atman is identical to Brahman. The world of many separate things, he said, is appearance, called maya. Knowing the truth ends ignorance and brings moksha.

Advaita has been very influential. Swami Vivekananda, who spoke in Chicago in 1893, taught a form of it. Many Hindus follow other schools, though, and argue that Shankara’s reading leaves too little room for a personal God.

Ramanuja, a Tamil teacher of the 11th–12th century, read the Upanishads differently. His school is Vishishtadvaita, qualified non-dualism. He taught that souls and the world are real, like the body of God, who is Vishnu.

For Ramanuja, ’That art thou’ means the self belongs to Brahman as a part belongs to a whole, not that they are the same. Moksha is loving service of God, reached through bhakti and God’s grace.

Madhva, of the 13th century, went further. His school is Dvaita, dualism. He taught that God, souls and the world are forever distinct. Both schools remain alive in South India and beyond. Followers of each read the same verses with care and conviction.

Many Hindu schools and gatherings open or close with a short Sanskrit prayer. It begins asato ma sad gamaya. It comes from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28, where it is chanted as part of a ritual.

The prayer asks three things. Lead me from the unreal to the real. From darkness to light. From death to immortality. The text itself explains that the unreal and darkness mean death, and the real and light mean immortality.

The prayer shows how Upanishad words live on in daily use. Many families teach it to children. It is printed on school walls in India and recited at interfaith events. People of different schools each find their own meaning in it.

In 1657 a Mughal prince, Dara Shikoh, had fifty Upanishads translated into Persian. He believed they shared truths with his own Sufi Islamic tradition. A French scholar later put that Persian version into Latin.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer read the Latin version in the 1800s and praised it highly. American writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson were also drawn to Upanishad ideas, which they read in translation.

In 1893, Swami Vivekananda brought Vedanta to Chicago. He founded Vedanta Societies in the United States soon after. For many Hindus, though, the Upanishads matter most as living teaching, studied with a teacher and lived with care.

The Katha Upanishad opens with a problem in a ritual. Nachiketa sees his father giving away useless cows. He asks, three times, whom he himself will be given to. His father’s angry answer sends him to Yama.

Yama is the lord of death in Hindu texts. He is not a monster. In the Katha he is a wise teacher who respects his young guest. Because he left Nachiketa waiting three nights, he offers three boons, or wishes.

Scholars date the Katha Upanishad to roughly the 5th century BCE or later. Its story form makes deep ideas easy to follow. Many Hindu children hear the Nachiketa story, and teachers use it to praise curiosity and courage.

Yama tests Nachiketa by offering riches. When the boy refuses, Yama praises him. He says there are two paths: the shreyas, the good, and the preyas, the pleasant. The wise choose the good. The foolish choose the pleasant.

Yama then teaches about the self. He says the self is not born and does not die. It is hidden in the heart of every being. It cannot be reached just by study or cleverness, but by a mind that is calm and clear.

Many readers see Nachiketa as a model student. He cares more about the truth than about reward. Some Hindu teachers compare Yama’s test to the choices students face every day, like study or play.

Yama gives Nachiketa a famous picture. Think of the self as the rider in a chariot. The body is the chariot. Understanding is the driver. The mind is the reins. The senses are the horses.

If the driver is careless, the horses run wild. If the driver is wise and holds the reins well, the horses obey and the rider reaches the goal. Yama uses this image to teach self-control.

Readers have loved this picture for centuries. It is similar to images in Greek philosophy, such as Plato’s chariot, though the two are not the same. Yoga teachers still use it to explain calming the senses.

Svetaketu comes home after twelve years of study, proud and sure of himself. He thinks he has learned everything. His father, Uddalaka, asks a simple question he cannot answer. So the real lesson begins.

Uddalaka uses things from the kitchen and the yard. He shows how many clay pots are all clay. He asks Svetaketu to split a tiny banyan seed and look inside. There seems to be nothing, yet a great tree grows from it.

Then comes the salt in the water. Each lesson ends with the refrain ’That art thou.’ Many teachers point out the lesson inside the story: being proud of knowing a lot is not the same as understanding.

A boy named Satyakama wants to study with a teacher. He asks his mother about his family line. She tells him she was a servant, moved from place to place, and does not know who his father was.

Satyakama goes to the teacher, Gautama, and tells him exactly that. The teacher is moved. He says only a true Brahmin would speak so honestly. He accepts Satyakama as his student and begins to teach him.

Many Hindu teachers use this story to say that truthfulness matters more than birth. Reformers have pointed to it in arguments against caste. Others note it still uses the word Brahmin. Readers discuss both sides.

Notice how many Upanishads begin: with a question. Nachiketa asks about death. Uddalaka asks Svetaketu about the teaching that makes the unknown known. The Kena Upanishad opens: by whom is the mind sent forth?

In these texts, good students ask, and good teachers welcome it. Teachers sometimes ask back, or give a riddle, or send the student away to think. Learning is a long inquiry, not a single answer.

Hindu traditions call a student who seeks this knowledge a jijnasu, one who wishes to know. The Brahma Sutras begin with the words ’Now, therefore, the desire to know Brahman.’ Many teachers today encourage students to bring hard questions.

King Janaka of Videha holds a great contest. He offers a thousand cows, their horns tied with gold, to the wisest scholar. The sage Yajnavalkya tells his student to lead the cows away. The other scholars challenge him.

Among them is Gargi Vachaknavi. She asks what the world is woven on, like cloth on a loom. Each time he answers, she asks what that is woven on, and so on. Yajnavalkya warns her not to ask too far.

Later Gargi returns with two questions, which she compares to two sharp arrows. Yajnavalkya answers with the teaching of the imperishable. Gargi then tells the scholars no one will defeat him. Many readers see her as a model of fearless learning.

Yajnavalkya is about to leave home to become a wandering seeker. He plans to divide his property between his two wives, Katyayani and Maitreyi. Maitreyi asks a question: if the whole earth full of wealth were mine, would it make me immortal?

Yajnavalkya says no. Wealth brings only a wealthy life. Maitreyi answers: then what use is it to me? Tell me what you know. Pleased with her question, he agrees to teach her about the self.

He says that a husband, a wife, children and wealth are dear not for their own sake but for the sake of the self. The self must be seen, heard and reflected on. This dialogue appears twice, in chapters 2 and 4.

Many Hindu families tell Nachiketa’s story to praise courage. Satyakama’s story is told to praise honesty. Gargi and Maitreyi are often named as women philosophers from ancient India, and Indian schools and prizes carry Gargi’s name.

Scholars add context. The stories come from a world where most teachers were men of priestly families. Gargi and Maitreyi stand out partly because they are rare in the texts. Scholars debate how much the stories reflect real history.

Still, the pattern is clear. In the Upanishads, a good question can come from a boy, a servant’s son or a woman. Many readers find in that pattern a lasting lesson about who has the right to ask.