Episode 01 - Upanishads - Some Basic Information.

UPANISHADS – SOME BASIC INFORMATION

The Upanishads are incisively searching discussions of the Nature of the Ultimate - Brahmam - and how the humans and the world relate with It; this last part of the Vedas, known as the vEdAnta**, represented by the 100 odd Upanishads, was the result of open air academic laboratories consisting of very learned rishis and maharishis as teachers and highly intelligent and very austere Brahmacharis keen on learning and not hesitant to ask searching questions of their masters.(** Literally, vedAnta means the end of the Veda, vedasya antaH, the conclusion as well as the goal of the Vedas.)

The word “UpaniShad” would translate as: upa – near; ni– down; sad –sit; formed after the usual forum where Upanishads were born – disciples/students sitting by the side of Acharyas and learning. 

It is found that the Upanishads straddle both the Brahmanas and the Aranyakas – e.g. Brihadhaaranyaka Upanishad, Taithireeya Upanishad as part of Thaithireeya Aaranyaka, Chaandogya Upanishad as part Chaandogya Brahmana, Aitareya Upanishad as part of Aitareya Aaranyaka, Kaushitakee of Kaushitakee Brahmana, Kenopanishad as part of Talavakaara Brahmana and  so on.

Of the 100 odd Upanishads, fourteen are considered to be more substantive than the rest. Many also refer to daSopaniShad (ten important Upanishads) – this group would be to the exclusion of kouSIdhaki, maithrAyanI, mahAnArAyaNa and SwethASwathara out of the fourteen.

We do not know the names of the authors of the upaniShads, as  almost all the early spiritual and religious literature in India was anonymous,. Some of the chief doctrines of the upaniShads are associated with the names of renowned sages like AruNi, yAjnavalkya, bAlAki,  sANDilya. They were, perhaps, the early exponents of the doctrines attributed to them. The teachings were developed in gurukulas in forests  or spiritual retreats where teachers and pupils discussed and defined the different views.

Many of the Upanishads have been elaborated through exhaustive commentaries of Acharyas and Seers over the years - like Sri Adi Shankara (for ten Upanishads), Sri Madhvacharya (all of the ten like Sri Shankara)) , Sayanacharya (who had codified and made commentaries on most of the vedic corpus) and Swami Deshikan (ISAvAsya); there are commentaries by recent scholars and philosophers notably  Sri Aurobindo, Max Mueller, T.D.Kapali Sastri and Sir S.Radhakrishnan. 

Sri Ramanuja did not make any commentaries on Upanishads; but his Sri Bhashyam covers it all as the Brahma Sutra is considered to be a codified version of the various Upanishads. Sri Rangaramanuja Muni has, though, written commentaries on all the mukya Upanishads, from the Visishtadvaita point of view. 

Of the commentaries, the ISAvAsya Upanishad seems to have been the darling choice of the commentators – as many as 37 commentaries have been written on this one Upanishad. 

Several sanyasins of Sri Rama Krishna Mutt have also frequently elaborated on these from time to time in specific book-lets, essays and occasional lectures. Swami Sivananda Saraswathi and his famous disciple Swami Chinmayananda also spent practically their entire lifetime in propagating the messages from the Upanishads. Swami Krishnananda has written commentaries on most of the important Upanishads. 

The subjects found discussed in the Upanisads are predominantly in search of the ultimate Truth, the Nature of Brahman, and why and how the individual souls would relate with It. Therefore, the discussions in the original texts, as well as the numerous commentaries, are rather difficult to follow for most of us who are acquainted with Asthika viSayas  only peripherally and anecdotally - like the puranas, ithihasas, the various bhakthi marga propositions, etc. (While many of us have heard and enjoyed and also studied the (Naalaayira)  Divya Prabandhas, widely regarded as the Dravida Vedas, only a few might have had the good fortune to have delved into their inner meaning and purport through comprehensive commentaries like the Eedu which bring forth the complex nuances in the renderings. )

This book relies on the easier to comprehend commentaries - that circumnavigate complexities - and is designed for  the uninitiated audience as the target.