THE UPANISHADS IBD

Sinopse

More than 200 Upanishads are known, of which the first dozen or so are the oldest and most important and are referred to as the principal or main (mukhya) Upanishads.áTheámukhyaáUpanishads are found mostly in the concluding part of theáBrahmanasáandáAranyakasáand were, for centuries, memorized by each generation and passed downáorally. The early Upanishads all predate the Common Era, fiveáof them in all likelihood pre-Buddhist (6th century BCE),ádown to theáMaurya period.áOf the remainder, some 95 Upanishads are part of theáMuktikaácanon, composed from about the last centuries of 1st-millennium BCE through about 15th-century CE.áNew Upanishads, beyond the 108 in the Muktika canon, continued to be composed through the early modern and modern era,áthough often dealing with subjects which are unconnected to the Vedas.Along with theáBhagavad Gitaáand theáBrahmasutra, theámukhyaáUpanishads (known collectively as theáPrasthanatrayi)áprovide a foundation for the several later schools ofáVedanta, among them, two influentialámonisticáschools of Hinduism.With the translation of the Upanishads in the early 19th century they also started to attract attention from a western audience.áArthur Schopenhaueráwas deeply impressed by the Upanishads and called it the production of the highest human wisdom.The 19th-centuryátranscendentalistsánoted the influence of the Upanishads in western philosophy.