Vol. I. MAY, 1886. No. 2.
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Studies in the Upanishads.
[BY A STUDENT.]
Many American theosophists are asking, “What are the Upanishads?” They are a portion of the ancient Aryan literature which this journal has set itself to help lay before theosophists of America, to the end that whatever in them is good and true may be brought out. As Max Muller says, hitherto the Upanishads have not received at the hands of Sanskrit and oriental scholars, that treatment which in the eyes of philosophers and theologians they seem so fully to deserve. He also calls them “ancient theosophic treatises” and declares that his real love for Sanskrit literature was first kindled by them.[37] They have received no treatment at all in the United States, because they are almost absolutely unknown in the original tongue in this country, and in translations, have been but little studied here. Europe and America differ in this, that while in England and Germany nearly all such study is confined to the book-worm or the theologian, here there is such a general diffusion of pretty fair education in the people, that the study of these books, as translated, may be made popular, a thing which in Europe is perhaps impossible.
Muller returned to the study of the Upanishads after a period of thirty years, during which he had devoted himself to the hymns and Brahmanas of the Vedas, and found his interest in them undiminished. As for the period of these treatises, he says that has been fixed provisionally, at about 800 B. C.
The word means “secret charm,” “philosophical doctrine;” and more strictly, “to sit down near.” Hindu theologians say the Upanishads belong to revealed religion in opposition to that which is traditional. In the opinion of our friend Muller, to whom all western students must ever remain grateful no matter how much they may disagree with his views as to the Vedas being the lispings of baby man, “the earliest of these philosophical treatises will always maintain a place in the literature of the world, among the most astounding productions of the human mind in any age and in any country.”[38]
Professor Weber placed the number of Upanishads at 235[39]; in 1865 Muller put them at 149, and others added to that number, so that even to-day the actual figures are not known. Indeed it is held by several Orientalists, that before they assumed their present form, a large mass of traditional Upanishads must have existed.