Introduction to the Upanishads

Sibaprasad Dutta
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The term Upanishad means knowledge received by a student ‘sitting close to’ the
teacher. V. S. Apte comments upon the etymology of the word in the following
manner:

01. The knowledge that is learnt by a person about the

non-dual Self from the preceptor whom he approaches
(with genuine inquisitives), the knowledge that finishes
off the ignorance from his mind forever is called
Upanishad.

02. The knowledge of the highest Self that dispels

ignorance, the root of all miseries and ushers in the mind
of a learner the sense of oneness is called Upanishad.

03. As the knowledge does away with the desires for

sensual pleasures root and branch, the knowledge of the
supreme Self is called Upanishad.

04. Qualified persons define Upanishad as the secret

knowledge of the supreme Self that a pupil learns from
the preceptor being in close contact with him.

05. The knowledge of Brahman or the Self liberates one

from ignorance, and hence, from bondage. The
knowledge on Brahman that is obtained in closed contact
with the teacher is what is called Upanishad.
Explaining the derivation of the term in his introduction to Katha Upanishad, Sankara
says:

‘ By what etymological process does the term Upanishad

denote knowledge? This is now explained. Those who
seek liberation, being endowed with the spirit of
dispassion towards all sense objects, seen or heard of,
and approaching this knowledge indicated by the term
‘Upanishad’ presently to be explained, devote
themselves to the one-pointed determination – of such
people, this knowledge removes, shatters or destroys the
Avidya (ignorance or spiritual blindness), which is the
seed of all relative existence or worldliness. By this
etymological connections, ‘upanishad’ is said to mean
‘Knowledge’.

Anticipating a possible objection, Sankara continues :

‘It may be urged that the students use the term

‘Upanishad’ even to denote a book, as when they say
“we shall study the Upanishad”, “ we shall teach the
Upanishad”. This is no fault; since the destruction et
cetera of the seed of worldliness, which is the meaning of
the root sad in upa-ni-sad, cannot be had from a mere
book but can be had from knowledge. Even the book
may also be denoted by the term, because it serves the
same purpose (indirectly), as when they say that clarified
butter is verily life. Therefore, the term ‘upanishad’
 primarily refers to knowledge, and secondarily only to a
book.’

Swami Rangathananda explains that education involving the student ‘sitting close to’
the teacher means the most intimate teacher-student relationship. The higher the
knowledge sought, greater is this communion and greater the silence accompanying
the communication of the knowledge. These values attain a loft height when the
knowledge that is sought and imparted is of the highest kind, namely, atmajnana or
brahmajnana, knowledge of the Self or Brahman.. This knowledge, Sankara points
out in Brahmasutra (1.1.2) is anubhavavasatvat bhutavastuvisayatvat ca
majnanasya. That is, it finds its consummation in experience (or realization) since the
knowledge on Brahman relates to a reality which is already existing.’

‘Upanishad is the study of Brahman,’ writes Professor Nirode Baran Chakraborty.

This exercise causes cessation of nescience or ignorance and mutation of the past
impressions (samskaras). The concluding portions of the Vedas deal with the
knowledge on Brahman and these portions are known as Upaniùads. While the first
chapters of the Vedas deal with Action (karma-kanda), the conclusive parts deal with
knowledge on Brahman (jnana-kanda). The knowledge as contained in the Upaniùads
is considered an arcane and secret doctrine. It is often taken as meaning ‘mystical
knowledge or instruction’ or as ‘true knowledge about the supreme spirit’. A
preceptor privately imparts the knowledge to his disciples who sit close to him. This
is the etymological connotation of Upaniùad. Although there is no exact account of
the number of Upanishads, in the Muktakopanishad there is mention of 108
Upanishads. Researchers have made some more addition to this number.

As some of the branches of the Vedas are not available, the Upaniùads related to the
m are not also available. Sankara commented on eleven Upanishads –Isha, Katha,
Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandyogya, Svetasvatara and
Brihadaranyaka. These are considered major Upanishads while the minor
Upanishads include Nrisimhatapani, Brahmavindu, Mahanarayana, Kalisantarana,
Javala etc.

‘One of the fascinating features of the Upanishads is love

of truth and its fearless quest. ... The earnestness of the
search for truth is one of the delightful and commendable
features of the Upanishads.’
- Robert Ernest : The Thirteen Principal Upanishads (p. 30, footnote)

When we study the Upanishads, we feel being in the ambience where earnest students
and teachers the central problem of the philosophy in respect of our existence with
sincerity and thoroughness, objectivity and detachment, rare in the history of
philosophical thought. We have such instances in Plato’s Dialogues. ‘The Upanishads
discovered very early in history what Thomas Huxley refers to as the difference
between opinion and truth, between “ I believe such and such” and “I believe such
and such to be true”. J. Arthur Thomson in his Introduction to Science (p. 22) quotes
Huxley:

The longer I live, the more obvious it is to me that the

most sacred act of a man’s life is to say and feel , ‘I
believe such and such to be true. All the greatest rewards
and all the heaviest penalties of existence cling about that
act.'

A belief is true if it has stood, and can always stand, the test of experiences in
successive generations, and not because it has been said by a man or written in a
book. The essential Vedantic truths possess universal and eternal validity, as they are
verifiable by all men. This is forcefully brought about by Sankara in a remarkable
passage in his commentary on Brihadaranyaka Upanishad dealing with the validity of
scriptural statements (1.4.7):

‘The test of validity of a sentence is not that it just states

something about a thing or about an act. What (is it)
then? (It is) its capacity of generating certain and fruitful
knowledge. A sentence that has this is valid; while the
one that lacks it is invalid.’

‘Such truths,’ says Swami Ranganathananda, ‘are far different from the private beliefs
of an individua or a group, a sect or a church, held with all emotional intensity and
projected for other people’s acceptance with equal fervour.Such beliefs cannot claim
‘the greatest reward’ because they have not paid the heaviest penalty involved in
being subjected subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of reason and being thrown open to
universal verification.’ Romain Rolland refers to this unique characteristic of
Vedanta :

'The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system
of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and
unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the
facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has
laid down for their co-ordination. Never having been
hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely
free to search whatever he pleased for the spiritual
explanation of the spectacle of the universe.'

Tracing the etymology of the term Upanishad Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says that ‘the
word Upanishad is derived from upa (near) , ni (down), and sad (to sit) i.e. sitting
down near.’ In the days of yore, groups of people sat near the teacher to learn from
the secret doctrine in the quiet ambience of the forest hermitages where the
Upanishad thinkers pondered on the problems of the deepest concern and
communicated their knowledge to fit pupils seated near them. The seers adopted a
certain silence in communicating the truth and they wished to be satisfied that their
pupils were spiritually and not carnally minded. To imbibe spiritual instructions, the
pupils must have had a spiritual disposition. Plato says almost the same thing in
Timaeus: ‘To find the Father and Maker of this universe is a hard task; and when you
have found him, it is impossible to speak of him before all the people.’

Radhakrishnan further comments that the Upanishads contain accounts of the mystic
significance of the syllable Aum, explanations of the mystic words like tajjalan,
which are intelligible only to the initiated, and sacred texts and esoteric doctrines.
Upanishad became a name for a mystery, a secret ( rahasyam) – guhya adesha (C.U.
3.52), paramam guhyam - Katha 1.3 17, vedante paramam guhyam S.U. VI. 22 ,
vedaguhyam, vedaguhyopanishatsu gudam S.U. 5.6 – communicable only to the
tested few. When the question about man’s final destiny was raised, Yajnavalka took
his pupil aside and whispered to him the truth. (B.U.II.2.13). According to Chandygya
Upanishad, the doctrine of Brahman may be imparted by a father to his elder son or to
a trusted pupil, but not to another, whoever he may be, even if the latter should give
him the whole earth surrounded by the waters and filled with treasures. (C.U.III.2.5)
It is seen that in many cases, the teacher had imparted the knowledge of Truth after
repeated entreaty from the student and after severe trial by the teacher.

According to Sankara, the word upanishad is derived as a substantive from the root
sad, ‘to loosen’, ‘to reach’ or ‘to destroy’ with upa and ni as prefixes and kvip as
termination. If this derivation is accepted, upanishad means brahma-knowledge by
which ignorance is loosened or destroyed. The treatises that deal with brahma-
knowledge are called the Upanishads and so pass for Vedanta. Sankara, in his
introduction to the commentary on T.U., says upanishannam va asyam param shreya
iti. The different derivations together make out that the Upanishads give us both
spiritual vision and philosophical argument. Oldenberg suggests: ‘The real sense of
Upanishad is worship or reverence, which the word upasana signifies. Upasana
brings about oneness with the object worshipped.’ Radhakrishnan concludes his
discussion saying that ‘there is a core of certainty which is essentially
incommunicable except by a way of life. It is by a strictly personal effort that one can
reach the truth.’

The philosophy expounded in the Upanishads has kinship with Taoism. This
philosophical doctrine was founded by Lao-Tzu and expressed in the book called by
the same name, and also known as the Tao Te Ching (‘Classic of the Way’) and
combines mysticism, philosophical reflection, and poetry. Poetry, rather sublime
poetry, abounds in the Upanishads. Unlike Confucianism, Taoism stresses the unity of
the humanity and the universe. It propounds that it is the loss of that unity that is
responsible for desire, competition, and the unsuccessful attempts to regulate the
resulting strife by means of ethics and moral law. The Upanishads preach the same
although the their concept of the prime cause which too is the final destination of the
individual self explicitly believes in the existence of a cosmic spirit that is immanent
in and yet transcendent from the universe. The severance of the unity being the cause
of our miseries is also expounded in the Vedanta and the Bhagavad-Gita, but the
unity talked about in the Vedanta is of a superior kind, the unity of the individual
from the Supreme Self, the self-cause and the ultimate destination of the all beings
and objects. When the Vedanta says that realization of the Self is the true knowledge
that places a man in perfect harmony with the universe, that enables him to be the All,
a clear affinity between the Vedantic thought and Taoism emerges. While as a
practical philosophy Taoism is based on the suppression of desire in favour of natural
simplicity and tranquility felt in the society and in the individuals, Vedanta
appreciates the view, but with a subtle difference. While Taoism speaks of the
suppression of desire for the sake of social and individual simplicity and tranquility,
Vedanta stresses not suppression but total freedom from desires through steady
practice. The tao (Chinese, the way), the original philosophy before it was developed
by Lao-Tzu, dealt with the ‘source and principle of the cosmic order; the constant
flow of the life force (chi - Chinese :: prana – in Vedanta) in unceasing change. On
this point, Vedanta characterises the cosmic Soul as the eternal, unchanging and
undecaying existence. It is the existence of all existences. As a cosmic principle the
tao bears similarity to logos* , although it is also elusive, deep, and not obscure and
cannot be expressed in words. The Upanishad says:

The Self cannot be known from the words of the preceptors,

Nor can It be known by intellect or through study of the scripture;
It can be attained only through keen and passionate seeking
As only to an avid and ardent aspirant, the Self reveals Its true nature. 3.2.3
Translation: Sibaprasad Dutta

The tao of the humanity and that of the universe are one, and in this lies the key to a
completely satisfying and harmonious human existence. The ‘easy way’ of Taoism is
one of being in tune with nature and the universe. In Confucianism*, the tao is the
way of moral law, or the path by which a fully moral existence is achieved. Lao-Tzu
considered that ‘when tao is lost only then does the doctrine of virtue arise’. The
Vedanta too emphasizes ethics as long as vices, arising from desires, exist. To be
virtuous is a step towards spiritual perfection but not an end in itself. Vedanta stresses
that realization of the Self is the ultimate education that can be achieved through
purification of the mind from desires through self-control, both physical and mental.
As it has already been pointed out, Vedanta does not speak of suppression of desires,
but their complete effacement and eradication through steadfast practice of Self-
restraint. The practice will bring in course of time a state when all other desires would
be felt unpalatable and the aspirant will find satisfaction only in being absorbed in the
thought of Brahman. Ethics is for the new initiates and not for those who realize Self
and enter the tranquil state of the cosmic soul.
The ultimate goal of human life is happiness which is a state of subjective well-being.
It is the combination of experiences of peace, harmony, laughter and love. When
people are happy, they are more successful in achieving their goals. They have better
relationships. They make healthy choices and they end up creating life-supporting
environment for themselves and in their social relationships.

Happiness is exists within and not without. If one seeks to be happy, one must turn
inward and cleanse the heart that is tainted by desires. Happiness is a certain sense of
fullness. It is sought after by all, but few know the way. People mostly believe that
happiness consists in achievement of sense pleasures. This is why they break their
spine, and even if they succeed in achieving what they seek, the pleasantness is so
transient, that sadness bounces back in double measure. One may get an instant high
when one buys a laptop or a designer car, but the glee is short-lived and momentary.
The fallacy lies in the fact that we want the world to act as we want it to and we do
not try to adapt ourselves to the circumstances in which we are placed. The world
never serves us according to our will; what is, therefore, needed that we must master
the world through indifference that comes when we realize that human life is
evanescent. ‘In blissful, ecstatic indifference,’ says spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen,
‘you wouldn’t mind if the whole universe disappeared.’ If one is able to control one’s
body, mind and emotion that constantly tempt us to divert and spring out of our
control, happiness comes as leaves come to a tree. New leaves shoot out only after the
old ones are shed; in the same way, if we are able to shake off our sense desires, the
new leaves of happiness will fill our heart.

Happiness is a state of mind when one has no more desires and wants. This state can
be achieved only when one realizes the impermanence of life and perishablity of
worldly objects that seem to give pleasure. This realization comes only when one
attains the knowledge of the Self in which is our real existence. This realization
ensures emancipation of sorrows during life and attainment of eternal bliss in
Brahman after death. Andrew Cohen, a spiritual teacher, echoes this thought when
says that ‘it is in the absolute peace of the non-manifest ground of being that we
experience freedom from the knot of existential tension that abides in the core of our
self-sense. In that ground, there is no birth and no death, no unfulfilled desires and no
need to be or become anything other than what already is and always has been. That
is why there is such deep contentment.’ Cohen’s thought has its source in the
philosophy of Vedanta.

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