Signe Cohen - The Upanisads (Upanishads): A Complete Guide

The Upaniads

The Upaniads are among the most sacred foundational scriptures in the Hindu religion. Composed from 800 BCE onwards and making up part of the larger Vedic corpus, they offer the reader knowledge lessons on life, death, and immortality. While they are essential to understanding Hinduism and Asian religions more generally, their complexities make them almost impenetrable to anyone but serious scholars of Sanskrit and ancient Indian culture. This book is divided into five parts:

Composition, authorship, and transmission of the Upaniads;

The historical, cultural, and religious background of the Upaniads;

Religion and philosophy in the Upaniads;

The classical Upaniads;

The later Upaniads.

The chapters cover critical issues such as the origins of the Upaniads, authorship, and redaction, as well as exploring the broad religious and philosophical themes within the texts. The guide analyzes each of the Upaniads separately, unpacking their contextual relevance and explaining difficult terms and concepts. The Upaniads: A Complete Guide is a unique and valuable reference source for undergraduate religious studies, history, and philosophy students and researchers who want to learn more about these foundational sacred texts and the religious lessons in the Hindu tradition.

Signe Cohen is Associate Professor of South Asian Religions at the University of Missouri, USA.

The Upaniads

A Complete Guide

Edited by Signe Cohen

Yjavalkya

for Valerie Roebuck

A man of simple solutions and somewhat coarse words

Jan Gonda, Vedic Literature p. 353

Of course I wanted cows. Not for their own sake, though,

But for myself. BU 3.1.2; 4.1.1; 2.4.5

Ktyyan shall have them when I go.

Cattle and gold these are human wealth.

(I eat their flesh, too, if its succulent.) B 3.1.2.21

But I prize something else:

Knowledge, and victory in argument.

Brahmins from Kuruketra I defeat,

But not you, dear. With you I dont compete.

Listen, my dear Maitrey. It isnt for my sake BU 2.4.5; 4.5.6

That I am dear

To you, or to Ktyyan. What makes

Me dear is yourself. What if you werent here,

Or if you werent you, but something without

A self? Now is it clear?

Or look at it the other way about:

Before you, even you, are dear to me,

I first must be aware. I first must be.

Now, as a man delighting in his loves embrace BU 4.3.21

(Ktyyan

Would say Indeed! Which one?) knows neither this

Nor that, nor which is he and which is she,

So the self, when it neither wakes nor dreams,

Can only know, and be.

And what the ocean is to all the streams, BU 2.4.11; 4.5.12

The tongue to flavors, and the eye to sights

And yes, the private parts to all delights

Such is the self to all sensations, thoughts and actions.

But when you die BU 2.4.1214; 4.4.12; 4.5.1315

Youll be a unity, with no perceptions.

Dont be so worried. Let me tell you why:

Perception only happens if theres two

Something that isnt I.

Thats my immortal legacy to you. BU 2.4.3; 4.5.4; 4.5.15

Ill see Ktyyan before I go.

Give her her due: she knows what women know. BU 4.5.1

Dermot Killingley

December 30, 2016

Contents

Signe Cohen

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Dermot Killingley

Dermot Killingley

Signe Cohen

Steven E. Lindquist

Steven E. Lindquist

Jacqueline Suthren Hirst

Dermot Killingley

Dermot Killingley

Jonardon Ganeri

Signe Cohen

Dermot Killingley

Dermot Killingley

Brian Black

Simon Brodbeck

Dermot Killingley

Signe Cohen

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Dermot Killingley

Dermot Killingley

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The Taittirya UpaniadSigne Cohen

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Elizabeth Schiltz

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Brian Black is in the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University, in the United Kingdom. He has been inspired and fascinated by the Upaniads for more than twenty years. His research interests include Indian religions, comparative philosophy, the use of dialogue in Indian religious and philosophical texts, and Hindu and Buddhist ethics. He is author of the book The Character of the Self in Ancient India: Priests, Kings, and Women in the Early Upaniads (State University of New York 2007); he is co-editor (with Simon Brodbeck) of the book Gender and Narrative in the Mahbhrata (Routledge 2007); and he is co-editor (with Laurie Patton) of the book series Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History (Routledge). He is currently writing a book on dialogue in the Mahbhrata.

Simon Brodbeck is Reader in Religious Studies at Cardiff University, Wales. He is co-editor of Gender and Narrative in the Mahbhrata (Routledge 2007) and the Equinox journal Religions of South Asia, and author of The Mahbhrata Patriline: Gender, Culture, and the Royal Hereditary (Ashgate 2009) and some two dozen articles on aspects of the Mahbhrata and Rmyaa. His work in progress is an accessible English translation of the critically reconstituted Harivaa.

Signe Cohen (PhD University of Pennsylvania) is Associate Professor of South Asian Religions at the University of Missouri. She is the author of Text and Authority in the Older Upanisads (Brill 2008) as well as articles on Sanskrit texts, ancient automata, and postmodernism in the Harry Potter series. Her current book project involves ancient Hindu and Buddhist robot tales. In her work, she explores how these ancient texts about mechanically constructed beings express fundamental religious ideas about the soul and soullessness.