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Selections from the Upanishads 11 SELECTIONS FROM UPANISHADS 1 "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good SECOND COITION CHRISTIAN LITERATURE SOCIETY LONDON, MADRAS AND COLOMBO 1904 Price, 4 Annas; Post-free, 5 Annas Presented to the LIBRARY of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by WILFRID CANTWELL SMITH SELECTIONS FROM THE UPANISHADS 44 From the Unreal lead me to the Real ; Darkness to From lead me Light ; From Death lead me to Immortality." J3rih a daranyaka [7pa n ift THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE SOCIETY FOR INDIA: LONDON, MADRAS AND COLOMBO. 1904. PREFATORY NOTE. The following English Translations of a few of the Upanishads appeared originally in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, Permission to reprint them was kindly granted by the Committee on condition that no change was made in the text. All the translations are by Dr. Roer, an eminent German Orientalist, except the extracts from the Chhandogya Upanishad, which was translated by the late distinguished ^Indian Scholar, Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra. The Katha, Isa and Svetasvatara Upanishads, given in full, and the Brihadaranyaka and Chhandogya Upanishads, from whicjt copious extracts have been made, are considered to belong to the first rank, and give a favourable idea of the whole. A few notes have been added from. Professor Max Miiller s " Translations in the Sacred Books of the East." All who can should study his work. To aid the reader in forming his own judgment of the Upa nishads, criticism is reserved for the concluding chapters. Some details regarding the Philosophic Schools of India will " " be found in Philosophic Hinduism (Price 2J as.). Two of the chapters, towards the end, are quoted in the following compilation. Every educated Hindu should have some acquaintance with the Upanishads. The following pages will enable him to form some estimate of their value. J. MURDOCH. SCHEME OF ACCENTS. The following plan has been followed : Short vowels have no mark attached. In Sanskrit e and o are always long. The long vowels are marked thus a, i, u. The peculiar vowel, generally written ri is marked thus short, ri; long, ri. The cerebral letters have diacritical marks thus t, d, n. The nasal letters are not distinguished by any marks. The sibilants are represented by s as in sure, sh as in shun, s as in sin. The remembering of these marks will help in the pronunciation of Sanskrit words. LIST OF CONTRACTIONS. A. = Anandagiri. Adh. = Adhyaya, or Chapter. Bhag, G-. = Bhagavadgita. Br. A. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Chh. U.= Chhandogya Upanishad. Kath. or Kath. U. = Katha Upanishad. Manu S. = Manu Smriti. Mund. or Mund. U- = Mundaka Upanishad. Pras. U. Prasna Upanishad. Kig V. S. = Rig Veda Sanhita. &.= ^ankaracharya. Svet. or Svet. U. = Svetasvatara Upanishad. Taitt. U. or Taitt. S. - -- Taittiriya Upanishad. Tal. U.= Talavakara or Kena Upanishad. Vaj. U. or Vaj. S. = Vajasaneyi or Isa Upanishad, CONTENTS. Page INTRODUCTION ... ... ... ... ... 1 SELECTIONS FROM THE UPANISHADS 11 THE KATHA UPANISHAD ... ... ... ... 11 "Introduction ... ... ... 11 First Chapter ... ... ... ... 19 Second Chapter ... ... ... 27 ISA UPANISHAD ... ... ... ... ... 33 Introduction ... ... ... 33 The Upanishad ... ... ... ... ... 34 SvETASVATARA UPANISHAD ... ... 37 Introduction ... ... ... ... ... 37 First Chapter ... ... ... 44 Second Chapter ... ... ... ... ... 49 Third Chapter ... ... ... 51 Fourth Chapter ... ... ... ... ... 53 Fifth Chapter ... ... ... 56 Sixth Chapter ... ... ... ... ... 58 BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD ... ... 61 Introduction ... ... ... ... ... 61 Book I., First Brahmana ... ... 62 Conclusion of the Third Brahmana... ... ... 62 Account of Creation ... ... ... 63 The Meaning of Putra ... ... ... 65 Origin of the Vedas ... ... ... 66 Questions of Gargl ... , . ... ... 66 Number of the Gods ... ... ... 67 Rebirths ... ... ... ... ... 68 Liberation during Life ... ... 69 The Sun nearer the Earth than the Moon ... ... 71 The Gayatrl ... ... ... 71 Procreation ... ... ... ... ... 73 Vi CONTENTS. Page CHHANDOGYA UPANISHAD ... ... 75 Sankara s Introduction ... ... ... ... 75 Om ... ... ... ... 77 The Udgitha as recited by a Dog ... ... ... 79 How to obtain Rain ... ... 79 Advantages of knowing the Gayatra ... ... 79 The Gayatri 80 All this is Brahma" ... 81 Satyakama ... ... -.. ... 81 X Creation of the Vedas ... ... 82 Transmigration ... ... ... 82 " " One only without a Second ... ... ... 82 "Thou art That" ... ... 83 The Moon escaping from Rahu ... ... ... 84 Claimed Authorship of the Upanishad ... 84 EXAMINATION OF THE UPANISHADS ... ... 85 Introductory Remarks ... ... 85 Claimed Authorship of the Upanishads ... ... 89 False Science in the Upanishads ... 90 Account of Creation ... ... ... ... 91 Divine Origin claimed for Caste ... 91 Origin of the Vedas ... ... ... ... 92 The Gayatri ... ... 92 The Soul ... ... ... ... 93 Transmigration ... ... ... 95 Polytheism of the Upanishads ... 96 Pantheism ... ... ... ... 97 " " The Great Sentences of Hindu Philosophy ... 100 Hindu Philosophy tried by its Fruits ... 102 Causes of the Failure of Hindu Philosophy ... ... 104 A Prayer of the Upanishads ... ... 107 THE UPANISHADS. INTRODUCTION. Course of Hindu Thought. India was first occupied by non- Aryan races, generally like the wild tribes still found in various parts of the country, although some had attained an elementary civilisation. Their religion apparently consisted in propitiating the demons and tutelary gods which, to the present day, forms the actual cult of the masses. The Aryans poured in from Central Asia through the western passes, and spread over the great river basins of the Indus and Ganges, where they gradually became mingled with the pre-existing population, the two races mutually acting upon each other. In later Vedic times the Indian tribes were gathered together in farms, in huts of sun-dried mud, in houses of stone, in hamlets and in fenced towns, under village chiefs and rajas. The outward aspects of their life were not unlike those of rural India to-day. The Indians of the Vedic age tilled their rice and barley, irrigated their fields with water courses, watched the increase of their flocks and herds, and made a hard or easy livelihood as blacksmiths, wheel-wrights, boat-builders, weavers, doctors, soldiers, poets, priests. They lived upon the produce of their cattle and their fields, drank wine and soma juice, and exercised their leisure in sacrificial feasts, in games, and spectacles. The powers of Nature present themselves to them as so many personal objects. The child personifies the stone that hurts him the child of ; superstition personifies the laws of Nature as gods. Sky and Earth are the father and mother of gods and men. Mitra, presiding over the day, wakes men, and bids them bestir themselves betimes, and stands watching all things with unwink ing eye. Varuna, ruling the night, prepares a cool place of rest for all that move, fashions a pathway for the sun, know^s every wink of men s eyes, cherishes truth, seizes the evil-doer with his noose, and is prayed to have mercy on the sinful. Agni, the fire- god, bears the oblation aloft to the gods. Indra, ruling the Vritra the firmament, overthrows ; Soma invigorates gods, and cheers mankind. 2 THE UPANISHADS. The gods require to be flattered with hymns, to be fed with butter, to be refreshed with soina juice, that they may send rain, food, cattle, children, and length of days to their worshippers. is as there is of the blank Life yet no burden ; nothing despair that came in later with the tenet of transmigration, and the misery of every form of sentient life. Pleasures are looked for in this world their harvests are for the wants of all ; their ; enough flocks aad herds are and are looked for in many ; pleasures again the after-life in the body in the kingdom of Yama. This worship of the personified powers of Nature with a view to material benefits gradually hardened into a series of rites to be performed by the priesthood. In course of time it came to be held that the sacrifices, performed without knowledge of their import, produced their desired effect, some material good, the birth of children, long life or future happiness. This later form of Vedic religion received the name of the Karmakanda, or ritual department of the Vedas. But in the midst of this life of the primitive Hindu, there are discernible the first stirrings of reflection. They will be described in the next chapter. The period of the hymns was followed by that of the ritual and legendary compilations known as the Brahrnanas. Of these Brahmanas, particular portions, to be repeated only by the hermits of the forests, were styled Aranyakas, and to the Aranyakas were attached the treatises setting forth as a hidden wisdom the fictitious nature of the religion of rites, and the sole reality of the all-pervading and all-animating self, or Brahman. This hidden wisdom, the philosophy of the Upanishads, in contradistinction from the Karmakanda, or ritual portion, received the name of Jnanakanda, or knowledge portion, of the Sruti, or everlasting salvation. There were now virtually two religions, the Karrna- marga, or path of rites, for the people of the villages, living as if life with its pleasures were real, and the Jnanamarga, or path of knowledge, for the sages that had quitted the world, and sought the quiet of the jungle, renouncing the false ends and the empty fictions of common life, and intent upon reunion with 1 sole reality, the Self that is one in all things living. 1 " Abridged from Gough s Philosophy
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