The Message of the Upanisads [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2016] Swami Ranganathananda

Language: EnglishPages: 644Introduction The Charm and Power of the UpanishadsThe Message of the Upanishads is a study, verse by verse, of three of the principal Upanishads, namely, Isa, Kena, and Katha. The first contains eighteen, the second thirty-five, and the third one hundred and nineteen verses. Though constituting a small portion of the total Upanishadic literature, they yet contain a lucid exposition of all the essential ideas of this immortal literature.Scholars are divided as to the date of the composition of the Upanishads. Many of them are agreed, however, that most of the principal Upanishads belong to the period prior to the event of Buddha in the seventh century before Christ. There are over two hundred Upanishads, many of them sectarian in character and palpably post-Buddhistic and even post-Sankaracharya.The Principal UpanishadsThe principal Upanishads are accepted to be those which Sankaracharya (A.D. 788-820) chose to comment upon; they are ten in number and are enumerated in the Indian tradition as follows:, Isa, Kena, Katha, Prasna, Mundaka, taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya, and Brhadaranyaka.According to some scholars, Sankara also commented on an eleventh Upanishad, the Svetasvatara. In his commentary on the Brahma-Sutra, he refers to four more, namely, Kausitaki, Jabala, Mahanarayana, and Paingala.The Isa Upanishad embodies in its very opening verse the central theme of all the Upanishads, namely, the spiritual unity and solidarity of all existence.The Kena illumines the nature of knowledge by pointing out the eternal known behind all acts of knowing, and purifies man's concept of ultimate reality of all touch of finitude and relativity by revealing its