Upanishads

Some of the principal early Upaniṣads:

1. Bṛhadaraṇyaka Upaniṣad
2. Chāndogya Upaniṣad
3. Taittirīya Upaniṣad
4. Aitareya Upaniṣad
5. Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad
6. Kena Upaniṣad
7. Kaṭha Upaniṣad
8. Īśa Upaniṣad
9. Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad
10. Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad
11. Praśna Upaniṣad
12. Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad

Bṛhadaraṇyaka Upaniṣad

Bṛhadaraṇyaka Upaniṣad

Adhyāya 1

• 1
  • 1-2: Sacrificial horse identified with the universe
    • 2.1-7: Creation emerges from Death
    • 2.7: Origin of the horse sacrifice
  • 3: Contest between gods and demons
    • 3.1-18: Superiority of the breath within the mouth over other vital functions
    • 3.19-23: Homologies of breath: breath as Sāman
    • 3.24-28: What one wins by means of Sāman
  • 4: Creation
    • 4.1-8: Creation emerges from the self (ātman)
    • 4.9-10: Brahman as one’s self
    • 4.11-15: Creation emerges from brahman
    • 4.15-16: The self as one’s world
    • 4.17: Creation emerges from the self (ātman)
  • 5
    • 5.1-13: Seven kinds of food
    • 5.14-15: Man identified with the year and Prajāpati
    • 5.16: The three worlds
    • 5.17-20: Rite of transfer to the son
    • 5.21-23: Contest among vital functions: superiority of breath

Adhyāya 2

• 2
  • 1: Dialogue between Dṛpta-Bālāki and Ajātaśatru on brahman
    • 1.15-20: The nature of sleep
  • 2: The central breath
  • 3: Two visible appearances of brahman
  • 4: Dialogue between Yājñavalkya and his wife, Maitreyī
    • 4.5-14: Discourse on the self
  • 5: All reality compared to honey
  • 6: Lineage of teachers

Adhyāya 3

• 3: Yājñavalkya at Janaka’s sacrifice: debate with eight teachers
  • 1: Debate with Aśvala on the ritual
  • 2: Debate with Jāratkāra on the graspers and life after death
  • 3: Debate with Bhujyu: where do horse sacrificers go?
  • 4: Debate with Uṣasta on brahman and the self
  • 5: Debate with Kahola on brahman; giving up desires
  • 6: Debate with Gārgī: on what is the universe woven?
  • 7: Debate with Uddālaka: on what are the worlds strung?
  • 8: Debate with Gārgī: on what is the universe woven?
  • 9
    • 9.1-26: Debate with Vidagdha: how many gods are there?
    • 9.27-28: Yājñavalkya questions his opponents

Adhyāya 4

• 4
  • 1-2: Dialogue between Janaka and Yājñavalkya
    • 1.2: Y. rejects Jitvan’s view that brahman is speech
    • 1.3: Y. rejects Uddālka’s view that brahman is lifebreath
    • 1.4: Y. rejects Barku’s view that brahman is sight
    • 1.5: Y. rejects Gardabhīvipīta’s view that brahman is hearing
    • 1.6: Y. rejects Satyakāma’s view that brahman is the mind
    • 1.7: Y. rejects Vidagdha’s view that brahman is the heart
    • 2.1-4: Y.’s teaching on the self
  • 3-4: A further dialogue between Janaka and Yājñavalkya
    • 3.1-8: Self as one’s source of light
    • 3.9-34: On dreaming and dreamless sleep
    • 3.35-4.2: On what happens at death
    • 4.3-6: On the course after death of those who desire
    • 4.6-25: On the course after death of those who are without desires
  • 5: Dialogue between Yājñavalkya and his wife, Maitreyī
    • 5.6-15: Discourse on the self
  • 6: Lineage of teachers

Adhyāya 5

• 5
  • 1: Brahman is space
  • 2: Prajāpati’s instruction to gods and demons
  • 3: Brahman is the heart
  • 4: Brahman is the real
  • 5: Waters create the real; the real creates the universe
  • 6: Person within the heart
  • 7: Brahman is lightning
  • 8: Speech as a cow
  • 9: Fire common to all men and the digestive process
  • 10: Course of a man after death
  • 11: Sickness as austerity
  • 12: Brahman as food and breath together
  • 13: Priests and royalty as breath
  • 14: Cosmic correspondences of the Gāyatrī verse
  • 15: Prayer for safe passage after death

Adhyāya 6

• 6
  • 1: Contest among vital functions: superiority of breath
  • 2: Pravāhaṇa’s questions to Śvetaketu and instruction of Uddālaka
    • 2.8-14: Doctrine of five fires and transmigration
    • 2.15-16: The two paths of the dead—to gods and to fathers
  • 3: Offering to vital functions for securing a wish
  • 4: On sexual intercourse
    • 4.1-6: Obligation to have sex with women
    • 4.7-11: Rites to secure love and pregnancy, and to prevent pregnancy
    • 4.12: Rite to harm a wife’s lover
    • 4.13-23: Rites to obtain different types of children
    • 4.24-28: Rites for the newborn
  • 5: Lineage of teachers

Chāndogya Upaniṣad

Chāndogya Upaniṣad

Adhyāya 1

• 1
  • 1: High Chant identified with Oṁ, the essence of all
  • 2: Contest between gods and demons using the High Chant
    • 2.2-14: Breath within the mouth as the true High Chant
  • 3: Cosmic correspondences of the High Chant
  • 4-5: High Chant as Oṁ
  • 6-7: Cosmic and bodily correspondences of Ṛg, Sāman, and High Chant
  • 8-9: Dialogue between Pravāhana and two Brahmins on the High Chant
    • 9.1-3: High Chant as Space
  • 10-11: Story of Uṣasti: High Chant identified with breath, sun, and food
  • 12: High Chant of dogs
  • 13: Correspondences of interjections in Sāmans

Adhyāya 2

• 2
  • 1: Veneration of Sāman
  • 2-7: Cosmic and bodily correspondences of the fivefold Sāman
  • 8: The sevenfold Sāman as speech
  • 9-10: The sevenfold Sāman as the sun
  • 11-21: Cosmic and bodily correspondences of the fivefold Sāman
  • 22: Ways of singing and pronouncing a Sāman
  • 23.1: Contrast between Law (dharma) and brahman
  • 23.2-3: Creation of Vedas and Oṁ by Prajāpati
  • 24: The way to secure the reward of Soma offerings

Adhyāya 3

• 3
  • 1-11: Sun as honey
    • 1-5: Honey of sun extracted from all forms of sacred knowledge
    • 6-10: Different classes of gods subsist on parts of that honey
    • 11: Sun that does not set
  • 12: Gāyatrī as the whole universe
  • 13: Five openings of the heart: their cosmic and bodily correspondences
  • 14: Brahman as one’s self within the heart
  • 15: The universe compared to a chest
  • 16-17: The sacrifice compared to the life span and activities of a man
  • 18.1: Brahman as mind and space
  • 18.2-6: Vital functions as the four quarters of brahman

Adhyāya 4

• 4
  • 1-3: Story of Jānaśruti and Raikva: doctrine of wind and breath as gatherers
  • 4-9: Story of Satyakāma Jābāla: the four quarters of brahman
  • 10-15: Story of Upakosala
    • 10-14: Correspondences of the three sacred fires
    • 15: Self as the person in the eye
  • 16-17: Work of the Brahman priest in rectifying sacrificial errors

Adhyāya 5

• 5
  • 1-2: Contest among vital functions
    • 1-2.3: Superiority of breath
    • 2.4-9: Offerings to vital functions to obtain something great
  • 3-10: Pravāhaia’s questions to Śvetaketu and instruction of Uddālaka
    • 4-9: Doctrine of five fires and transmigration
    • 10: The two paths of the dead—to gods and to fathers
  • 11-24: Aśvapati’s instruction on the self and brahman
    • 12-17: Rejection of the identity of cosmic entities and the self
    • 18: Description of the self
    • 19-24: Offering of food in the five breaths

Adhyāya 6

• 6: Dialogue between Uddālaka and his son, Śvetaketu
  • 1.3-7: Rule of substitution which makes known the unknown
  • 2: Creation comes from the existent
  • 3: Three origins of creatures
  • 4: Three appearances of things: red, white, and black
  • 5-6: The three parts of food and drink that form various bodily parts
  • 7: The sixteen parts of man
  • 8.1-2: The nature of sleep
  • 8.3-6: The existent as the root of man
  • 8.7-16.3: The true nature of the self

Adhyāya 7

• 7: Sanatkumāra instructs Nārada
  • 1-15: Progressively greater realities from name to lifebreath
  • 16-23: The need to perceive activities from thinking to plenitude
  • 24-26: Correspondence between plenitude and self

Adhyāya 8

• 8
  • 1-6: The space within the heart as containing all things
    • 1: The self free from old age and death
    • 2: Securing wishes by mere thought
    • 3: Brahman as the real
    • 4: Self as a dike dividing this world from the world of brahman
    • 5: Praise of the student life
    • 6: The veins in the heart
  • 7-12: Prajāpati instructs Indra and Virocaṇa on the true self
    • 7-8: Self as physical appearance
    • 9-10: Self as the person in dream
    • 11: Self as the person in deep sleep
    • 12: The true self
  • 13-15: Glorification of the perfected self

Taittirīya Upaniṣad

Taittirīya Upaniṣad

• 1
  • 1: Invocation
  • 2: Phonetics
  • 3: Correspondences of phonetic combinations
  • 4: Teacher’s prayer
  • 5-6: The correspondences of the Calls
  • 7: Fivefold divisions and correspondences of cosmos and body
  • 8: The universe as Oṁ
  • 9-10: Importance of vedic recitation
  • 11: Instructions to a departing student
  • 12: Student’s prayer
• 2
  • 1-2: The self consisting of food
  • 2-3: The self consisting of lifebreath
  • 3-4: The self consisting of mind
  • 4-5: The self consisting of understanding
  • 5: The self consisting of bliss
  • 6: Brahman as the real; brahman creates the universe
  • 7: The real arising from the unreal
  • 8-9: Description of the bliss of brahman; the way a dead person attains brahman
• 3
  • 1: Varuṇa’s instruction to Bhṛgu on brahman
  • 2: Brahman as food
  • 3: Brahman as lifebreath
  • 4: Brahman as mind
  • 5: Brahman as perception
  • 6: Brahman as bliss
  • 7-9: Instruction regarding food and its correspondences
  • 10
    • 1: On giving food to others
    • 2-4: Veneration of food and its correspondences
    • 5: The passage after death
    • 6: Eulogy of food

Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad

Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad

• 1: Citra instructs Uddālaka on the two paths of the dead
  • 1: Citra questions Śvetaketu
  • 2: The path of those who return here after death
  • 3-7: The path to brahman; description of what one encounters on the path
• 2
  • 1-2: Brahman is breath
  • 3: Rite to capture something of value
  • 4: Rite to secure someone’s love
  • 5: Fire sacrifice offered internally in speech and breath
  • 6: Brahman is the Ṛgvedic recitation (Uktha)
  • 7: Three ways of worshiping the sun
  • 8: Rites to secure the welfare of one’s children
  • 9: Rite to secure one’s welfare
  • 10: Rite during sexual intercourse
  • 11: Greeting the son upon return from a journey
  • 12-13: Explanation of “the dying around of the deities”
  • 14: Gaining preeminence by knowing the superiority of breath over other vital functions
  • 15: Rite of transfer to the son when a father is about to die
• 3: Indra’s instruction to Pratardana
  • 1: On understanding Indra
  • 2: Indra as breath, the self consisting of intelligence
  • 3-4: The superiority of breath over other vital functions
    • Breath as intelligence
    • What happens at death?
  • 5-7: Superiority of intelligence over other faculties
  • 8: Intelligence as the self beyond all diversity
• 4: Dialogue between Ajātaśatru and Bālāki on brahman
  • 2-18: Ajātaśatru rejects different identifications of brahman
  • 19: Instruction of Bālāki by Ajātaśatru: explanation of sleep
  • 20: Breath as the self consisting of intelligence

Kena Upaniṣad

Kena Upaniṣad

• 1: Brahman is beyond the senses and is the cause of their cognitive powers
• 2: Those who claim to know brahman do not know it
• 3: Brahman is the one who wins the victory for the gods
• 4: Tadvana: the upaniṣad with regard to brahman

Kaṭha Upaniṣad

Kaṭha Upaniṣad

• 1
  • Encounter between Naciketas and Death
  • 9-19: Death grants Naciketas three wishes
  • 20-29: The third wish of Naciketas: condition after death
• 2
  • 1-11: Transient joys are to be abandoned
  • 12-25: Discourse on the self
• 3: The path of a wise man: curbing of the senses
• 4-6: Discourse on the self and brahman

Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad

Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad

• 1
  • 1
    • 1-6 The higher and the lower types of knowledge
    • 7-9: Path of rites and the path of knowledge
  • 2: 1-13 (same topic continued)
• 2
  • 1: All beings originate from the primeval Person
  • 2: Description of brahman
• 3
  • 1-2: The way one can perceive brahman

Praśna Upaniṣad

Praśna Upaniṣad

• 1: The origin of creatures: creation of substance and lifebreath by Prajāpati
• 2: Superiority of lifebreath over other faculties
• 3: How breath travels about within the body
• 4: Explanation of dream and dreamless sleep
• 5: Meditation on the syllable Oṁ
• 6: 16 parts of a man

References

• Olivelle, Patrick (1998). The early Upaniṣads: annotated text and translation. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512435-9.

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