The Problem in Understanding the Upanishads - 2. Swami Krishnananda

26/08/2018
2.

Ten Upanishads are the foundation. These ten are: the Isavasya Upanishad, the Kena Upanishad, the Katha Upanishad, the Prasna Upanishad, the Mundaka Upanishad, the Mandukya Upanishad, the Taittiriya Upanishad, the Aitareya Upanishad, the Chhandogya Upanishad and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. This is the usual sequence in which these ten important Upanishads are traditionally recounted, but modern scholars have a different sequence. They consider the oldest as the best and the later ones as less important. Western scholars, especially, have introduced this new system of placing the Upanishads in a novel order, or sequence, considering the prose Upanishads as older and the versified ones as later. The thoughts of these so-called older ones are supposed to be more foundational and determinative than the later ones. Whatever it be, this aspect of the matter is not important for us. What is of consequence is that all the ten Upanishads are very important for some reason or other. We can forget about the sequence.

The Isavasya Upanishad is the only one which occurs in the Samhita portion of the Veda. All the others come as appendices or follow-ups of the Brahmanas or the Aranyakas, which I mentioned in the previous session. Therefore, there is a special intonation required in the recitation of the Isavasya Upanishad, as is the case with the Samhitas of the Vedas. We cannot read the verses casually, as we read a book. There is a special modulation and intonation of voice – swara, as it is called. This swara aspect of recitation is not emphasised as much in the other Upanishads as is the case with the Isavasya Upanishad.

Now, to repeat what I told you towards the end of our last session, the Upanishads are most important and equally difficult to understand. The difficulty arises because of the subjects they treat. They are not telling us a story of something that happened sometime, like the Epics and the Puranas, for instance. Also, the Upanishads are not prayers offered to some god which we can just chant every day as a routine of practice. They do not tell us how to perform rituals or gestures of worship as we do in temples or altars of adoration. They tell us something quite different from all these things. What is this differentiation which marks the Upanishads? They deal with our Self.

To be continued ..