Talk:Upanishad

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  • Someone needs to change the transliteration used in the list from ITRANS to standard transliteration. Because Wikipedia is Unicode-based, there's no need to stay limited to ITRANS. If no one else wants to do it, I will. Kricxjo 13:54, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There was a cleanup tag on this page, but it's been removed. IMHO, this still needs some work; it doesn't read clearly to the clueless

  • there shouldn't be windows 98 specific coding on the page; this should be converted to unicode / standard HTML
  • there are many paragraphs made up of single sentences; it should be restructured
  • there is a vast list of Upanishad's without any english text explaining what each one is / is about

I think it may be a good idea to put back a new cleanup tag; but since it's not there right now, I'm deleting this from the old cleanup page.


Contents

[edit] cleaning up

I'm in the process of cleaning up the list into proper IAST. This will take some time though. dab (ᛏ) 15:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

ITRANS list

I finished, the list is in IAST, and I corrected the misspellings I could find (notoriously, the sibilants were confused). There may of course still be errors, and note that the list rests entirely on online references. Somebody should double-check it with some printed publication. dab (ᛏ) 16:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] classification of Muktika canon

I have found the following sources for the Mukhya/Samanya/Sannyasa/Yoga/Shakta/Shaiva/Vaishna classification of the canon: [1][2][3]. Of these, the first seems to be our source, while the others appear to be ripoffs off Wikipedia. They give the count of how many are associated with which Veda, but they do not give our

"The first 10 are grouped as mukhya "principal", and are identical to those listed above. 24 are grouped as Sāmānya Vedānta "common Vedanta", 17 as Sannyāsa, 8 as Shākta, 14 as Vaishnava, 15 as Shaiva and 20 as Yoga Upanishads."

what is our source for this? It is not in accord with the classification as given by the list. Which is accurate? I will assume that somebody just did a lousy job of counting the list entries, and adapt the numbers to correspond to the list. dab (ᛏ) 14:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I see that here I introduced these counts myself, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I got them from. I certainly didn't do the count myself. Strange. Let's just ignore these numbers for now then. dab (ᛏ) 14:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems that the enumeration is a modern one, traceable to the Adyar Library (Theosophical Society) of Chennai (Madras) -- which has published editions of all 108 upanishads -- and thence to some anonymous researcher. The idea of the classification itself is not much older. Bloomfield in his book The Atharvaveda (p.19) say that it was proposed by Albrecht Weber for Atharvanic upanishads only, and developed by Paul Deussen (Sechzig Upanishads des Veda). Weber's original classification (cf. History of Indian Literature, p.156) was three-fold: vedanta, yoga, and sectarian (Saiva or Vaishnava). Deussen made it five: vedanta, yoga, samnyasa, saiva and vaishnava. I'm guessing the researchers at Adyar are responsible for the generalization out of the Atharvanic class and the "integration" with the Muktika, and thus the additional mukhya and shakta categories. So it boils down to identifying the specific Adyar Library publication that has the actual data. rudra (talk) 14:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Of the three links above, [4] is dead; [5] claims WP as its source(!) and [6] has an identical list, spelling peculiarities included, so presumably copied. However, this third one offers a link at the bottom to this, which, besides a link to this interesting PDF, at the bottom links to this, which has a link to this, whence this and finally, this, which I think is our "original source" of the article's information. Here we find a reference to the Adyar Library and a name: Sri Ramachandrendra of the Kanchi mutt. So it looks like the tabulation is the work of someone at SAKSI-VC, with only a PDF as the relevant "publication". In short, we do not have a mainstream source for these numbers, or more basically, for the assignment of the Muktika list (108 - mukhya) to the various categories. rudra (talk) 16:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

(copied thread over to Talk:Muktikā, a better place). rudra (talk) 17:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

As per nom, none of the major scriptures have a criticism section on their main page, this is why I removed it. Yeditor, stop placing anti-Hindu POV on this page.Bakaman Bakatalk 16:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


There is no such norm. Even Christianity page has a topic for criticism and controversies. None of the Criticism is my POV. It is an opinion of the most renowned philosophers and even Lala Hardayal who was a Hindu Nationalist and a Hero of the right wing Hindu orginisation (RSS- Sangh Parivar) his opinion cannot be anti Hindu. And if it is , why should there be a problem. Are you saying that only Pro hindu material be placed on Wikepedia. I am reversing your reveret, It was no less than vandalasimYeditor 06:06, 13 August 2006 (UTC)Yeditor 12:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I said SCRIPTURES not RELIGION. Stop misrepresenting my words. I am saying dalistan crap should not be placed on wiki.Bakaman Bakatalk 15:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Similar advise to you. stop putting RSS crap on wikiYeditor 04:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Upanishad as a root of other religions

"The roots of many Indian religions (Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism) are built upon the foundation of the Upanishads."

The above statement has been deleted. Its not only POV but its factually incorrect. Both Buddhism and Jaininsm came much before Upanishads were written. Looks there is a political agenda behind this lineYeditor 12:42, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

WRITTEN. Oral tradition was the basis for Indian traditions, therefore it is older than Buddhism for sure, and predates Mahavir.Bakaman Bakatalk 15:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


Hindu history is a history without dates. None of these date quotes are reliable. In any case It dosent prove that Jainism and Buddhism is derived from Upanishads. thats a political agenda (Original Research). therefore deserves to be deletedYeditor 04:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

This statement is still pov with political agenda

"The roots of many Indian religions are built upon the foundation of the Upanishads."

hence deleted. there are only three other religions which have an Indian Origin, namely, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. None of them are founded on the philosophy of Upanishads.Yeditor 04:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Your statement was factually incorrect that Budhdhims came before Upanishads, don't make such stupid statements with such a force if you don't know anything. Oldest Upnishad's are dated at least 900 BC while Budhdhism or Jainism are dated at the most 600BC. And who told you what all Budhdhism is baed upon? How do you know which part of Hinduism Budhdha liked and which part he didn't? Lot many Upnishads were there at least 300 years before birth of Budhdha, how will you ensure which were liked by Budhdha and which were not?
All those religions are founded upon philosophy of hinduism and neither you nor anybody else has the capability to decide exactly what all those religions inherit from Hinduism. Just suffice it to say that the actual texts of Budhdhims were writeen by Buddha's desciples most or many of whom were Brahmins. The same caste that was custodian of Hinduism. Also, Budhdha didn't start a new religion in his own mind. It was his desciples who eventually created a new sect.Skant 23:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
The above unsigned comments were added by an IP user in this diff: [7] Buddhipriya 19:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a note to Yeditor

Dear sir. I am afraid you are mistaken in your view that all the Upanisads are post-Buddhist in their composition. The Bhradaranyaka Upanisad is well known to date from the eighth century BCE. Furthermore, it is also well-known that the Upanisads do indeed form the basis for many Indian religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. I refer you to Dr Radhakrishnan's introduction to his 'Principal Upanisads', the most scholarly edition of the twentieth century. peace be with you. User: Langdell

Dear Langdell

I dont know where you got the idea that "its well known" Upanishads are basis of many Indian religions. The fact is that neither Buddhists nor Jains confirm it. On the contrary one of Buddhas teaching is "avijja' which "means not to have faith in the Shastras". Buddha's teaching is completely contrary to the self mortification preached by the Upanishad philosophy. Many Hindu writers (including Radhakrishnan) have had a politcal agenda to prove that their philosophy is the best and all other religions have been derived from them. The dates of Upanishads ( and other bhraminical texts) are completely unreliable. More on the dates later.Yeditor 04:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Ambedkar had more of an agenda than Radhakrishnan.Bakaman Bakatalk 14:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

True Babasahebs agenda was to reform Hindus. Radhakrishnans agenda was to push the shit under the carpet and call the room clean. Yeditor 04:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

With All due respect , I do not think that Wikipedia is a space for political battles.Kindly desist from such battles. Other than this, Radhakrishnan's work are extremely scholarly (you may want to point out how his writings are politically motivated), and have been annotated as such, with Oxford University Instituting a scholarship and an award as his memorial. Since there are no opinion polls to prove who is or who is not scholarly, one has to do more than just talk politics to discredit his writings. tejas 08:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

If you were a follower of Babasaheb you wouldn't be calling people "Brahmin vandals". Ambedkar was ambivalent toward Brahmins. Radhakrishnan was a great philosopher on Hinduism and colleague of Dadaji, possibly the greatest Hindu revivalist of the 20th century. Anyway, I can see your POV again, Radhakrishnan was a Brahmin. And the best caste reformer was not Ambedkar (who did little but polarize India based on caste), it was Narayana Guru, who merely used his influence to do seva and bring equality to Hindus in a simple, and nonconfrontational manner.Bakaman Bakatalk 22:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
whom are you trying to fool, Americans? Yeditor 13:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes thats exactly what I'm doing because I'm a Brahmin vandal right?Bakaman Bakatalk 15:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
you decideYeditor 07:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Please do not make insinuations against people. It is a violation of WP:NPA and is grounds for reporting. Sufficient latitude has been given on this matter.Shiva's Trident 09:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

A short protection period has been put in place to encourage more discussion. Thanks, Blnguyen | rant-line 08:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC).


"The roots of many Indian religions are built upon the foundation of the Upanishads"

This statement is mis-information with a communal agenda. It will remain POV no matter how much its discussed or reworded. It must be removed.Yeditor 13:56, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Why has the 'criticism' topic been moved to another page. Why are you guys so afraid of criticism that you keep deleting/hiding it. As I said before, it exists even on Christianity page.Yeditor 13:56, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Upanishads is more or less equivalent to the bible. The bible criticism handled on another page separate from the main article, I have created a criticism page, just for you to make baseless rants about your hatred of Upanishads and Hinduism.

From a "blatant Hindu vandal" Bakaman Bakatalk 15:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Given that we, as editors, are supposed to be reporting on what authorities say rather than grinding our own personal axes, why not simply write, for example, "According to So-and-so, many Indian religions have the Upanishads as their foundation. [cited source] However, some scholars dispute this, noting that such-and-such. [another cite]." Would that be so terribly hard? Such brief references also could include links to a more complete criticism page. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 08:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotect

I hope the four days of pre-emptive protection did something useful. Let's see.Blnguyen | rant-line 02:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roots

Its not only Bharatveer. Its a fact, consensus dictates it (myself, Bharatveer, nids, Hkelkar, Babub, Subhash_bose, Leaflord etc.).Bakaman Bakatalk 03:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

They say "If Hundred people lie, It does not become a truth" Truth is based on proof.

At the end is the proof of how Buddhism ridicules the philosophy (idiotic philosophy as per Thomas Huxley) of Upanishads. If you people have proof of the acceptance of upanishads by Jains and Sikhs as a foundation of their religion (the only other Indian religions), show it. Else the statement goes. Please stop pushing pov.
For your information The Hindu American Foundation (HAF), Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS wing of United states), Vishwa Hindu Parishad have been recently defeated in the US court of law in Sacramento for pushing similar POVs in American text books. See here for the judgment and here for the background of the litigations

Er, they have not been defeated yet, and blogs don't count as legit references. Plus, I believe that the CAPEEM lawsuit is still ongoing, and doing rather well to remove racist lies touted against Indians in US textbooks put there by racial supremacists.Hkelkar 17:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
They have been decisively routed.. There were no 'racist lies' against Indians in US text books. On the contratry, a continous campaign by large number of Indians in US, against Bhraminist racism, helped the US courts to see behind the designs of Bhramins and rule against the HAF. Please stop hanging on to crumbs and doing flip-flops like the HAF has been doing. check for other sources of the court judgement. You must have heard of "Google"Yeditor 06:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


There were plenty of racist lies (still are) and the HAF have legitimate grievances. The "large numbers of Indians" were fronts for Islamic terrorists like FOSA, fronts for Tamil-Tigers terrorists like Fetna, fronts for NLFT terrorists like DFN. and several other anti-Hindu prganizations. The courts have rules that the SBE process was illegal and biased against Hindus, see the Californian Hindu textbook controversy article. I was present for some of the SBE meetings and I can attest that several of the attackers made anti-Hindu remarks, made claims that Indian Hindus were the equivalent of monkeys and are not entitled to the same rights as Muslims or Christians in America (which is a violation of US constitutional law).Hkelkar 19:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The Pov pushing by Hindu American Foundation and its allies has been exactly similar to the pov pushing that you guys (above) have been making on Wikipedia.

And what exactly does this little rant serve to demonstrate???Hkelkar 17:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
The US court judgement serves to demonstrate how Brahmins have been distorting history for their own political agenda. That their comments are not credible and should be challenged on every forum.Yeditor 06:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
The US court has judged the process of attacking Hindus as illegal. See my post above.Hkelkar 19:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

THE BUDDHA by Michael Carrithers, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1983, ISBN 0-19-287589-2, P 102 pp, Past Masters series. Review available here [8]

""The Buddha also rejected the yogic teaching about the Self. According to the Vedantic texts known as the Upanishads, the essence of illumination was to recognize that one's ordinary small self was identical with the Cosmic Self, Brahman. But the Buddha, though he recognized the pragmatic existence of a self, did not accept that there was an Eternal Self with which the small self was, or could become, united. Clinging to the idea of a Self of this kind was, he said, a source of suffering.""Yeditor 11:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about Truth (Trade Mark), it's about verifiability and relevance, and the latter. You may make accusations of Imperialist/Zionist/Jewish/Hindu-Brahmin/Hindu-non-Brahmin conspiracies and such nonsense all you want, does not merit inclusion into wikipedia based on a single rather obscure source.Hkelkar 17:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Please refrain from typing nonsense like you did the above.Yeditor 12:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Please refrain from not reading wikipedia policy. PArticularly WP:VerifiabilityHkelkar 19:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] who Thomas Huxley ??

There may be thousands of people like Thomas Huxley, who may lie or say anything when seeing what people like Schopenhauer or many other western philosophers have said about Upanishads. Thomas Huxley had a scientific mind and was biased in favour of Christianity, despite the fact that he knew shortcomings of his religion. He wanted to clean Christianity of obvious idiocy. He wasn't courageous enough, like Voltaire or Schopenhauer or many others to accept the truth that the wisdom of Upanishads was too much for religions like Christianity. You may refer to Thomas Huxley, or whatever he said about Upanishads wherever you want, but it won't be able to damage wisdom of Upanishads or their recognition. In the long run it is guaranteed to portray Thomas Huxley as somebody much less intelligent and honest than he might have been. You can not contradict obvious for long and still ask others to consider you honest and intelligent both at the same time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.7.175.2 (talk) 00:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Upanishad and Vedanta

I was wondering the article says "The Upanishads (Devanagari: उपनिषद्, Upaniṣad; also known as Vedānta and Śrutiśira)", which basically means that Upanishad and Vedanta is the same thing. So why do we have another article on Vedanta. Should these two not be merged? Anwar ਅਨਵਰ | Talk ਗੱਲ ਬਾਤ 08:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

They are not the same thing, that sentence is misleading. They are related however. In short, Vedanta is the philosophy of the Upanishads and the Upanishads are scriptures which constitute a major part of the Vedanta GizzaChat © 23:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
(I added this as separate comment initially)=> Upanishads are texts or words written as commentaires on differend Vedas. While Vedanta is one of the philosophy that originated during the time Upanishads were written and which flourished uptill Budhdha arrived. There were many schools of philosophical thoughts during Upanishadic period and the one that dealt with idea of God and its relation to self become Vedanta. There were others like Nayaya and Mimansa, they were not that much related to God-and-self but to logic and ethics. So Vedanta is one school of indian philosophy, while Upanishads are simply texts written to interpret Vedas. You can consider Upanishads as second version of Vedas while Vedanta as one part of all the philosophy that hindus had during Upanishadic time.Skant 23:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two points

  • It would be nice to know the estimated dates of all the Upanishads Shankara commented on, specifically so we can know which ones were written when the Buddha came along. I know the dating of some of them is actually relative to his dates.
  • What do they actually say? When it comes to answer that question the article says "The Advaita interpretation is..." Arrow740 07:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Maxmuller's translation of Upanishads on internet, can be helpful in getting answers to your questions. All dates for hindu scripture by Maxmuller or other anglo-german scholars are quite conservative. Max Muller himself says that these are at least this old, not exactly this old. So most of these texts are by all means slightly much older then those conservative dates. The dates are mainly decided what happened before Budhdha or before certain other well recorded event. The main Upanishads were written well before Budhdha that is why they are dated around 600BC to 900 BC. However it is possible that some of these Upanishads are much older than this (this is what Max Muller says). Upanishads are mainly commentaries on Vedas. Skant 23:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] One point only and serious objection

The article nowhere does justice to the reputation of Upanishads, none of the scholars/people like Schopenhaur, Voltaire who appreciated Upanishads so much are mentioned still some Lala Hardayal is mentioned as if he was a great scholar?? The article is biased against Upnishads, and you don't need such articles if you have to so much biased. Upanishads influenced so many philosophers and there are people from all walks of life from all religions who felt overwhelmed with ancient Upnishadic wisdom.Skant 23:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The above unsigned addition was made by an IP user in this diff: [9] Buddhipriya 19:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
This is me "skant" who added that comment. Will try to use my user-id more often (don't normally log-in). But the idea is that people are really biased against hinduism. If you remember i also added "Brahmins are the first philosophers as per voltaire" kind of text in Brahmins article, which you removed. I am not concerned about what we keep and what we remove as long as it seems that people are fair, fearless and intelligent enough to keep truth as truth. Voltaire or Schopenhaur, would have laughed at this article on Upanishads, mainly because of how respectful we are to those ancient sages/philosophers who wrote some of the wisest thoughts (in around 800-900BC, 2800 years ago!) that didn't have any comparison well into 18th century (that too when Schopenhaur read them and revisited most of the current German philosophy).Skant 23:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BIASED PRESENTATION OF MATERIAL ON HINDUISM AND INDIA ON WIKIPEDIA

There is a significant amount of colonial and Christian missionary or European ethno-centric BIAS that is often presented as superior “linguistic” evidence in representations of Indian religious scriptures and history on documents available on Wikipedia. These sources are fundamentally biased and/or anti-Hindu in nature, as inferred in a March 22, 2007 ruling in a California court in terming use of these sources in deciding content on Hinduism or India in public school text books by the California State Education Board. Specifically, the California Board had previously consulted Harvard Sanskrit Studies Professor Mike Witzel, known for his anti-Hindu bias. Mike Witzel’s content, and that of his like, is frequently cited in these pages as “mainstream scholarship”.

The Wikipedia pages reviewed to have significant bias include, but not limited to: Vedas, RigVeda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda, Brahmana, Sathpatha-Brahmana, Vedic Period, Indo-Aryans, History of India, and Out of India Theory.

Specifically, here are some of the areas of bias:

1. Statements that Vedas were "composed". I have tried to change it to a neutral "recorded". This area needs parity with articles on the Koran and Bible in the Wikepedia. There is not a single reference to "compose" on Koran or in the first few screens of Bible, and most statements on the Torah say they were revealed or inspired by God.

2. Frequent citation of "mainstream scholars" or "majority of scholars" everywhere to support the biased presentations. There is no definition of what "mainstream" or "majority" means. One administrator JFD attempted to define mainstream as material from “peer-reviewed” journals, a standard that has not been applied for material on other religious literature on Wikipedia, AND, does not reflect more recent peer reviewed and published books that have demonstrated the untenable bias of linguistic “scholars” or Indo European studies scholars.

3. Selective immediate refutation of presentation of newer or scholarship by Indian-origin scholars, right at the place where a representation is made, in the name of "mainstream scholars". Such refutation is made at the bottom of the page, often in a separate section for material on non-Hindu religions.

4. Presentation of biased representations from Western scholars at the top part of every page as fact without presenting criticisms of such views.

5. Discarding or "deprecating" astronomical, archeological dating references and genetic studies in favor of only arguable linguistic assumptions, especially when much of the linguistic assumptions have since been discredited.

6. Assuming that the horse was not in India prior to 2000BC, to support biased claims, despite evidence to the contrary or attempts to dismiss such evidence without basis.

7. Complete absence of citations of commentaries on the Scriptures by Indian scholars of your like Shankaracharya and Ramanuja - as if the western Indologists were the first to study or comment on these scriptures.

8. Wikipedia administrators (Buddhipriya, JLD, Abecedare) have repeatedly reversed edits to correct bias, raising the possibility that the discredited “linguistic” studies group mafia has taken control of these pages to perpetuate bias.

Recommendation: These pages must be rewritten from the scratch to eliminate all bias.

User: Hulagu

So, roll your sleeves. Happy editing! ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Much more than bias against hinduism: it is insult to wikipedia to have so much of bias

This article shows how good wikipedia is. People who want to know quality of wikipedia content should check this article. Instead of giving the idea and importance of Upanishads it tries best to trivialize those ancient texts. Thos who are interested in comparing what Upanishads are and what this article make them look like should read Max Muller's preface to his translation of Upanishads. And then they should read what philosophers like Schopenhaeur, Voltaire, and Schelling. Whole German idealism owes its origin to these Upanishadic thoughts. And Voltaire and Schopenhaeur, though living in an age when saying anything good for any religion other than Christianity was very bad, minced no words while praising Upanishads. Schopenhaeur was simply too fond of Upanishadic thoughts to have cared anything. Max Muller in his later life also became more and more influenced by those thoughts. We can not even count how many philosophers (and it is mostly philosophers and scientists, common men didn't even get to know of what Upanishads are) got influenced by these Upanishads. And you see this article and think what a person reading about Upanishads for the firt time will get to know about their importance. Good job, keep it up, this is all you can do to spread truth to future generations!! Perhaps such people think they will live forever and keep protecting their egos with propaganda. Make sure you archive this page else somebody can get to know a lot just by reading my comments.

There are many editors who in the name of editing and maintaining wikipedia style simply distort and trivialize the idea of an article (some of them simply use it as a prext to make drastic changes). This way soon wikipedia will become garbage of information.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.7.175.2 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Somebody asked what is the difference between Vedanta and Upanishads?

Upanishads are texts or words written as commentaires on differend Vedas. While Vedanta is one of the philosophy that originated during the time Upanishads were written and which flourished uptill Budhdha arrived. There were many schools of philosophical thoughts during Upanishadic period and the one that dealt with idea of God and its relation to self become Vedanta. There were others like Nayaya and Mimansa, they were not that much related to God-and-self but to logic and ethics. So Vedanta is one school of indian philosophy, while Upanishads are simply texts written to interpret Vedas. You can consider Upanishads as second version of Vedas while Vedanta as one part of all the philosophy that hindus had during Upanishadic time.Skant 23:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

Instead of the criticism of the Upanishad by Amedkar and Lala Hardayal, none of whom are scholars of Hinduism or Upanishads. I would very much appreciate it if criticism of the upanishads pertained to those by Scholars similar to the criticisms of other religious scriptures by scholars rather than political activists with their agenda or theme. This needs to be changed. I will be trying to change once I get the hang of Wikipedia. In the mean time, I will try to gather scholarly debates/criticism of the upanishads....Nnachiketa Nnachiketa

It might be a good idea to change the title of that section to 'political criticism' or 'criticism of political usage' or some such. Hornplease 08:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Criticism of the Upasnishads by Amedkar and Lala Hardayal is either irrelevant or an "exceptional claim" (requiring multiple sources). I think the section should be removed.Momento 23:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, we can find multiple sources that would suggest that their criticism is notable, I suppose..... Any objection to a change of name for the section? Hornplease 23:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Ambedkar and Hardyal are neither acknowledged Sanskrit scholars nor experts in Hindu theology. Their criticism is neither encyclopedic nor relevant to this article and probably can only find a place in their own articles... or something like Ambedkar on Hindu scriptures (create that article if you can establish notability). For now I will be removing the criticism section. If somebody can find a critique of the Upanishads by a sanskrit grammarian or theologian, feel free to add it to the article. Sarvagnya 00:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Sarvagnya here. Their criticism isn't scholarly as such but is politically motivated. If they are allowed here, there is no reason to stop any religious group that is in opposition with Hinduism adding their criticism. That means any conservative Christian or extremist Muslim who has negatively commented on the Upanishads could have their quotes added here. GizzaDiscuss © 10:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I also agree with Sarvagnya, chiefly because the examples given are not particularly noteworthy in the sense that they are just examples of individual opinions rather than any sort of systematic review of criticisms. Buddhipriya 08:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Ambedkar led millions of people to convert from Hinduism with such talk. It is notable. With the Hardayal material I can agree with you. Arrow740 10:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Ambedkar's criticism of Hinduism in general is quite notable. I'm not sure how much this can be attributed to criticising the Upanishads. I am predicting (with little certainty, I'm no expert on Ambedkar) that Ambedkar must have criticised virtually every notable Hindu scripture. I believe it will be giving undue weight to one view. From my own knowledge, Ambedkar seemed to be more notable for his criticism on the Indian caste sytem than specific texts and for that reason I do support strongly including his criticism on the caste system article. GizzaDiscuss © 11:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
He is more notable for his criticism of the caste system, but that was what started his criticism of Hinduism as a whole and ended with his conversion to Buddhism out of religious conviction. I think his views which had such wide influence are quite notable. He shaped the Dalit Buddhist movement to be a specific new kind of Buddhism somewhat different from Theravada. Arrow740 11:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attn. Hindutvavadi trolls

Pathanjali doesn't quote the number of Upanishads as 900, nor does Panini. Pity that even the figure of 900, exaggerated beyond reason, failed to impress your stupefied reasoning. Or are you bent on attaining transcendence through avidya? Nigeerna can mean swallowed or hidden. ;)). Nigeerna kartrikam is an important grammatical category. Can the two stupid fellows who reverted to a stupid version offer a single instance of reference to "Nigeerna Upanishad"? The cited mess (I think it is more like a mess than a book) has NO reference to your "Nigeerna" thing. I checked it and talked to a person who assisted the late author on the book. It looks like Bharatveer copied some silly hoax from some blog or circulated email. If you can't verify some statements attributed to Pathanjali or Panini, why the f*** should you care about your Arsha Bharat and go on a rampage on Wikipedia to improve her image? Dung beetles who can't even crystalball! I am not going to remove the dung again. I will make you famous trolls, yes, I promise you. Wikipedia Hinduvadis and the discovery of a new Upanishad, ha ha ha! Afterall, you belong to the same bunch who discovered the Ghatotkacha skeleton. I suggest you some course, through my user name. ;))Upasthadharma 16:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

less gloating, more reverting, Upasthadharma. There may be any number of Upanishads, some of them are modern, there is nothing wrong with "discovering" new Upanishads: if you have a bunch of disciples, you may even write your own. For the purposes of Wikipedia, all that interests is WP:RS. "nigirna upanishad" simply means "hidden upanishad" and is not a proper name. Any such Upanishad cannot of course be cited on Wikipedia, by virtue of its being hidden, but if we can of course cite claims that there are such "hidden Upanishads", if we can show the idea is more than an internet rumour. dab (𒁳) 09:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] number of Upanishads

There is no fixed or "correct" number of Upanishads. The Muktika canon (predates the 17th century) names 108, which appears to be the most common traditional number. This isn't a controversy, merely a matter of definition. The "Upanishads proper" are the Mukhya Upanishads, numbering 10 to 16.

Max Müller (1879) tries to count the number of "real" Upanishads, giving 170 as a provisional count, but also mentions that Weber counts 235 [10]:

The number of Upanishads translated by Dârâ Shukoh amounts to 50; their number, as given in the Mahâvâkyamuktâvalî and in the Muktikâ-upanishad, is 108. Professor Weber thinks that their number, so far as we know at present, may be reckoned at 235. In order, however, to arrive at so high a number, every title of an Upanishad would have to be counted separately, while in several cases it is clearly the same Upanishad which is quoted under different names. In an alphabetical list which I published in 1855 (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft XIX, 137-158), the number of real Upanishads reached 149. To that number Dr. Burnell in his Catalogue (p. 59) added 5, Professor Haug (Brahma und die Brahmanen) 16, making a sum total of 170. New names, however, are constantly being added in the catalogues of MSS. published by Bühler, Kielhorn, Burnell, Rajendralal Mitra, and others, and I shall reserve therefore a more complete list of Upanishads for a later volume.

"iloveindia.com" states "It is estimated that there are around 350 Upanishads that exist today."[11] -- this is perfectly possible, assuming a liberal method of counting, but would need some attribution. dab (𒁳) 09:40, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] philosophical importance

While half of those German philosophers were influenced by Upanishads, while Schopenhauer himself said that people shuold read Upanishadic thoughts first in order to understand what he says. While these Upanishads are the starting thread of all philosophy we know of today. They are the first true philosophical thoughts. Still they are not vital or have have-importance to philosophical portal. And even if the have mid importance the part of philosophy that influenced so many people is not talked about at all, but the list of Upanishads is shown to be more impiortant?? Isn't it ridiculus, can't keep that list somewhere else, in some link and put good material here. Why don't you write the Upanishadic thoughts and philosophies here and let people see how what German idealism re-invented after 17th century was said 2500 or more years ago and how it influenced philosophy in general. From Dara SIkhoh to Al Beiruni, to Hegel, Max Muller, Schelling, Goethe, Schopenhauer, all of them were influenced by these upanishads. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skant (talk • contribs) 23:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Upanishad by Yeats

Somehwere I saw a book title in reprint, The Upanishads, authorW.B. Yeats.Julia Rossi 03:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Page is being made more and more irrelevant and devoid of any good information with each new edit

Who is doing the good job of shortening the page with each edit? You are constly removing anything of importance written in this page.

[edit] Can somebody remove the long list of 108 upanishads to some other [page and make this page more informative

Who the hell decided to keep this long list (108 lines??) of upanishads on this page. Why don't you write about upanishads themselves and their importance instead of copy pasting this long list. Keep it separate with some headings like "known upanishads" or "108 upanishads" and provide a link here.

I am not sure why a list of Upanishads should be considered offtopic to the article on Upanishads. dab (𒁳) 22:24, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Its already been moved to Muktikā. — goethean ॐ 23:14, 6 March 2008 (UTC)