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Revival of Upanişad studies
39 emancipation. It was thus that the Upanişad style of expression, when it once came into use, came to possess the greatest charm and attraction for earnest religious people; and as a result of that we find that even when other forms of prose and verse had been adapted for the Sanskrit language, the Upanişad form of composition had not stopped. Thus though the earliest Upanişads were compiled by 500 B.C., they continued to be written even so late as the spread of Mahommedan influence in India. The earliest and most important are probably those that have been commented upon by Sankara namely Byhadāraṇyaka, Chăndogya, Aitareya, Taittirīya, Íśā, Kena, Katha, Praśna, Mundaka and Mandūkya! It is important to note in this connection that the separate Upanişads differ much from one another with regard to their content and methods of exposition. Thus while some of them are busy laying great stress upon the monistic doctrine of the self as the only reality, there are others which lay stress upon the practice of Yoga, asceticism, the cult of Siva, of Visnu and the philosophy or anatomy of the body, and may thus be respectively called the Yoga, Saiva, Visnu and Sārīra Upanisads. These in all make up the number to one hundred and eight.
Revival of Upanisad studies in modern times. How the Upanisads came to be introduced into Europe is an interesting story. Dārā Shiko the eldest son of the Emperor Shāh Jahān heard of the Upanişads during his stay in Kashmir in 1640. He invited several Pandits from Benares to Delhi, who undertook the work of translating them into Persian. In 1775 Anquetil Duperron, the discoverer of the Zend-Avesta, received a manuscript of it presented to him by his friend Le Gentil, the French resident in Faizabad at the court of Shujā-uddaulah. Anquetil translated it into Latin which was published in 18011802. This translation though largely unintelligible was read by Schopenhauer with great enthusiasm. It had, as Schopenhauer himself admits, profoundly influenced his philosophy. Thus he
Deussen supposes that Kausitaki is also one of the earliest. Max Müller and Schroeder think that Maitrāyani also belongs to the earliest group, whereas Deussen counts it as a comparatively later production. Winternitz divides the Upanişads into four periods. In the first period he includes Bșhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Kausitaki and Kena. In the second he includes Käthaka, Išā, Svetāśvatara, Mundaka, Mabānārāyana, and in the third period he includes Praśna, Maitrāyani and Māņdūkya. The rest of the Upanişads he includes in the fourth period.
