Samayasara

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 43

INTRODUCTION
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in his commentary as that which destroys ignorance or that which leads to the knowledge of Brahman. Indian writers use the term in the sense of secret doctrine or Rahasya. Upanişadic texts are generally referred to as Parāvidyā, the great secret. The Indian usage distinctly implies something secret. Further as Deussen points out it was an ancient custom all over the world to preserve certain important spiritual truths as a secret and to communicate them only to the initated few. Among the Pythagoreans the philosophical doctrines were confined only to the members of that order. Similar was the case during the medieval age. Numerous passages from the Upanişads point to the same reference. There is internal evidence to show that Upanişadic truths were communicated to others with great discretion and very often with great reluctance. The father would select his eldest son as his fit disciple. If the disciple is a stranger to the master the applicant has to serve several years of probation before he can be initiated into the mysteries. Even among the learned men evidently all were not acquainted with the Upanişadic truths. These facts go to support the traditional meaning of the term Upanişad that it is a secret doctrine--that it is a Rahasya, sometimes in the primary sense of secret doctrine. These differences do not matter much. When the initiated talked to one another they must indicate their meaning only by signs which would be understood only by the initiated. This fact explains why the term is used in the sense of a secret word or text.
The Date of the Upanişads--1000 to 500 B.C. :-The Upanişads do not form the composition of a single author. They are many in number. Most probably even a single Upanişad is due to the co-operation of several persons. The Upanişads taken as a whole collection would cover a period of several centuries. Some of the earliest Upanişads take us to the period of Vedic thought and rituals and some of the latest exhibit distinct traces of modern thought and would even bring us to the period of Mohammedan rule in India. To ask for a chronology of the composition stretching across so many centuries would be neither scientific nor useful. Indian commentators such as Sankara recognised certain Upanişads as genuine and wrote commentaries on them. Scholars generally confine themselves to such Upanişads as are recognised by the well-known commentators. Even here there is no consensus of opinion. Tradition speaks of ten Upanişads ; whereas different commentators mention different numbers. If we confine ourselves to the most important and the recognised ones we can say this much of their period of composition. They are distinctly anterior to the rise of Buddhism. So we can safely mention that the Upanişads, the important of them at least, must be placed earlier than the 5th Century B.C. Can we say anything as to the beginning of these Upanişdas? The period generally accepted by Orientalists is about 1000 B. C. Hence the duration from 1000 to 500 B. C. would probably represent the period when the Upanişads were composed.
The Origin of the Upanişads-An interesting controversy is associated with the origin of the Upanişads. We need not emphasise the fact that the Brahma