{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe01/sbe01015.htm","path":"hin/sbe01/sbe01015.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe01/sbe01015.htm","text":"The Upanishads, Part 1 (SBE01), by Max M\u00fcller, [1879]\nHow Upanishad became the recognised name of the philosophical treatises contained in the Veda is difficult to explain. Most European scholars are agreed in deriving\nupa-ni-shad from the root sad, to sit down, preceded by the two prepositions ni, down, and upa, near, so that it would express the idea of session, or assembly of pupils sitting down near their teacher to listen to his instruction. In the Trik\u00e2ndasesha, upanishad is explained by sam\u00eepasadana, sitting down near a person 1.\nSuch a word, however, would have been applicable, it would seem, to any other portion of the Veda as well as to the chapters called Upanishad, and it has never been explained how its meaning came thus to be restricted. It is still more strange that upanishad, in the sense of session or assembly, has never, so far as I am aware, been met with. Whenever the word occurs, it has the meaning of doctrine, secret doctrine, or is simply used as the title of the philosophic treatises which constitute the g\u00f1\u00e2nak\u00e2nda, the knowledge portion, as opposed to the karmak\u00e2nda, the work or ceremonial portion, of the Veda.\nNative philosophers seem never to have thought of deriving upanishad from sad, to sit down. They derive it either from the root sad, in the sense of destruction, supposing these ancient treatises to have received their name because they were intended to destroy passion and ignorance by means of divine revelation 2, or from the root sad, in the sense of approaching, because a knowledge of Brahman comes near to us by means of the Upanishads, or because we approach Brahman by their help. Another explanation proposed by Sa\u1e45kara in his commentary on the Taittir\u00eeya-upanishad II, 9, is that the highest bliss is contained in the Upanishad (param sreyo 'sy\u00e2m nishannam).\nThese explanations seem so wilfully perverse that it is difficult to understand the unanimity of native scholars. We ought to take into account, however, that very general tendency among half-educated people, to acquiesce in any etymology which accounts for the most prevalent meaning of a word. The \u00c2ranyakas abound in\nsuch etymologies, which probably were never intended as real etymologies, in our sense of the word, but simply as plays on words, helping to account somehow for their meaning. The Upanishads, no doubt, were meant to destroy ignorance and passion, and nothing seemed more natural therefore than that their etymological meaning should be that of destroyers 1.\nThe history and the genius of the Sanskrit language leave little doubt that upanishad meant originally session, particularly a session consisting of pupils, assembled at a respectful distance round their teacher.\nWith upa alone, sad occurs as early as the hymns of the Rig-veda, in the sense of approaching respectfully 2:--\nRig-veda IX, 11, 6. N\u00e1mas\u00e2 \u00edt \u00fapa s\u00eedata, 'approach him with praise.' See also Rig-veda X, 73, II; I, 65, I.\nIn the Kh\u00e2ndogya-upanishad VI, 13, I, a teacher says to his pupil, atha m\u00e2 pr\u00e2tar upas\u00eedath\u00e2h, 'come to me (for advice) to-morrow morning.'\nIn the same Upanishad VII, 8, I, a distinction is made between those who serve their teachers (parikarit\u00e2), and those who are admitted to their more intimate society (upasatt\u00e2, comm. sam\u00eepagah, antara\u1e45gah, priyah).\nAgain, in the Kh\u00e2ndogya-upanishad VII, I, we read of a pupil approaching his teacher (up\u00e2sas\u00e2da or upasas\u00e2da), and of the teacher telling him to approach with what he knows, i.e. to tell him first what he has learnt already (yad vettha tena mopas\u00eeda 3).\nIn the S\u00fbtras (Gobhil\u00eeya Grihya-s\u00fbtra II, 10, 38) upasad is the recognised term for the position assumed by a pupil with his hands folded and his eyes looking up to the teacher who is to instruct him.\nIt should be stated, however, that no passage has yet been met with in which upa-ni-sad is used in the sense of pupils approaching and listening to their teacher. In the\nonly passage in which upanishas\u00e2da occurs (Ait. \u00c2r. II, 2, 1), it is used of Indra sitting down by the side of Visv\u00e2mitra, and it is curious to observe that both MSS. and commentaries give here upanishasas\u00e2da, an entirely irregular form.\nThe same is the case with two other roots which are used almost synonymously with sad, viz. \u00e2s and vis. We find upa + \u00e2s used to express the position which the pupil occupies when listening to his teacher, eg. P\u00e2n. III, 4, 72, up\u00e2sito gurum bhav\u00e2n, 'thou hast approached the Guru,' or up\u00e2sito gurur bhavat\u00e2, 'the Guru has been approached by thee.' We find pari + upa + \u00e2s used with regard to relations assembled round the bed of a dying friend, Kh\u00e2nd. Up. VI, 15; or of hungry children sitting round their mother, and likened to people performing the Agnihotra sacrifice (Kh\u00e2nd. Up. V, 24, 5). But I have never met with upa-ni-as in that sense.\nWe likewise find upa-vis used in the sense of sitting down to a discussion (Kh\u00e2nd. Up. I, 8, 2), but I have never found upa + ni + vis as applied to a pupil listening to his teacher.\nThe two prepositions upa and ni occur, however, with pat, to fly, in the sense of flying down and settling near a person, Kh\u00e2nd. Up. IV, 7, 2; IV, 8, 2. And the same prepositions joined to the verb sri, impart to it the meaning of sitting down beneath a person, so as to show him respect: Brih. \u00c2r. I, 4, II. 'Although a king is exalted, he sits down at the end of the sacrifice below the Brahman,' brahmaiv\u00e2ntata upanisrayati.\nSad, with upa and ni, occurs in upanish\u00e2din only, and has there the meaning of subject, eg. Satap. Br\u00e2hm. IX, 4, 3, 3, kshatr\u00e2ya tad visam adhast\u00e2d upanish\u00e2din\u00eem karoti, 'he thus makes the Vis (citizen) below, subject to the Kshatriya.'\nSometimes nishad is used by the side of upanishad, and so far as we can judge, without any difference of meaning 1.\nAll we can say therefore, for the present, is that upanishad,\nbesides being the recognised title of certain philosophical treatises, occurs also in the sense of doctrine and of secret doctrine, and that it seems to have assumed this meaning from having been used originally in the sense of session or assembly in which one or more pupils receive instruction from a teacher.\nThus we find the word upanishad used in the Upanishads themselves in the following meanings:\n1. Secret or esoteric explanation, whether true or false.\n2. Knowledge derived from such explanation.\n3. Special rules or observances incumbent on those who have received such knowledge.\n4. Title of the books containing such knowledge.\nI. Ait. \u00c2r. III, 1, 6, 3. 'For this Upanishad, i.e. in order to obtain the information about the true meaning of Samhit\u00e2, T\u00e2rukshya served as a cowherd for a whole year.'\nTaitt. Up. 1, 3. 'We shall now explain the Upanishad of the Samhit\u00e2.'\nAit. \u00c2r. III, 2, 5, 1. 'Next follows this Upanishad of the whole speech. True, all these are Upanishads of the whole speech, but this they declare especially.'\nTalav. Up. IV, 7. 'As you have asked me to tell you the Upanishad, the Upanishad has now been told you. We have told you the Br\u00e2hm\u00ee Upanishad,' i.e. the true meaning of Brahman.\nIn the Kh\u00e2nd. Up. III, II, 3, after the meaning of Brahman has been explained, the text says: 'To him who thus knows this Brahma upanishad (the secret doctrine of Brahman) the sun does not rise and does not set.' In the next paragraph brahma itself is used, meaning either Brahman as the object taught in the Upanishad, or, by a slight change of meaning, the Upanishad itself.\nKh\u00e2nd. Up. I, 13, 4. 'Speech yields its milk to him who knows this Upanishad (secret doctrine) of the S\u00e2mans in this wise.'\nKh\u00e2nd. Up. VIII, 8, 4. When Indra and Virokana had both misunderstood the teaching of Prag\u00e2pati, he says: 'They both go away without having perceived and without having known the Self, and whoever of these two, whether\nDevas or Asuras, will follow this doctrine (upanishad), will perish.'\nII. In the Kh\u00e2nd. Up. I, i, after the deeper meaning of the Udg\u00eetha or Om has been described, the advantage of knowing that deeper meaning is put forward, and it is said that the sacrifice which a man performs with knowledge, with faith, and with the Upanishad, i.e. with an understanding of its deeper meaning, is more powerful.\nIII. In the Taittir\u00eeya-upanishad, at the end of the second chapter, called the Brahm\u00e2nandavall\u00ee, and again at the end of the tenth chapter, the text itself says: Ity upanishad, this is the Upanishad, the true doctrine.'\nIV. In the Kaush\u00eetaki-upanishad II, I; 2, we read: 'Let him not beg, this is the Upanishad for him who knows this.' Here upanishad stands for vrata or rahasya-vrata, rule.\nlxxx:1 P\u00e2nini I, 4, 79, has upanishatkritya.\nlxxx:2 M. M., History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 318; Colebrooke, Essays, I, 92; Regnaud, Mat\u00e9riaux, p. 7.\nlxxxi:1 The distinction between possible and real etymologies is as modern as that between legend and history.\nlxxxi:2 See M. M.'s History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 318.\nlxxxi:3 See also Khand. Up. VI, 7, 2.\nlxxxii:1 Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata, S\u00e2ntiparva, 1613.","title":"The Upanishads, Part 1 (SBE01): Introduction to the Upanishads: Meaning of the Word Upanishad","type":"page"}