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The word ‘Upanishad’ is seen to roughly translates as ‘sitting down near’, implying the practice of being close to one’s spiritual teacher in order to hear his or her words of wisdom. It can also be broken down as follows:

UPA = Competent Teacher
NI = Loosens/destroys
SHAD = Attachment

The rise of mystical insight
A growing debate has arisen about the beginnings of the Hindu spiritual tradition. One particular view that has caused controversy is that around the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE nomadic tribes calling themselves ‘Aryans’ (the noble ones), began to spread out from somewhere beyond the North-West regions of Asia. Some of these tribes it is said made their way into the Indian sub-continent where the Indus Valley Civilisation existed, which dates back to around 2500 BCE and disintegrated around 1700 BCE.  

Many hotly debate the belief about the Aryans coming from outside of India. Perhaps the only sensible answer is to say that no one knows for sure, as there currently appears to be no satisfactory evidence which everyone agrees upon. However, everyone at least seems to be in agreement about the Indus Valley Civilisation.

Within the Indus Valley there was a thriving community, advanced in technology and trade, with a remarkable method of irrigation, water preservation, drainage and even a flushing sewage system, who lived peacefully with one another and in harmony with nature. What is known about the Aryan people, who followed the practices of the Vedas (Hinduism’s oldest sacred teachings), is that they had strong religious beliefs in many gods, their own particular forms of worship and their own priests (brahmins) who conducted various rituals.

It is thought, on the one hand, that there was an amalgamation of these two people’s beliefs – Aryan and Indus – which happened over a period of time. On the other hand, it is believed that the Indus people were in fact the Aryans. But as very little is known about the Indus Valley people and the Aryans themselves, we can, perhaps, only speculate about these views and hope that evidence will soon emerge to settle matters.

Seals have been discovered in the ancient sites of the Indus Valley depicting a male figure in a yogic sitting position, which some have considered to be an early depiction of the Hindu God Shiva. They have also uncovered a particular large water tank structure, which appears to have been used for ritual purposes, as is sometimes used in the Hindu tradition today.

From the early Vedas to the Upanishads
Eventually the Vedas (also called Samhitas), four collections of ancient and sacred knowledge and practices, appeared: the Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva. What is known is that hymns and rituals of the Vedas were adopted by the people populating various regions that now make up the Indian sub-continent.

The Rig Veda is the oldest – although recent scholarship has argued that there are portions of the Atharva Veda which are as old as some sections of the Rig Veda. But generally, the other Vedas are seen to follow in the order mentioned above from the Rig Veda. They contain prayers, hymns, chants and rituals (symbolic sacrifice), which form part of the Hindu tradition. They also contain some commentaries, made by the brahmin priests, explaining the ancient rites. The Atharva Veda contains more magical incantations than instruction for orthodox rituals and practices, which appear to be moving towards the religion of the ordinary people.

The Vedas, along with other early teachings, were remembered by using various means of meter, sound and repetition and handed down aurally until a system of writing was developed. The Indus Valley people did have a form of writing, which was unfortunately lost when the civilisation went into decline. It remains the only undeciphered ancient language left in the world.

The word ‘Veda’ comes from the root word vid, meaning ‘to know’. The teachings of the Vedas are seen as revealed sacred knowledge (sruti), of which the Upanishads are also part of. Modern scholarship dates the earliest Upanishads – Brhadaranyaka and Chandogya – to around 800 BCE. The Upanishads are considered to be the end of the Vedas. The Brahmanas (which describe various rituals) and the Aranyakas (supplementary teachings for forest hermits) fall in-between the four Vedas and the Upanishads.

Whereas the first part of the Vedic teachings focus on exterior rituals relevant to the Vedic religion, the last part – the Upanishads – is concerned with meditative practices and mystical wisdom which is universally applicable. Rituals are usually only appropriate to a particular culture, period of history or belief, but spiritual wisdom can be as appropriate today as it ever was.

The background to the teachers of the Upanishads is not absolutely clear. It has been suggested that they were men and women who retired to the forests for the purpose of attaining mystical insights. The Aranyakas may have opened up the way and made the ground more fertile for the universal message of the Upanishads to be accepted.

Pantheistic leanings of the Upanishads can be seen to link with the Artharva Veda and the Brahmanas. The symbolism of the early Vedic literature is also invariably drawn upon. But on the whole, the Upanishads take a different stand. The famous ‘That thou art’ (tat tvam asi) from the Chandogya Upanishad, points to a Reality that is both ‘One and Many’, beyond all forms and appearances: One into which the mystic merges.

Although some ideas can be found in the Brahmanas, they do not share the experiential and mystical ideas of the Upanishads and do not come to the conclusion that atman is Brahman. Academic research believes the Upanishads show an outside influence coming in. The fact that some of the teachers of the Upanishads are not from the usual priest caste and are women shows that something different is happening. Additionally there are key teachings which were not there before.

Just how many of the Classical Upanishads were composed and handed down is not known. It is said to be thousands. But a hundred and eight is often an accepted number – no doubt because of it being a sacred number (there are a hundred and eight prayer beads on Hindu and Buddhist malas). The great Vedantin philosopher Shankara (788-820CE) revived interest in the teachings by writing commentaries on around ten of the Upanishads. It is suggested that he commented on others, but they have been lost.

More recently, scholars have commentated on and translated other Upanishads, and today we have access to these translations, so we can read the words of wisdom spoken by the wise men and women who taught over two thousand years ago, and can be inspired by their sacred knowledge. There have been other Upanishads written over the years, but they are not seen as part of the early classical teachings.  

The list below shows eleven early Upanishads which are generally considered to be the most important. Each one is placed with one of the four Vedas, as shown in brackets. They are still used today and are among the most popular and influential. The Svetasvatara is one of the Upanishads that scholars believe Shankara wrote a commentary for, but was lost – only part of the work was found. The Svetasvatara Upanishad is an important early devotional work which was written around the time of the Bhagavad Gita and most likely predates it.

 ELEVEN PRINCIPAL UPANISHADS
Brhadaranyaka (White Yajur Veda) Taittiriya (Black Yajur Veda)
Mandukya (Atharva Veda) Prashna (Atharva Veda)
Kena (Sama Veda) Chandogya (Sama Veda)
Katha (Black Yajur Veda) Isha (White Yajur Veda)
Mundaka (Atharva Veda) Svetasvatara (Black Yajur)
Aitareya (Rig Veda)

There is no single authorship, cohesive theme or one system of philosophy and practice that runs through the whole of the Classical Upanishads. Early ones, such as the Brhadaranyaka and Chandogya, which are considered the most historically important, teach monistic ideas about Brahman (the Divine).  

There has been a tendency to see that what is taught today is exactly the same as the Upanishads and the four Vedas. But this misses out on acknowledging the richness of different beliefs, practices and insights that have emerged. Within the early Upanishads there is a shift from ideas about various devas and Vedic rituals and sacrifices, to meditation, mystical experience and more sophisticated beliefs about the Self and the One behind the multiple forms of Creation – both seen and unseen:

The absolute monism of later Advaita Vedanta philosophy is not arrived at in the early teachings. It is the relatively late Mundaka Upanishad that begins to display it. But one passage where the Imperishable/Ultimate and Creation are compared to a spider weaving its web and plants sprouting from the earth, suggests that the world and Brahman are not completely identical.

Nonetheless, major concepts are introduced and developed which display a new understanding of the human condition and of salvation, such as karma, the cycle of lives (samsara), personal liberation (moksha), desires inhibiting our spiritual growth and humankind living in blindness of its true nature. Yoga writer Georg Feuerstein mentions in his book Wholeness or Transcendence? that a few hymns of the Rig Veda seem to indicate some previous knowledge of reincarnation, but the full fleshing out of its teachings is not done until the later Upanishads.
From the time of the early Upanishads onwards most of these ideas remain central not only to Hindu and yogic teachings, but many other spiritual traditions that emerged in India. Where these insights came from can only be speculated. Some have suggested they could have come from an influential tribal religion, which the teachers of the Upanishads were in contact with.  

Freedom from conditioned existence
A key point is that the atman (man’s and woman’s inner essence) is seen as immortal and as Brahman, the ground of everything and everyone. Those who have insight into this Reality know their true Self:

This is an awakening to a transcendent and omnipresent Reality which is realised in higher states of meditation and is different from early Vedic ideas about the soul, as they were more bound-up with notions of ancestor worship. Liberation from conditioned existence and the world of change and unsatisfactoriness (the world of samsara) is the prime focus of the Upanishadic teachers. This is not seen as a way of blissing-out and escaping from the world, but more of a positive help to living life more peacefully.
 
Mystical Knowledge
It can be argued that the road to the experiential and meditative aspect of the Upanishads was already open through the taking of soma (an hallucinogenic substance) in the early Vedic period. But by the time of the Upanishads the practice had died out and the ingredients were forgotten. Nonetheless, it shows that we are dealing with a culture that was receptive to ideas and practices connected with altered-states of consciousness.

In the Upanishads, normal states of mind have to be transcended in order to awaken to the Ultimate Reality/Brahman, which is said to be in a fourth state of existence (normal consciousness, dreams and dreamless sleep being the other three). Brahman pervades all things and is the true Self which has always existed, unbound and unaffected by time, action, decay, death or physical conditions.

The expression neti, neti, which is more accurately translated as ‘not, not’, illustrates that both atman and Brahman are something so ‘totally other’ than anything normally perceived in life. It is, therefore, easier to describe what they are not than what they are. But this does not imply a state of nothingness. The closest expression offered to describe Brahman is, ‘pure being, pure consciousness, pure bliss’ (sat-chit-ananda).

Karma in the Upanishads
There are two aspects to karma: one positive (punya) and one negative (papa). The Upanishads introduce the idea of a subtle body which stores up karma and determines and influences one’s present or future life. Good deeds are advocated, as this determines a better rebirth. But to achieve complete freedom from the cycle of rebirth, non-attachment to all worldly actions is recommended. This does not imply uninvolvement in the world. We must remember that some of the teachers of the Upanishads are married and in contact with others – they are not reclusive ascetics. Those who pursue earthly desire are seen to be bound by their actions, whereas those who desire only Brahman find both freedom in this life and the next.

In the early Upanishads salvation is attained through overcoming a lack of awareness of one’s true nature and seeing the world as neither good nor bad. The Upanishadic road to freedom is a path of intuitively seeing beyond dualities – realising the whole universe and beyond as Brahman and knowing that That Reality is also part of oneself:

*Main quotations of the Upanishads are from Alan Jacobs’s excellent translation,
The Principal Upanishads: A Poetic Translation (O Books, 2003).