The Upanishads

The Upanishads are the closing layer of the Veda, and the point at which the tradition turns inward. The earlier layers concern themselves largely with the fire, the offering and the correctly spoken word. The Upanishads ask instead what the one making the offering actually is.

Their answer is what the whole of Vedanta was later built on: that atman, the self, and brahman, the ground of all that is, are one and the same. The great sentences carry it in a handful of words. Tat tvam asi, that thou art. Aham brahmasmi, I am brahman. Prajnanam brahma, consciousness is brahman.

Ten are counted principal, the list fixed by a single verse memorised by students for centuries: Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka. They were composed across perhaps seven hundred years, by authors whose names nobody wrote down. Shankara commented on all ten, and it is largely on those commentaries that Advaita Vedanta stands.

These pages set out what the Upanishads are and where they sit in the canon. The full reading, one text per chapter, is in The Ten Doors.