Work · South Asian & Tibetan Philosophy
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
Compiled by many hands; its central dialogues feature the sage Yajnavalkya: Atman and Brahman – a foundational text of Vedanta.
Introduction
The “Great Forest Text” belongs to the White Yajurveda and is one of the oldest Upanishads, a genre of prose and verse texts that turn from ritual towards the question of the self and the ground of the world. Its six chapters contain cosmological speculation, genealogies of teachers and above all dialogues: Yajnavalkya debates at the court of King Janaka with other Brahmins, among them the woman philosopher Gargi, and explains to his wife Maitreyi why everything is dear “for the sake of the self”. Here too the formula “not this, not this” (neti neti) appears. Shankara’s commentary made the text a key authority for Advaita Vedanta.
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Connections
Taken up in
- Commentary on the Brahma Sutrasc. 730 · Adi Shankara
- Shri Bhashyac. 1100 · Ramanuja
- Brahma Sutra Bhashyac. 1285 · Madhvacharya
- The Greatest Secret (Persian translation of the Upanishads)1657 · Dara Shikoh
- The World as Will and Representation1819 · Arthur Schopenhauer
- The Life Divine1940 · Sri Aurobindo
Criticized in
- Discourses (Sutta Pitaka)c. 400 BCE · Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
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