UPANISHAD is the name of those Sanskrit works belonging to the Vedic literature which contain the mystical doctrine of the Hindus on the nature of a supreme being. its relation to the human soul, and the process of creation (see INDIA, sec. Religion). The word (derived from the Sanskrit prefixes vpa, "beneath," or " near," and /72, " in," combined with the radical sad. ") is explained by the great theologian, ankara (q.v.), and others after him, as meaning the "science of Brahman," or " the understanding of the identity of Brahman and the soul," because " in those devoted to it, this science sets to rest (or destroys) the world, together with (ignorance) its cause; or, in other words, because it shows to them that the world has, besides Brahman, no reality; Grammatical commenta tors explain its etymology as implying that "eternal bliss reposes on it (upaniskidati s'rcylo 'syd ni):' and prof. M. Mfiller has surmised that the word "Upanishad meant originally the act of sitting down near a teacher, of submissively listening to him," whence it came to mean " implicit faith, and at last truth or divine revelation." But apart from the artificialness of all these interpretations, it deserves notice that the earliest sense of the word appears to be that of "secret" or "mystery" (literally, "that which sib? or rests beneath"). In this sense, it is mentioned by the grammarian and as it is very probable that, in his time, the works hearing the name of Upanishads were not yet in existence (see Goldstlicker's Pan'ini, etc., p. 141), it may be assumed that these works derived their name from the mysteriousness of the doctrine contained in them; and perhaps also front the mystical manner in which they propounded it In order to understand the origin and purport of the as well as the rela tion in which they stand to the Vedas, properly so called, it must be borne in mind that, though the Vedic hymns are based on the Nvorship of the elementary powers, and the' Brahman'a portion connected with them is chiefly concerned in legendary and ritual matter relating to that worship, yet in both these portions of the Vedas, and especially in the Brahman'as, the beginnings of a period become already visible when the poets raised the questions as to the origin of the world and the true Datum of the gods. See
INDI.t, sec. PeliviOn. A first attempt at a systematic answer to these questions was made in works which bear an inmate relation to the Braliman'as; and so great was the awe in which, on this account, these works were held, that they had to he read in the soli tude, where the mind could ponder in perfect calmness over the mysterious problems in which they are engaged. These are the Aran'yakas (from aran'ya, a forest.) But as the style and contents of the Aran'yakas are extremely obscure, and as, through the close alliance of these works to the Brahman'as, of which sonic of them form part, the theological questions of which they treat are much overlaid with ritual and other mat ters whidi properly belong to the Braman'as, a further progress made in the same direction, led to the composition of works and treatises, the diction of which is some what clearer and less entangled with subjects extraneous to the problems they intend to solve. Such works and treatises are the Upanishads. Their object, like that of the Aran'yakas, is to impress the mind with the belief in one supreme spirit (Brahman, as a neuter, and different, therefore, from the saute word as a masculine, which is the name of the first.god of the Trimurti, q.v.), to show that this supreme spirit is the creator of the world; that the world has no reality if thought of besides Brahman, and that the human soul is identical in nature with that same spirit whence it emanates. The reward the Upanishads hold out to the believer, who understands their doctrine, and firmly adheres to it, is freedom from transmigration (q.v.), and consequent eternal bliss. The object and aim of the Upanishads are therefore the same as those propounded in the philosophical systems (see SANSXRIT, sec. Literature); and the Upanishads may therefore be looked upon as the forerunners of these systems themselves—those Upanishads, at least, which we may call the older Upanishads; for as to the more recent ones, and those which bear the stamp of a sectarian character, their claim to be ranked among the Vedic writings is extremely doubtful, if at all admissible.