The Upanishads are not supposed to have been revealed in the same manner as the Vedic hymns. See VEDA. Nevertheless, with the exception of a few confessedly modern Upanishads, they are not assigned to human authorship, but looked upon as inspired writings, to which the term S'ruti (q.v.) applies. In several Upanishads. no special mention is made of their divine origin; in some, however, this is done. Thus Chhandogya Upanishad, in its concluding section, relates: "This (knowledge of the soul) Brahman (the god of the Trimfirti) imparted to Prajapati (a lord of creation—the patriarch Kas'yapa. as S'ankara explains): Pmjapati imparted it to Menu, and Mann to mankind; the Br ihaddranyaka Upanishad which on three occasions gives long lists of who handed it down to their pupils, always ascribes itself, in the last instance. to the authorship of "the, sell-existent Brahman (the supreme spirit): and in a similar manner the Jiati'd'aka Upanishad says that it was Brahman (the god of the Trimirti), the creator of the universe, who first taught the science of the supreme spirit to his eldest son, Atharvan. As in the case of most ancient works of Sanskrit literature. the date of the Upanishads also still remains quite uncertain, and, wherever given, is purely con jectural. According to the native system, they are classified as belonging to one or the
other of the four Vedas, with which they are held to stand in immediate connection. There are Upanishads, consequently, of the Riff-, Yajur-, Salon-, and Atharvaveda. But this classification has no reference whatever chronology. For a fuller account of these works, see prof. Weber's Indische Studien, vols. i. ii. (Berlin, 1850-53), and his Akarlenzische Vorlesungen caber Indische Literatur-geschichte (Berlin 1852): prof. M. Mul ler's Ifistory of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (Loud. 1860); John Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. i.–iv. (Loud. 1858-63); and the edition and translation of several of these Upanishads by E. Boer. Rdjendra Lala Alitra, and E. B. Cowell. in the Bibliotheea Indica; also Raja Rammohun Roy's Translation of several Principal Books, and Texts of the Veds (Loud. 1832). The names of 149 Upanishads, as compiled from various sources by prof. M. Miller, may be found in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen illorgenkindis hm Gesellschaft, vol. xix. p. 137, ff.