/lit/ - Literature

Dunno lol

>>16782982

>>15144780

>>14936982

>>14704645

>>14490686
The Katha Upanishad

>>14396130
>Is there some kind of summary of the ideas in the Upananishads or do they have to be read in whole as poetry?
The Bhagavad-Gita is arguably a summary of Upanishadic ideas, you could read that if you don't want to spend a lot of time reading them. As for the Upanishads themselves, you could read them as poetry without any commentary and certainly get a lot out of doing so, but they contain so much metaphysical implications that you might miss out on a lot and only end up with a surface-level understanding of them. If you want to study the Upanishads and their metaphysics in-depth I would recommend reading the commentaries on them by the Hindu philospher Adi Shankara. Pic related is from his commentary on the Katha Upanishad which should give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Most of his commentaries can be found as free pdf's online

http://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
http://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf
https://archive.org/details/Brihadaranyaka.Upanishad.Shankara.Bhashya.by.Swami.Madhavananda
https://archive.org/details/Shankara.Bhashya-Chandogya.Upanishad-Ganganath.Jha.1942.English

>>14212489
>I think I understood it's meaning.
If you want in-depth explanations of what the Upanishads mean from a traditional Hindu thinker, you can try reading the commentaries on them by Adi Shankara. I really enjoy them although you may not want to read thousands of pages of commentaries on a text that you just read, although you can try a few to see if you like them (pic related is from his Katha Upanishad commentary which is in the first link)

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf

Brihadaranyaka or Katha

>the Upanishads aren't the greatest piece of writing ev-

>>14148249
Here is another example of his writing, that other one was about the specific passage concerning the horse that was asked about, this is Shankara's commentary explaining canto 2, part 2 of the Katha Upanishad

>>13996748
If you have not read the Upanishads yet then now would be a good time to read them. I personally really enjoy the works of Adi Shankara, the main thinker of the Hindu school Advaita Vedanta. He wrote excellent commentaries on most of the Upanishads as well as other texts, pic related is from his Katha Upanishad commentary for example, Gambhirananda's translations are good. If you want to read a more modern commentary that is less dense than one of the classical medieval era ones then the translations by Radhakrishnan called 'The Principle Upanishads' would be a good choice. After reading through the Upanishads, one can read the Brahma Sutras for a review and systematizing of the Upanishads teachings, Shankara and the other Vedanta school founders wrote commentaries on it and there are modern ones as well. I personally find that Advaita Vedanta and Tantric schools like Kashmir Shaivism have the most interesting philosophical literature, as well as perhaps the largest amount of material that has been translated to English. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is also a minor classic worth reading. I would also strongly recommend reading the Yoga Vasistha.

>>13963072
>Should I read this book before embarking on the main texts or in conjuction?
That depends, are you intending to read the main texts of Hinduism with commentary or without? Modern translations with some notes by the translator can be an easier and shorter read and a good idea if you don't want to spend a long time reading long commentaries. The translated commentaries of traditional Hindu philosophers however are generally more interesting and tend to explore the implications and subtleties of the texts to a degree that rarely appears in modern translations, pic related is from Shankara's Katha Upanishad commentary for example.

If you were just going to read modern translations without commentary than that book is sufficient but if you want to read the translated commentaries of various Hindu sages like Shankara, Ramanuja, Abhinavagupta, Jnanadeva etc than it would be good to read a more in-depth book on Hindu philosophy first in preparation.

>>13961529

>>13856654
I recommend beginning with his shorter Upanishad commentaries, which can be read below
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf

Understanding his works presupposes having some familiarity already with Hindu philosophical/metaphysical terminology, if you don't have that and are struggling to make sense of him than read one or several of these books on Hindu philosophy/Vedanta below and then when you return to his writings they will make sense. Pic related for example is his commentary on the second canto of chapter 2 of the Katha Upanishad.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.506393/page/n3
https://archive.org/details/VedantaHeartOfHinduismHansTorwesten/page/n7
https://archive.org/stream/reneguenon/1925%20-%20Man%20and%20His%20Becoming%20according%20to%20the%20Ved%C3%A2nta#mode/2up

>>13857017
Vedanta is completely unconcerned with proving itself to atheist/carvaka skeptics and doesn't premise its legitimacy on being able to do so, their main focus is on the correct exegesis of the Upanishads and on stating where the other Hindu schools diverge from what they consider to be the true import of the texts. Shankara's writings are really addressed to people who already accept the existence of the Divine or immutable metaphysical truths in principle. Vedanta was content to instead just point out in their writings why the various alternative explanations other than the Vedantic position are all logically inconsistent; there is an interesting ontological argument in the Mandukya Karika that talks about how Advaita can be established on logic, but this is ultimately just using logic to support a position that they already accept on the authority of scripture.

>>13804339

ok Shankara fucking slaps

ok, this fucking slaps