/lit/ - Literature

The Upanishads are a cringe attempt from the hindus to make the vedas compatible with more popular ideas from the jains and the buddhists.


The jains and the buddhists talked about karma, rebirth and ignorance so the poos copied that.

The jains said that nirvana can only be reached inside samadhi and then dying inside samadhi, so poos copied the first part.

The buddhists say you don't need to die to get to nirvana, so the poos copied that.

In the vedas, the poos just talk about rituals and sacrifices, which is useless to buddhist, but not to jains for the ritual part, so they made the buddha as one of their god and now the poos say killing animals is wrong.

With the meditation meme, the poos created Advaita and now they say that only thru meditation people can reach nirvana. that's true like the jains, but false in buddhism.

Don't forget that in the vedas, there is no karma, no rebirth, no ignorance. Just 100% muh rituals muh killing animals to please gods.

Then later on with the mahayanists rejecting the buddhist sutras, but still wanting to pas as buddhist, the mahayanists made up the non-duality meme, just like the Advaita. It is not clear which one of the two group of retards create the meme.

>>16204280
The Upanishads seem to me to consistently teach non-dualism. Shankara's commentaries on them reveal this quite clearly. I've read those three Upanishads, which particular passages from them did you perceive to be dualistic?

>>16204425
I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

>>16204371
>The jains and the buddhists talked about karma, rebirth and ignorance so the poos copied that.
>The jains said that nirvana can only be reached inside samadhi and then dying inside samadhi, so poos copied the first part.
>The buddhists say you don't need to die to get to nirvana, so the poos copied that.
All of that is already in the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads which both predate the life of Buddha by some centuries according to most scholars, linguists, indologists etc, as do possibly some of the other early Upanishads.

The Upanishads aren't "a text", they're a collection of various oral traditions generated by hundreds of years of debate hashing out a rough consensus, written down over several centuries. This is why there's so many interpretations of them. Despite what autists on here will tell you, Advaita Vedanta is neither the only nor most popular set of interpretations, as there are dozens of thinkers within Advaita Vedanta itself. There is no one "correct" interpretation because there is no one writer, or thinker, behind them.

So yes, there are monistic, dualistic, and non-dual schools drawing from the Upanishads, and all have very good (or so they claim) arguments supporting their ideas.

>>16204449
That's a position held by irrelevant outsiders but not the position of actual Hindus themselves. Just as other religions like Islam consider the Quran to be the word of God, in a similar way it's a fundamental axiom among orthodox Hindus that the primary Upanishads are revealed texts which originate from Brahman, and hence that they are consistent in their essential teaching.

>>16204440
>Shankara
>relying on the Buddhist philosophy which he obliterated
lol

>>16204371
Indians as you understand them today did not write the Vedas and the Vedas contain many ideas found across the various branches of the Indo-European family and multiple cognate names for various Gods and Goddesses likewise found throughout Europe, with one of the most obvious noticeable being an cognate of Zeus/Jupiter in the form of Dyaus Pitr.

While ritual and sacrifice do play a predominant role in the Vedas, there is also to be found dialogues, songs, poems, and philosophical musings. Many of the concepts and used by Hindus and Buddhists, both modern and historical, are present in the Vedas. Karma and Dharma as they were developed later are both simply instantiations of Rta (cosmic order, both universal and personal) as found in the Rg Veda, the earliest of all Vedas and is strongly linked to the god Varuna.

The reason OP finds so many different themes in the Vedas is because in actuality the Vedas are far from an origin source or an end in themselves, but a snapshot of a culture in transition. In the Vedas you can see many hints of what is to come as ideas us of yet to be expounded are presented in and embryonic, often poetic form which was latter taken up and expanded on by both Buddhist in Hindus, and on the other hand you can see hints of something older from which it all descends from.

The Upanishads are different story. The oldest ones are clearly just attempts to expound on and systematise Vedic concepts, still in an often basic way that invited more commentary. The latter ones are most likely are in a form of cultural dialogue with Buddhism, especially considering the vast time span over which the Upanishads were composed.

>>16204535
>The latter ones are most likely are in a form of cultural dialogue with Buddhism
Are you referring to the minor Upanishads or the later primary ones? The only primary Upanishad which makes a possibly direct/explicit reference to Buddhism is the Maitri Upanishad which mentions some group wearing reddish robes who deny the soul

>>16204574
*the only primary Upanishad as far as I'm aware

>>16204477
Essentially similar to the talmud?

>>16204477
Right, but that doesn't change that they're a collection of oral traditions that were arrived at via consensus over centuries of debate and then written down over a period of centuries. The fact that Hindus spent a few hundred years debating and discussing these revealed ideas before writing them down over a period of a few hundred years does not contradict a word of what I said, it just puts a start date and theoretical correct position on this mass of ideas. Every different school and tradition holds that they have the correct position (and start date, but that's a sort of irrelevant technicality in this context).

>>16204522
Yes, that is the opinion of the majority of Hindus. This is why the majority of Hindus consider him to be an atheistic nihilist.

>>16204440
this shitposter is a national treasure of /lit/

>>16204574
The minor ones of which some were composed rather recently. I know most people refer to the Principle Upanishads and more broadly the accepted 108 when they use the term so I apologise if I caused confusion.

>>16204607
>Right, but that doesn't change that they're a collection of oral traditions that were arrived at via consensus over centuries of debate and then written down over a period of centuries.
This is a subjective opinion shared among some 'scholars', but is not generally held among the real authorities on those texts, the Hindu pandits who understand them better than those scholars. To these actual experts, the primary Upanishads are an internally consistent teaching such that passages from one Upanishad can be cited to help clear up confusion over another passage from another one of the primary Upanishads; if an interpretation of one primary Upanishad passage diverges significantly from the consensus which the Upanishads present on that issue, then that specific interpretation of that one passage cannot by default be the intended and correct meaning of that passage.

>>16204280
Hinduism isn't a unified religion or philosophy whatever you want to call it. It has some branches that are opposed in some aspects

>>16204371
imagine larping online as someone who actually understands hinduism and jainism and writing this atrocity that gives you up as a phony within seconds of reading it LMAO

>>16204280
>What do they actually imply?
>I'm more specifically referring to the Katha, Mundaka and Svetasvatara Upanishads

Katha

The wise man who, by means of concentration on the Self, realises that ancient, effulgent
One, who is hard to be seen, unmanifest, hidden and who dwells in the buddhi (intellect) and rests in the body−he, indeed, leaves joy and sorrow far behind.
The mortal who has heard this and comprehended it well, who has separated that Atman,
the very soul of dharma, from all physical objects and has realised the subtle essence,
rejoices because he has obtained that which is the cause of rejoicing. The Abode of
Brahman, I believe, is open for Nachiketa.

Mundaka

Know that one Atman only, by whom the heaven, the earth and the sky, the mind with all the pranas are interloomed. Give up all other talks. This is the bridge of Immortality.
Lives He there within, in manifold ways, where all the nerves meet like spokes in the nave. Do thou meditate upon that Atman as Om. Godspeed to you (in your journey) beyond, across the darkness.
This Atman who is omniscient and knows all and whose is this glory manifest in the universe dwells within the sky of the effulgent city of Brahman. He is of the form of mind, the controller of the pranas and the body. He dwells in the body having seated in the heart. By His knowledge the wise realize what shines as the blissful immortality.
The knots of his heart are cut, all doubts disappear and the effects of his karma are destroyed, when is realised that One who both the high and the low
In the supreme effulgent sheath rests the stainless transcendental Brahman. That is pure, that is the light of all lights. It is That which the knowers of the Atman know.

Svetasvatara

The Lord, Isa, supports all this which has been joined together−the perishable and the
imperishable, the manifest, the effect and the unmanifest, the cause. The same Lord, the
Supreme Self, devoid of Lordship, becomes bound because of assuming the attitude of the
enjoyer. The jiva again realizes the Supreme Self and is freed from all fetters.
The Supreme Lord appears as Isvara, omniscient and omnipotent and as the jiva, of limited
knowledge and power, both unborn. But this does not deny the phenomenal universe; for
there exists further the unborn prakriti, which creates the ideas of the enjoyer, enjoyment
and the object. Atman is infinite and all−pervading and therefore devoid of agency. When
the seeker knows all these three to be Brahman, he is freed from his fetters.


They seem pretty self-explanatory to me

bump

Thank you for your answers everyone
I'd like to ask one more thing
Would you mind explaining in a bit more depth, the constant metaphors with food in the Upanishads
I think I understand it as participation in the Brahma but my grasp of Hindu metaphysics is rather weak

>>16206176
It seems to be in my understanding a symbolic way of referring to the components of the physical world and the physical bodies of living beings, the subject of food and its relation to the koshas (sheaths) is discussed in the Taittirya Upanishad

>Annam means food. According to Hindu scriptures, annam is a form of Brahman (annam parabrahma swaroopam). In the Prasna Upanishad we find this description of Brahman as food: "Food is in truth the Lord of Creation. From food seed is produced and from this beings are born." Food is the characteristic of mortal life. For Brahman in His aspect of Death, the whole world is His food. He devours everything. If the embodied Self is the subject. food is the sum total of all the objects and diversity. And what connects them together are hunger and thirst, which Brahman created in the begining, after He manifested Death. Brahman as the enjoyer in creation, and the Self in the body, enjoys the food as the object of enjoyment. In this sense, food is not only what we eat but also the sense-objects we perceive

>The food consumed by the body is shared by the deities present in the organs with the help of fire which helps in the digestion and with the help of Breath, which helps in its circulation through the various channels present in the body. According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Brahma created seven kinds of food. "He provided the gods with two. Three he made for himself. One he gave to the animals. On that rests everything whether it breaths or not." What he gave to the animals is milk.

>Hindu texts refer to the physical body as annamaya kosa or food body because it is produced by food. It is the outermost sheath of our five sheaths. The remaining four bodies are the breath body, the mental body, the intelligence body and the bliss body which surround the inmost atman. The Taittiriya Upanishad describes these different bodies in detail. The following verse describes the physical body: "All beings that exists on earth are being born of food. Thereafter they live by food. Again ultimately they go back to it and merge to become food. So verily food is the eldest of all creatures. On that basis food is called the medicine (aushadham ucchyate sarvam) of all. Those who meditate upon Brahman as food will obtain all food. From food are born all beings and after being born the grow by food. Food is eaten by all beings and in the beings all beings are eaten by food. Therefore food is called annam." The food body is also identified with the earth element (mahabhuta) because it consists mostly of the earth matter. The gross body is the seat of our senses and it receives nourishment through the senses and food. It is responsible for our bodily desires and bondage to earth.

https://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/concepts/annam.asp
https://yogainternational.com/article/view/understanding-food-through-the-koshas1

>>16204440
>s

>>16207384
>when your bot accidentally posts the wrong file size