/lit/ - Literature

no, there's also the repeated story about all the senses competing and breath winning because it's the basis of life
but yeah, there really is more variance that talk about more tertiary topics or even some myths like the visit to Yama though that's the ultimate message

Because it's a collection of orally transmitted passages of a conversation discussing Brahman ossified in time.
>why didn't they pick ones that were more varied?
They'd have to publish like eight books dude. There is no central point to the Upanishads, you can literally take whatever you want from it. That's the point: it's ten thousand dudes talking at once.

The brahmins were so triggered by the jain and buddhist morality, teachings about karma and meditation that they had to write commentaries in an emergency fashion on the vedas [which they see as perfect lol], because the vedas have no karma, no rebirth, no meditation and of course say that killing animals is meritorious lol.

The brahmins were so threatened that the jains and buddhist made them change drastically all their conceptions and narrative lol. The hindus had to introduce explicit the buddhist and jains in their narrative and pass them as some avatar of vishnu. FUCKING REKT. This was already 25000 years ago and they are still triggered by jains and buddhists to this day.

>>17553224
Upanishads predate jainism and buddhism

>>17553078
Think of it as people's understanding of the universe from different levels of consciousness.

>>17553293
I think this it too, they're a collection of teachings on the same central topic tailored to different people. I haven't read the Puranas but I imagine they are more varied. There's just so much Hindu text it's hard to go over everything. Any recommendations anons?

it's oral tradition what did you expect?
If you want a more holistic and cohesive account, read Vasistha's Yoga

>>17553224
This is essentially true.

>>17553279
All the formalized movements come from the same cultural revolution.

>>17553385
Samuels Origins of tantra and Yoga is good. Also read a source collection like Radhakrishnan's.

>>17553078
>Seriously, is there something I'm missing here?
Yes, try reading them with Adi Shankara’s commentaries to see the full significance of each verse revealed. No modern commentary by any scholar is as profound or takes the time to analyze the implications of each verse with as much care.

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

> why does this feel like the same thing said over and over again?
Because the primary subject-matter of the Upanishads is Self-knowledge, but this cannot be directly communicated and encapsulated through words, but is signified with the help of parables and metaphors; so an abundance of metaphors helps people who don’t understand a certain amount of them.
>>17553279
This

>>17553443
>All the formalized movements come from the same cultural revolution.
That’s only speculation, there has been no confirmation or even solid evidence for that

>>17553443
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.

>>17553550
Confirmation by who? Some neovedantist on the internet who learned about hinduism from rene guenon? It's the position of academics.

>>17553586
>the one who knows guenonfag does not engage with him again

>>17553607
>Confirmation by who?
Not by who but by ‘what’, however there is no ‘what’ substantiating that position in terms of surviving texts or other physical evidence, which is why its just conjecture.

>>17553078
It’s meant to be experienced, not just read. If you’re not a yogi you’ll never get it

>>17553677
The "what" substantiating it is archaeology and historical research showing that there were different cultures, and ascetic concerns showing up in texts that don't correspond to the pre ascetic traditions, reflecting a spread of some new form of philosophical asceticism. Because we know there were different cultures, and this new asceticism shows up in both at roughly the same time, the only conjecture is that what happened is complex and probably a larger phenomenon than any one person just inventing it as Olivelle says.

The real conjecture is the Hindu fundamentalists who say that the half atheistic brahman ritualists invented asceticism out of nowhere in 600BC and then gave it to the Buddha. While also paradoxically allowing ksatriya and other nonbrahmans much more role in their texts for no reason.

The much simpler solution is that there was this ascetic culture and it spread through various classes, just like happened in the west under hellenism. The brahmans had to respond to this spread as it didnt necessarily care about their tradition or their authority.

The same thing happens again in the much better documented time of Shankara. Buddhist philosophy and asceticism had become dominant in India so Shankara fused it with vedantist orthodoxy to be able to attract people back into the fold and satisfy them with a version of what Buddhism was offering. That's why Bhaskara, Ramanuja, Madvha etc called him a crypto buddhist.

>>17553609
Wise words but it is important not to let him mislead people down the same dead end paths he has been stuck on for 5 years. His lack of progress and exposure to any new ideas is proof of the danger of reading only one secondary source book repeatedly. Op seems like he actually wants to learn and explore, not join the muslim neovedanta squad so he can have wikipedia edit wars about whether Shankara had a chad jawline.

>>17553714
This, practice above all.

>>17553755
>it is archaeology and historical research showing that there were different cultures, and ascetic concerns showing up in texts that don't correspond to the pre ascetic traditions,
That’s not proof of anything, there is no reason why any religious tradition should remain the exact same over a thousands years, to presuppose that it must have come from elsewhere is to act like people were incapable of changing or coming up with new religious ideas, which is silly. Also, the earliest evidence for any ascetics in Indian history in fact shows up in the Vedas, which are where the first mention of sramanics as sages appear, but the Vedic passages which mention sramanics don’t present them as being opposed to or not belonging to the Vedic religion. The later jains and others appropriated this term that shows up in the Vedic literature for themselves, but there is no actual evidence that any sramanics originally existed as a distinct group outside the Vedic religion, the later appropriation of this Vedic term by non-Vedic groups doesn’t show that the original sramanics were non-Vedic. The earliest texts mentioning asceticism and monasticism are the Vedas and Upanishads and all the Jain and Buddhist stuff talking about the same subjects comes centuries later.

Lastly, the Upanishads contain extensive references to the earlier Vedas, including referencing specific Vedic rituals and using Vedic deities like Indra as characters in its parables, and the Upanishads also speak of Vedic institutions like the caste system as being divinely-ordained; so it makes no sense at all that some group of people outside the Vedic system would come up with texts in Sanskrit (which only the Vedic priests at this point in time really spoke), which stress being initiated by a Brahmin, which are chock-full of extensive references to Vedic concepts, and then give them for some reason to the Vedic priests who they oppose. It’s a much smaller leap to just say that the same Sanskrit-speaking Vedics composed the Upanishads.

Because you’re a coping Buddhist and because the Pali Canon is boring and uninspiring garbage compared to the sublime Upanishads though you’d rather just attempt and fail to deconstruct them instead of arguing against the ideas contained in them.

>>17554134
>The real conjecture is the Hindu fundamentalists who say that the half atheistic brahman ritualists invented asceticism out of nowhere in 600BC and then gave it to the Buddha.
We don’t have to use conjecture to establish that the Upanishads predate Buddhism and influenced it because the earliest Upanishads have been dated to before Buddha and we find instances in which parts of the Upanishads are repeated in the Pali Canon, such as when Buddha takes and uses 3 different metaphors from just one chapter alone of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (If you want me to I’ll cite them).

>While also paradoxically allowing ksatriya and other nonbrahmans much more role in their texts for no reason.
The Upanishads only contain a few mentions of caste, the ksatriya and other castes dont take the center stage of the texts, Brahmins are mentioned throughout the primary Upanishads more often than the ksatriya or other castes are.

>The much simpler solution is that there was this ascetic culture and it spread through various classes,
This makes no sense at all though, because there is no reason why non-Vedic people should be composing texts in Sanskrit at all at this point in time, let alone ones which make extensive reference to Vedic deities, ritual, doctrine etc and which praise Brahmins as the Upanishads do.

>The same thing happens again in the much better documented time of Shankara. Buddhist philosophy and asceticism had become dominant in India so Shankara fused it with vedantist
This wrong, Shankara refuted Buddhism by pointing out how its illogical, he didnt fuse Buddhism with anything.
>That's why Bhaskara, Ramanuja, Madvha etc called him a crypto buddhist
They dont even understand his doctrine and they get basic stuff wrong about it, so their judgements on this dont hold any water. Ramanuja’s analysis of the nature of consciousness is actually much closer to Buddhism’s than Shankara’s is.

>>17554134
I'm not a Buddhist.

No one is saying the Upanishads don't reference the Vedas... That's like someone saying Greeks influenced Christianity, and you replying "so Christianity isn't Jewish?" No of course it is, but it was in a wider Greek world as it developed. You don't seem to have a good grasp on the things we're talking about, as the other anon said, anyone who knows you knows not to get into an argument since you argue in bad faith and try to twist things like this.

I hope someone else comes along so you can repeat your hindu fundamentalist talking points to them for another entire afternoon like you do every day. Until then I suggest you read Olivelle since he disagrees with you and you recommended him for years.

>>17554157
>I'm not a Buddhist
No, but you are a nihilist materialist who simps for Buddhism because you perceive it as being aligned with this view, in other words you are just as bad as actual Buddhists if not worse.
>You don't seem to have a good grasp on the things we're talking about,
I do, that’s why I just explained in detail why your position is illogical and unsupported by the evidence and that it creates more problems and questions than the ones it ostensibly solves.
>I hope someone else comes along so you can repeat your hindu fundamentalist talking points to them
It’s not a hindu fundamentalist talking point to point out the fact that there is nobody anybody aside from Vedic priests who would have been composing Sanskrit texts in the 8th-7th century BC, nor is it such a talking point to observe that the Upanishads bare all the signs of having been composed by Brahmins who were steeped in Vedic lore.

>>17553078
some of the upanishads are extraordinarily repetitive, they derive from oral tradition where it helped retention to say literally the same thing again and again. idk which ones that book includes.

loos without poos are all about quantity, thousands of pages, useless repetitions, and superfluity.

>>17555184
>thousands of pages, useless repetitions,
That describes the Pali Canon more than the Upanishads desu

>>17553279
Modern research suggests that only 6 of the 108 Upanishads could possibly predate the early Buddhist teachings.

>>17556054
Those 6 include the largest and most important of the primary Upanishads (mainly the Chandogya and the Brihadaranyaka) and the subsequent primary Upanishads discuss the same topics and are largely in the same style as the earliest Upanishads. The vast majority of the 108 Upanishads are considered to be fallible or apocryphal human-composed texts coming after the primary Upanishads, they are not considered to be revealed scriptures like the Mukhya (primary) Upanishads are.

>>17553543
be careful about reading shankara

>>17553078
This book is literally just "Dude, don't think about it just do your job," which is a more slightly sophisticated way of saying "Dude, just BE yourself."

>>17557228
>"Dude, don't think about it just do your job,"
yeah in Hinduism this is one of their yogas they claim that the wageslave will to to hindu heaven as long as they keep being wageslave

>>17557228
>"Dude, just BE yourself."
it's more the ruling class of the kings and the priests who want to keep the peasants deluded

>>17554143
>We don’t have to use conjecture to establish that the Upanishads predate Buddhism and influenced it because the earliest Upanishads have been dated to before Buddha
Not by carbon 14>>17554143
>which parts of the Upanishads are repeated in the Pali Canon, such as when Buddha takes and uses 3 different metaphors from just one chapter alone of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (If you want me to I’ll cite them).
or it's the brahmins who copied them in order to adapt them. Anyway, Buddhism and Jainism contradict the Vedas and the Upanishads. It's just a fact.

>>17554143
>This wrong, Shankara refuted Buddhism by pointing out how its illogical, he didnt fuse Buddhism with anything.
Shankara knew nothing about buddhism

There were always wanderers with strange ideas comapred ot the orthodoxy.

Sramanas were just wanderers who may or may not embrace partly the Vedas.
Wanderers can introduce ideas to their understanding of the vedas, or change whatever they don't like from them or even start from non-vedic ideas and later on introduce some vedic words or ideas.

To claim that the sramanas were purely embracing the vedas from the very beginning is completely idiotic.

>another perfectly good thread about Hindu literature shat up by guenonfag

>>17553714
How do you experience?

>>17553078
If someone could only read one iteration on this theme. Which would you recommend?

>>17560356
>iteration
??