Vedānta doctrine. These questions concern the origin of matter and life (prāṇa) from Prajāpati; the superiority of life (prāṇa) above the other vital powers; the nature and divisions of the vital powers; dreaming and dreamless sleep; meditation on the syllable om; and the sixteen parts of man.
The Māṇḍūkya is a very short prose Upanishad, which would hardly fill two pages of the present book. Though bearing the name of a half-forgotten school of the Rigveda, it is reckoned among the Upanishads of the Atharva-veda. It must date from a considerably later time than the prose Upanishads of the three older Vedas, with the unmethodical treatment and prolixity of which its precision and conciseness are in marked contrast. It has many points of contact with the Maitrāyaṇa Upanishad, to which it seems to be posterior. It appears, however, to be older than the rest of the treatises which form the fourth class of the Upanishads of the Atharva-veda. Thus it distinguishes only three morae in the syllable om, and not yet three and a half. The fundamental idea of this Upanishad is that the sacred syllable is an expression of the universe. It is somewhat remarkable that this work is not quoted by Çankara; nevertheless, it not only exercised a great influence on several Upanishads of the Atharva-veda, but was used more than any other Upanishad by the author of the well-known later epitome of the Vedānta doctrine, the Vedānta-sāra.
It is, however, chiefly important as having given rise to one of the most remarkable products of Indian philosophy, the Kārikā of Gauḍapāda. This work consists of more than 200 stanzas divided into four parts, the first of which includes the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad.
