INTRODUCTION.
This second volume completes the translation of the principal Upanishads to which Saṅkara appeals in his great commentary on the Vedânta-Sûtras[1], viz.:
- Khândogya-upanishad,
- Talavakâra or Kena-upanishad,
- Aitareya-upanishad,
- Kaushîtaki-upanishad,
- Vâgasaneyi or Îsâ-upanishad,
- Katha-upanishadm
- Mundaka-upanishad
- Taittirîyaka-upanishad,
- Brihadâranyaka-upanishad,
- Svetâsvatara-upanishad,
- Prasña-upanishad.
These eleven have sometimes[2] been called the old and genuine Upanishads, though I should be satisfied to call them the eleven classical Upanishads, or the fundamental Upanishads of the Vedânta philosophy.
Vidyâranya[3], in his ’Elucidation of the meaning of all the Upanishads,’ Sarvopanishadarthânubhûti-prakâsa, confines himself likewise to those treatises, dropping, however, the Îsâ, and adding the Maitrâyana-upanishad, of which I have given a translation in this volume, and the Nrisimhottara-tapanîya-upanishad, the translation of which had to be reserved for the next volume.
- ↑ See Deussen, Vedãnta, Einleitung, p. 38. Saṅkara occasionally refers also to the Paiṅgi, Agnirahasya, Gâbâla, and Nârâyanîya Upanishads.
- ↑ Deussen, loc. cit. p. 82.
- ↑ I state this on the authority of Professor Cowell. See also Fitzedward Hall, Index to the Bibliography of the Indian Philosophical Systems, pp. 116 and 236.
