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Upanishad

Also spelled Upanisad. Any of the speculative texts that comprise embellishments in prose and verse of the Vedas, probably the most historic Hindu sacred literature.

The name Upanishad implies sitting on the toes of the trainer, and the Upanishads, of which roughly 108 are identified, file the views of a succession of Hindu teachers and sages who have been active as early as a thousand BC and who flourished about 600 BC. The texts type the premise of a lot of later Indian philosophy. They signify the ultimate stage in the custom of the Vedas, so the educating based mostly on them is called the Vedanta (Sanskrit: “Conclusion of the Veda”). The older Upanishads may be part of the Brahmanas (commentaries) of their respective Vedas but are distinguished from them each by elevated philosophical and mystical questioning and by their diminished concern with Vedic deities and sacrificial rites.

The special philosophical concern of the Upanishads is with the nature of reality. There's a development toward the idea of a single supreme being, and knowledge is directed towards reunion with it. Of fundamental significance to all Hindu thought is the equation in some of the Upanishads of atman (the self) with Brahman (ultimate actuality). The character of morality and of everlasting life is discussed, as are such themes as the transmigration of souls and causality in creation.