The study of the Upani@sads has however gained a great impetus by the earnest attempts of our Ram Mohan Roy who not only translated them into Bengali, Hindi and English and published them at his own expense, but founded the Brahma Samaj in Bengal, the main religious doctrines of which were derived directly from the Upani@sads.

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[Footnote 1:  Translation by Haldane and Kemp, vol.  I. pp. xii and xiii.]

[Footnote 2:  Max Muller says in his introduction to the Upanishada (-S.B.E. I p. lxii; see also pp. lx, lxi) “that Schopenhauer should have spoken of the Upanishads as ’products of the highest wisdom’...that he should have placed the pantheism there taught high above the pantheism of Bruno, Malebranche, Spinoza and Scotus Erigena, as brought to light again at Oxford in 1681, may perhaps secure a more considerate reception for those relics of ancient wisdom than anything that I could say in their favour.”]

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The Upani@sads and their interpretations.

Before entering into the philosophy of the Upani@sads it may be worth while to say a few words as to the reason why diverse and even contradictory explanations as to the real import of the Upani@sads had been offered by the great Indian scholars of past times.  The Upani@sads, as we have seen, formed the concluding portion of the revealed Vedic literature, and were thus called the Vedanta.  It was almost universally believed by the Hindus that the highest truths could only be found in the revelation of the Vedas.  Reason was regarded generally as occupying a comparatively subservient place, and its proper use was to be found in its judicious employment in getting out the real meaning of the apparently conflicting ideas of the Vedas.  The highest knowledge of ultimate truth and reality was thus regarded as having been once for all declared in the Upani@sads.  Reason had only to unravel it in the light of experience.  It is important that readers of Hindu philosophy should bear in mind the contrast that it presents to the ruling idea of the modern world that new truths are discovered by reason and experience every day, and even in those cases where the old truths remain, they change their hue and character every day, and that in matters of ultimate truths no finality can ever be achieved; we are to be content only with as much as comes before the purview of our reason and experience at the time.  It was therefore thought to be extremely audacious that any person howsoever learned and brilliant he might be should have any right to say anything regarding the highest truths simply on the authority of his own opinion or the reasons that he might offer.  In order to make himself heard it was necessary for him to show from the texts of the Upani@sads that they supported him, and that their purport was also the same.  Thus it was that most schools of Hindu philosophy found it one of their principal duties to interpret the Upani@sads in order to show that they alone represented the true Vedanta doctrines.  Any one who should feel himself persuaded by the interpretations of any particular school might say that in following that school he was following the Vedanta.