1355.] Bibliographical Notes on the Upanishads. 43 



systems as their source. There appears no reason, either on ac- 

 count of doctrine or priority of age, to restrict this head or 

 class to the Vedanta system ; for the others claim equally to be 

 derived from the Upanishads, and the Vedanta Sutras in their pre- 

 sent form are by no means the most ancient among the philosophi- 

 cal Sutras. 2. The more modern Upanishads, which are not refer- 

 red to in the Sutras, and which contain the same doctrine as those 

 of the former division, but more developed. 3. The Upanishads 

 which are different in doctrine and refer to the worship of a special 

 deity, as Devi, Krishna, etc. These are all most modern. 



With regard to the first class, it is in most cases difficult to deter- 

 mine, which are the Upanishads, alluded to by the authors of the 

 philosophical Sutras, as they do not quote whole sentences of the 

 Upanishads, but refer to names and words, which for the most part 

 occur in several Upanishads. And when proceeding to decide this 

 point by critical examination, we must bear in mind that those 

 Upanishads are the best representatives of the philosophy of the 

 Vedas which are commented on by S'ankara. These are, besides 

 the eleven stated above as published, the Nrisinha, Tapaniya, the 

 Kaushitaki, the Atharvasikha, the Atharvasiras and the Maitrayani 

 Upanishads. Of the text of the Kaushitaki Upanishad as well as 

 of its commentary by S'ankara, MSS. are very rare ; at Benares even 

 they appear not to be procurable, and the MS. of the text with 

 S'ankara's commentary, committed to my care by Mr. Elliot, is there- 

 fore a very valuable contribution to our knowledge of the literature 

 of the Upanishads. Of the others, MSS. are everywhere procurable, 

 and these five Upanishads, together with the commentary of S'ankara, 

 have a paramount claim to be published in the Bibliotheca Indica. 



Next to them in importance range the 52 Upanishads of the 

 Atharva collection. Although several of these (the Katha, Kena, 

 Ananda Valli, Bhrigu Valli, Mundaka, Prana and Manddkya, have 

 been published, yet their number is comparatively but small, and, 

 in my opinion, the text of all should be printed, as the whole collec- 

 tion would not occupy more than 150 to 200 pages. 



The abovementioned Upanishads being published, I have no doubt, 

 that an edition of those which remain will soon be called for as 

 essential to complete our acquaintance with this interesting depart- 

 ment of ancient learning. 



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