The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.108

v1.c17.108

Special portions from the Brāhmaṇas are given the title of Āraṇyaka, 'forest books,' apparently because their contents were so secret that they had to be studied in the depths of the forests, away from possibility of overhearing by others than students. The extant texts which bear this name are the Aitareya, the Kaushītaki, and the Taittirīya, which are appendages to the Brāhmaṇas bearing those names. All three are somewhat heterogeneous in composition, the Aitareya being the most definitely theosophical, while the Taittirīya is the least. Still more important are the Upanishads, so called because they were imparted to pupils in secret session, the term denoting the sitting of the pupil before the teacher. Each of the three Āraṇyakas contains an Upanishad of corresponding name. More valuable however are the two great Upanishads, the Bṛihadāraṇyaka, which is attached to the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa, forming part of its fourteenth and last book in one recension and the seventeenth book in the other, and the Chhāndogya Upanishad attached to the Sāmaveda; these two are in all probability the oldest of the Upanishads. To the Sāmaveda also belongs the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa, one book of which, the Jaiminīya Upanishad Brāhmaṇa, is really an Āraṇyaka, and, like other Āraṇyakas, contains in itself an Upanishad, the brief but interesting Kena Upanishad. The number of treatises styled Upanishad is very large; but, with the possible exception of the Kāṭhaka, which expands a legend found in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa dealing with the nature of the soul, none of them other than those enumerated can claim to be older than Buddhism; and the facts which they contain cannot therefore prudently be used in sketching the life of the period under review. Similarly, the Sūtras, which are text-books either giving in the form of very brief rules directions for the performance of the sacrifice in its various forms (the Çrauta Sūtras dealing with the great rites at which a number of priests were employed, the Gṛihya Sūtras with the domestic sacrifices and other duties performed by the householder), or enunciating customary law and practice (the Dharma Sūtras), cannot safely be relied upon as presenting a picture of this period. They are however of much indirect value; for they throw light upon practices which are alluded to in the Brāhmaṇas in terms capable of more than one interpretation; and here and there they preserve verses, far older than the works themselves, which contain historic facts of value.