A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.100

c11.100

The *Māṇḍūkya* is a very short prose Upanishad, which would hardly fill two pages of the present book. Though bearing the name of a half-forgotten school of the *Rigveda*, it is reckoned among the Upanishads of the *Atharva-veda*. It must date from a considerably later time than the prose Upanishads of the three older Vedas, with the unmethodical treatment and prolixity of which its precision and conciseness are in marked contrast. It has many points of contact with the *Maitrāyaṇa Upanishad*, to which it seems to be posterior. It appears, however, to be older than the rest of the treatises which form the fourth class of the Upanishads of the *Atharva-veda*. Thus it distinguishes only three *morae* in the syllable *om*, and not yet three and a half. The fundamental idea of this Upanishad is that the sacred syllable is an expression of the universe. It is somewhat remarkable that this work is not quoted by Çankara; nevertheless, it not only exercised a great influence on several Upanishads of the *Atharva-veda*, but was used more than any other Upanishad by the author of the well-known later epitome of the Vedānta doctrine, the *Vedānta-sāra*.