Studies in the Epics and Puranas c8.76

c8.76

The Upaniṣads are the backbone of the philosophical speculations of Hindus. Every subsequent thinker has drawn liberally on the Upaniṣads, and it has been the endeavour of all, somehow or other, to bring in their system under the banner of the Upaniṣads by twisting the meaning, if necessary. The Upaniṣads stand as the basis of the famous Ṣaḍ-Darśanas, and the Sāṅkhya ideas are found in more or less developed form in the Śvetāśvatara and some later Upaniṣads, which form the connecting link between the Upaniṣadic period and that of the epics and the Purāṇas. The genesis of the evolutionary theory of Sāṅkhya can be traced to these Upaniṣads.