The History of Indian Literature c8.185

c8.185

The Kenopanishad has come down to us as the remnant of a fourth Bráhmaṇa of the Sámaveda, supposed to be its ninth book.∗ In the colophons and in the quotations found in the commentaries, it also bears the otherwise unknown name of the *Talavakáras*.cont It is divided into two parts: the first, composed in *ślokas*, treats of the being of the supreme Brahman, appealing in the fourth verse to the tradition of the "earlier sages who have taught us this" as its authority. The second part contains a legend in support of the supremacy of Brahman, and here we find Umá Haimavatí, later the spouse of Śiva, acting as mediatrix between Brahman and the other gods, probably because she is imagined to be identical with Sarasvatí, or Vách, the goddess of speech, of the creative word.†