The History of Indian Literature c8.488.1

c8.488.1

The second class of the Atharvopanishads, as above stated, is made up of those whose subject is Yoga, or absorption in Átman, the stages of this absorption, and the external means of attaining it. These last chiefly consist in the giving up of all earthly connections, and in the frequent repetition of the word *om*, which plays a most prominent part, and is itself therefore the subject of deep study. Yájnavalkya is repeatedly named in the Upanishads of this class as the teacher of the doctrines they set forth;* and indeed it would seem that we ought to look upon him as one of the chief promoters of the system of religious mendicancy so intimately associated with the Yoga-doctrine. Thus, in the *Tárakopanishad* (36) he instructs Bharadvája as to the saving and sin-dispelling efficacy of the word *om*,¹³³ and similarly in the *Śákalyopanishad* (37)* Śákalya as to true emancipation.¹⁸⁴ The one, however, in which he stands out most prominently is the *Jábálopanishad* (38), in prose, which, moreover, bears the name of a school of the White Yajus, although no doubt wrongly, as it must in any case be considered as merely an imitation of the Áraṇyaka of this Veda (see *I. St.*, ii. 72–77). Still, it must have been composed before the Bádaráyaṇa-Sútra, as several passages of it† seem to be given in the latter (unless these passages have been borrowed from a common source?).