A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s8.77

v1.c8.s8.77

(According to this original meaning of the word "*Upaniṣad*," the oldest Upaniṣads already contain very heterogeneous matters.) An Upaniṣad was above all else a "mystery," and every doctrine which was not intended for the masses, but was only communicated within a narrow circle of privileged persons—be it a profound philosophical doctrine or some futile symbolism or allegory, a symbolical sacrifice serving as magic, puzzled out by a Brahman, or some would-be wisdom serving as a magic formula—was called Upaniṣad. All this we actually find already in the *old* Upaniṣads side by side and jumbled up but particularly so in the so-called "Atharvaveda-Upaniṣads."[^3)