The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c6.s1.79

c6.s1.79

The Āranyakas are symptomatic and transitional. The important symptom, if we understand the matter aright, is the subordination of the mere act of the sacrifice to its allegorical, or, as we might say, spiritual meaning. This suppression of the material side of the ritual bridges over to the last class of texts which the Veda has to offer along this line of evolution. They are the famous Upanishads, the early philosophical or theosophical texts of India, which have become fateful for all subsequent higher Hindu thought. In these the ritual together with every other manifestation of the religion of works is negated, sometimes by cautious and delicate innuendo, always by the inherent antagonism of the Upanishad themes. The older Upanishads are for the most part either imbedded in the Āraṇyakas or, more frequently, attached to the end of these texts. From very early times, therefore, they have the name Vedānta, "End of the Veda."¹ End of the Veda they are, as regards their position in the redactions of the long line of the so-called revealed (*çrauta*) texts, and as regards the time of their composition. But they are the end of the Veda in a higher sense as well. They are the texts of the Veda's highest religion and philosophy. In particular that system of Brahmanical philosophy which controls at the present time nearly all the higher thought of Brahmanical India bears the name Vedānta. And there is no important form of Hindu thought, heterodox Buddhism included, which is not rooted in the Upanishads.