The Philosophy of the Upanishads c5.s2.3

c5.s2.3

On the other hand the necessary ritual allegorical and dogmatic explanations were communicated to the pupils extempore, and from these subsequently the oldest Indian prose took its rise. The result was that the common material of instruction, which in its essential features was already determined, received very various modifications, corresponding to the idiosyncrasy of the teacher, not only in regard to execution and mystical interpretation of the particular ceremonies, but also because one laid greater stress on the liturgical, another on the dogmatic teaching. Hence it is that the Upanishads of the individual schools differ so greatly in length. In the course of centuries the originally extempore instruction crystallised into fixed texts in prose, which were committed to memory verbatim by the pupil, while at the same time the divergences between the individual schools became wider. It is therefore quite credible that Indian writers should have been able to enumerate a considerable number of S'âkhâs, in which each Veda was studied. But it is equally intelligible that of these many S'âkhâs the majority disappeared in the struggle for existence, and that for each Veda only a few prominent S'âkhâs with the Upanishads belonging to them have been preserved. We must limit ourselves here for general guidance to a mere enumeration of the eleven extant Upanishads of the three older Vedas, with the remark, however, that in the case of several of these it is doubtful whether they are correctly attributed to the S'âkhâ concerned. A further discussion of this point will be found in the Introductions prefixed to my translations of the sixty Upanishads.