The Philosophy of the Upanishads c5.s3.1

c5.s3.1

The case is entirely different with the numerous Upanishads which have found admission into the Atharvaveda. It is true that several of them trace back their doctrine to S'aunaka or Pippalâda, or even (as the Brahma-Up.) to both together; and according to the tradition communicated by Nârâyaṇa and Colebrooke, not only single treatises, but complete series of Upanishads were attributed to the S'aunakîyas or Pippalâdis. But the contradictions of these accounts, as well as the circumstance that the most diverse Upanishads refer their doctrine to the alleged founders of the Atharvaveda S'âkhâs, S'aunaka and Pippalâda, suggest the conjecture that we should see in this little more than an arbitrary attachment to well-known names of antiquity; just as other Atharva-Upanishads trace back their doctrine to Yâjñavalkhya, to Aṅgiras or Atharvan, or even to Brahma Rudra and Prajâpati. Moreover the names of the Atharva-Upanishads (apart from a few doubtful exceptions, as Mâṇḍûkya, Jâbâla, Paiṅgala, Shavank) are no longer, as is the case with the Upanishads of the three older Vedas, formed on the model of the names of the S'âkhâs, but are derived partly from the contents and partly from any accidental circumstance. This proves that in the Atharva-Upanishads we must not expect to find the dogmatic text-books of definite Vedic schools.