The Philosophy of the Upanishads c5.s3.40

c5.s3.40

From all this it follows that the universal tendency of antiquity, and of the circle which produced the Upanishads, was in the direction of keeping their contents secret from unfit persons, and that the Indian writers were practically justified in explaining the term upanishad by rahasyam, “secret.” Less easy is it at first sight to understand how the word upanishad has come to signify “secret meaning, secret instruction, a secret.” For *upanishad*, derived as a substantive from the root *sad*, to sit, can only denote a “sitting”; and as the preposition *upa* (near by) indicates, in contrast to *parishad*, *samsad* (assembly), a “confidential secret sitting,” we must assume, even if actual proof is wanting, that this name for “secret-sitting” was used also in course of time to denote the purpose of this sitting, *i.e.* “secret instruction.” Just as the German “college” has been transferred from the idea of “convention” to that of the subject-matter of instruction; so that in such an expression as “to read, to hear, etc. a lecture” the original meaning of college (from *colligere*, to collect) is altogether forgotten, as in the case of the Upanishads the original conception of “sitting.” Similar instances are quite common, as for example the φυσικαὶ ἀκροάσεις of Aristotle or the διατριβαί of Epictetus no longer signify lectures, conversations, but definite written compositions.