The Philosophy of the Upanishads c6.s3.2

c6.s3.2

Since the Upanishads of the three older Vedas continued to live in the tradition of the S’âkhâs, as long as these survived the secure transmission of the Upanishads concerned was assured. It was otherwise with the Atharvaveda, which was not employed at the sacrifice, and in consequence had no such firmly established tradition of the schools as the text of the three older Vedas upon which to rely for its preservation. This is shown not only by the indifference from which its Saṃhitâ has suffered, but also by the freedom with which it admitted new compositions. The latter would assuredly have been impossible as long as the tradition was under the protection of regular Vedic schools, maintaining themselves from generation to generation according to the rules of their guild. Hence is to be explained the extensive irruption of newly composed Upanishads into the Atharvaveda. As early as S’ankara we find the Muṇḍaka and Pras’na united together (sup. p. 32), and on these as foundation a collection of Atharva Upanishads appears to have been gradually built up, which eventually comprised 34 pieces from Muṇḍaka to Nṛisiṃhatāpanīya, and included also some whose claim to the name of Upanishads had never been previously recognised; just as in the judgement of Śaṅkara the Kārikā of Gauḍapāda on the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, and indeed this treatise itself (sup. pp. 30, 33), had no claim to the position of an Upanishad. These 34 primary Upanishads of Colebrooke’s list were later extended to 52 by the addition not only of a number of recent compositions, but most remarkably by the side of and among them of seven of the recognised texts of the older Vedas, viz.—35–36 Kāṭhaka, 37 Kena, 39–40 Bṛihannārāyaṇa (= Taitt. Ār. x.), 44 Ānandavallī (= Taitt. Up. 2), and 45 Bhriguvallī (= Taitt. Up. 3). In this manner the collection of 52 Upanishads first made known by Colebrooke originated, the strange combination of which we attempted to explain¹ on the hypothesis that at the time and in the region where this collection was finally put together the three older Vedas were cultivated only in the Śākhās of the Aitareyins, Tāṇḍins (to which the Chāndogya Upanishad belongs), and Vājasaneyins. Accordingly the Upanishads of the remaining Śākhās (with the exception of the Kaushītaki, Śvetāśvatara, and Maitrāyaṇīya, which were perhaps already lost or not recognised) were inserted in the existing collection of Atharva Upanishads with a view to their safe preservation.²