The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s1.12

v2.c40.s1.12

As the distinction between Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka is not an absolute one, though the Āraṇyakas tend to contain more advanced doctrines than the Brāhmaṇas, so the distinction between Upaniṣad and Āraṇyakas is also not absolute, tradition actually incorporating the Upaniṣads in some cases in the Āraṇyakas. The most that can be said is that the term Upaniṣad, when applied to a text, normally denotes that it contains speculation mainly on the nature of the universe and of the Ātman or the Brahman. Its use in the Upaniṣad is in one or other of the senses ‘secret word’ or ‘phrase’, ‘secret text’ or ‘secret import’. Thus, when the phrase¹ *neti neti*, ‘not so, not so’, is used as an expression of the highest unity, that is an Upaniṣad; or again the word *jalān* ² as indicating that in which beings breathe, perish, and are born, or the phrase ³ *satyasya satyam*, ‘the truth of the true’, or *tadvanam* ⁴ as the final end is so described. In the texts of the Taittirīya school in special the phrase is used at the end of a section of philosophical teaching as a description of that teaching. Or the word is applied to a special subject of knowledge, such as the meaning of the word Om. In a slightly different way we hear of a man’s Upaniṣad, which denotes his secret rule of life, such as that one should not beg.⁵ In these senses the term Āraṇyaka is never used, and thus we can perhaps see why the two different words Āraṇyaka and Upaniṣad came into being. The former is a name, denoting the generic character of the texts, as those which from their secret nature must be dealt with in the special manner of being studied in the forest; the latter is a secret text, imparted at such a secret session, and in course of time more and more specifically appropriated to the description of secrets which were of philosophical character. Beyond these generalisms we are hardly likely to be able to penetrate.