The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s2.41

v2.c40.s2.41

The question of absolute dates for the Upaniṣads is one far more difficult than that of the relative order of the texts, and admits of no decisive solution. The one argument of weight is the fact, really undeniable, that the doctrines of the Upaniṣads are presupposed by the doctrine of the Buddha, and that, accordingly, if we accept the view that the opinions of the Buddha can be gathered with approximate accuracy from the older texts of the Pāli Canon, it is probable that the older Upaniṣads are, substantially at least, older than say 500 B.C.⁶ The argument is not by any means perfect: it may be criticized on the ground that even now the date of the Buddha is only established by very conjectural means, and still more so by the fact that the date of the Buddhist Canon rests on mere tradition, which is demonstrably in many respects defective, so that the frequently repeated assertion that the Nikāyas represent approximately a period shortly after the death of the Buddha is wholly unproved and almost certainly quite untrue. A more serious argument is afforded by the really antique character of the metre of the metrical Upaniṣads,¹ such as the Kaṭha, Kena, and Īçā, but here again no absolute date is arrived at, since the only standard of comparison is either the epic, which is of very uncertain date and being not *in pari materia* not an absolutely safe criterion, or Pāli texts, which, apart from their own uncertainty of date, are written in a different speech, and, therefore, certainly not cogently to be adduced as evidence.² Perhaps more secure is comparison with the metre of the Bṛhaddevatā,³ which is with much plausibility assigned to the fourth century B.C., and this certainly suggests that the metre of these texts is older.