The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s2.51

v2.c40.s2.51

In the case of the later Upaniṣads any dating must be still more vague. Hopkins ⁸ indeed suggests the fourth century for such works as the Kaṭha, Maitrāyaṇīya, and the Çvetāçvatara, but this appears to be as regards the Maitrāyaṇīya much too early a date: style and content alike suggest that this is one of the most recent of the important Upaniṣads. In the case of the Çvetāçvatara, the date selected by Hopkins appears high in view of the fact that he is convinced that this Upaniṣad is later than the orthodox atheistic Sāṁkhya, and than the theistic Sāṁkhya-Yoga, and marks the appearance of the illusion doctrine foreign to the early Upaniṣads. But this view of his can hardly be accepted for reasons which will later be given, and there is, accordingly, no strong objection to the suggested date beyond the fact that there is no cogent evidence for it. A very different view of the date of the Çvetāçvatara, the Muṇḍaka, and the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣads is suggested by Walleser,¹ who holds that the illusion theory is posterior to, and derived from, the nihilistic school of Buddhist thought, and that in particular the Māṇḍūkya is not necessarily anterior to the Kārikā of Gauḍapāda—taken by him as a designation of a Bengal school, not of an individual—which expounds the illusionist form of Vedānta for the first time, and which was in being by A.D. 550, but not necessarily very much earlier. This view, however, is without any sound foundation, and of these Upaniṣads no assured date can even be suggested.