The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s4.1

v2.c40.s4.1

It is an essential feature of the Upaniṣads that, though they make, as we have seen, little or no advance in logical doctrine, they do tentatively raise and deal in some measure with the question of the source of knowledge of the Brahman or Ātman. The view of the Brāhmaṇas, of course, is that knowledge is to be found in the Vedas, and the authority of the Vedic texts is not discussed. In the Upaniṣads, however, we find that the question of the means of knowledge is definitely raised: the three Vedas or the four, which are sometimes recognized, are not always recognized as the sources of complete knowledge: Çvetaketu, despite much Vedic learning, cannot solve the question of transmigration, Nārada admits to Sanatkumāra his incompetence to understand the Ātman. The Taittirīya Upaniṣad¹ expressly reduces the knowledge of the Vedas to an inferior position by assigning them to the stage of the mind-made Ātman, which has to be surmounted before reaching the final truth. But these views were gradually and naturally supplemented by another, which makes the Upaniṣads an essential part, the secret instruction, of the Veda: hence the term Vedānta which first occurs in the Çvetāçvatara Upaniṣad¹ and denotes the Upaniṣads, as the end of the Veda in which its deepest secret is disclosed.