Languages with more than 30,000,000 Speakers as of 2005

Philosophy of Science, Linguistics

Philosophy of History

Philosophy of Science

Copyright (c) 1997, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

The Earliest Civilizations

The basic meaning of civilization is the presence of cities, and the basic meaning of history is the presence of written records. There can be civilization without writing (the Incas), and perhaps writing without much in the way of cities (runes), but the creation of writing gives to the earliest historical civilizations a role that prior urban culture (as at Jericho) could not match. The four earliest centers of historical civilization stretch diagonally across south Asia into Africa. They are defined by their writing systems. The earliest is in Sumer (or Sumeria), where we now have evidence of a long pre-history of writing. After early pictograms, the writing system that emerged, cuneiform, is named after the wedge shapes that were made by reed pens on clay tablets. This was a cumbersome and messy medium for writing but possesses the virtue form our point of view that burned tablets can become as durable as bricks.

The Sumerians themselves did not last long, and are no longer distinguishable as a people after the end of the III Dynasty of Ur, around 2000 BC. Their language has no known affinities, though the Caucasus is still home to similarly isolated and unique language groups, three of them. A chain of ancient non-Indo-European and non-Semitic languages -- of Elam, the Kassites, the Hurrians, and Urartu -- stretched from Sumer to the Caucasus, but too little is known of these languages, or of the early forms of the Caucasian ones, for certain connections to be drawn. Sumerian civilization, however, did not die, since most of its elements, and the cuneiform writing system itself, were adapted to writing a Semitic language, Akkadian, whose daughters, Babylonian and Assyrian, bore the literature of subsequent Mesopotamian civilization, even while lovingly preserving knowledge of Sumerian. The last cuneiform text is from 75 AD, and so this is taken as marking the end of Sumerian civilization, even if the end of the Sumerians themselves long antedates it.

Hard on the heels of Sumer came Egypt, with evidence of Sumerian influence, where a new writing system, hieroglyphics, developed -- now with some evidence emerging of its antecedents in Egypt. Of the durable systems of writing, hieroglyphics alone retained its pictographic character, though the Egyptians developed cursive and abbreviated forms for more practical purposes. The Egyptians also developed a more practical medium for writing, papyrus scrolls, though these have the drawback, from our point of view, of easily burning and decaying. An intact Egyptian papyrus is a prize, though these are more common in the dry climate of Egypt than similarly volatile media would be in the damp Ganges Valley of India. The Egyptians themselves, and their writing, were somewhat more durable than Sumer. The last hieroglyphic inscription was carved in 394 AD, and the last cursive (Demotic) papyrus is from 480 AD. That, even then, the Egyptian language survived, as Coptic, written in the Greek alphabet, is discussed elsewhere.

The Indus Valley of India is where the next civilization emerges, again with evidence of Sumerian influence. The Indus pictographic script is not well attested and remains undeciphered. Nor, unlike hieroglyphics and cuneiform, are there any bilingual texts to aid in decipherment. So we don't even know what the people of the Indus Valley called themselves or their place -- perhaps the closest we can get is that the Sumerians called the place Melua. The problem is that the Indus Valley civilization did not survive, flourishing only from around 2800 to 1500 (or even just from 2600 to 1900). The examples of Indus writing are brief and fragmentary. Just what happened is still mysterious. The advent of Indo-European steppe peoples with horses and chariots undoubtedly had the kind of effect that is also evident in the Middle East, where small numbers of such people established regimes in Babylonia (the Kassite Dynasty) and Mitanni, and the technology made a foreign regime possible in Egypt. The Indus cities, however, now seem already declining, vulnerable, and perhaps even abandoned, perhaps because of climatic and hydrological changes. There is little real evidence of violent conquest, though a similar absence is also noteworthy with respect to the Kassite regime in Babylon, the Mitanni, or the Hyksos in Egypt. In any case, India passed into a Dark Age and emerged contemporaneous with the beginning of Classical civilization in Greece, circa 800 BC.

While contact between Sumeria, Egypt, and the Indus occurred early, the fourth center of civilization, in China, remained relatively isolated and emerged considerably later, with the Shang Dynasty, about the time that India has passsing temporarily out of history. Of all the early systems of writing, Chinese Characters, the direct descendants of Shang pictographs, are the only one still in use today. The Indian system, of course, ended with the Indus civilization. Cuneiform and hieroglyphics were replaced by alphabetic scripts that developed, perhaps under Egyptian influence, in Phoenicia and Canaan.

A striking geographical feature of the early civilizations is that they were all in river valleys, and not only that, but desert river valleys. That circumstance might be overlooked in the Middle East, where the climate is uniformly dry, but is conspicuous in India and China, where the rivers in deserts (the Indus), or at least relatively dry areas (the Huang He), are matched by rivers that are in areas of heavy rainfall (the Ganges & Yangtze). In China, an old saying has it that in the north (Huang He valley) you go by horse, and in the south (Yangtze valley) you go by boat. That life and agriculture likely was easier in rainy areas may have been just the problem. The irrigation systems that were necessary for reliable agriculture in the desert climates imply a level of organization and technological development, let alone records, which are just what we find in the earliest days of Sumer, Egypt, and the Indus valley. In these terms, it should not be surprising that civilization in India began on the Indus rather than the Ganges, and in China on the Huang He rather than the Yangtze. This even made a difference in the Chinese diet, since rice, which we think of as the Chinese staple, would only grow in the wet south. In the north, it was wheat that was grown, and the staple diet was based on something else which is still conspicuous in Chinese cooking, noodles.

Another curious, but unexplained, feature of these civilizations is that the delay in the develoment of China, and the hiatus in the development of India, end up producing a philosophical culture simultaneously with the development of Greek philosophy, while the independent Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations were far gone in decline. The multiple points of similarity between the thought of the Greece, India, and China, evident in the simplest terms in their respective treatment of the physical elements, cannot be accounted for by mutual influence, which does not seem to have existed at the earliest period. The undoubted transfer of ideas between Greece and India in the Hellenistic Period, and the export of Buddhism from India to China beginning in the Han Dynasty, provides us points of comparison with what, the uninfluenced traditions, came before. The time when Parmenides, Confucius, and the Buddha all lived, the end of the 5th century BC, has been called the "axial age"; but it remains mysterious that such simultaneous and sometimes parallel development should have occurred.

The age was also one of religious innovation. In India, where religion and philosophy remain closely related, Buddhism, Jainism, and Upanishadic Hinduism straddle the distinction. In China, schools that are pretty purely philosophical, Confucianism and Taosim, eventually attract religious elements and grow, with Buddhism, into the three religious "Ways" of Chinese civilization. Greek religion, of course, was doomed to extinction, replaced by Prophetic Judaism and its daughter religions, Christianity and Islâm. Meanwhile, of course, the Jewish tradition had been profoundly influenced by Greek philosophy, so that when Christianity was adopted by Rome, it could be said to repesent a synthesis of "Athens and Jerusalem." The place in this of the religious revolution in Irân, Zoroastrianism, is more obscure. The moral rigor of Zoroaster, in separating all evil from God, may actually be the source of similar reforms in both Judaism and in Greek philosophy, but there is little in the way of direct evidence of this.

History of Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy

"Knowing" Words in Indo-European Languages

Copyright (c) 2000, 2003, 2004, 2008 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

The Spread of Indo-European and Turkish Peoples off the Steppe

The grassland across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Steppe, is one of the great highways of world history. Equipped with horses and cattle, people could live easily on the Steppe and move freely across it, all the way from Mongolia to Hungary. From the Second Millennium BC until well into the Middle Ages, movements back and forth across the Steppe, and especially off of it at the periphery, profoundly influenced the history of the surrounding lands in Europe and Asia, particularly Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India, and China. The most dramatic example of this in Ancient times was the descent of the Iranians into the Middle East and India. Introducing horses and chariots for the first time into these areas of earlier civilization, the Iranian invaders not only revolutionized warfare, but were the ones to reap the first advantages from the innovation. The occupation of the Iranian plateau established their permanent presence there, with the great successor kingdoms of the Medes and the Persians. An Iranian elite, at least, imposed themselves on the Hurrians and the Kassites of the Middle East. With the Hurrians, the kingdom of the Mitanni then became one of the great second millennium powers of Eastern Syria, while with the Kassites, an ascendancy was established over Babylonia. In a 13th century treaty with the Hittites, the Mitanni listed their gods, which are evidently the same gods as in contemporary Iran and in Vedic India.

Recent scholarship has begun to discount to role of the Iranian invaders in the introduction of the horse and in dominating the Hurrians and Kassites, since horses appear before their arrival and the evidence of the Iranian element among the Hurrians and Kassites is thin. However, the Iranian movement was certainly more that of a migration than the invasion of organized armies. As such, its influences were somewhat more in the way of diffusion than of conquest. Horses arrive before an Iranian population does because they were traded ahead of the migrants. Someone brought them -- horses (and chariots) did not simply suddenly wander across the Central Asian deserts into the Middle East and India. There is no doubt that horses did not exist in the 3rd millennium BC in Egypt or Sumeria. When horses do arrive, they are adopted as quickly as possible. Horses clearly arrived in Egypt with an invasion, that of the Hyksos, but there is no evidence that the Hyksos were Iranians. Whether or not the Hurrians were ever dominated by Iranians, there is undoubted Iranian influence there, with the names of the gods. The gods can have diffused along with the horses. That the Iranians are near is incontestable -- they are soon revealed on the Iranian plateau, and in India, and their languages have been in those places ever since. Consquently, it doesn't make much sense to completely discount the traditional notions of the role and influence of the Iranians.

India is where the eastern branch of Iranian invaders, the Arya, imposed themselves and, erasing whatever establishment or vestiges were in place of the older Indus Valley Civilization -- known to the Sumerians as Melua -- laid the foundation of a new civilization with their own language and gods. A subsequent Iranian people, the Sakas, later also invaded India. The Sakas had been dislodged, as the most distant Indo-European occupants of the Steppe, known as the Yüeh Chih (Pinyin Yuezhi, the "Moon Tribe") to the Chinese, were thrown back into the Tarim Basin (the Lesser Yüeh Chih) and Transoxania (the Greater Yüeh Chih). The Greater Yüeh Chih, organized as the kingdom of the Kushans, later continued the tradition by invading India themselves.

Argument continues over the role of the Arya invaders in the end of the Indus Valley Civilization (one of whose famous artifacts is shown at left), which is now usually said to have been in decline and to have come to an end through its own decadence (cf. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology [Oxford University Press, 1996], "Indus Civilization," pp. 348-351) or natural disasters (cf. "Indus Civilization, Clues to an Ancient Puzzle," National Geographic Magazine, Vol.197, No.6, June 2000, pp.108-129). Civilizations, indeed, have their ups and downs. Egypt during its Intermediate Periods, or China after the fall of the Han, are good examples. However, they rarely disappear as the result of such low points. Even Mayan Civilization, which essentially did collapse, still left the Mayan people, speaking their own language, behind. It is thus hard to imagine no connection between the invasion and the disappearance, even as the probable language of the Indus Valley, a Dravidian language, was erased from most of the north of India. Egypt had a tough enough time shaking off the Hyksos.

Claims are also now made, perhaps not coincidentally starting with Indian scholars, that the Arya originated in India, that the Vedic language is closely related to the Dravidian languages and the source of all other Indo-European languages, and that the hitherto undeciphered Indus Valley script is actually the basis of both the much later (700 or 800 years) Brahmi alphabet in India and even the Phoenican/Canaanite alphabet of the Middle East. These are inherently suspect and improbable claims, examined in some detail elsewhere.

Since the early Iranian peoples were illiterate, much of their movement and activities remain concealed from history. With the spread of literate civilization, however, much more can the discerned when the entire process of spreading across the Steppe was repeated all over again in the Middle Ages by the Turks. Moving from east to west, the Turks came as far west on the Steppe itself. The remaining Turkish presence in Europe looks at least in part associated with the later Mongol invasions. Thus Kazan, which was the capital of the Mongol Khanate of Kazan, is now the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, where the Turkish language of Tatar is spoken. Ajacent to Tatarstan we find the closely related languages of Chuvash and Bashkir (now in Bashkortostan). Other Tartar speakers remain in Central Asia. The Crimean Tatars, surviving from the Mongol Khanate of the Crimea, were deported to Central Asia by Stalin in 1944 for supposedly collaborating with the Germans. Recently some have been returning. In the Ukraine, earlier Turkic peoples like the Khazars, Patzinaks, and Cumans have disappeared. The Bulgars, originally Turkic, were absorbed by their Slavic subjects. Nor did the Turks settle nearly as much of the Middle East. However, the whole area around the Aral Sea became permanently Turkish, now dignified as "Turkestan," while the defeat of the Romanian/Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV at the battle of Manzikert by the Seljuk Turk Great Sultân Alp Arslan in 1071 opened up Asia Minor, which Iranians had never penetrated (despite the Persian conquest), to permanent Turkish occupation and settlement. The presence of Turkey amidst and upon older Indo-European peoples, the Greeks and the Armenians, and overlapping an Iranian people, the Kurds, has not made for forgiveness or forgetfulness of their recent advent. Although a Turkish ethnic presence was never established in India, Turkish princes in Afghanistan profoundly influenced Indian history, first by the invasion of Mahmûd of Ghazna in 1008, when Islâm was first solidly planted in Indian civilization, and by the later invasion of Babur, the first of the Moghuls, in 1526.

The most spectacular and rapid movement of conquest across the Steppe, through the Middle East, and into Europe and China, was that of the Mongols in the 13th Century. Although several significant and a few durable kingdoms resulted from this conquest, little remains by way of permanent Mongol ethnic presence. The Kalmyks on the lower Volga are the only Mongolian speaking group left in Europe, Buddhist in religion and evidently associated with the Khanate of Astrakhan. The Mongols thus repeated the earlier, and less well documented, career of the Huns, who also left few durable marks of their presence (like the name "Hungary"). Subsequently, the conquest of the Steppe came from off of the Steppe, especially as the Russians, who had moved across Asia north of the Steppe, in the forest land of the taiga, occupied much of the central portion of it from the north in the 19th Century. The advent of gunpowder removed the advantage that the horse had given nomadic Steppe dwellers for so long.

Grasslands at the corresponding latitudes elsewhere in the world did not have the same impact on world history. The Pampas of South American and the Veldt of South Africa were far too small to provide a highway between different cultural regions. The Prairie of North America, although extensive, was still not as extensive as the Steppe and lacked the key ingredient: A domesticated animal for riding. Although the horse had actually evolved in North America, it died out there and historically is only found in Asia and Africa (Zebras). The reintroduction of the horse into the New World by the Spanish set off the development of a romantic Plains culture among American Indian tribes who adopted the horse; but this did not involve the historic transmission of cultures around the periphery, nor did it last very long -- only a century and a half, at most. What these grasslands could mean in modern life was as appropriate ranges to grow a domesticated grass, wheat, and similar agricultural staples. The steppe and similar provinces thus have gone from being highways of history to being breadbaskets of the world.

Philosophy of History

Copyright (c) 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2008 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

The Fours Vedas
and the Parts of the Vedas

The Vedas and all their parts are shruti, "revelation." The sectarian teachings, Vais.n.avite (the sect of Vis.n.u), Shaivite (the sect of Shiva), & Shâkta (Tantric, sect of Shakti), may regard their texts, the âgamas, as shruti also. The pious view is that the Vedas are eternal and uncreated and exist essentially as sound. More conventional, but still pious, scholarship may still exaggerate the antiquity of the Vedas, sometimes claiming they go back to 10,000 BC or earlier. Now, however, it looks like even the oldest parts of the R.g Veda do not antedate the arrival of the Arya in India, although the gods and elements of the stories are older, since they are attested with Iranian peoples and the Mitanni, with parallels in Greek and Latin mythology. The word "veda" is from the root vid, "to know," making for other derivates like vidya, "knowledge," and avidya, "ignorance." The vid root is cognate to idea in Greek, video in Latin, and wit in English. Claims can be found on the Internet that the Arya and their gods were autochthonous to India; but the linguistic, archeological, and epigraphic evidence is overwhelming in favor of their arrival from the Steppe, like the Turks and Mongols centuries later, and of their origin elsewhere.

THE FOUR VEDAS

I. R.g Veda the oldest Veda, from c.1500 BC; from r.c, "sacred hymn or verse"; liturgial manual of the hotr., chief sacrificial priest.

II. Sâma Veda from sâman, "song, chant"; hymnal of singing udgâtr. priest, assistant of the hotr..

III. Yajur Veda from yajus, "sacrifical formula"; liturgical manual of adhvaryu priest, assistant of hotr. charged with ritual preparations, "practical work."

IV. Atharva Veda the youngest Veda, c. 800 BC; from atharvan, the "fire priest," not originally associated with Vedic sacrifice, later added as brâhman.a, the fourth sacrificial priest.

THE FOUR VEDAS
I. R.g Veda	the oldest Veda, from c.1500 BC; from r.c, "sacred hymn or verse"; liturgial manual of the hotr., chief sacrificial priest.
II. Sâma Veda	from sâman, "song, chant"; hymnal of singing udgâtr. priest, assistant of the hotr..
III. Yajur Veda	from yajus, "sacrifical formula"; liturgical manual of adhvaryu priest, assistant of hotr. charged with ritual preparations, "practical work."
IV. Atharva Veda	the youngest Veda, c. 800 BC; from atharvan, the "fire priest," not originally associated with Vedic sacrifice, later added as brâhman.a, the fourth sacrificial priest.

Each Veda consists of four parts.

THE FOUR PARTS OF THE VEDAS

I. Samhitâs (or Mantras)
Hymns
R.g Veda Samhitâs: 10522 verses The samhitâs and brâhman.as are the karmakân.d.a, "action part," of the Vedas, studied by the pûrva mîmâmsâ, "prior interpretation," or Mîmâmsâ school.

Sâma Veda Samhitâs: 1984 verses

Yajur Veda Samhitâs: 1875 verses

Atharva Veda Samhitâs: 5977 verses

II. Brâhman.as
Ritual Texts
The brâhman.as, using much mythic material, are commentaries on and explanations of the hymns and ritual practices.
III. Âran.yakas
Forest Treatises
The âran.yakas verge into philosophical writing but often are indistinguishable from the brâhman.as; they may be regarded as philosophical texts written by or for forest dwelling hermits or as brâhman.a ritual texts written for forest dwellers who cannot practice the ordinary household rituals described in the brâhman.as proper. The âran.yakas and upanis.ads are the jñanakân.d.a, "knowledge part," of the Vedas, studied by the uttara mîmâmsâ, "posterior interpretation," or Vedânta, "End of the Vedas," school.

IV. Upanis.ads
Philosophical Texts

THE FOUR PARTS OF THE VEDAS
I. Samhitâs (or Mantras) Hymns	R.g Veda Samhitâs: 10522 verses	The samhitâs and brâhman.as are the karmakân.d.a, "action part," of the Vedas, studied by the pûrva mîmâmsâ, "prior interpretation," or Mîmâmsâ school.
Sâma Veda Samhitâs: 1984 verses
Yajur Veda Samhitâs: 1875 verses
Atharva Veda Samhitâs: 5977 verses
II. Brâhman.as Ritual Texts	The brâhman.as, using much mythic material, are commentaries on and explanations of the hymns and ritual practices.
III. Âran.yakas Forest Treatises	The âran.yakas verge into philosophical writing but often are indistinguishable from the brâhman.as; they may be regarded as philosophical texts written by or for forest dwelling hermits or as brâhman.a ritual texts written for forest dwellers who cannot practice the ordinary household rituals described in the brâhman.as proper.	The âran.yakas and upanis.ads are the jñanakân.d.a, "knowledge part," of the Vedas, studied by the uttara mîmâmsâ, "posterior interpretation," or Vedânta, "End of the Vedas," school.
IV. Upanis.ads Philosophical Texts

The Vedas are traditionally taught by a Brahmin teacher (guru) orally to a student (brahmacârin) in sequences (called "branches") of associated samhitâs, brâhman.as, âran.yakas, and upanis.ads. For example:

R.g Veda

Shakala Branch Samhitâs Aitareya Brâhman.a Aitareya Âran.yaka Aitareya Upanis.ad

R.g Veda
Shakala Branch Samhitâs	Aitareya Brâhman.a	Aitareya Âran.yaka	Aitareya Upanis.ad

The 33 Gods of the Vedas

Note 1: Early Upanis.ad, between 800 and 500 BC.

Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

The Thirteen Principal Upanis.ads
with their associated Vedas, Brâhman.as and Âran.yakas

Translations of Upanis.ads range from the classic Sacred Books of the East versions by F. Max Müller in two volumes, originally published in 1879 and 1884 (reissued by Dover in 1962), to a recent new translation by Patrick Olivelle (Upanis.ads, Oxford, 1996). Olivelle should be consulted for the most recent thinking and scholarship. Mircea Eliade says that only the Upanis.ads listed here, out of more than 200, are considered to be shruti. At the same time, I've seen claims that the Upanis.ads are not even part of the Vedas. Olivelle says that these (his collection does not include the Maitri Upanis.ad) are in fact the whole of the original Upanis.adic literature -- indeed, that the Br.hadâran.yaka and Chândogya together "constitute about two-thirds of the corpus of ancient Upanis.adic documents" (p. 4). Subsequently, however, numerous, often Sectarian, documents were produced, as late as the 16th century, which were regarded as Upanis.ads by different people (p. xxxiii). Collections of Upanis.ads varied by region. Olivelle mentions a northern collection of 52 and a southern collection of 108 (p. xxxiii). The only serious modern publication of the additional Upanis.ads I've seen is K. Narayanasvami Aiyar's Thirty Minor Upans.ads (Parimal Publications, Delhi, 1997). The late Upanis.ads are not part of the Brâhman.a literature and tend to be ascribed to the Atharva Veda. This is already true of some of the Upanis.ads listed here.

Action Part Knowledge Part

Hymns Brâhman.as Forest
Treatises Upanishads

R.g Veda, Shakala Branch Aitareya Brâhman.a [2] Aitareya Âran.yaka Aitareya Upanis.ad [1]

R.g Veda Kaus.îtaki (Shânkhânaya) Brâhman.a [2] Shânkhânaya Aran.yaka Kaus.îtaki Upanis.ad [1]

Sâma Veda Jaiminîya (Talavakâra) Upanis.ad Brâhman.a [3] Kena Upanis.ad

Chândogya Brâhman.a [4] Chândogya Upanis.ad [1][5]

Kr.s.n.a (Black) Yajur Veda Taittirîya Brâhman.a [6] Taittirîya Âran.yaka Taittirîya Upanis.ad [1]

Maitri (Maitrâyani-Brâhman.a) Upanis.ad [7]

Shvetâshvatara Upanis.ad [7]

Kât.ha Upanis.ad [7][8]

Shukla (White) Yajur Veda, Vâjasaneyi Samhitâ Îshâ Samhitâ Upanis.ad [9]

Shatapatha Brâhman.a [10] Br.hadâran.yaka Upanis.ad [1][11]

Atharva Veda, Pippalâda Branch [12] Prashna Upanis.ad [7]

Atharva Veda, Shaunaka Branch Mun.d.aka Upanis.ad [7]

Atharva Veda Mân.d.ûkya Upanis.ad [7][13][14]

Action Part	Knowledge Part
Hymns	Brâhman.as	Forest Treatises	Upanishads
R.g Veda, Shakala Branch	Aitareya Brâhman.a [2]	Aitareya Âran.yaka	Aitareya Upanis.ad [1]
R.g Veda	Kaus.îtaki (Shânkhânaya) Brâhman.a [2]	Shânkhânaya Aran.yaka	Kaus.îtaki Upanis.ad [1]
Sâma Veda	Jaiminîya (Talavakâra) Upanis.ad Brâhman.a [3]		Kena Upanis.ad
Chândogya Brâhman.a [4]		Chândogya Upanis.ad [1][5]
Kr.s.n.a (Black) Yajur Veda	Taittirîya Brâhman.a [6]	Taittirîya Âran.yaka	Taittirîya Upanis.ad [1]
Maitri (Maitrâyani-Brâhman.a) Upanis.ad [7]
	Shvetâshvatara Upanis.ad [7]
	Kât.ha Upanis.ad [7][8]
Shukla (White) Yajur Veda, Vâjasaneyi Samhitâ		Îshâ Samhitâ Upanis.ad [9]
Shatapatha Brâhman.a [10]	Br.hadâran.yaka Upanis.ad [1][11]
Atharva Veda, Pippalâda Branch [12]		Prashna Upanis.ad [7]
Atharva Veda, Shaunaka Branch		Mun.d.aka Upanis.ad [7]
Atharva Veda		Mân.d.ûkya Upanis.ad [7][13][14]

Note 2: The R.g Veda contains only the two Brâhman.as listed.

Note 3: The Sâma Veda contains eight Brâhman.as, including the Pañcavim.sha Brâhman.a, the S.ad.vim.sha Brâhman.a, and the Praud.ha Brâhman.a.

Note 4: Eight out of ten chapters are the upanis.ad.

Note 5: Contains the mahâvakya, "great sentence," for the Sâma Veda: tat tvam asi, "thou art that."

Note 6: The only Brâhman.a of the Black Yajur Veda.

Note 7: Upanis.ads of the middle period, between 500 and 200 BC.

Note 8: Some attribute the Kât.ha Upanis.ad to the Atharva Veda or the Sâma Veda.

Note 9: Unusally positioned with samhitâs instead of with âran.yakas.

Note 10: The only Brâhman.a of the White Yajur Veda.

Note 11: Oldest upanis.ad, appended to the Shatapatha Brâhman.a, contains the teaching of the Unknown Knower and the mahâvakya, "great sentence," for the Yajur Veda: aham brahmâsmi, "I am brahman."

Note 12: The only Brâhman.a of the Atharva Veda is the Gopatha Brâhman.a. I am not aware of the Branch to which it is supposed to belong.

Note 13: The Mân.d.ûkya Upanis.ad is found embedded in the Kârikâ Âgama, not attached to a Brâhman.a or Âran.yaka.

Note 14: Contains the mahâvakya, "great sentence," for the Atharva Veda: ayam âtmâ brahma, "this self is brahman."

The Mân.d.ûkya Upanis.ad

translation substantially that of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan & Charles A. Moore (1957) and Thomas E. Wood (1990) with modifications

The Mân.d.ûkya Upanis.ad is one of the shortest Upanis.ads, only twelve verses long, and it is very late, conventionally associated with the Atharva Veda; but it is also one of the most important Upanis.ads, with commentaries by great Indian philosophers, like Shan.kara. Different schools of philosophy interpret the text according to their own doctrine. Quoted definitions are dictionary citations from Arthur MacDonell, A Practical Sanskirt Dictionary [Oxford, 1929].

1. Om: this syllable is all this. A further exposition of it is: what was, what is, and what will be -- all is only Om. And whatever else is beyond the three times, that also is only Om.

The Mân.d.ûkya Upanis.ad says it is about the syllable "Om." This is a sacred syllable that can be used as a mantra for meditation or written on things for good luck. I have an Indian cookbook whose author says that her mother wrote Om on her tongue in butter when she was born. The different ways to write the word are discussed at "Greek, Sanskrit, and Closely Related Languages." An abbreviated writing is given at the top of this page. Nevertheless, nothing is really said about Om here. It is used as a device to symbolize what the Mân.d.ûkya is really talking about, which is consciousness.

2. All this, indeed, is Brahman. This Self is Brahman. This Self itself has four quarters.

"This Self is Brahman," Ayam âtmâ brahma, is the mahâvakya, "great sentence," of the Atharva Veda. The four "great sentences," one from each Veda, express the fundamental teaching of the Upanis.ads. The other three are: tat tvam asi, "thou art that," aham brahmâsmi, "I am Brahman," and sarvam khalu idam brahma, "all this indeed is Brahman." The latter looks like it is also included in this verse but, sorry folks, only one great sentence per Veda. The "four quarters" of the Self are going to be the four levels of consciousness.

3. The waking state, outwardly cognitive, having seven limbs, having nineteen mouths, enjoying the gross, the worldly (vaishvânara), is the first quarter.

This verse is about the first state of the jîva, or the individual phenomenal self. The physical body accompanies the waking state. The "nineteen mouths" are the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell), five organs of action (speech, hands, feet, genitals, anus), five vital principles (prân.a, apâna, samâna, udâna, vyâna), and the "sensorium" (manas) reason (buddhi) ego (ahamkâra) and apperception (citta). "Gross" is sthûla, "thick, bulky, big, large, stout, massive; coarse, gross; dull, stupid; material, tangible (phil.)..." The "worldly," where here characterizes the waking state, means "belonging to all men; universal, dwelling or worshipped everywhere, generally known....consisting of all men...intellect conditioned by the aggregate (Vedânta phil.)..."

4. The dreaming state, inwardly cognitive, having seven limbs, having nineteen mouths, enjoying the exquisite, the brilliant (taijasa), is the second quarter.

This verse is about the second state of the jîva, dreaming. The dreaming or "astral" body accompanies the dreaming state (calling it the "astral" body is borrowed from Neoplatonism). Much has been made recently of "astral projection," where real journeys can supposedly be made in the separated astral body -- though the ultimate would be "teleportation," where an astral project ends with the physical body appearing where the astral body traveled..

5. Where one, asleep, does not desire any desire whatever, sees no dream whatever, this is deep sleep. The sleeping state, which has become one, just pure cognition, made of bliss (ânanda), verily an enjoyer of bliss, whose mouth is thought, the cognitional (prâjña), is the third quarter.

This verse is about the third state of the jîva, deep sleep. The causal body (kâran.asharîra) or karmic body (kârman.asharîra) accompanies the third state [note]. For the Jains this simply consists of one's karma and is responsible for the existence and circumstances of life in the phenomenal world. "Pure" cognition which is neither inner nor outer seems to be cognition without an object altogether. This is what we call "unconsciousness," but there is no unconsciousness in âtman or Brahman. Instead, the "pure" cognition seems to be a subject without an object, Knower with a Known (see comment on verse #6). Since Brahman is defined as sac-cid-ânanda, "existence, consciousness, & bliss," "made of bliss" strongly suggests that deep sleep is closer to Brahman than the previous two states, a hierarchy rejected by those opposed to the Monistic interpretation of Vedânta (see comment on verse #6). The "cognitional," prâjña (an intensifying prefix on jña, one of the knowing roots in Sanskrit), is "intelligence associated with individuality (phil.)"; "Intensely Conscious Being or Conscious Intensity." Interpretations of the third state as a state of ignorance, of unconsiousness, will have some difficulty why it would be called prâjña.

6. This is the lord (îshvara) of all; this is the knower of all; this is the inner controller; this is the source of all, indeed the origin as well as the end of all beings.

Does this verse go with verse #5, and so with deep sleep, or with verse #7, and so with the âtman? "Îshvara" is traditionally interpreted to mean God in a personal sense, which in #5 would be merely part of Mâyâ, "Illusion," (as in monistic Advaita Vedânta) or in #7 would be identical with Brahman (as in theistic schools of Vedânta). Verse #6 sytlistically does seem to go with verse #7, but "îshvara" may not be used here in the loaded sense of meaning a personal God -- the difference may not be conceived as clearly in this Upanis.ad as it would be in later Vedânta, and we might regard the causal principle in the third state as no more than the causal body.

7. Not inwardly cognitive, not outwardly cognitive, not cognitive both ways, not pure cognition, neither cognitive nor non-cognitive, unseen, beyond speech, ungraspable, without any distinctive marks, unthinkable, undesignatable, the essence of the knowledge of the one Self, the cessation of the phenomenal world, quiescent, auspicious, nondual (advaita) -- [such] they think, is the fourth. He is the Self. He is to be known.

This verse is about the fourth state, which leaves the jîva behind and now is the pure Self, the âtman. Note that the term "nondual" (advaita) is actually used in the text. "Auspicious" in Sanskirt is Shiva, which is the name of a devotionalistic God in Hinduism, but important theistic interpretations of the Mân.d.ûkya tend to be Vaishnavite rather than Shaivite.

8. This is the Self with regard to the syllable "Om", with regard to the elements: the quarters are the elements and the elements are the quarters: the letter a, the letter u, the letter m.

Om was originally pronounced aum; and this is remembered here, where Om is analyzed into three parts, with an intangible fourth part.

9. Vaishvânara (the worldly) is the waking state, the letter a, the first element, either from "âpti" (obtaining) or from "âdimattva" (being first). Verily, he obtains (âpnoti) all desires and becomes first (âdi) -- he who knows this.

10. Taijasa (the brilliant) is the dreaming state, the letter u, the second element, either from "utkars.a" (exaltation) or from "ubhayatva" (intermediateness). Verily, he exalts the stream of knowledge and becomes equal-minded; no one ignorant of Brahman is born in the family of him who knows this.

11. Prâjña (the cognitional) is the sleeping state, the letter m, the third element, either from "miti" (erecting) or from "apîti" (merging). Verily, he erects (minoti) this all and he becomes its merging -- he who knows this.

"Miti" can also be translated "measuring" -- the translation prefered by those who see "îshvara" as a creative God to be identified with the fourth state. A third state which "erects" the world does not require that kind of function in the fourth. However, the theistic interpretations of the text are up against another problem. The theistic Dvaita Vedânta view is that the third state is a state of unconsciousness and ignorance; but this is contradicted by the very name of the third state, "Prâjña," which means "intelligent, wise, clever" (from jña, "know"). This is not ignorance. But what "erects" the world doesn't have to be God even in the third state. It can be karma.

12. The fourth is what is without an element, what cannot be dealt with or spoken of, the cessation of the phenomenal world, auspicious, nondual. Thus Om is the very Self. He enters the Self with the Self -- he who knows this.