The Upanishads, composed between roughly 800 and 200 BCE, represent the philosophical culmination of the Vedic tradition. These texts — over 200 in number, with 13 considered principal — introduced the concepts of Brahman (the ultimate reality), Atman (the individual self), karma, samsara, and moksha (liberation). The central insight — "Tat tvam asi" (Thou art that) — declared the identity of the individual self with the universal consciousness. The Upanishads profoundly influenced Buddhism, Jainism, and later Indian philosophy, and their ideas reached the West through Schopenhauer, Emerson, and the Transcendentalists.
Continue reading