The Upanishads

By: Joseph Lumpkin

Narrated by: Dennis Logan

The term upanishad literally means "to sit close around". It was the term for a teaching session. Thus, in time, the word came to point more toward the secret teaching than the sessions themselves. The word was first used to refer to a set of short statements that conveyed the essence of a doctrine. Later the term grew in scope to refer to entire texts of esoteric knowledge. The tradition or liturgy for conveyance came to be called the Vedas.

Veda is a Sanskrit word meaning “knowledge”. It eventually became the name of a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Vedas form the oldest layer of literature and the oldest Hindu text.

The texts, called Upanishads, came to be regarded as the teachings forming the concluding section of the Vedic corpus. Though today they are in the public domain, they were originally secret teachings, as the origin of the word suggests.

The earliest Upanishads were pre-Buddhist, and were probably written around 800-600 BC. Only 13 of the Upanishads are regarded as "classical" and were written in this period; however, Upanishads continued to be composed long into the common era. The traditional teachings include 108, but there are now a total of about 200. Composition occurred in three periods of time. The first and most ancient Upanishads were written before the sixth century BC.

©2009 Joseph Lumpkin (P)2020 Fifth Estate

A Good Way to Explore another Faith Tradition

I have read the Upanishads and like all such “scripture” or wisdom lit, it can be difficult to stay focused to the end. It is so much better to have somebody read it to you. This audible does exactly that. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the translation, but it seemed to all make sense and I found it more interesting where I could allow the mind to wander a bit around some of the concepts. I also found the commentary helpful (although the attempt to reference other faith traditions was more a mixed bag).

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#ParadoxesOfTheHighestScience #FreeAudiobookCodes

peace

great expression of what we all want to understand deep within ourselves. thank you for the narrative energy. 🙏 peace be with you. ☮️ ❤️ 🙏

Fucking classic...!?$

Deep, deeper, deepest.... What a body of work in such brevity.... I might have to buy the book to let my eyes look at it... I'll definitely listen to this again....

peaceful

very soothing, dramativ readung. easy to go to sleep to, and meditate at the same time. (n9 disrespect intended, it's not boring, rather the narrator reads in such a guided meditative manner). :)

Half is commentary

A reading of a document you can find online, that gives the saying from the upanishads & then a paragraph of commentary/narrative, but not obvious break so you have to delineate. Several areas of the commentary try to tie these sayings to Christianity, even though the sayings substantially predate, & are both geographically & philosophically remote from that religious theme.