Vedanta: The End of the Vedas
There are reasons for the transition from the Vedas to the Upanishads. During the Vedic period, the rituals consisted of sacrifices; they became so elaborate that only rich people could afford them. As Sanskrit (the refined language) was not used or understood by the masses, the Vedic religion became the exclusive milieu of the rich and priestly class of people, thus losing the following of the masses. The priestly class made the rituals too cumbersome and used the legal system — Manusmrti — to regulate society; Brahmanism replaced the Vedic religion, and the masses were excluded from the Vedic gods and the sacrifices. As a result of these two problems, the common people lost their connection to the religion.
There are about 200 Upanishads, ranging in length from one to fifty pages. About fourteen, or less than 10 percent, of these are known as principal Upanishads. The earliest likely originated in the ninth century
Opposition to the Vedic religion came from two directions. The common people did not like the hierarchical structure of the society — the caste system — imposed on them; they also opposed the hold the priestly class had on the religion. This social unrest resulted in the rise of Buddhism and Jainism during the lifetimes of Gautama Buddha and Mahavira.
Buddha's doctrine of universal charity, liberty, equality, and fraternity was increasingly attractive to the masses. Buddhism and Jainism assailed the very core of Vedic religion, and Brahmanism was faced with the difficult dilemma of recognizing and assimilating the current popular cults and creeds or facing extinction. To survive, Brahmanism had to expand; otherwise, it risked shrinking numbers of adherents, and eventual death.
The designation of Upanishads (Approaches) as the end of Veda (also Vedanta), indicates both their place in the sequence of Vedic literature and their position in the canon of Hindu scriptures. In a sense, Vedanta is the summary of Vedic religion. There is an important principle that atman and Brahman are identical and undifferentiated. The principle contained in the Upanishads is encapsulated in the formula “that art thou.” “That” stands for universal Brahman, and “thou” stands for individual atman.
The following are the main ideas of Vedanta:
God is one, without a second, absolute and indivisible. God assumes various personal forms to reveal itself to us.
All of the incarnations (manifestations of God on Earth) are actual embodiments of Divinity.
There are no accidents in the cosmic universe; human destiny is governed by the law of cause and effect.
We are born on Earth repeatedly to finish the unfinished work of realizing our divinity.
There is a higher state of consciousness that can be achieved in this human birth.
There are many ways to achieve union with God: through the intellect, emotions, actions, and the will.
A special type of Vedanta, Adavaita Vedanta, needs some more explanation.
Advaita Vedanta
This Vedantic nondualism is a subschool of the Vedanta. The word “Advaita” essentially refers to the identity of the self (atman) and the whole (Brahman). The key source texts for all schools of Vedanta are the Prast-hanatrayi, the canonical texts consisting of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras. The first person to consolidate the principles of Advaita was Adi Shankara (or Sankara), and the first historical proponent was Gaudapada, the guru of Shankara's guru Bhagavatpada.
Vedanta is considered the summary of the Vedas or an appendix to the Vedas; it did not bring about an end to Hinduism, but acted as a bridge between the Vedic and modern Hindu traditions. The developments that followed Vedanta were Puranas, Agamas, and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Agama literature was the most suitable for making images.
Although this assertion of the ultimate identity of Brahman and atman seems to be the dominating theme of the Upanishads, there are other ways to interpret the relationship between the two principles. One of the Upanishads, Svetasvatara, speaks of Brahman as God, making a distinction between this and the external world. In addition to this theistic interpretation, there is also a movement toward pantheism, a tendency to think of the natural universe and the individual soul as God.
The Upanishads are a collection of more than 100 Hindu sacred texts composed in Sanskrit. In content, these texts are a distillation of the teachings of the Vedas and Brahmanas, or commentaries on the hymns and rituals of the Vedas. Therefore, they are known as the Vedanta, or end of the Vedas.
