Upanishads - Moti Lal Pandit (essay date 1978)
Moti Lal Pandit (essay date 1978)
SOURCE: Pandit, Moti Lal. “Meaning of the Upanishad.” In Philosophy of the Upanishads: A Christian Understanding, pp. 17-22. Delhi, India: I.S.P.C.K., 1978.
[In the following essay, Pandit comments on the dialogue style of the Upanishads as well as on the actual etymology of the word upanishad.]
The meaning of the word upanishad is difficult to tell, for its etymology is doubtful. According to Max Muller, the term means “the art of sitting down near a teacher, of submissively listening to him” (from upa, below; ni, down, and sad, to sit).1 But, according to Sankara, the word is formed by adding the suffix kvip and the prefixes upa and ni to the root sad, meaning: that which destroys ignorance.2 If we accept this definition, then the term would mean that kind of knowledge (and not the texts) which...
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