Upanishad Series - Ep. 1 (Understanding them)
Do you want to hear the biggest secret of the universe?
Thousands of years ago, someone just like you said “yes”, and that’s how we got the Upanishads - the deepest ideas by any human ever, so here’s the tea.
Welcome to Episode 1 of Vedanta Thursdays, where I break down Bharat’s most complicated philosophies in under three minutes.
Before we open the Upanishads, you must know where exactly they sit in our larger library.
They’re the final layer of the Vedas, otherwise called Shruti - श्रुति, “that which was heard”. Our Rishis didn’t compose the Vedas; they heard them in states of profound meditation. This is why the Vedas are called apauruṣeya - अपौरुषेय - not authored by any human mind.
Each Veda has Samhitas with mantras, Brahmanas with ritual instructions, and Aranyakas that shift into philosophy.
But eventually, people began asking, “What’s the point behind all of this?”
The answers to that question became the Upanishads.
Upa-ni-shad (उप-नि-षद्) literally means “sitting down near the teacher for a secret instruction”. Their purpose is simple: to destroy ignorance, reveal the nature of the Self, and bring you closer to the divine reality.
They are the climax and philosophical essence of the Vedas. That’s why they’re also called Vedānta - वेदान्त - “the end of the Veda”, both literally and intellectually.
They form the Jñāna Kāṇḍa, the knowledge portion, complementing the Karma Kāṇḍa (ritual section). And no - they don’t reject rituals; they reinterpret them, showing how discipline, truthfulness, self-restraint, non-violence, clarity, and inner steadiness purify the mind so it can hold higher truth.
So what do the Upanishads actually teach? They answer the big questions:
Who are we?
What is God?
What is the universe?
What’s our relationship with it?
And they reveal the symbolic meaning behind our practices - why we chant Aum (ॐ), why fire rituals matter, and what meditation truly points toward.
There are many Upanishads - some list 200+. But the Muktikā Upanishad, where Śrī Rāma tells Hanuman which ones matter, identifies 108 as the accepted set.
Traditionally, they’re distributed across the Vedas: 10 in Ṛg, 50 in Yajur, 16 in Sāma, 32 in Atharva. (These numbers are canonical but not chronological)
Of these, 10 are the Principal or Mukhya Upanishads, the foundation of Vedānta - studied, debated, and commented upon by every major Acharya from Adi Shankaracharya to Madhva, Ramanuja, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, and more.
To remember them, use the acronym ABC TIP M2 K2:
A - Aitareya (ऐतरेय)
B - Bṛhadāraṇyaka (बृहदारण्यक)
C - Chāndogya (छान्दोग्य)
T - Taittirīya (तैत्तिरीय)
I - Īśa (ईश)
P - Praśna (प्रश्न)
M - Muṇḍaka (मुण्डक)
M - Māṇḍūkya (माण्डूक्य)
K - Kena (केन)
K - Kaṭha (कठ)
Each combines dialogues, stories, metaphors, and razor-sharp logic to explain three core ideas:
1) Brahman - ब्रह्मन् - the ultimate reality underlying everything.
2) Ātman - आत्मन् - the Self, the witness inside you.
3) And their shocking conclusion: Ātman and Brahman are not two. They are one. Realizing this doesn’t make you “special”; it makes you free.
You enter paramānanda - complete, unshakeable peace - and become jīvanmukta, spiritually liberated in moksha while still living.
Sounds crazy? Wait till you hear part 2!