The Upanishads (from Sanskrit: उपनिषद्, "sitting near [the teacher]") constitute the philosophical culmination of the Vedic corpus. Unlike the ceremonial focus of the earlier Vedas, the Upanishads explore fundamental questions: What is ultimate reality? What is the self? How does liberation from suffering come about? Composed between c. 800–400 BCE, the Upanishads number thirteen in the traditional canon (with others recognized in different traditions). They introduce concepts that became founda
Sacred Texts