Vedic Religion

[Ashish Chandra]

Namaste All,

I learnt a lot in this thread and even though it is a bit late for me to
reply, I want to express my sincere thanks to all those who have so
beautifully illuminated the concepts of Vedic Religion.

[...]
>that many were lost and inaccessibe at the present time(question 2)!
>When we do not know what constitutes the entire corpus of veda-s how
>can one claim to be vedic? One of those shAkA-s might have had
>principles which say Islam follows expounded in it with allah-upanishad
>(there was a news article about something like allah-upanishad few
>years back!!)

I remember reading that the Allah-Upanishad or Allopnishad, was written at
the behest of Akbar, the third Mughal. So it is not all that ancient.

>4) If veda-s are required for self-realization, then  is it the entire
>set or few sentences in them would be regarded as adequate? If latter
>is the case, then the religions which share those few sentence and
>abide by them are quite adequate to achieve realization. If it is
>entire set, anyway we dont have it!

I also remember reading that in the Muktikopanishad, Lord Shri Ram says to
Shri Hanuman :

"The only means by which final emancipation is attained is through maaNDUkya
upanishad alone, which is enough for the slavation for all aspirants. If
GYAna is not attained thereby, study the 10 upanishads; thou shalt soon
attain GYAna, and then My Seat. O Son of Anjanaa, if GYAna is not made firm,
practice (study) well the 32 upanishads. Thou shalt get released. If thou
longest after videhamukti, study the 108 upanishads. I will truly state in
order the (names of the) upanishads with their Shaanti (purificatory
mantras). Hearken to them. (They are:)..." - from a List of 108 Upanishads
compiled by M. Giridhar mgiridhar at ucdavis.edu.

I am not aware of how old the Muktikopnishad is. Does someone know.

I also read in one of the posts in this thread that the Rishis were just
ordinary people (or animals) who just "somehow" saw the Mantras. I hope this
is not saying that there was no scientific process of experimentation and
deduction employed by the Rishis. From whatever I have read so far, the
Rishis have always been considered the greatest as they were those who "saw"
the Mantras. How they saw it is a mystery to us and should not be a topic of
speculation. Acharyas only explained thoroughly what was contained in the
Mantras and other Rishis' teachings.

Namaste
ashish


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