The Upanishads are the part of the Vedic literature that asks the large questions: what is the self, what is the world, and what is the ground of both. The word upanishad is usually explained as “sitting down near”, meaning a teaching given to a student who sits close to the teacher. Most of the principal Upanishads are short, and many are in the form of a conversation, such as the boy and Death in the Katha, or the student’s question that opens the Kena.
This section sets out four of the principal Upanishads one text at a time. Every verse has the Sanskrit in Devanagari, a simple transliteration and a meaning written in plain English. Each page also has an introduction, the shanti mantra with which the Upanishad is traditionally opened, a summary, a note of where the source texts differ, and answers to common questions.
What the Upanishads are
Each of the four Vedas has its own Samhita (mantra collection), Brahmanas (texts on ritual), Aranyakas (forest texts) and Upanishads. The Upanishads come last, and for that reason they are also called Vedanta, “the end of the Veda”, a name that came to mean both the position and the aim of the teaching. The tradition counts a large number of them, 108 in one well-known list, but a smaller group of principal Upanishads is the core. Ten are traditionally those on which Shankara is said to have written commentaries, and the four on these pages are among the ten.
Scholars date the oldest Upanishads to the first millennium before the common era and do not agree on exact dates. The four on these pages are not of one age. The Isha, because it is the last chapter of a Samhita, is usually counted among the older ones, and the Mandukya is generally dated later than the older prose texts.
The four texts on these pages
| Upanishad | Veda | Verses | Its main question |
|---|
| Isha | White Yajurveda | 18 mantras | How to live in a world that is held by the Lord |
| Kena | Sama Veda | 35 verses | Who or what makes the mind and senses work |
| Katha (chapter 2) | Black Yajurveda | 119 verses in two chapters | What remains after death, and what is the Self |
| Mandukya | Atharva Veda | 12 mantras | What is the Self, seen through waking, dream, deep sleep and the fourth |
The Katha is the longest of the four and has two pages, one for each of its two chapters. Together the four pages hold 184 verses.
Where to start
If you have not read an Upanishad before, the Isha is the shortest way in and its first mantra is the one most worth knowing. The Kena is a good second, because it begins with a question that most readers have asked themselves. The Katha is the most readable of the four, because it is a story, and the story carries the teaching. The Mandukya is the most compact and the most abstract, and it repays a return after the others.
Shanti mantras
Each Upanishad is traditionally opened, and in some cases closed, with a shanti mantra, a peace invocation, and each page here gives the one that goes with its text. The Isha has “that is full, this is full”. The Kena has the prayer that the limbs and senses grow strong and that Brahman may never be rejected. The Katha has the mantra of teacher and student that is also known as the Sahana Vavatu mantra. The Mandukya has the invocation “may we hear what is good with our ears”.
How to read the Upanishads
Read slowly, and one verse at a time. The Upanishads do not argue the way a modern essay does. They state, they compare and they ask a question and answer it by turning the question around. Many verses are short enough to hold in the mind, and it is usually better to read a few verses and think about them than to hurry through a text.
Read the meaning first if you are new, and the Sanskrit first if you know a little. The transliteration is a simple guide to sound. It will not teach you correct chanting, which is learned from a teacher or a trusted recording. Where commentators read a verse in different ways, the notes say so, and where the sources disagree on a word, the foot of the page says so too.
These pages present texts for study and reflection. They do not promise results, and they are not a substitute for a teacher.
How the text on these pages is sourced
The main text of each Upanishad on these pages is an old printed edition: the Upanishads with Shankara’s commentary in the Works of Sri Sankaracharya, printed at the Sri Vani Vilas Press in 1910. Volume 4 (archive.org, item wg1059) holds the Isha, Kena and Katha, and volume 5 (item wg1060) holds the Mandukya. We read every verse from the page images of these prints and wrote it out ourselves.
The other sources are witnesses only. They are the electronic texts at GRETIL (the Gottingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages, in Roman script), which an earlier version of these pages followed, and Sanskrit Wikisource. Where a witness reads a word differently from the print, the print is followed and the other reading is listed under the verse. This is the same method as on the Bhagavad Gita pages.
- Isha: all 18 mantras agree with the GRETIL text and with Wikisource in every word. The print differs from the earlier text of the page in the spelling of two mantras. The print does not say which recension of the White Yajurveda it follows, so the page does not name one.
- Katha: all 119 verses were read from the print. It differs from the GRETIL file, which follows Patrick Olivelle’s edition (Oxford, 1998), in the wording of five verses (1.1.6, 1.1.9, 1.1.15, 1.1.21 and 2.1.12) and in the spelling of four more. In the other verses where the two disagreed with Wikisource, the print agrees with GRETIL.
- Mandukya: all 12 mantras were read from the print. One word differs from GRETIL and Wikisource, adṛśyam in mantra 7, and a few spellings differ.
- Kena: all 35 verses were read from the print. Three verses (2.1, 3.3 and 4.1) differ in a word from the Wikisource text that the page followed before, and six differ in spelling.
Meanings and notes are our own writing and not taken from any translation. The Upanishads are traditional texts with no living copyright, though some editions carry the editors’ own readings, and each page names the edition it follows. Each page lists the differences between its sources at the foot of the verses.
Related pages
Frequently asked questions
↳ What are the Upanishads?
They are the closing texts of the Vedic literature, mostly short, in prose or verse, and they deal with the nature of the self (atman) and of the ultimate reality (Brahman). They are also called Vedanta, the end of the Veda.
↳ How many Upanishads are there?
Tradition counts 108 in one well-known list and speaks of a core of ten principal ones, the ten on which Shankara is traditionally said to have commented. Some scholars add three more to make thirteen. The four on this site, Isha, Kena, Katha and Mandukya, are among the ten.
↳ Which Upanishad should I read first?
The Isha is the shortest and its first mantra is the key to it. The Katha is the easiest to follow because it is a story. Many readers start with the Isha, go to the Kena and the Katha, and keep the Mandukya for later.
↳ Which edition of the Upanishads is used here?
The main text is the 1910 Sri Vani Vilas print of Shankara's commentaries (volumes 4 and 5 of the Works of Sri Sankaracharya), read from its page images. The GRETIL files and Sanskrit Wikisource are used only as witnesses, and their different readings are listed under the verses. Each page names its source, and the meanings are our own writing.
↳ Do I need to know Sanskrit to read these pages?
No. Each verse has a meaning in plain English, and the Sanskrit and transliteration are there for those who want to go further. The transliteration is a simple guide to sound and not a guide to correct chanting.