Comparison Of The Upanishads And The Vedas

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Comparison of the Upanishads and the Vedas

Although the Vedas and the Upanishads express common themes of the Aryan world view, they differ greatly in genre and emphasis. Underlying both texts are the core ideas of the religion: the ubiquitousness of atman, Brahman’s origins of non-being, the non-existence of physical reality, and the subtle, intangible existence of ultimate reality. But while the Vedas is mythical and ritualistic, the Upanishads is theological and devalues ritual. The major reoccurring theme of the Upanishads is understanding the inner Real Self, the attainment of atman. Through parable and narrative, the Upanishads repeatedly teaches of the atman and the path to atman. The favored type of parable is that of the

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