o:1074738
Ritual, Self and Yoga: On the Ways and Goals of Salvation in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad
en
Throughout its history, the renowned Kaṭha Upaniṣad has often been described as being both incoherent and contradictory. The aim of this paper is to show to what purpose the text was created. To this end, it discusses the connection of the three paths to salvation depicted in the text, viz. the Agnicayana (a powerful Vedic fire-ritual), the Upaniṣadic method of self-knowledge, and yoga. The first part retraces how in the Upaniṣads, the Agnicayana was transformed into a non-material or mental ritual and linked with self-knowledge. The second part analyses how the various salvation goals (heaven, the World of Brahman, liberation from rebirth) could be related to each other. First, the authors redefined the Agnicayana’s salvation goal, heaven, to make it identical with liberation. Secondly, they introduced self-knowledge and yoga as alternative and equally powerful means to the same end. In practice, however, the new and world-negating methods were implied to be superior to the costly ritual from which they had drawn their authority. Thus, the authors of the Upaniṣad were more concerned with showing continuity between different religious approaches than upholding consistency of content.
Agnicayana
Self
Yoga
Immortality
Heaven
Liberation
yes
1552099
10.1007/s10781-019-09408-y
1552101
0022-1791
2020-03-02T10:06:52.000Z
44
yes
46
Dominik
Haas
-1
1557146
Institutional
Repository
Institutional Repository
47
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
1556250
1557088
application/pdf
510192
no
yes
16
© The Author(s) 2019
1556227
1552253
A
Journal of Indian Philosophy
47
5
1019
1052
2019