The Upanishads

Toward the middle of the first millennium BCE the Vedic texts are joined by the Upanishads — records of conversations between teachers and pupils, often in the forest, far from the altar. The talk is no longer of how to offer sacrifice correctly, but of what stands behind the world: of atman, the inner self of man, and brahman, the ground of all that is. Here, for the first time, the cycle of rebirth and the recompense for deeds are clearly spoken. These conversations will give all later Indian thought its language — and, millennia on, reach the European philosophers who read them in translation.