Excerpt from Thirty Minor Upanishads

For the first time it is, I believe, that the English translation of so many as 30 Upanishads is being put forth before the public in a collected form. Among the Hindu Scriptures, the Vedas hold the pre-eminent place. The Upanishads which are culled from the Aranyaka-portions of the Vedas - so-called because they were read in the Aranya (forest) after the learner had given up the life of the world are regarded as the Vedanta, or the end or final crown of the Vedas. Vedanta is also the end of all knowledge, since the word Vedas means according to its derivation 'knowledge'. Rightly were the Upanishads so considered, since their knowledge led a person to Atma, the goal of life. The other portion of the Vedas, viz., Samhitas and Brahmanas, conferred upon a man, if he should conform to the requisite conditions, the mastery of the Universe only which is certainly inferior to Atma. It is these Upanishads that to the western philosopher Schopenhauer were the "solace of life".

There are now extant, in all, 108 Upanishads, of which the principal or major 12 Upanishads commented upon by Sri Sankaracharya and others were translated into English by Dr. Roer and Raja Rajendra Lai Mira and re-translated by Max Muller in his "Sacred Books of the East," together with one other Upanishad called Maifrayani. Of the rest, 95 in number, two or three Upanishada have appeared in English up to now, but never so many as are here presented to the public, so far as I am aware.

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