Previous Year Question
Consider the following statements:
There are no parables in the Upanishads.
Upanishads were composed earlier than the Puranas.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Correct Answer: B
Detailed Solution
Statement 1 is incorrect. The Upanishads are not merely collections of abstract philosophical propositions; they contain dialogues, narratives, analogies and allegorical modes of teaching. A clear example is the Katha Upanishad, which presents profound questions concerning the Self, death and immortality through the narrative and dialogue between Nachiketa and Yama. The original text available through the Government of India's Vedic Heritage Portal begins with the story of Nachiketa.
The Katha Upanishad also contains the famous chariot allegory: the body is compared to a chariot, the Self to its rider, intellect to the charioteer, the mind to the reins and the senses to horses. It is a clear instance of allegorical imagery being employed to communicate philosophical ideas. Thus, the absolute claim that the Upanishads contain no parables or allegorical presentations is incorrect.
The Chandogya Upanishad is another major Upanishad in which philosophical teachings are presented through dialogues and symbolic exposition. The Vedic Heritage Portal identifies it as one of the major ancient sources of Vedantic philosophy.
Therefore, Statement 1 is incorrect.
Statement 2 is correct, with an important historical qualification. The early or Principal Upanishads belong broadly to the late Vedic period. Modern scholarship generally places some of the earliest Upanishads, including the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya, around 700–500 BCE, with other principal Vedic Upanishads following later.
In contrast, the NCERT chronology places the compilation of the Puranas from around 200 CE onwards. Thus, the principal early Upanishadic tradition predates the major compilation of Puranic literature by several centuries.
An important UPSC-level qualification is that texts called “Upanishads” were not all composed at the same time. The traditional corpus contains 108 Upanishads, and scholarly chronology recognises that several minor or later Upanishads were composed much later. Therefore, Statement 2 should be understood as comparing the principal/early Upanishads with the main Puranic textual tradition, which is the conventional historical comparison intended in the question.