And the convention is that all the Upanishads belonging to one particular Veda will have the same Shanti Pathah. The first word is “Isa” so it can also be called Isa Upanishad or Isopanishad.Īll Upanishads begin with a Shanti Pathah (a mantra) invoking the grace of the Lord. The first two words are “Isa” and “Avasyam” and hence its called Isavasya. This Upanishad gets it name because of the first portion of the beginning verse “Isavasyam Idam Sarvam”. But in fact this is a complicated Upanishad and has to be studied after some of the other Upanishads. Because of the enumeration many people believe that Isavasya has to be studied first. It is one of the most popular and well known Upanishads.Įven in the Dasopanishads verse where we enumerate the 10 main Upanishads we start with Isavasya. From that we know that Isavasya is a very condensed Upanishad.Īpart from Adi Shankara many other Acharyas (Teachers) have written commentaries on this Upanishad. So the 18 mantras of Isavasya Upanishad are elaborated in more than 400 mantras of Brihadaranyaka. So Isavasya can also be called a Samhitopanishad.īrihadaranyaka Upanishad which also belongs to Shukla Yajur Veda is a Brahmanopanishad, and is considered to be an elaboration of Isavasya Upanishad since generally a Brahmanopanishad is considered to be a commentary on the Samhitopanishad. This Upanishad is a Mantra Upanishad because it occurs in the mantra or the Samhita portion of the Vedas. Isavasya Upanishad is one of the few Upanishads like Taittiriya Upanishad for which the Svara is still maintained and available for chanting. If you translate them then Krishna Yajur Veda means “black school” of Yajur Veda and Shukla Yajur Veda means “white school” of Yajur Veda. One is known as Krishna Yajur Veda and the other as Shukla Yajur Veda. There are 4 Vedas, of which one is Yajur Veda. Isavasya Upanishad is a small Upanishad consisting of 18 mantras and it belongs to Shukla Yajur Veda.

The upanishads pdf