--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "kishore patnaik"
<kishorepatnaik09@...> wrote:
> I invite your attention to my earlier post on Mandukya Upanishad,
> where in I have requested the group to date the scripture based on
> the language. There was not a single reply from the group.
Your request had been formulated in the following manner:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/50974
> My question is whether we can find out the time of MAndukya Up.
> through the linguistics? I am not asking for an absolute time (like
> 6th century BCE etc) but a relative timing ('it may be of the times
> of so and so personality or of texts...')
Although some scholars group the Mandukya Up. with other Late Up.s
tentatively dated from the last two centuries BC the first two
centuries AD, it is more likely that the Mandukya Up. belongs in the
group of the so-called Middle Up.s (Isha, Katha, Kena, Prana,
Shvetashvatara, Mahanarayana, etc.). The unifying element of the
Middle Up.s group is that they are no longer composed in prose and
dialogue form as the Early Up.s (c. 800-500 BC) but in verse. They
are also heavily influenced by the post-Vedic (Epic) language. Many
of them show a tendency towards the sectarian worship of a
particular Brahmanical Hindu deity (for which there is no evidence
whatsoever in South Asia prior to the last centuries BC). Moreover,
the Mandukya Up., in spite of its being a very short composition
(it's only 12 verses long!), is an epitome of the techings of some
of the classical Up.s that predate it. Although its absolote dating
is difficult (as is the case with all Vedic tects), the Mandukya Up.
cannot antedate the period between 500 and 200 BC.
Cheers,
Francesco