[a. Skr. upa-nishád, f. upa near to + vni-shad to sit or lie down.] In Sanskrit literature, one or other of various speculative treatises chiefly dealing with the Deity, creation, and existence, and forming a division of the Vedic literature.
a. 1794. Sir William Jones, trans. Inst. Hindu Law (1796), Pref. vi. Having had the singular good fortune to procure ancient copies of eleven Upanishads, with a very perspicuous comment, I am enabled to fix, with more exactness, the probable age of the work before us.
1805. Colebrooke, in Asiatic Researches, VIII. 446. I shall here quote, from this Upanishad, a single dialogue.
1816. R. Roy (title), Translation of the Céna Upanishad, one of the chapters of the Sáma Véda.
1861. Max Müller, Lect. Sci. Lang., 145. Dárá … became a student of Sanskrit, and translated the Upanishads … into Persian … in the year 1657.
