Yoga Upanishads

SIGNIFICANCE OF UPANISADS The Vedas are generally believed to be the earliest records of the Indo-European race. Regarding the date of the composition there are different opinions. Max Muller supposed the date to be 1200 BC. Hang considered it to be 2400BC. According to Bala Gangadhar Tilak it is 4000 BC. "The Vedas were handed down orally from a period of unknown antiquity, and the Hindus generally believed that they were never composed by man"^ It was supposed that either they were taught by God to the sages, or that they were themselves revealed to the sages who were the "seers" (Mantradrasta). The Vedas had ever remained as the highest religious authority for all sections of the Hindus at all times. "Even now all the obligatory duties of the Hindus at birth, marriage, death etc, are performed according to the old vedic ritual. The prayers that a Brahmin now says three times a day are the same selections of vedic verses as were used as prayer verses, two or three thousand years ago". Systems of Hindu philosophy not only own their allegiance to the Vedas, but the adherents of each one of them would often quarrel with others and maintain its superiority by trying to prove that it and it alone