New Questions and Ideas — Social Science STD 6 — Question

Background. Around the time that the Buddha was preaching and perhaps a little earlier, other thinkers also tried to find answers to difficult questions. Some of them wanted to know about life after death, others wanted to know why sacrifices should be performed. Many of these thinkers felt that there was something permanent in the world, something that would last even after death. They described this as the atman or the individual soul and the brahman or the universal soul. They believed that ultimately, both the atman and the brahman were the one and the same.

Many ideas of the ancient thinkers were recorded in books called the Upanishads. These were part of the later Vedic texts (i.e., all three Vedas, other than the Rigveda are called the later Vedas).

Upanishad literally means “approaching and sitting near” and the texts contain conversation between teachers and students. Generally, ideas were presented through simple dialogues.