Shaiva Upanishads (A Critical Study)
by Arpita Chakraborty | 2013 | 33,902 words
This page relates ‘The form of Ishana’ of the study on the Shaiva Upanishads in English, comparing them with other texts dealing with the Shiva cult (besides the Agamas and Puranas). The Upaniṣads are ancient philosophical and theological treatises. Out of the 108 Upanishads mentioned in the Muktikopanishad, 15 are classified as Saiva-Upanisads.
6. The form of Īśāna
[...] Pañcabrahma Upaniṣad verse 20,21
One should know the Īśāna (manifest in the middle of the aforesaid four faces), as the highest, the prompter and the witness of the functionings of the Buddhi, who is of the character of Ākāśa or ether who is of the character of the Avyakta (the unmanifest) who is adorned with the resonance of the topmost part of the Turīyomkāra, who is all the gods rolled into one, who is the thoroughly tranquilized one, that transcends the Svara known as Śānti, lying beyond the seven Svaras (notes of the Octave), who is the controller of all sounds commencing from Akāra, whose body is of Ākāśa or ethereal substance, who is the director of the five kinds of action (creation, sustenance, destruction, benediction and suddenly vanishing from view), who is of the character of the five Brahmans (Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Rudra, Īśāna, and Sadāśiva) and who is prodigious.