Samsara | September 10, 2004

During the period in which the Upanishads were written, Hindu philosophers began to develop the concept of samsara in line with other aspects of Upanishadic thought. Samsara literally means going through or flowing. The Hinduism of the the Samhitas looked on the material world as understandable and controllable; it was in the material world that the gods (devas) gave to humans that the gods could be controlled through hymns, prayers, rituals, and sacrifices. But the Upanishadic Hindus began to think of the world as illusion (maya); reality (Sat) was rather to be sought in the unchanging and unitary principle of the universe. The material world, on the other hand, was a place fragmented and constantly changing; this changing aspect of the universe came to be called samsara.