Allopanishad

Allah Upanishad, or Allopanishad, is a book of dubious origin supposedly from Atharvaveda and believed to be written during Mughal Emperor Akbar's reign.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati's book Satyarth Prakash (The Light of Truth) argues that the Allopanishad is not part of the Upanishad canon. It does not even appear in the Atharvaveda. The book could have been written during the Mughal era (possibly during Akbar's reign).[1][2] The Upanishad describes Akbar as a messenger or prophet of God.[3]

Views on authorship and authenticity

In an issue of The Theosophist, R. Ananthakrishna Sastri wrote that the work was written by "Aryan Pandits to escape persecution" during the time of Muslim rule in India. He further remarked that the work was "not in the style of ordinary Upanishads" and its words "appear to sound more like Arabic".[4] Bhattacharya and Sarkar categorize Allopanishad as an "Islamic Work" and write that it was written by a Hindu courtier of Akbar, as an "apocryphal chapter of the Atharvaveda". Charles Eliot suggested that the work may have been written in connection with the Din-i-Ilahi movement, and wrote that the work "can hardly be described as other than a forgery".[3] Swami Vivekananda wrote that Allopanishad was evidently of a much later date, and that he was told that it was written in the reign of Akbar to bring Hindus and Muslims together.[5] Sadasivan writes that it was written by Brahmins for Akbar when he was experimenting with a new religion.[6] Debendranath Tagore wrote in his autobiography that Allopanishad was composed in the days of Akbar with the objective of converting Hindus into Muslims.[7] Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote that the Allopanishad was "the shameless production of some sycophant of Muslim rulers of India."[8] Abraham Eraly states that the book was symbolic of the various cross-cultural pollination between Hindu and Muslim cultures during the time of the Mughals and was meant to bring the two communities together.[9]

References

  1. ↑ http://kalyanchandra.com/allopanishad//
  2. ↑ http://www.aryasamajjamnagar.org/chapterfourteen.htm#79
  3. 1 2 Eliot, Sir Charles (2004). Hinduism and Buddhism: An Historical Sketch, Volume 1. Philadelphia, USA: Psychology Press. p. 270. ISBN 978-0-7007-0679-2. It declares that the Allah of the prophet Muhammad Akbar (i.e., not the Allah of the Koran) is the God of Gods.
  4. ↑ Sastri, R Ananthakrishna (1898). "Allopanishad or Mahomed Upanishad". The Theosophist (Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House) XIX: 177. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
  5. ↑ Vivekananda, Swami (1908). Lectures from Columbo to Almora: Issue 16 of Himalayan series. Madras, India: Prabuddha Bharata Press. p. 123. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
  6. ↑ Sadasivan, S. N. (2000). A Social History Of India (Illustrated ed.). New Delhi, India: APH Publishing. p. 178. ISBN 978-81-7648-170-0.
  7. ↑ Tagore, Satyendranath; Devi, Indira (2006). The Autobiography Of Devendranath Tagore (Reprint ed.). Whitefish, Montana, USA: Kessinger Publishing. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-4286-1497-0.
  8. ↑ Bijlert, Viktor A. van (1996). "Sanskrit and Hindu National Identity in Nineteenth Century Bengal". In Houben, Jan E. M. Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language: Volume 13 of Brill's Indological Library (Illustrated ed.). Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill. p. 358. ISBN 978-90-04-10613-0.
  9. ↑ Abraham Eraly, The Mughal World: Life in India's Last Golden Age, Penguin Books India 2007
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