Maitrayaniya Upanishad

The Maitrayaniya Upanishad (Sanskrit: मैत्रायणीय उपनिषद्, Maitrāyaṇīya Upaniṣad) is an ancient Sanskrit text that is embedded inside the Yajurveda.

Quotes

• The Sun is the origin of time. His form, from the instant as the first division of time, is the twelvefold year. The year has two halves, one belonging to Agni (fire) and the other to Varuna (water). From Magha to the middle of Shravishta, step by step, belongs to Agni. From Sarpa at the beginning to the middle of Shravishta, step by step, belongs to Soma (MaiU VI. 14).

• The Self carries himself twofold, as the life-force (Prana) and as the Sun. Two are his paths within and without by which he revolves by day and by night. The Sun is the outer Self; the life-force is the inner Self. Hence by the movement of the outer Self, the movement of the inner Self is measured. But according to the Knower, who is free of sin, whose eye is turned within, it is by the movement of the inner Self that the movement of the outer Self is measured (MaiU VI. 1).

Quotes about the Maitrayaniya Upanishad

• Aiyar (1922) produces another verse from the Maitrayana Brahmana Upanisad, which he translates as follows:
  "The manifest form of time is the year. . . . One half of this year is Agneya (the warm half) and one half Vdruna (watery or cold). When the sun moves from the beginning of Magha to half (the segment of) Sravishtha in the regular order . . . it is Agneya [warm]. When the sun moves from the beginning of Sarpa (Aslesha) to the end of Sravishtha half, in the inverse order, it is Saumya [cool]" (1 88).
  Aiyar interprets this as a direct reference to the uttardyana and the daksindyana of the sun when it was situated in Maghd at the summer solstice... MagKd was at the summer solstice in the era when Krttikd was at the vernal equinox. Dikshit and Aiyar have thus produced additional references in an endeavor to support Jacobi and Tilak's contention that the texts refer to Krttikd coinciding with the vernal equinox which would have been the case in about 2500 B.C.E.
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12