A Linguistic Note on the Mundaka Upanisad

Summary

This linguistic note analyses grammatical and phonological peculiarities in the Mundaka Upanisad, arguing that its language reflects a late stage of Sanskrit influenced by Prakrit and Buddhist Sanskrit. The author begins by examining imperative verb endings: the Mundaka often uses -tha where classical Sanskrit would expect -ta; forms like acaratha and bruvitha thus resemble Pali and Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit. Similarly, verbal forms such as sravayatha and the pronoun asmakam show Prakritic features. The paper notes that the Upanishad sometimes writes atharvan instead of atharva, exhibiting optional n-mutation typical of later texts. The second part of the note documents the frequent insertion of the particle hi between vowels to avoid hiatus, a practice common in Pali and Buddhist Sanskrit but rare in classical Sanskrit. Examples include yadaha paravidyam hi srutva and tadvadasi hi. The author argues that these linguistic features suggest that the Mundaka Upanisad was composed relatively late, perhaps around the beginning of the Common Era, and that its compilers were influenced by Prakrit-speaking regions or by the language of Buddhist monks. The article concludes by stressing that linguistic analysis can aid in dating Upanishadic texts and cautioning against assuming homogeneity across the corpus.