ABSTRACT
The Brhadaranyaka is the oldest and longest of the Upanisads - closely followed in both respects by the Chandogya. Its name indicates its affinity with the Aranyakas, and it is included as the last six chapters of the fourteenth and last book of the Satapatha Brahmana, which is itself called an Aranyaka. It was the development of Vedanta, as a field of thought distinct from the theory of ritual, that led this and other early Upanisads to be transmitted and commented on as separate texts rather than as parts of Brahmanas. The horse sacrifice, practiced by kings, is the most elaborate of Vedic rituals. Before being suffocated, the horse is allowed to wander for a year, attended by armed men - amounting to a political and military claim to the territory over which it wanders. Later Upanisads seem to have been composed to support a particular theology, or at least the views of a circle of like-minded people.
