Samhita with its poetic composition and imagery is subtler than Upanishads

June 29 Is Today's Hinduism A Vedic Religiion? Part - 4 By B.N. Gururaj, Advocate.

If one examines the scenario of 19th Century India, when the renaisance of Hinduism commenced, the landscape consisted of utterly meaningless rituals, social and religious customs, highly oppressive to women, and utterly meaningless to the lower strata of Hindu society. This was the stage at which socio-religious reformers like Ram Mohun Roy and Swami Dayananda Saraswati emerged to give new face to Hinduism. While Brahmo Samaj of Ram Mohun Roy tried to make a blend of Hindu dualistic monotheism with Islam and Christianity, Swami Dayananda totally abandoned the philosophical speculations and their complexities and reverted to vedic rituals of Samhita era.

At a later stage, in a slightly modified approach to the Samhitas, Sri Aurobindo expounded the view that the Samhita with its poetic composition and imagery is subtler than Upanishads in expounding spiritual experiences of the Sages and must have primacy over Upanishads. According to Sri Aurobindo, what was subtle and suggestive in Samhitas became explicit in Upanishads, and thus, Upanishads are less refined and more gross of the two. Somehow, this approach did not find much popularity or acceptance outside the circle of devotees of Sri Aurobindo... Religion and Spirituality