Kaushitaki Upanishad: does the soul exist?

Kaushitaki Upanishad

Pratardana Daivodasi by fighting and virility arrived at the beloved abode of Indra. To him then Indra said: “Pratardana, choose a boon (vara).” Then said Pratardana: “Do you yourself choose for me the one which you deem most beneficent to mankind.” To him then Indra said: “A superior (vard), verily, chooses not for an inferior (avara). Do you yourself choose.” “No boon (avara), verily, then, is it to me!” said Pratardana. But Indra departed not from the truth, for Indra is truth. To him then Indra said: “Understand me, myself. This indeed I deem most beneficent to man, namely, that one should understand me. I slew the three-headed son of Tvashtri…. Some say, ‘All the vital breaths speak along with speech when it speaks. All the vital breaths see along with the eye when it sees. All the vital breaths hear along with the ear when it hears. All the vital breaths think along with the mind when it thinks. All the vital breaths breathe along with breath when it breathes.’ That is indeed so,” said Indra. “There is, however,” he continued, “a superior excellence among the vital breaths. The really vitalizing and unifying vital breath, the breathing spirit or conscious self. One lives with speech gone, for we see the dumb; one lives with eye gone, for we see the blind; one lives with ear gone, for we see the deaf; one lives with mind gone, for we see the childish; one lives with arms cut off, one lives with legs cut off, for thus we see.”

The Kaushitaki Upanishad is one of the ancient Sanskrit texts considered sacred by Hinduism and Buddhism. Considered part of a greater work bearing the same name – the Kaushitaki Aranyaka, this text comprises four chapters of the larger 15-chapter work. Written in prose, the Kaushitaki Upanishad discusses such metaphysical questions as whether the soul exists, and how it transmigrates and is reborn. It also addresses whether the soul and God are one or distinct entities, and how individual souls can realize that they are Brahman – that is, Ultimate Soul or Eternal Being.