Śvetaketu
550 BCE
legendary/proto-historical; a dialogue-figure of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (textual layers usually placed c. 8th–6th c. BCE)
Śvetaketu (Śvetaketu Āruṇeya) appears in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad as the proud young man who returns from twelve years of Vedic study only to be shown by his father, Uddālaka Āruṇi, that he has not learned 'that by which the unheard becomes heard, the unknown known.' In the famous instruction that follows (Chāndogya 6), Uddālaka leads him through a series of analogies to the teaching that the subtle essence pervading all things is the Self, repeating the refrain 'tat tvam asi' ('that thou art') — among the most cited sentences in all of Indian philosophy and a cornerstone of Advaita. He also figures in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and in dharma literature. As with the other Upaniṣadic figures, he is best understood as a canonical dialogue-character rather than a documented individual; the relevant textual layers are placed in the centuries before the Buddha.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Śvetaketu’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Egyptian world
Jewish world
Buddhist world
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.