Mahanarayana Upanishad

Mahanarayana Upanishad
The text glorifies Narayana (Vishnu)
Devanagari	महानारायणोपनिषत्
IAST	Mahānārāyaṇa
Title means	Great Narayana
Date	BCE
Type	Vaishnava
Linked Veda	Krishna Yajurveda or Atharvaveda
Chapters	varies
Verses	varies by manuscript
Philosophy	Vaishnavism

The Mahanarayana Upanishad (Sanskrit: महानारायण उपनिषद्, IAST: Mahānārāyaṇa Upaniṣad) is an ancient Sanskrit text and is one of the minor Upanishads of Hinduism. The text is classified as a Vaishnava Upanishad.

The text exists in three main versions. One version with 64 chapters is attached to the Krishna Yajurveda in several South Indian anthologies, and the same text in Andhra edition exists in an expanded form with 80 chapters attached to the same Veda. A second version is attached to the Atharvaveda, has 25 chapters and is prefixed with Tripadvibhuti. These manuscripts are sometimes titled as the Yajniki Upanishad or Tripad-vibhuti-mahanarayana Upanishad. According to Swami Vimalananda, this Upanishad is also called Yagniki Upanishad in reverence for sage Yagnatma Narayana.

The Upanishad, despite its title which means "Great Narayana", is notable for glorifying both Narayana and Rudra (Shiva), both as the first equivalent embodiment of Brahman, the concept of ultimate, impersonal and transcendental reality in Hinduism. The Upanishad uses Vedanta terminology, and uses numerous fragments from Rigveda, Taittiriya Brahmana, Vajasaneyi Samhita and Principal Upanishads.

The author and the century in which the Mahanarayana Upanishad was composed is unknown. The relative chronology of the text, based on its poetic verse and textual style, has been proposed by Parmeshwaranand to the same period of composition as Katha, Isha, Mundaka and Shvetashvatara Upanishads, but before Maitri, Prashna and Mandukya Upanishad. Feuerstein places the relative composition chronology of Mahanarayana to be about that of Mundaka and Prashna Upanishads. These relative chronology estimates date the text to second half of 1st millennium BCE.