The various Upanishads of the Black Yajurveda all bear the stamp of lateness. The Maitrayana is a prose work of considerable extent, in which occasional stanzas are interspersed. It consists of seven chapters, the seventh and the concluding eight sections of the sixth forming a supplement. The fact that it retains the orthographical and euphonic peculiarities of the Maitrayana school, gives this Upanishad an archaic appearance. But its many quotations from other Upanishads, the occurrence of several late words, the developed Sankhya doctrine presupposed by it, distinct references to anti-Vedic heretical schools, all combine to render the late character of this work undoubted. It is, in fact, a summing up of the old Upanishad doctrines with an admixture of ideas derived from the Sankhya system and from Buddhism. The main body of the treatise expounds the nature of the Atman, communicated to King Brihadratha of the race of Ikshvaku (probably identical with the king of that name mentioned in the Ramayana), who declaims at some length on the misery and transitoriness of earthly existence. Though pessimism is not unknown to the old Upanishads, it is much more pronounced here, doubtless in consequence of Sankhya and Buddhistic influence. The subject is treated in the form of three questions. The answer to the first, how the Atman enters the body, is that Prajapati enters in the form of the five vital airs in order to animate the lifeless bodies created by him. The second question is, How does the supreme soul become the individual soul (bhutatman)? This is answered rather in accordance with the Sankhya than the Vedanta doctrine. Overcome by the three qualities of matter (prakriti), the Atman, forgetting its real nature, becomes involved in self-consciousness and transmigration. The third question is, How is deliverance from this state of misery possible? This is answered in conformity with neither Vedanta nor Sankhya doctrine, but in a reactionary spirit. Only those who observe the old requirements of Brahmanism, the rules of caste and the religious orders (açramas), are declared capable of attaining salvation by knowledge, penance, and meditation on Brahma. The chief gods, that is to say, the triad of the Brahmana period, Fire, Wind, Sun, the three abstractions, Time, Breath, Food, and the three popular gods, Brahma, Rudra (i.e. Çiva), and Vishnu are explained as manifestations of Brahma.