This Upanisad, variously called the Maitrayani, Maitrayana, Maitri or Maitri, belongs to the Maitrayana tradition of the Black Yajurveda. It is named after one of the teachers in it, Maitreya or Maitri. In the present translation I have mainly followed the 'Text of the Vulgate' in van Buitenen's edition (1962): but unlike van buitenen, I have preferred to keep the simpler and better-known title for the Upanisad.

The position of the Maitri is ambiguous, and it is even harder to date than the rest of the Upanisads. As van Buitenen says,

It is neither a "principal" or "classical", nor yet entirely a "minor" upanisad, but falls somewhere between these uncertain and arbitrary categories Macdonell concludes that its late date is undoubted: "It is in fact a summing up of the old upanisadic doctrines with an admixture of ideas derived from the Samkhya doctrine and Buddhism".

Van Buitenen has attempted to reconstuct the original Upanisad, a teaching on the symbolism of fire-buildin closely related to that in TU Book II. But most of e existing Upanisad is clearly much but most of the existing Upanisad is clearly much later. He disputes the extent of Buddhist influence on the text as we have it, though the vocabulary includes many words more frequently found in Buddhist sources (Ranade and Belvalkar, 1927: 124-130). In what follows, V denotes van Bitenen's 'Vulgate' text and SM his 'Southern Maitrayaniya'.

OM. May my limbs, speech, breath, eye, ear, strength and all senses grow strong. everything is the brahman of the Upanisads. May I not reject brahman. May brahman no rejecting of me. May all the dharmas which are in the Upanisads be in me, who delight in the self. May they be in me.

OM. Peace, peace, peace.