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• Preface
• Remarks Concerning the Translation Its Method and Arrangement
• List of Abbreviations
• Errata
• An Outline of the Philosophy of the Upanishads
• Chapter I: The Place of the Upanishads In the History of Philosophy
• Chapter II: The Upanishads and Their Place In Indian Philosophy
• Chapter III: First Attempts At the Conception of a Unitary World-ground
• Chapter IV: The Development of the Conception of Brahma
• Chapter V: The Development of the Conception of the Atman and Its Union With Brahma
• Chapter VI: The Realistic Conception of the Ultimate Unity, and the Doctrine of Illusion
• Chapter VII: Idealism and the Conception of Pure Unity
• Chapter VIII: The Outcome On Religion and On the Doctrine of Karma
• Chapter IX: The Outcome On Practical Life and On Morals
• Chapter X: The Artificial Method of Unity In Renunciation and In Yoga
• Chapter XI: Concluding Estimate
• BṚihad-ĀraṆyaka Upanishad
• First AdhyĀya
• Second AdhyĀya
• Third AdhyĀya
• Fourth AdhyĀya
• Fifth AdhyĀya
• Sixth AdhyĀya
• ChĀndogya Upanishad
• First PrapĀṬhaka a Glorification of the Chanting of the Sāma-veda 1
• Second PrapĀṬhaka the Significance of the Chant In Various Forms
• Third PrapĀṬhaka Brahma As the Sun of the World-all
• Fourth PrapĀṬhaka Conversational Instructions
• Fifth PrapĀṬhaka Concerning Breath, the Soul, and the Universal Soul
• Sixth PrapĀṬhaka the Instruction of Śvetaketu By Uddālaka Concerning the Key to All Knowledge
• Seventh PrapĀṬhaka the Instruction of Nārada By Sanatkumāra
• Eighth PrapĀṬhaka Concerning the Nature of the Soul
• TaittirĪya Upanishad
• First VallĪ (Śikshā Vallī, ‘chapter Concerning Instruction’)
• Second VallĪ (brahmānanda Vallī, ‘bliss-of-brahma Chapter’)
• Third VallĪ (bhṛigu Vallī, ‘chapter Concerning Bhṛigu’)
• Aitareya Upanishad
• First AdhyĀya
• Second AdhyĀya
• Third AdhyĀya
• KaushĪtaki Upanishad 1
• First AdhyĀya the Course of Reincarnation, and Its Termination Through Metaphysical Knowledge 2
• Second AdhyĀya the Doctrine of Prāṇa, Together With Certain Ceremonies
• Third AdhyĀya Doctrine of Prāṇa (the Breathing Spirit)
• Fourth AdhyĀya a Progressive Definition of Brahma 2
• Kena Upanishad 1
• (first KhaṆḌa)
• (second KhaṆḌa)
• (third KhaṆḌa) 3
• (fourth KhaṆḌa)
• KaṬha Upanishad
• First VallĪ 1
• Second VallĪ
• Third VallĪ
• Fourth VallĪ
• Fifth VallĪ
• Sixth VallĪ
• ĪŚĀ Upanishad 1
• MuṆḌaka Upanishad
• First MuṆḌaka Preparation For the Knowledge of Brahma
• Second MuṆḌaka the Doctrine of Brahma-Ātman
• Third MuṆḌaka the Way to Brahma
• PraŚna Upanishad 1
• First PraŚna
• Second PraŚna
• Third PraŚna
• Fourth PraŚna
• Fifth PraŚna
• Sixth PraŚna
• MĀṆḌŪkya Upanishad
• ŚvetĀŚvatara Upanishad
• First AdhyĀya
• Second AdhyĀya
• Third AdhyĀya
• Fourth AdhyĀya
• Fifth AdhyĀya
• Sixth AdhyĀya
• Maitri Upanishad
• First PrapĀṬhaka
• Second PrapĀṬhaka
• Third PrapĀṬhaka
• Fourth PrapĀṬhaka
• Fifth PrapĀṬhaka
• Sixth PrapĀṬhaka
• Seventh PrapĀṬhaka
• A Bibliography of the Upanishads Selected, Classified, and Annotated

FIRST ADHYĀYA

First Khaṇḍa

The creation of the four worlds, of the cosmic person, and of cosmic powers by the primeval Self

1. In the beginning, Ātman (Self, Soul), verily, one only, was here1 —no other blinking thing whatever. He bethought himself: ‘Let me now create worlds.’

2. He created these worlds: water (ambhas), light-rays (marīci), death (mara), the waters (ap). Yon is the water, above the heaven; the heaven is its support. The light-rays are the atmosphere; death, the earth; what is underneath, the waters.

3. He bethought himself: ‘Here now are worlds. Let me now create world-guardians.’ Right (eva) from the waters he drew forth and shaped (√mūrch) a person.

4. Upon him he brooded (abhi + √tap).

When he had been brooded upon, his mouth was separated out, egg-like; from the mouth, speech (vāc); from speech, Agni (Fire).

Nostrils were separated out; from the nostrils, breath (prāṇa); from breath, Vāyu (Wind).

Eyes were separated out; from the eyes, sight (cakṣus); from sight, Āditya (the Sun).

Ears were separated out; from the ears, hearing (śrotra); from hearing, the quarters of heaven.

Skin was separated out; from the skin, hairs; from the hairs, plants and trees.

A heart was separated out; from the heart, mind (manas); from mind, the moon.

A navel was separated out; from the navel, the out-breath (apāna); from the out-breath, death (mṛtyu).

A virile member was separated out; from the virile member, semen; from the semen, water (ap).

Second Khaṇḍa

The ingredience of the cosmic powers in the human person

1. These divinities, having been created, fell headlong in this great restless sea.1 He visited it with hunger and thirst.

They [i.e. the divinities] said to him: ‘Find out for us an abode wherein we may be established and may eat food.’

2. He led up a bull to them. They said: ‘Verily, this is not sufficient for us.’

He led up a horse to them. They said: ‘Verily, this is not sufficient for us.’

3. He led up a person to them. They said: ‘Oh! well done!’—Verily, a person is a thing well done.—

He said to them: ‘Enter into your respective abodes.’

4. Fire became speech, and entered the mouth.

Wind became breath, and entered the nostrils.

The sun became sight, and entered the eyes.

The quarters of heaven became hearing, and entered the ears.

Plants and trees became hairs, and entered the skin.

The moon became mind, and entered the heart.

Death became the out-breath (apāna), and entered the navel.

Waters became semen, and entered the virile member.

5. Hunger and thirst said to him [i.e. Ātman]: ‘For us two also2 find out [an abode].’

Unto the two he said: ‘I assign you two a part among these divinities. I make you two partakers among them.’ Therefore to whatever divinity an oblation is made, hunger and thirst become partakers in it.

Third Khaṇḍa

The creation of food of fleeting material form, and the inability of various personal functions to obtain it

1. He bethought himself: ‘Here now are worlds and world-guardians. Let me create food for them.’

2. He brooded upon the waters. From them, when they had been brooded upon, a material form (mūrti) was produced. Verily, that material form which was produced—verily, that is food.

3. Having been created, it sought to flee away.

He sought to seize it with speech. He was not able to grasp it with speech. If indeed he had grasped it with speech, merely with uttering food one would have been satisfied.

4. He sought to grasp it with breath. He was not able to grasp it with breath. If indeed he had grasped it with breath, merely with breathing toward food one would have been satisfied.

5. He sought to grasp it with sight. He was not able to grasp it with sight. If indeed he had grasped it with sight, merely with seeing food one would have been satisfied.

6. He sought to grasp it with hearing. He was not able to grasp it with hearing. If indeed he had grasped it with hearing, merely with hearing food one would have been satisfied.

7. He sought to grasp it with the skin. He was not able to grasp it with the skin. If indeed he had grasped it with the skin, merely with touching food one would have been satisfied.

8. He sought to grasp it with the mind. He was not able to grasp it with the mind. If indeed he had grasped it with the mind, merely with thinking on food one would have been satisfied.

9. He sought to grasp it with the virile member. He was not able to grasp it with the virile member. If indeed he had grasped it with the virile member, merely with emitting food one would have been satisfied.

10. He sought to grasp it with the out-breath (apāna—the digestive breath). He consumed1 it. This grasper of food is what wind (vāyu) is. This one living on food (annāyu), verily, is what wind is.

The entrance of the Self into the body

11. He [i. e. Ātman] bethought himself: ‘How now could this thing exist without me?’

He bethought himself: ‘With which should I enter?’

He bethought himself: ‘If with speech there is uttered, if with breath (prāṇa) there is breathed, if with sight there is seen, if with hearing there is heard, if with the skin there is touched, if with the mind there is thought, if with the out-breath (apāna) there is breathed out, if with the virile member there is emitted, then who am I?’

12. So, cleaving asunder this very2 hair-part (sīman),3 by that door he entered. This is the door named ‘the cleft’ (vidṛti). That is the delighting (nāndana).

He has three dwelling-places, three conditions of sleep. This is a dwelling-place. This is a dwelling-place. This is a dwelling-place.4

The mystic name of the sole self-existent Self

13. Having been born, he looked around on beings (bhūta), [thinking]: ‘Of what here would one desire to speak5 as another?’ He saw this very person as veriest (tatama) Brahma. ‘I have seen It (idam adarśa),’ said he (iti).

14. Therefore his name is Idaṁ-dra (‘It-seeing’). Idaṁ-dra, verily, is his name. Him who is Idaṁ-dra they call ‘Indra’ cryptically, for the gods are fond of the cryptic (parokṣa-priya), as it were1 —for the gods are fond of the cryptic, as it were.

[1 ]Instead of meaning ‘here’ adverbially (as very frequently in the Brāhmaṇas and sometimes in the Upanishads), idam may be the neuter demonstrative with an ellipsis, thus: ‘Verily, this [universe] in the beginning was Ātman (Soul), one only, . . . .’ This sentence stands also at the beginning of Bṛih. 1. 4. 1.

[1 ]Skt. arṇava: etymologically ‘the moving,’ ‘the stirring,’ ‘the agitated’; specifically, simply ‘sea,’ as in Chānd. 8. 5. 3, 4.

[2 ]Reading api prajanīhi, instead of the (otherwise unquotable) compound abhiprajanīhi—according to Bohtlingk’s emendation in his translation, p. 166. This change brings the form of the question into uniformity with the similar question in § 1.

[1 ]āvayat, imperfect causative of √av; exactly like the annam āvayat, ‘he consumed food’ of RV. 10. 113. 8, and also like AV. 4. 6. 3; 5. 19. 2; VS. 21. 44; Śat. Br. 1. 6. 3. 5; 5. 5. 4. 6. Possible, but unparalleled, would be the derivation from ā + √vī, ‘he overtook.’ An etymologizing on vāyu.

[2 ]Probably accompanied with a deictic gesture.

[3 ]That is, the sagittal suture; or perhaps less specifically ‘the crown.’

[4 ]Śaṅkara explains that the right eye is the abode during the waking state, the inner mind (antar-manas) during dreaming sleep, the space of the heart (hṛdayākāśa) during profound sleep (suṣupti). He offers the alternative that the three abodes are ‘the body of one’s father,’ ‘the womb of one’s mother,’ and ‘one’s own body.’ Sāyaṇa and Ānandagiri understand the three abodes as ‘the right eye,’ ‘the throat,’ ‘the heart.’ With whatever significance, it would seem that the three demonstratives of the text must have been accompanied by explanatory pointings to certain parts of the body.

The three conditions of sleep (together with a fourth) are mentioned in the Māṇḍūkya Upanished even as they are explained by the commentators on this passage. It is in contrast with the desired condition of the metaphysically awakened self that the ordinary condition of waking is regarded as ‘sleep.’

[5 ]Or, ‘What here would desire to speak of another?’ However, for this construction the neuter subject and the masculine object do not seem quite congruous. Or, ‘Why (or, how) here would one desire to speak of another?’ Or again, kim may be simply the interrogative particle: ‘Would one here desire to speak of another?’ In addition to these uncertainties of syntax, the form of the verb causes difficulty. Vāvadiṣat seems to contain unmistakable elements of the intensive and of the desiderative conjugations of √vad, ‘speak’; yet as it stands it is utterly anomalous. The Indian commentators furnish no help to a solution. BR. (vol. 6, column 650) proposes to emend to vāvadisyat, the future of the intensive. Bohtlingk, in his translation, pp. 169, 170, emends to vāva diśet, ‘(to see) whether anything here would point to another [than it].’ And in a note there he reports Delbrück’s conjecture, vivadiṣat, the participle of the desiderative, which would yield the translation: ‘What is there here desiring to speak of another?’ Deussen somehow finds a reflexive: ‘What wishes to explain itself here as one different [from me]?’

In spite of the verbal difficulties, the meaning of the passage is fairly intelligible: it is a pictorial statement of a philosophical idealism (i. e. that there is naught else than spirit) bordering on solipsism (i. e. that there is naught else than the individual self).

[1 ]This phrase occurs verbatim in Bṛih. 4. 2. 2; Ait. Br. 3. 33 end; 7. 30 end; and almost verbatim in Śat. Br. 6. 1. 1. 2, 11.