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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

SECOND ADHYĀYA

Fourth Khaṇḍa

A self’s three successive births

1. In a person (puruṣa), verily, this one2 becomes at first an embryo (garbha). That which is semen (retas), is the vigor (tejas) come together from all the limbs. In the self, indeed, one bears a self. When he pours this in a woman, then he begets it. This is one’s first birth.3

2. It comes into self-becoming (ātma-bhūya) with the woman, just as a limb of her own. Therefore it injures her not. She nourishes this self of his that has come to her.

3. She, being a nourisher, should be nourished. The woman bears him as an embryo. In the beginning, indeed, he nourishes the child [and] from birth onward. While1 he nourishes the child from birth onward, he thus nourishes his own self, for the continuation of these worlds; for thus are these worlds continued. This is one’s second birth.

4. This self of one is put in one’s place for pious deeds (puṇya karman). Then this other self of one, having done his work (kṛta-kṛtya), having reached his age, deceases. So, deceasing hence indeed, he is born again. This is one’s third birth. As to this it has been said by a seer:—

• 5.

  Being yet in embryo, I knew well2
• All the births of these gods!
• A hundred iron citadels confined me,
• And yet,1 a hawk (śyena) with swiftness, forth I flew!

In embryo indeed thus lying (śayāna), Vāmadeva spoke in this wise.

6. So he, knowing this, having ascended aloft from this separation from the body (śarīra-bheda), obtained all desires in the heavenly world (svarga loka), and became immortal—yea, became [immortal]!

[2 ]That is, the Ātman, the subject of the entire previous part of this Upanishad. Or ayam may denote the indefinite ‘one,’ as probably in the last sentence of this paragraph.

[3 ]The words asya prathamaṁ janma may denote either ‘his (i. e. the Self’s) first birth’ or ‘a self’s first birth (as a particular individual).’ Either interpretation is possible according to pantheistic theory.

[1 ]Or perhaps ‘In that (yat) . . . .’

[2 ]Quoted from RV. 4. 27. 1. In the original Rig-Veda passage (as indeed in every other of the three occurrences of the same compound in the Rig-Veda, 1. 34. 2b, 1. 164. 18b, and 10. 17. 5a) the preposition anu seems to have served no more than to strengthen the force of the verb ‘know.’ As such, it is translated here by ‘well’ (in accordance with Grassmann’s Worterbuch, BR., and MW.) Yet it would be very possible—indeed, probable—that to the author of this Upanishad, who quotes the ancient passage as scriptural corroboration of his theory of various buths, that word anu conveyed a larger significance than it was originally intended to express. In accordance with its general meaning of ‘along toward’ he might understand it to intimate pregnantly that even from the embryonic stage the seer ‘fore-knew,’ anu-vid, all the births of the gods [of the various gods—be it noted—here applied to the successive births of the individual soul, ātman, from father to son]. As to such fine distinctions of meaning to be carefully observed in the prepositional compounds with verbs in the Upanishads, Professor Whitney (in his article on ‘The Upanishads and their Latest Translation’ in the American Journal of Philology, vol. 7, p. 15) has stated a noteworthy principle: ‘It may be laid down as a rule for the prose of the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads that every prefix to a verb has its own distinctive value as modifying the verbal idea: if we cannot feel it, our comprehension of the sense is so far imperfect; if we cannot represent it, our translation is so far defective.’

With this consideration concerning the force of anu and with the glaringly wresting interpretation of śyeno in the last line, the present instance as a whole serves well to call attention to the applicability (or non-applicability) of many of the citations in the Upanishads. Frequently passages from the Rig-Veda and from the Atharva-Veda are quoted as containing, in cryptic expressions of deep significance, early corroboration of what is really a later and very different idea. This method of the Upanishads with respect to its prior scriptures is the same method as that employed by the later Hindu commentators on the Upanishads themselves. In the course of the developments of thought this method of interpreting earlier ideas from a larger point of view is very serviceable; practically and pedagogically it may be almost indispensable to the expounder of a philosophy or to the exhorter of a religion; yet by the scholar it is to be carefully discriminated from a historically exact exegesis of the primitive statements.

[1 ]Reading adha, as in the Rig-Veda passage and in a variant of Śankara. But all editions of the text and of the commentators read adhaḥ, ‘down.’