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The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad THE ኇ NJኇ UPANIṢHAD SWAMI KRISHNANANDA The Divine Life Society Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India Website: www.swami-krishnananda.org ABOUT THIS EDITION Though this eBook edition is designed primarily for digital readers and computers, it works well for print too. Page size dimensions are 5.5" x 8.5", or half a regular size sheet, and can be printed for personal, non-commercial use: two pages to one side of a sheet by adjusting your printer settings. 2 CONTENTS About This Edition.........................................................................................2 Invocatory Prayer ..........................................................................................7 Preface .................................................................................................................8 Introduction...................................................................................................11 CHAPTER I First Brāhmaṇa: The Universe as a Sacrificial Horse................ 36 Second Brāhmaṇa: The Creation of the Universe ....................... 43 Third Brāhmaṇa: The Superiority of the Vital Force Among all Functions.........................................................................79 A Eulogy of the Chant on Breath ............................................102 Fourth Brāhmaṇa: Creation from the Universal Self ............. 114 Fifth Brāhmaṇa: Prajāpati’s Production of the World, as Food for Himself ......................................................................184 CHAPTER II Fourth Brāhmaṇa: The Conversation of Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi on the Absolute Self ...........................................193 Fifth Brāhmaṇa: Madhu-Vidya: The Honey Doctrine ............ 219 Sixth Brāhmaṇa: The Line of Teachers and Pupils ................. 234 CHAPTER III First Brāhmaṇa: Sacrificial Worship and Its Rewards .......... 235 Second Brāhmaṇa: The Man in Bondage and His Future at Death.........................................................................251 3 Third Brāhmaṇa: The Resort of the Performers of the Horse Sacrifice...........................................................................262 Fourth Brāhmaṇa: The Unknowability of Brahman .............. 267 Fifth Brāhmaṇa: Renunciation, the Way to Know Brahman .................................................................................270 Sixth Brāhmaṇa: Brahman, the Universal Ground .................. 274 Seventh Brāhmaṇa: The Nature of the Inner Controller...... 278 Eighth Brāhmaṇa: The Unqualified Brahman ........................... 290 Ninth Brāhmaṇa: Many Gods and One Brahman ..................... 302 Eight Different Persons and Their Corresponding Divinities ...................................................................................313 Five Directions in Space, Their Deities and Supports....325 The Self ..................................................................................................335 Man Compared to a Tree ..............................................................339 CHAPTER IV................................................................................................344 First Brāhmaṇa: Inadequate Definitions of Brahman ........... 344 Second Brāhmaṇa: Concerning the Soul ...................................... 361 Third Brāhmaṇa: The Light of Man is the Self ........................... 373 The Different States of the Self.................................................378 The Self in Dream and Deep Sleep..........................................400 The Self at Death..............................................................................425 Fourth Brāhmaṇa:The Soul of the Unrealised After Death 433 Fifth Brāhmaṇa: The Supreme Self and the Supreme Love 489 4 CHAPTER V..................................................................................................491 First Brāhmaṇa: Brahman the Inexhaustible ............................ 491 Second Brāhmaṇa: The Three Principal Virtues ..................... 497 Third Brāhmaṇa: Brahman as the Heart ..................................... 505 Fourth Brāhmaṇa: Brahman as the True or the Real ............ 508 Fifth Brāhmaṇa: The Real Explained ............................................. 512 Sixth Brāhmaṇa: The Divine Person ............................................. 527 Seventh Brāhmaṇa: Brahman as Lightning ................................ 530 Eighth Brāhmaṇa: The Veda Symbolised as a Cow ................. 532 Ninth Brāhmaṇa: The Universal Fire ............................................. 535 Tenth Brāhmaṇa: The Course After Death .................................. 537 Eleventh Brāhmaṇa: The Supreme Austerities ........................ 544 Twelfth Brāhmaṇa: The Via Media of Attitude ......................... 547 Thirteenth Brāhmaṇa: Meditation on the Life-Breath .......... 550 Fourteenth Brāhmaṇa: The Sacred Gāyatrī Prayer ................ 553 Fifteenth Brāhmaṇa: Prayer to the Sun by a Dying Person 563 CHAPTER I (continued) ........................................................................572 Fifth Brāhmaṇa (continued): The Threefold Creation..........572 The Self Identified with the Sixteenfold Prajapati, the Time Spirit......................................................................586 The Three Worlds and the Means of Winning Them..592 Father's Benediction and Transmission of Charge......594 The Unfailing Vital Force...........................................................600 Sixth Brāhmaṇa: The Threefold Character of the Universe 608 5 CHAPTER II (Continued)......................................................................614 First Brāhmaṇa: A Progressive Devinition of Brahman ...... 614 Second Brāhmaṇa: The Vital Force Embodied in a Person 642 Third Brāhmaṇa: The Two Forms of Reality ............................. 651 RECAPITULATION Chapter I: The Absolute and the Universe ..................................659 Chapter II: The Supreme Goal of Life.............................................677 Chapter III: Divine Immanence and the Correlativity of All Things ....................................................................682 Chapter IV: The Inner Reality............................................................689 Chapter V: The Principles of Meditation......................................693 Chapter VI The Spiritual and the Temporal ..............................696 Conclusion....................................................................................................699: NOTES: Chapter I......................................................................................701 Chapter II.....................................................................................701 Chapter III...................................................................................702 Chapter IV...................................................................................705 Chapter V.....................................................................................706 Chapter VI...................................................................................706 6 INVOCATORY PRAYER Ōm pūrṇam adah, pūrṇam idam, pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate; pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvasisyate. Ōm Śāntih! Śāntih! Śāntih! That is Full; this is full. From the Full does the Full proceed. After the coming of the Full from the full, the Full alone remains. Om. Peace! Peace! Peace! 7 PREFACE The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad, or the great forest of knowledge, as the significance of this title would suggest, is a veritable mine of wisdom, with its Six Chapters touching upon the internal meaning of almost every phase of human life. The word ‘Upaniṣhad’ is supposed to connote a secret instruction or a hidden doctrine, secret and hidden in the sense that it purports to reveal the invisible background or reality behind the visible forms of temporal existence. It is evident that things are not what they seem. And the Upaniṣhad is a record of the unfolding of the mystery that lies behind phenomena. The subject of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad rises into a crescendo of importance, heightening its encompassing gamut of theme after theme, right from the very commencement until the conclusion of the Fourth Section of the First Chapter, rising in its pitch at this stage somewhat like the Ultimate Revelation at the level of the Eleventh Chapter of the Bhagavadgītā, which blossoms gradually through its earlier chapters. Literally as a wide-ranging forest, one can discover in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad new visions through its different sections or cantos, and perhaps we can find in it anything anywhere. However, since the student might well feel more at home through teachings presented in the form of a well- tended garden rather than a thick jungle of information, the arrangement of the lectures, which form the substance of this book, is patterned to follow a logical ascent of subjects, keeping aside matters of a secondary character or importance to a later consideration as a sort of a sequel, so that the thread of the narration of similar themes is maintained without breaking the same with an interruption by some other subject which is not very relevant to the contemplation on hand. Thus, these lectures follow a procedure as detailed below. 8 There is a continuity from the beginning of the Upaniṣhad till the Fifth Section of the First Chapter. Then, the trend of the lectures proceeds directly therefrom to the Fourth Section of the Second Chapter, and thence to the end of the Fifth Chapter. The left-out sections of the First Chapter and the beginning three sections
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