Brhadaranyaka Upanishad:

The Great Forest Teaching:

Book Five Part I
V.I

1. That is full; this is full; Fullness comes forth from fullness: When fullness is taken from fullness, Fullness remains.

OM. "Brahman is space (kha), ancient space, airy space': so the son of KauravyayanT used to say. This is the Veda that the Brahmanas know. By it one knows what is to be known.

V.2

1. The descendants of Prajapati, of three kinds, gods, human beings and demons, lived as brahmacarins with their father Prajapati. When they had completed their studentship, the gods said. Teach us, father.' In the Upanishads, young people address their parents as bhavat and bhavati, which previous translators have rendered as 'sir~ and 'madam'. In modern English this is far too chilly-though in the eighteenth century it would not have been. Bhavat and bhavafi are formal but friendly modes of address. Lacking a real English equivalent, I have simply translated them in this context as 'father' and 'mother', which seem to carry a similar degree of formality.

He spoke to them the syllable DA. 'Did you understand?' 'We understood,' they said. 'You told us, "Be self-controlled {damyata)"

'OM,' he said. 'You understood.'

2. Then the human beings said to him, 'Teach us, father.' He spoke to them the same syllable DA. 'Did you understand?' 'We understood,' they said. 'You told us, "Give (datta)'

'OM,' he said. 'You understood.'

3. Then the demons said to him. Teach us, father.' He spoke to them the syllable DA. 'Did you understand?' 'We understood,' they said. 'You told us, "Be compassionate {dayadhvam)."'

'OM' he said. 'You understood.' As Sairkara notes, each class of beings hears the sound as the teaching that it most needs. The gods, who are inclined to be self-indulgent, hear it as self-control; human beings, who are inclined to be possessive, hear it as generosity; and the demons, who are inclined to be cruel, hear it as compassion. T. S. Eliot alludes to this passage in The Waste Land, Part V, 'What the Thunder Said'

This is what the divine voice that is thunder repeats DA DA DA, 'Be self-controlled! Give! Be compassionate One should practise this set of three, self-control (dama] giving (dana), and compassion (daya).

V.3

1. The heart (hrdaya) is Prajapati: it is brahman: it is all. It has three syllables: hr-da-yam. Hrdayam, the nominative singular of hrdaya, heart Hr is one syllable: his own and other people bring (abhi-hr-) gifts to the one who knows this. Da is one syllable: his own and other people give {da-) to the one who knows this. Yam is one syllable: the one who knows this goes Several parts of the verb i-, to go, contain the sound ya, e.g. yanti, 'they go'. to a heavenly world.

V.4

1. That is that. I.e. our present reality, here called satya, 'truth', is the same as the ultimate reality, brahman. This was that-truth. The one who knows the great, firstborn wonder Yaksa, a word later specialized to mean one of a class of nature spirits, but in the Upanishads a more general term for a mysterious entity. that truth is brahman-wins the worlds. Could he ever be conquered, the one who knows the great, firstborn wonder-that truth is brahman? For truth is brahman.

V.5

1. In the beginning the waters were all this. The waters created truth; truth, brahman; brahman, Prajapati; and Prajapati the gods. The gods worship truth (satya). It has three syllables: sa-ti-yam.' Satiam in Vedic pronunciation. Sa is one syllable. Ti is one syllable. Yam is one syllable. Truth is in the first and the last syllable, falsehood in the middle: Anrta, falsehood, wrong, the opposite of rta, right order, 'the law', the Vedic equivalent of dharma. The reasoning seems to be that 'f is the only consonant common to satya and anrta so falsehood is surrounded on both sides by truth, and becomes truth. Falsehood does not harm the one who knows this.

2. What truth is, the sun is. The person who is in its circle and the person who is in the right eye are supported on one another. That one rests on this one through its rays, and this one rests on that one through its breaths.

When one is about to depart, I.e. die. one sees that circle pure. The rays do not come to one again. 3. The head of the person in that circle is BHLH: the head is one, and that is one syllable. His arms are BHUVAH: the arms are two, and that is two syllables. SVAH is his support: the supports (pratistha) I.e. feet. From our point of view, the purusa is upside down. (From his, no doubt we arc.) Cp. the upside-down tree, Katha VI. I, MaiU V1.4. are two and that is two syllables (su-ah). His inner name (upanishad) is 'day (ahar)'. The one who knows this destroys and gets rid of evil.

4. The head of the person in the right eye is BHLH: the head is one, and that is one syllable. His arms are BHUVAH:

the arms are two, and that is two syllables. SVAH is his support: the supports are two and that is two syllables. His inner name is 'I (aham)' The one who knows this destroys and gets rid of evil.

V.6

1. The person made of mind, the light, the true, is inside the heart, like a rice-grain or a barleycorn. He is the ruler of everything, the overlord of everything: he controls all this, whatever there is.

V.7

1. They say, 'Lightning is brahman' It is called lightning (vidyut) because it cuts free (vi-do-). It cuts free from evil the one who knows in this way that lightning is brahman: for lightning is brahman.

V.8

1. One should worship speech as a milch-cow. She has four udders: the sound SVAHA, the sound VASAT, the sound HANTA, and the sound SVADHA.~ The gods live on two of her udders, the sound SVAHA and the sound VASAT; human beings on the sound HANTA; and the ancestors on the sound SVADHA. Breath is her bull, mind her calf.



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