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The Upanishads, Part 1

By Max Müller

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VIII, 8

1. 'Look at your Self in a pan of water, and whatever you do not understand of your Self 1, come and tell me.'

They looked in the water-pan. Then Pragâpati said to them: 'What do you see?'

They said: 'We both see the self thus altogether, a picture even to the very hairs and nails.'

2. Pragâpati said to them: 'After you have adorned yourselves, have put on your best clothes and cleaned yourselves, look again into the water-pan.

They, after having adorned themselves, having put on their best clothes and cleaned themselves, looked into the water-pan.

Pragâpati said: 'What do you see?'

3. They said: 'Just as we are, well adorned, with our best clothes and clean, thus we are both there, Sir, well adorned, with our best clothes and clean.'

Pragâpati said: 'That is the Self, this is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.'

Then both went away satisfied in their hearts.

4. And Pragâpati, looking after them, said: 'They both go away without having perceived and without having known the Self, and whoever of these two 2, whether Devas or Asuras, will follow this doctrine (upanishad), will perish.'

Now Virokana, satisfied in his heart, went to the Asuras and preached that doctrine to them, that the self (the body) alone is to be worshipped, that the self (the body) alone is to be served, and that he who worships the self and serves the self, gains both worlds, this and the next.

5. Therefore they call even now a man who does not give alms here, who has no faith, and offers no sacrifices, an Âsura, for this is the doctrine (upanishad) of the Asuras. They deck out the body of the dead with perfumes, flowers, and fine raiment by way of ornament, and think they will thus conquer that world 1.

Footnotes
136:1 I take âtmanah as a genitive, governed by yad, not as an accusative plural.

136:2 The commentator reads yatare for yatah.

137:1 This evidently refers to the customs and teaching of tribes not entirely conforming to the Brahmanic system. Whether the adorning of the dead body implies burial instead of burning, seems doubtful.