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The Upanishads, Part II

By Max Müller

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Adhyâya III

THIRD ADHYÂYA 1.
1. The snarer 2 who rules alone by his powers, who rules all the worlds by his powers, who is one and the same, while things arise and exist 3,--they who know this are immortal.

2. For there is one Rudra only, they do not allow a second, who rules all the worlds by his powers. He stands behind all persons 4, and after having created all worlds he, the protector, rolls it up 5 at the end of time.

3 6. That one god, having his eyes, his face, his arms, and his feet in every place, when producing heaven and earth, forges them together with his arms and his wings 7.

4. He 1, the creator and supporter of the gods, Rudra, the great seer, the lord of all, he who formerly gave birth to Hiranyagarbha, may he endow us with good thoughts.

5 2. O Rudra, thou dweller in the mountains, look upon us with that most blessed form of thine which is auspicious, not terrible, and reveals no evil!

6 3. O lord of the mountains, make lucky that arrow which thou, a dweller in the mountains, holdest in thy hand to shoot. Do not hurt man or beast!

7. Those who know beyond this the High Brahman, the vast, hidden in the bodies of all creatures, and alone enveloping everything, as the Lord, they become immortal 4.

8 5. I know that great person (purusha) of sunlike lustre beyond the darkness 6. A man who knows him truly, passes over death; there is no other path to go 7.

9. This whole universe is filled by this person (purusha), to whom there is nothing superior, from whom there is nothing different, than whom there is nothing smaller or larger, who stands alone, fixed like a tree in the sky 1.

10. That which is beyond this world is without form and without suffering. They who know it, become immortal, but others suffer pain indeed 2.

11. That Bhagavat 3 exists in the faces, the heads, the necks of all, he dwells in the cave (of the heart) of all beings, he is all-pervading, therefore he is the omnipresent Siva.

12. That person (purusha) is the great lord; he is the mover of existence 4, he possesses that purest power of reaching everything 5, he is light, he is undecaying.

13 6. The person (purusha), not larger than a thumb, dwelling within, always dwelling in the heart of man, is perceived by the heart, the thought 1, the mind; they who know it become immortal.

14 2. The person (purusha) with a thousand heads. a thousand eyes, a thousand feet, having compassed the earth on every side, extends beyond it by ten fingers' breadth.

15. That person alone (purusha) is all this, what has been and what will be; he is also the lord of immortality; he is whatever grows by food 3.

16. Its 4 hands and feet are everywhere, its eyes and head are everywhere, its ears are everywhere, it stands encompassing all in the world 5.

17. Separate from all the senses, yet reflecting the qualities of all the senses, it is the lord and ruler of all, it is the great refuge of all.

18. The embodied spirit within the town with nine gates 6, the bird, flutters outwards, the ruler of the whole world, of all that rests and of all that moves.

19. Grasping without hands, hasting without feet, he sees without eyes, he hears without ears. He knows what can be known, but no one knows him; they call him the first, the great person (purusha).

20 1. The Self, smaller than small, greater than great, is hidden in the heart of the creature. A man who has left all grief behind, sees the majesty, the Lord, the passionless, by the grace of the creator (the Lord).

21 2. I know 3 this undecaying, ancient one, the self of all things, being infinite and omnipresent. They declare that in him all birth is stopped, for the Brahma-students proclaim him to be eternal 4.

Footnotes
244:1 This Adhyâya represents the Highest Self as the personified deity, as the lord, îsa, or Rudra, under the sway of his own creative power, prakriti or mâyâ.

244:2 Sa?kara explains gâla, snare, by mâyâ. The verse must be corrected, according to Sa?kara's commentary:

ya eko gâlavân îsata îsanîbhih
sarvân? llokân îsata îsanîbhih.

244:3 Sambhava, in the sense of Vergehen, perishing, rests on no authority.

244:4 Here again the MSS. A. B. read ganâs, as a vocative.

244:5 I prefer samkukoka to samkukopa, which gives us the meaning that Rudra, after having created all things, draws together, i.e. takes them all back into himself, at the end of time. I have translated samsrigya by having created, because Boehtlingk and Roth give other instances of samsrig with that sense. Otherwise, 'having mixed them together again,' would seem more appropriate. A. and B. read samkukoka.

244:6 This is a very popular verse, and occurs Rig-veda X, 81, 3; Vâg. Samh. XVII, 19; Ath.-veda XIII, 2, 26; Taitt. Samh. IV, 6, 2, 4; Taitt. Âr. X, 1, 3.

244:7 Sa?kara takes dhamati in the sense of samyogayati, i.e. he joins men with arms, birds with wings.

245:1 See IV, 12.

245:2 See Vâg. Samh. XVI, 2; Taitt. Samh. IV, 5, 1, 1.

245:3 See Vâg. Samh. XVI, 3; Taitt. Samh. IV, 5, 1, 1; Nîlarudropan. p. 274.

245:4 The knowledge consists in knowing either that Brahman is Îsa or that Îsa is Brahman. But in either case the gender of the adjectives is difficult. The Svetâsvatara-upanishad seems to use brihanta as an adjective, instead of brihat. I should prefer to translate: Beyond this is the High Brahman, the vast. Those who know Îsa, the Lord, hidden in all things and embracing all things to be this (Brahman), become immortal. See also Muir, Metrical Translations, p. 196, whose translation of these verses I have adopted with few exceptions.

245:5 Cf. Vâg. Samh. XXX, 18; Taitt. Âr. III, 12, 3,

245:6 Cf. Bhagavadgîtâ VIII, 9.

245:7 Cf. Svet. Up. VI, 15.

246:1 Divi, the sky, is explained by Sa?kara as dyotanâtmani svamahimni.

246:2 The pain of samsâra, or transmigration. See Brihad. Up. IV, 3, 20 (p. 178).

246:3 I feel doubtful whether the two names Bhagavat and Siva should here be preserved, or whether the former should be rendered by holy, the latter by happy. The commentator explains Bhagavat by

aisvaryasya samagrasya vîryasya yasasah sriyah
Gñânavairâgyayos kaiva shannâm bhaga itiranâ.

Wilson, in his Essay on the Religious Sects of the Hindus, published in 1828, in the Asiatic Researches, XVI, p. 11, pointed out that this verse and another (Svet. Up. II, 2) were cited by the Saivas as Vedic authorities for their teaching. He remarked that these citations would scarcely have been made, if not authentic, and that they probably did occur in the Vedas. In the new edition of this Essay by Dr. Rost, 1862, the references should have been added.

246:4 Sa?kara explains sattvasya by antahkaranasya.

246:5 I take prâpti, like other terms occurring in this Upanishad, in its technical sense. Prâpti is one of the vibhûtis or aisvaryas, viz. the power of touching anything at will, as touching the moon with the tip of one's finger. See Yoga-sûtras, ed. Rajendralal Mitra, p. 121.

246:6 Cf. Taitt. Âr. X, 71 (Anuv. 38, p. 858). Kath. Up. IV, 12-13; above, p. 16.

247:1 The text has manvîsa, which Sa?kara explains by gñânesa. But Weber has conjectured rightly, I believe, that the original text must have been manîshâ. The difficulty is to understand how so common a word as manîshâ could have been changed into so unusual a word as manvîsa. See IV, 20.

247:2 This is a famous verse of the Rig-veda, X, 90, 1; repeated in the Atharva-veda, XIX, 6, 1; Vâg. Samh. XXXI, 1; Taitt. Âr. III, 12, 1. Sa?kara explains ten fingers' breadth by endless; or, he says, it may be meant for the heart, which is ten fingers above the navel.

247:3 Sâyana, in his commentary on the Rig-veda and the Taitt. Âr., gives another explanation, viz. he is also the lord of all the immortals, i.e. the gods, because they grow to their exceeding state by means of food, or for the sake of food.

247:4 The gender changes frequently, according as the author thinks either of the Brahman, or of its impersonation as Îsa, Lord.

247:5 Sa?kara explains loka by nikâya, body.

247:6 Cf. Kath. Up. V, 1.

248:1 Cf. Taitt. Âr. X, 12 (10), p. 800; Kath. Up. II, 20; above, p. 11. The translation had to be slightly altered, because the Svetâsvataras, as Taittirîyas, read akratum for akratuh, and îsam for âtmanah.

248:2 Cf. Taitt. Âr. III, 13, 1; III, 12, 7.

248:3 A. reads vedârûdham, not B.

248:4 A. and B. read brahmavâdino hi pravadanti.