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The Upanishads, Part II

By Max Müller

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Brihadâranyaka Upanishad III,5

FIFTH BRÂHMANA 1.
1. Then Kahola Kaushîtakeya asked. 'Yâgñavalkya, 'he said, 'tell me the Brahman which is visible, not invisible, the Self (Âtman), who is within all.'

Yâgñavalkya replied: 'This, thy Self, who is within all.'

'Which Self, O Yâgñavalkya, is within all?'

Yâgñavalkya replied: 'He who overcomes hunger and thirst, sorrow, passion, old age, and death. When Brâhmanas know that Self, and have risen above the desire for sons 2, wealth, and (new) worlds 3, they wander about as mendicants. For a desire for sons is desire for wealth, a desire for wealth is desire for worlds. Both these are indeed desires. Therefore let a Brâhmana, after he has done with learning, wish to stand by real strength 1; after he has done with that strength and learning, he becomes a Muni (a Yogin); and after he has done with what is not the knowledge of a Muni, and with what is the knowledge of a Muni, he is a Brâhmana. By whatever means he has become a Brâhmana, he is such indeed 2. Everything else is of evil.' After that Kahola Kaushîtakeya held his peace.

Footnotes
129:1 Mâdhyandina text, p. 1071, standing before the fourth Brâhmana.

129:2 See Brih. Âr. Up. IV, 4, 22.

129:3 Life in the world of the Fathers, or in the world of the Gods.

130:1 Knowledge of the Self, which enables us to dispense with all other knowledge.

130:2 Mr. Gough proposes as an alternative rendering: 'Let a Brâhmana renounce learning and become as a child; and after renouncing learning and a childlike mind, let him become a quietist; and when he has made an end of quietism and non-quietism, he shall become a Brâhmana, a Brâhmana indeed.' Deussen takes a similar view, but I doubt whether 'the knowledge of babes' is not a Christian rather than an Indian idea, in spite of Sa?kara's remarks on Ved. Sûtra, III, 4, 50, which are strangely at variance with his commentary here. Possibly the text may be corrupt, for tishthâset too is a very peculiar form. We might conjecture balyena, as we have abalyam, in IV, 4, 1. In Kaush. Up. III, 3, âbâlyam stands for âbalyam, possibly for abalyam. The construction of kena syâd yena syât tenedrisa eva, however, is well known.