Acharya 2013 Neti Neti

Indo-Iranian Journal () brill.
com/iij
N
Meaning and Function of an Enigmatic
Phrase in the Gargya-Ajatasatru dialogue of
Brhad Aranyaka Upanisad II. and II.*

Diwakar Acharya
Kyoto University
acharyadiwakar@gmail.com
Abstract
is article argues that it is necessary to recognise Sections II. and II. of the
Brhad Aranyaka Upanisad as one discourse. Since nobody among traditional or

modern
scholars attention to this structure, many problems have been
has paid
neither seen nor solved. is article does so, and further, exposes textual problems
embedded there and analyses them. In this very discourse the expression nti nti is
introduced as an adesa. erefore, this article investigates the meaning and function
of this expression there. is article also muses on possible implications of the
entire discourse of Gargya and Ajatasatru.
Keywords
neti neti; Upanisadic philosophy; Gargya-Ajatasatru discource; Brhad Aranyaka
Upanisad
Upanisad, Kaustaki

*) I would like to thank Werner Knobl from whom I have received constant inspiration to
go back to the Vedic texts and read them carefully; he has also been constantly available
for all kinds of discussions. I would also like to thank Walter Slaje, whose lecture at Kyoto
University in December inspired, or rather, positively provoked me to launch my
own Upanisadic studies. anks to the contribution of these two scholars, I have been able
to scrutinise the whole matter I am now dealing with, have the feeling of entering with
open eyes the ancient court of King Ajatasatru Kasya, and to receive as it were rst-hand
knowledge of his discourse. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dominic Goodall,
Arlo Griths, and Werner Knobl for their critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Needless to say, however, I am the only person responsible for any errors remaining. A
summary of this article was delivered as Shivdasani Lecture on February , at the
Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. I am grateful to the Centre for that opportunity to talk
publicly about my ideas.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/001972412X620402
Diwakar Acharya / Indo-Iranian Journal ()
Introduction
e Murtamurtabrahmana (II.) from the Madhukanda of the Brhad Ara-
nyaka Upanisad (hereafter BAU) introduces the expression nti nti as an
ades. It is followed
by a remark which has been taken by traditional as
well as modern scholars as a kind of explanation to this ades. In the
subsequent section of the BAU known as the Yajavalkyakanda, the same
phrase is made part of one recurring statement about atmn which appears
three times in the Madhyandina and four times in the Kanva recension
of the text. In the present article, I will focus on the meaning of this
nti nti phrase in the context of the Gargya-Ajatasatru discourse in the
Madhukanda. is is the place, I believe, where this phrase gets identied as
whereas in the Yajavalkyakanda it is borrowed and adapted
a formal ades,
to the purpose of the discourse there. Because of its signicnce I will read
the Gargya-Ajatasatru discourse in its entirety, exposing textual problems
embedded there, and analysing them. I will examine the use of the nti nti
phrase in the Yajavalkyakanda in a separate article later.
e nti nti phrase is found cited in the Sankhayana Aranyaka, in the
th chapter, where the core of Upanisadic teachings has been summarised
for the sake of the daily brahmayaja recitation.1 e same enigmatic
expression nti nti also appears in the ninth section of the Arseyopanisad.2
Purportedly Brahmasutra III.. deals with this Upanisadic phrase
though
it does not cite it directly. Already before Sankara, this phrase is cited by
Sabara, Gaudapada, and Mandana.3 If we rely on Mandana, Bhartrharis

method of withdrawal of xed forms (akrtyupasamhara) is concerned with
the method of nti nti.4 ese facts clearly indicate that the importance of
1) is relatively small chapter collects some important lines from the Brhad Aranyaka and
Chandogya Upanisad s, though they are inaccurately attributed and cited (cf. Keith
:
xii). e line we are concerned with runs as follows: yo yam vijanamayah purusah pranesu
this passage
sa esa neti nety atma na grhyah (ibid. ). I intend to deal with as well
as all the

early and important
other citations
of nti nti when I will examine Yajavalkyas use of this
phrase.
2) From this passage, Slaje (: ..) has cited the sentence containing the expression
neti neti: atha neti nety etad itthettheti. According to him, it refers to the nti nti phrase by
suggesting a positive meaning. However, the meaning of this sentence cannot be decided
in isolation; it should rather be read in the context of the discourse to which it originally
belongs, at least at the level of the paragraph where it occurs.
3) For Gaudapadas and Sabaras citations, see Slaje : , footnotes and . He misses

Mandanas citation, which can be found twice in his svavrtti on Brahmasiddhi I. (Sastri
, ). He has also overlooked the citation in the Sankhyayana Aranyaka.
:
4) As he elaborates on the way of understanding reality, Mandana (cf. svav rtti on Brah-

this adesa from the BAU was realised quite early and, over the following
centuries, continually rearmed.5
As Slaje has reported (: ), there are two standard models of
translation of nti nti: the no(t), no(t) model pioneered by Mller/
Bhtlingk and the not so, not so model pioneered by Sankara/Deussen.6
A third is the extraordinarily ingenious model of Geldner, which appears to
be based on Hillebrandts suggestion and has been championed by Walter
Slaje. is third model interprets the nti nti phrase as a double negative
statement.
In fact, it was Alfred Hillebrandt who for the rst time searched earnestly
for some positive interpretation of this phrase. Already in he had
expressed his discontentment over both of the standard models of trans-
lation, not, not and not so, not so (cf. Slaje : ). He had even gone
to the extreme of taking the n of nti nti as an archaic armative parti-
cle (cf. ibid. , fn. ). Nevertheless, when it was his turn, he refrained
from translating the phrase in his book published in . en Geldner
came forward to interpret it as a double negative statement in the second,
extended edition of his book Vedismus und Brahmanismus, published in
. In the rst edition of the same book published in he had trans-
lated the phrase as es ist weder so noch so, in other words not dierently
masiddhi I., Sastri : ) relates Bhartrharis statement satyam akrtisamhare yad ante
vyavatisthate (Vakyapadya III..ab) withthe BAU expression nti nti. is seems t-

ting, because in the next verse Bhartrhari describes reality through the negation of xed
propositions.
5) For a few more citations of the nti nti phrase in later texts down to the Bhagavatapurana,

see Slaje : . Note that Slaje has missed out some passages from the texts of this period
too.
6) From Sankaras commentaries on the BAU and the Brahmasutra, we can gather that the
nti nti phrase was traditionally interpreted in two distinct ways, relying and playing on the
remark placed immediately after the introduction of this phrase as an ades in the Upanisad.
e rst of the two has not attracted the attention it deserves from modern or even tradi-
tional scholars and is not yet properly analysed, but I nd that this interpretation matches
with the rst model of modern translations. Sankara silently plays this interpretation down
and puts the second one forward so that it has become the favourite of most modern trans-
lations. Both of these interpretations are logically and syntactically sound, but scholars like
Hillebrandt and Slaje have, I believe, misunderstood them. As this is beyond the scope of
the present article, I cannot embark now upon a systematic presentation of these traditional
interpretations and defend their logical and syntactical integrity. I plan in a separate arti-
cle to analyse related portions of Sankaras commentary on the BAU and the Brahmasutra.
Other commentators following Sankara in time do not have anything new to contribute
as far as the interpretation of this Upanisadic passage is concerned, although they extract
dierent conclusions from it.
from Sankara,7 but in he came up with a new translation: Nicht ist

es nicht so (: ). is change may indicate that Geldner received
inspiration from Hillebrandts article and therefore revised his own
interpretation in the second edition of his book.
Geldners interpretation has now been revived in a slightly altered form
by Walter Slaje in his new German translation of major Upanisads ().
In a separate monograph (), Slaje defends his interpretation. Here he
expands upon Hillebrandts criticism of Sankara and modies Geldners
interpretation in his own way.8 He renders nti nti as nichts nicht ebenso
(:) in German and as nothing is not in that way (: ) in
English.
At this point I do not nd it necessary to check the logical integrity or
syntactical viability of all these interpretations. Such integrity or viability
does not guarantee that a certain meaning ts in the actual context. ere-
fore, in the present article I aim directly at tackling the interpretation of
the nti nti phrase in its precise original context and hope to determine its
meaning and function there.
Critical Readings of BAU II. and II.

e Gargya-Ajatasatru dialogue is in my view incomplete if we do not
read BAU II. and II. together.9 A small anecdotal section in between
(BAU II.), which has nothing to do with the sections preceding and
following it, should be read separately. Since nobody among traditional or
modern scholars has paid attention to this structure, many problems have
been neither seen nor solved. is will be clear after reading the text with
my translation and comments thereon. I will occasionally discuss textual
problems and try to solve them as far as I can.
7) Geldners rendering of nti nti conforms to Sankaras model: it is neither so nor

so/it is not so, not so. But his interpretation of the remark following the nti nti phrase is
dierent from Sankaras. His translation of BAU(K) II.. is as follows (p. ): Nun
seine Beschreibung: es ist weder so noch so, denn es gibt ausser ihm nichts anderes hheres
(von dem man sagen knnte:) es ist so, nicht so. Seine Bezeichnung ist: die Wirklichkeit
der Wirklichkeit . is record is missing from the translational history in Slaje .
8) Slaje has also oered a useful survey and showed that early translations of the Upanisads
including Paul Deussens were in their time consciously made in the spirit of, and in
dependency on, Sankaras philosophical setting (: ). According to him, both of these
models are mistaken and the only scholars on the right track are Geldner and Hillebrandt.
9) When unspecied, all my references to the BAU refer to its Madhyandina version.
BAU II.
. drptabalakr hanucan gargya asa s hovacajatasatrum kasyam brhma te
nti
brava

s hovacajatasatruh sahsram etsyam vac dadmo janak janak ti vi jna
dhavantti
ere once was a learned Gargya called Drptabalaki (lit. the arrogant son
of Balaka); he said to Ajatasatru, the king of Kas: Let me tell you about
brhman. Ajatasatru replied: Well give a thousand [cows] for such a speech!
Janaka [is here]! Janaka [is here]!, [crying] this way, people will surely rush
[to me].
. s hovaca gargyo y eva`sav adity prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti s

hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadistha10 atisthah srvesam bhutanam
murdha rajti va ahm etm pasa ti s y
etm evm
up
aste tisth ah srvesam
bhutanam murdha raja bhavati

Gargya said: at very prusa who is over there in the Sun, that is the one I
venerate as brhman. Ajatasatru replied: Dont make me have a conversation
about that one! I venerate that one rather as the Outstanding, the Top of all
11
beings, the King.

He who venerates that one in this way becomes outstanding, the top of all
beings, the king.12
. s hovaca gargyo y evasu ` candr prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti

s hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadi stha brhn pandaravasah smo
rajti va ahm etm pasa ti s y etm evmup
ast har-ahar ha suth prsuto
`
bhavati nasyannam ksyate

10) e aorist injunctive sm vadisthah with prohibitive ma forbids the action as a whole.
Most often, this combination is used
when there is a need of preventing an action from
happening in any way. is is also the case with our context; see Homann : for
this passage. One more thing we should note here: the use of the accusative instead of the
instrumental, which suggests that sm vadisthah is used in a causative sense. We can be sure
version
of this meaning if we read the parallel of this dialogue found in the fourth chapter
of the Kaustaky Upanisad (hereafter KU) where the text reads sam vadayisthah in place of
h.
sm vadistha
11) e
pronoun etd in this and the following sentences refers to one and the same:
that particular prusa in a particular place such as the sun Gargya is pointing at. ough

Ajatasatru does not want to have a conversation with Gargya about that particular prusa,
he needs to make an objection and justify it so that Gargya stops saying more aboutit.
Because the prusa specied in one particular way cannot be brhman, Gargya should just
stop. Ajatasatrus remark is a veto against Gargyas proposal, and a formal conversation is
postponed until Gargya gives up his claim to teach brhman.
12) In this and the following paragraphs up to , Ajatasatrus response to Gargyas proposi-
tion ends with ti, and the sentence immediately following Ajatasatrus response is a remark
Gargya said: at very prusa who is over there in the Moon, that is the one I

about that one! I venerate that one rather as Soma the King, the lofty one,13
clad in a white robe.
He who venerates that one in this way [for him] Soma is pressed everyday and
pressed in abundance; his food does not decrease.
. s hovaca gargyo y evay

` m vidyti prusa etm evah` m brhmpasa ti s

hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadisthas tejasvti va ahm etm pasa
ti s y etm evm upaste tejasv ha bhavati
tejasvn hasya praja bhavati
Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in lightning, that is the one I
replied: Dont make me have a conversation
venerate as brhman. Ajatasatru
about that one! I venerate that one rather as the Sharp-and-bright.
He who venerates that one in this way denitely becomes sharp-and-bright;
his ospring is sharp-and-bright.
. s hovaca gargyo y evaym

` ` m brhmpasa ti s
akas prusa etm evah
hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadisthah purnm pravartti va ahm
etm pasa ti s y etm evm up aste puryte
prajya
pasbhir na`syasmal
lokat prajd vartate
Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in the empty space, that is the one I

about that one! I venerate that one rather as the Fullness that never spills over.
He who venerates that one in this way is denitely lled with ospring and
livestock; his ospring does not die out from this world.
. s hovaca gargyo y eva`ym vayu prusa etm evah ` m brhmpasa ti s

sm vadistha ndro vaiku
hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint nth parajita snti
va ahm etm pasa ti s y etm evm upaste jisnr haparaji
snur bhavaty
anyatastyajay
Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in the wind, that is the one I venerate
Dont make me have a conversation about that
as brhman. Ajatasatru replied:
one! I venerate him rather as Indra, the Unblunt, or as [his] invincible army.
He who venerates that one in this way denitely becomes victorious and
unconquerable, one who conquers all those who are on the other side.
of the narrator of this dialogue who incidentally wants to inform his audience about the
merit of venerating one or the other entity in Gargyas way.
13) In the parallel version of this discourse in the fourth chapter of the KU, this attribute,
the lofty one, is assigned to the Sun, not to the Moon, and only the Moon is identied there
as King wheras here in the BAU this attribute is assigned to both the Sun and Moon. In
my opinion, KUs scheme in these two paragraphs (BAU II..) greatly helps us to solve
text-critical problems in BAU II.. and II... For my arguments, see below, pp. ,
and the table on p. .
. s hovaca gargyo y eva`ym agnu prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti

s hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadistha visashirti va ahm etm

pasa ti s y etm evm upaste visashir bhavati
ha visashir hasya praja
bhavati
Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in the re, that is the one I venerate

as brhman. Ajatasatru replied: Dont make me have a conversation about
that one! I venerate that one rather as the Overbearing.
He who venerates that one in this way denitely becomes overbearing; his
ospring becomes overbearing.

` ` m brhmpasa ti s
aps prusa etm evah
hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadisthah prtirupa
ti va ahm etm

pasa ti s y etm evm upaste prtirupam haivinam pa gacchati napratiru-
pam tho prtirupo smaj jayate
Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in the waters, that is the one I
about that one! I venerate that one rather as the Match.
Only a match reaches him who venerates that one in this way, not a non-
match; but rather, a matching [son] is born from him.
. s hovaca gargyo y eva`ym adars prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti s

hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadistha rocisnr ti va ahm etm pasa

ti s y etm evm upaste rocisnr ha bhavati roci snr hasya praja bhavaty

tho yih samnigcchati srvams tan ti rocate

Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in the mirror, that is the one I
about that one! I venerate that one rather as the Shining One.
He who venerates that one in this way becomes shining, his ospring becomes
shining; and also, with whomsoever he comes in contact, all of them he
outshines.

` m diks prusa etm evah ` m brhmpasa ti s
s m vadistha dvityo napag ti va ahm
hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint
etm pasa ti s y etm evm upaste dvityavan ha bhavati nasmad
` gans
chidyate
Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in the quarters, that is the one I
about that one! I venerate that one rather as the [Accompanying] Second who
never goes away.
He who venerates that one in this way is denitely accompanied by a second
[man]; his folk are never separated from him.
. s hovaca gargyo y evay` m yntam pascac sbdo nudty etm evah ` m

brhmpasa ti s hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadistha asr ti va
ahm etm pasa ti s y etm evm upaste srvam haiv a`smml lok ayur eti
ninam pura kalat pran jahati

Gargya said: is very sound here which rises up behind a moving [person,]
that is the one I venerate as brhman. Ajatasatru replied: Dont make me
have a conversation about that one! I venerate that one rather as the Life-force
(as).
He who venerates that one in this way denitely lives the whole life-span in
this world; his vital breath does not leave him before the [xed] time.

` m chayamyah prusa etm evah ` m brhmpasa

ti s hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadistha
mrtyr tiva ahm etm
a`smml
pasa ti s y etm evm upaste srvam haiv lokayur eti ninam pura

kalan mrtyr a gacchati

Gargya said: is very prusa here consisting of shadow, that is the one I
about that one! I venerate that one rather as Death.
He who venerates that one in this way denitely lives the whole life-span in
this world; Death does not approach him before the [xed] time.

` atmni pruso etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti s
hovacajatasatrur ma maitsmint sm vadistha atmanvtiva ahm etm pasa

ti s y etm evm upasta atmanv ha bhavaty atmanvn hasya praja bhavati

s ha tusnm asa gargyah

Gargya said: is very prusa who is here in the living body (atmn), that

is the one I venerate as brhman. Ajatasatru replied: Dont make me have a
conversation about that one! I venerate that one rather as the Embodied One.
He who venerates that one in this way becomes embodied; his ospring
becomes embodied.
Gargya was quiet.
. s hovacajatasatrur etavan nu ty etavad dhti nitavata viditm bha-

vatti s hovaca gargya pa tvayanti
Ajatasatru said: Only that much?

Just that much.
With just that much [brhman] is not known.
Gargya said: Let me approach you [as a student.]
a. s hovacajatasatruh prtilomam vi td 14 yd brahmanh ksatryam upe-

yad brhma me vaksyatti vy v tva japayisyamti tm panav ad
ayt tasthau

14) As Werner Knobl has suggested to me, this vi td could originally have been *va etd.
Ajatasatru replied: it is rather the wrong way around that a Brahmin should
approach a Ksatriya thinking he will tell me about brhman. Right away I
am going to let you know [it] distinctly.15
Holding him by the hand,16 [the king] stood up.
is discourse is a dramatic and revealing presentation of a teaching session,

and its exact purpose lies in demonstrating the identity of brhman and
prusa in a proper way so that the seeker of truth does not stop at one

particular approximation before understanding it as a whole.
Here Gargya repeatedly points at some entity and proposes to identify
the prusa here or there as brhman. But Ajatasatru wants to nd out
of understanding Gargya has reached when he is proposing a
which level
certain equation. So, he shows the limitation, or rather, the specic property
of that particular prusa there and names that entity on the basis of that

property. is makes Gargya shift to some other prusa in some other locus.
In fact, it is not the case that dierent individual prusas are present in
dierent locations. Particular aspects of one and the same prusa are visible
However,
at these locations: it is the same prusa who is present everywhere.

each time the king tries to distract Gargya by sticking to the outwardly
visible form or even the personied aspect of the prusa in one particular
locus, Gargya moves one step backward instead of brushing the king aside
and making his stance clear. is proves that his perspective is faulty and
incomplete; a man prone to be misled cannot lead others to the goal. us
For, we can see that in this dialogue the etd yd construction is consistently used, and *va
etd can easily be by mistake contracted to vi td in pronunciation.
15) e expression vy v tva japayisyamti deserves some attention. In the same situation
of a Brahmin approaching a kingly K satriya with a request of teaching in ChU V.., King
a while longer, and demonstrates the vidya to him.
Asvapati asks Brahmin Pravahana to stay
in ChU V.. it is explicitly said that the king Asvapati
In the conclusion of this discourse
imparted knowledge without bringing Pravahana and his fellow brahmins into the fold of
studentship (tan hanupanyaivaitad uvaca). is suggests that, even though a Ksatriya king

is actually teaching a Brahmin, he does so informally, without reversing the social order,
without the ritual that formalises their relation. For formal initiation, the disciple has to
wait on the teachers place and stay there overnight. As Ajatasatru does not want to initiate
Gargya formally, he is ready to teach him right away, and this is expressed by the future of
immediacy.
16) Holding someone by the hand is a gesture of kindness which builds mutual trust.
us Ajatasatru signals to Gargya that though he has rejected him as his disciple he is still
kindly disposed. In a similar fashion, in BAU III.. Yajavalkya holds Artabhaga by the
hand before going to a secluded place to settle their dispute. Bodewitz (: , fn. ),
however, relates this to esoteric instruction.
the table is turned and Gargya, a brahmin, nds himself in a position lower
than King Ajatasatru, a learned Ksatriya.

b. tu ha prusam suptm a jagmatus tm etir namabhir amantrayam

cakre brhan pandaravasa h sma rajann ti s nt tasthau tm pannapsam

bodhayam cakara s ht tasthau

ey two came upon a man asleep. [e king] adressed him formally by those
names: Lofty one! White-clothed one! Soma! King! He did not stand up.
Hitting him gently with his hand [the king] woke him up, [and] he stood up.
e words Ajatasatru used to address the sleeping man reect some tex-
tual discrepancy. By addressing the sleeping man in this way, Ajatasatru
aims to demonstrate the ineectiveness of Gargyas propositions. Gargyas
rst proposition was that the prusa located in the Sun is brhman, and
Ajatasatru had identied that as atisthah srvesam bhutanam murdha raja; in
the next step Gargya had turned tothe prusa in the Moon, and Ajatasatru

had identied that as brhan pandaravasah smo raja (see paragraphs and

of the mula text above).
Now in the paragraph we have just read, Ajatasatru is invoking the
sleeping man simply with brhan pandaravasah sma rajan. First, following
the text of the BAU as it has been transmitted
to us, one can say that
Ajatasatru has picked up the names and attributes of the moon to awake a
man who is in sleep, because the moon is associated with night and sleep.
is might be a way of justifying the transmitted text but we will soon
realise that this cannot be the right solution. Because as soon as we read
parallel passages from the KU, we can see further problems, but some better
solutions as well.
e whole of BAU II. can be found with some alteration in the KU
as its fourth chapter. ere Ajatasatru counters Gargya by identifying the
prusa located in the Sun as brhan pandaravasa atisthah sarvesam bhutanam

murdha, Moon as somo rajannasyatma
and the prusa in the (cf.
KU IV.

;17 later in KU IV. where the sleeping man is addressed, the text matches
17) I follow the reading and numbering of the KU edition prepared by Limaye & Vadekar
(: ). Frenzs edition (: ) drops brhn pandaravasah from the para-
graph of the Sun (IV. in his edition) and shifts it to that of the Moon
in his edition).
(IV.
As can be seen from his critical apparatus, his sources do not support this change. He has
done so apparently under the inuence of the parallel passage in BAU, and we should notice
that Frenz does not use the edition of Limaye & Vadekar.
Frenz incorporates an extra paragraph before the paragraph about the Sun, numbered as
IV., inside square braces [], which according to his denition means cancelation. According
with BAU II..b). is passage of the KU solves much of our problem

as it places brhan on the Suns side, and raja only on the Moons side.
As Bodewitz has remarked, the adjective brhan is mostly associated with
heaven of daytime rather than with the moon (: , fn. ).18 Now
with this information from the KU we can say that the vocatives in BAU
II..b = KU IV. followed by an enumerative ti stand for the whole
list of those names or adjectives each of which Ajatasatru had separately
pronounced before to oppose each of Gargyas propositions.
However, the KU version, too, is not free from aws as it wrongly
includes pandaravasah on the Suns side, whereas it should have been left
for the Moon. ese discrepancies suggest that at this particular point the
transmitted texts of both the BAU as well as of the KU have corruptions
that defy easy emendation and as a result of which we cannot restore the
original text. Nevertheless, we can say that the reading of KU IV. is
slightly better in comparison with its parallel in BAU II.., because it is
not in conict with the vocatives used by Ajatasatru later in BAU II../
KU IV..
e scenario gets further complicated and more exciting when we get
the information from BAU II.. that the Sun is associated with a golden
saower robe (for further clarication, see below, Crucial importance
of BAU II..), and so should rather be called *maharajanavasah, not
pandaravasah. is makes me suspect that there might have existed a more

consistent
Urtext of this discourse that served as the source for both versions
available to us in the BAU and KU. We could hypothesise that at the
time of revision/expansion, there was uncertainty about which name and
description belonged to the Sun and which to the Moon. At that stage,
somehow *maharajanavasah as the suns description was dropped from
BAU II.. and KU IV.. Although maharajanm vasah got preserved
in BAU II.., no clue for connecting it with BAU II.. was left there,
to Limaye & Vadekar (: , note on top of the page), this paragraph is found only
in some manuscripts; and they do not include it in their text. ough extraneous, this
paragraph has a certain value, because it catalogues and shows how the apparent forms of
purusa in dierent loci are named and thus summarises the following paragraphs. In this

catalogue, too, brhan is related to the Sun (aditye brhan) and thus Frenzs decision to move
h to the paragraph of the moon appears
brhan pandaravasa wrong. See also the next footnote.
Bodewitz
18)
(: , fn. ) has noticed that something is wrong either in the
catalogue included in Frenzs edition of the KU where brhat refers to the sun instead of to
the moon, or in the Moons paragraph. But he has not noticed that Frenz has altered the
original text of KU to make it consistent with its parallel in the BAU. See also the previous
footnote.
and this connection was therefore no longer understood. Consequently,

people had to speculate and invent some new meaning for BAU II...
Here is a table that shows in two columns the BAU and KU descriptions
of the prusa in the sun and moon. Clearly, BAU II.. is in stark conict
is table shows how the transmitted texts of BAU and KU
with the rest.
mix up the descriptions of prusa in the sun and moon in dierent ways,
and how BAU II.. provides a clue that enables us to detect this mix-up:
prusa in the Sun prusa in the Moon

BAU II.. atisthah srvesam bhutanam brhn pandaravasah smo raja
a raja
murdh
BAU II.. / brhan pandaravasah sma rajan
KU IV.
KU IV. brhan pandaravasa atisthah somo rajannasyatma
sambhutana
sarve
m murdha
BAU II..
ytha maharajanm vasah ytha pandvavikam

. s hovacajatasatrur ytrais ett supt bhud y es vijanamyah prusah
kvis td abhut 19 kta etd agad ti td u ha n mene
gargyah

Ajatasatru asked: when that [person] was asleep there, that prusa which
consists of cognition, where had that then been to, and where had [that] there
come back from? But Gargya had no idea about that.
. s hovacajatasatrur ytrais ett supt bhud y es vijanamyah

prusas td esam prananam vijanena vijanam adaya y es ntr hrdaya
tsmi chete
akass tani yad a grhnaty tha haitt prusah svpiti
nama td
grht ev pran bhavati grhta vag grhtm cksur grht
m srtram grhtm
mnah

Ajatasatru said: when that [person] was asleep there; at that time that prusa
which consists of cognition takes his [own] cognition along with the cognition
of these vital functions and lies there in the empty space which is here inside
the heart. As soon as he seizes those [cognitions], the person does sleep there
(in that empty space). en the vital function is seized, the speech is seized,
sight is seized, hearing is seized, the mind is seized.
19) Note that the following three paragraphs () contain sentences in ytra td or
tha td construction. erefore in this paragraph too, we have to read ytra td
abhut, not ytra tadabhut. We can have td accented because in the Satapatha Brahmana
(hereafter SB) way of accent-marking, of two or more successive Udattas only the last is
marked (Macdonell : ). I am grateful to Werner Knobl for drawing my attention
to this fact. For the interpretation of the expression kva bhu/ kva a bhu, see Homann :
.
. s ytraitt svapnyya crati t hasya lokas td utva maharaj bhvaty

utva mahabrahman utvoccavacm n gacchati s ytha maharaj janapadan
grhtva sv janapad yathakamm parivrtetaivm
evis ett pranan grhtva sv
srre yathakamm pri vartate

When he moves about there with his dream-vision, those are his worlds, then
he is almost a great king or almost a great brahmin, or, he rather settles down
in a high or low state. Just as a great king would take his countrymen along
and move at will all over his own country, in the very same way that [prusa]
there [in the dream] takes the vital functions along and moves there at willall
over his own body.
. tha yada ssupto bhvati yada n ksya can vda hita20 nama nady
{dvasaptatih} sahsra ni hrdayat purttam abhipr tisthante tabhih pratyavas
r-

pya purttisete s ytha kumar va mahabrahman vatighnm anandsya gatv a

sytaivm evis etc chete

But as soon as he is fast asleepas soon as he does not know of anything,
{seventy-two} thousand21 veins called hita start from the heart towards the
pericardium. Having crept down by means of them, he is there in the
20) e capillary veins leading to the heart are originally called hira in the AV and VS, but
from the BAU onward the term is replaced by hita. I suppose that the new term came into
existence in the later Vedic period because of the obscurity of the original term. In three
occurrences in the AV and one in the VS, hira simply means the vein leading to the heart;
it is certainly not a proper name: AVS I..AVP XIX..: Of a hundred arteries, of
a thousand veins (satsya dhamnnam sahsrasya hiranam), AVS VII..AVP XX..:
ese hundred veins that are yours, and thousand arteries
(ima yas te satm hirah sahsram
dhamnr ut), AVS I..: ose ladies there that move, the veins, with red garments

(amur ya ynti yosto hira lhitavasasah), VSM . = MS III..: the streaming [rivers]
with the veins (hir abhih srvanth).
However, from the B AU onward
we nd the expression: the veins called hita. Someone
uncomfortable with the rare term hira and focusing solely on this context might easily have
changed it to hita, associating it to the fth class hi: either hinoti or dhinoti. Having done
so, he need only mark it as a name in order to avoid confusion and say the veins called hita
(hita nama nadyh).
ask why seventy-two thousand, why not some other big number? In fact,
21) One can easily
it would be more natural to say hundreds or thousands. I propose that such vagueness was
indeed intended: the text originally was speaking of thousand(s) of veins, and the number
seventy-two crept in here in the course of the transmission of the text. e text of the
SB is counted in hundreds, and in the Madhyandina recension, wherever a unit of one
hundred grantha-s (satam) is completed that point is marked. It is thus perhaps not simply a
coincidence that just two paragraphs before the text-counter indicates the end of the seventy-
second unit of satam, and soon after it, the number of the veins of the heart is claimed to
be seventy-two thousand.
If we get rid of this seventy-two, our description agrees with other early descriptions of
these veins inside or outside the BAU: AVS I..AVP XIX.. and AVS VII..AVP
XX.. cited in the preceding footnote, BAU IV..: ese are actually the veins of that
[heart] called hita, [as subtle] as a hair split into a thousand parts (ta va asyaita hita nama
nady ytha ksah sahasradha bhinnh), ChU VIII..: One hundred and one are the veins

pericardium.22 Like a prince or a great brahmin would be lying there after

reaching excessive pleasure, in the very same way that [prusa] lies there.

{. s ythornavabhis tntunoccred ythagnh ksudra visphulnga vyuccranty
evm eva`smad atmnah srve pranah srve lok
ah srve dev
ah srvani bhutani

srva et atmano vyc caranti tsyopanist satysya satym ti prana vi
satym tsam es satym

As a spider moves upward by means of a thread, as tiny sparks of re move
upward away from the re, in the very same way, from this atmn all vital
functions, all worlds, all gods, all beings, all these selves rise up. e name
that lies close (upanisd ) to that [atmn] is the reality of reality; the reality is
[constituted by] thevital functions and their reality is that [atmn].}
I have placed paragraph in curly brackets ({}) to indicate that it does

not belong to the redactional layer of the Gargya-Ajatasatru discourse.
is assertion might make some scholars raise their eyebrows, but I am
condent that this is so. Up to paragraph the focus of the discourse
is the prusa, not the atmn, and the same is true with the rest of the
placed in BAU II.. In the whole discourse atmn is not
discourse now
treated as equivalent to or synonymous with prusa. Rather, when it appears
in paragraph II.., atmn means the living body, one of the loci of the
prusa. In BAU II. prusa is back again but there is no trace of atmn.

erefore
paragraph , which all of a sudden replaces prusa with atmn

and makes it the source of all the worlds, gods, beings, and individual selves
of the heart (satam caika ca hrdayasya nadyah), KU IV.: e veins of the heart called
heart towards
hita extend from the
the pericardium, like a hair split into a thousand parts
(hita nama hrdayasya nadyo hrdayat purtatam abhi pratanvanti tad yatha sahasradha keso
the confusion
vipatitah). On hira and hita, see the preceding footnote.
of
insertion of seventy-two in the BAU passage, however, must have happened before
is
the available version of the Prasna Upanisad (PrasU) was composed, for this text goes one
step further and states the following (PrasU III.): ere are a hundred and one veins here
in the body. Each of them branch into a hundred more, and each of these branches into
seventy-two thousand more (Olivelle : ). It is interesting to note that the PrasU is
combining the idea of seventy-two thousand veins from the BAU and a hundred and one
veins from the ChU.
22) e above passage relates that at the time of deep sleep the prusa consisting of cognition
creeps down (praty+ava+srpya) and lies in the purtt. Since in this process that prusa

consists of cognition withdraws from all the parts of the body and retreats to the very centre
of it, it would be natural to say that he remains in the centre. But it seems that a dierent
logic is applied here: even in deep sleep the body is energised, and therefore the hita veins
connecting the centre with the rest of the body are still carrying vital functions outward
from the centre. For this, the text needs to make the prusa that consists of cognition slip
out of the heart and lie down in the space of the pericardium.
which were not mentioned before, cannot be part of the original discourse
of Gargya and Ajatasatru. Once we notice this discrepancy, we can see
another odd aspect of this paragraph: its concluding lines satysya satym
ti prana vi satym tsam es satym are identical with the concluding lines

of Section yet this
II.. And conclusion does not t here. It is obviously
illogical to talk about satysya satym at this point when satym itself has
not yet been analysed, whereas it is perfectly tting in its original place at
the end of BAU II..
Actually in paragraphs above, Ajatasatru has managed to demon-
strate the existence of the prusa consisting of cognition (vijanamya) only
in the body. He has not yet described how that prusa pervades the cos-
mos and proves to be the essence of brhman. e discourse of Gargya and
Ajatasatru is therefore still incomplete.
We may recall that the whole discourse began with Gargyas arrogant
wish to teach brhman to Ajatasatru. But once he has given up his claim,
it is now Ajatasatru who teaches him brhman, equating it with the truth,
speaking about its concrete and non-concrete forms, and also about prusa,
the essence at the centre. He explains all this in both the bodily and cosmic
realms. e logic of Ajatasatrus teaching becomes fully clear only if we read
BAU II. and II. together as one text. As I have mentioned above, BAU
II. is an excursus which interrupts the original discourse of Gargya and
Ajatasatru and should have no impact on its interpretation, whereas with-
out BAU II. the discourse cannot be complete. So my general conclusion
is that, by the time of the canonisation of the available text of the BAU:
i) One integral text of the original discourse of Gargya and Ajatasatru had
been split into two;
ii) A new paragraph (II..) had been composed claiming the atmn to
be the cause of every entity, while the concluding lines of the original
discourse were appended to this new paragraph, and it was placed at
the end of the rst part of the split text;
iii) A new puzzle in the form of BAU II. (which is not examined in this
article) was placed between the two segments with the eect that they
are permanently separated. (e motivation for the insertion remains
opaque for me.)
iv) All this must have happened before the composition of the fourth
chapter of the KU which consists only of that part of the Gargya-
Ajatasatru discourse which is covered in BAU II.. It adds a few extra
lines to conclude the text but ignores BAU II..
At this point, I would like to draw the readers attention to the fact that in
the discourses of Yajavalkya atmn takes the place of prusa. Yajavalkya
always talks about atmn, while Gargya and Ajatasatru talk about prusa.
It is well known that atmn originally means the living body, not the soul
or the essence behind every entity and the entire cosmos; that is rather the
meaning of prusa.23 ese distinct meanings of atmn and prusa are still
palpable and valid in the discourse of Gargya and Ajatasatru, but by the
time of the discourses of Yajavalkya the situation has changed. By then
atmn refers to the soul or the essence at the core of every entity. Yajavalkya
rst identies atmn with prusa, and then goes on to use atmn in the
sense of the old meaning of pru sa. e other expression becomes more
and more limited to the meaning an individual person, a human being,
or a male living being. Here I do not want to go into an analysis of the
morphological and semantic development of the term prusa but I intend
to comment upon this transition in a separate article.
Given this realisation and in the light of others to follow, we are com-
pelled to change our opinion about the formation of the BAU. It is no
longer possible, I believe, to take the Gargya-Ajatasatru discourse as an
introduction to the Maitrey episode, as argued in Hock . Instead of
this, we have to say that the Gargya-Ajatasatru discourse must belong to an
older layer and Yajavalkyas discourses to a newer layer of redaction. My
argument will become clear when we read the text further. Let me therefore
present the rest of the discourse. First I remind the readers that Ajatasatru
is still teaching Gargya:
BAU II.
. dv vav brhmano rup murtm caivamurtam ca mrtyam camrtam ca
sthitm ca yc ca sc ca tym ca

Two, indeed, are the forms of brhman: concrete and non-concrete, mortal
and immortal, standing and moving; the st- and the -ty.24
23) Except in BAU II..b and II.., where it clearly refers to the person of an individual,
in the whole discourse of Gargya and Ajatasatru, prusa means the entity serving as the
essence of all individual entities.
24) Since in this paragraph all other pairs consist of mutually opposed entities, it is natural
to think that the last pair of st and ty, too, is so intended. As st and ty when united
together make saty, the reality, the opposition of the two must be a correlative opposition
within reality. erefore, this might be the opposition of the existent and non-existent, that
which has already come to existence and that which has not yet come to existence, which
. td etn murtm yd anyd vays cantriksac caitn mrtyam ett sthitm

ett st tsyaitsya murtsyaitsya mrtyasyaitsya
sthitsyaitsya sat es rso
y es tpati sat hy s rsah

e concrete there is that which is dierent from the wind and the interme-
diate space; that is mortal, that is standing, and that is st-. Of that concrete,
of that mortal, of that standing, of that st-, that one is the essence who is
burning there. For, that one there is the essence of st-.
. thamurtam vays cantriksas caitd amrtam etd yd ett tym tsyait-

rtasyaitsya yat
syamurtasya tsyam etsya tysyai
s rso y es etsmin mndale

prusas tysya hy s rsa ty adhidevatm

Now [about] the non-concrete, the wind and the intermediate space: that is
immortal, that is moving, that is -ty. Of that non-concrete, of that immortal,
of that moving, of that -ty, that prusa is the essence who is there in that
of -ty. is much [is] with regard
[suns] disc. For that one there is the essence
to the divine realm.
. thadhyatmm idm ev murtm yd anyt pranac ca ys caym antr

atmnn akas etn mrtyam ett sthitm ett st tsyaitsya
murtsya etsya
mrtyasyaitsya sthitsyaitsya sat es rso yc cksuh sat hy s rsah

Now with regard to the bodily realm: the concrete here is that which is
dierent from the breath and this empty space inside the body (antr atmn);
that is mortal, that is standing, that is st-. Of that concrete, of that mortal, of
that standing, of that st-, that is the essence which is the [sun-like] eye. For,
that one is the essence of st-.
. thamurtam prans ca ys caym antr atmnn akas etd amrtam etd

amurtasyaitsyamrtasyaitsya yat etsya tysyai
yd ett tym tsyaitsy s rso

y ym daksin ksn prusas tysya hy s rsah

Now [about] the non-concrete, the breath and the space inside the body: that is
immortal, that is moving, that is -ty. Of that non-concrete, of that immortal,
can be simplied as present and absent respectively. As Werner Knobl has suggested me,
Ajatasatru implies this by relating here the archaic pronoun ty which is used to point at
someone absent or standing at a distance. For this, however, it would be natural to juxtapose
s with ty, and this might even have been the original situation. On the other hand, in the
level of word formation we can think of another opposition: the real meaning of the word
against its transformation by the sux.
Here styam is divided unnaturally into st and tym, which presupposes *sattym with
double -tt-. e same is true of another similar analysis in ChU VIII.. where satyam is
divided in three parts: sa, ti, and am. In this kind of analysis these texts obviously go beyond
the grammatical analysis of a word and see the meaning they want to see there. ey focus
on how that word is heard and which ideas are associated with it. In Sanskrit manuscripts,
the orthographies satya and sattya both are possible of course.
of that moving, of that -ty, that is the essence who is the prusa in the right
eye. For, that one there is the essence of -ty.
. tsya haitsya prusasya rupm ytha maharajanm vaso ytha pandvavi-

kam ythendragop ythagnyarcr ytha pundrkam ytha sakrdvidyutt
m

sakrdvidyuttva ha va asya srr bhavati y evm vda

e visible form of that prusa is as25 the saower robe, as the white eece, as
Indras guard, as the ame ofre, as the lotus ower, as that which is suddenly
irradiated once and for all.26 He who knows thus, his excellence becomes as if
irradiated suddenly, once and for all.
. thata ades nti nti n hy tsmad ti nty anyt pram sty tha nama-
dhyam satysya satym ti prana vi satym tsam es satym.

Now, the way of indication (ades) [for that prusa] therefore is [this way]:27
[it is] neither so [as X1] nor so [as X2].
For, neither so nor so is there anything else beyond that [prusa].28

25) In this paragraph ytha does not serve to introduce a comparison, as it has been
interpreted till now, but rather to introduce the specic forms of the prusa in dierent
loci which Ajatasatru had mentioned earlier in the discourse. ey are listed one by one in
their personied forms, to oppose each of Gargyas proposals. For an elaboration, see below
pp. .
26) See below, pp. , for the justication of my interpretation of indragop, pundrka,
and sakrdvidyutt.

27) Traditionally as well as in the view of many modern scholars nti nti is an indication
for brhman. For them, brhman and prusa or atmn are not dierent. For example, Goto
(: ) presents such an equation when he translates thata ades nti nti: en the
assertion (what it is) [of this, Atman = brhman- = prusa-] is: not , not . So it
is necessary to explain what brhman can mean in this early Upanisadic context and what
it may not. It cannot simply mean the prusa in the philosophical sense. Brhman has two
forms, the non-concrete and concrete, and thus it pervades everything, whereas the prusa is
the essence of the rst alone. us, it is certain that brhman encompasses the entire cosmos,
permeating both realms of macrocosm and microcosm. It is also certain that prusa is at the
this fact,
very centre of this cosmos, as the subtle essence of the non-concrete. To highlight
one can guratively say that prusa is the essence of brhman, or even that prusa himself
is brhman or the entire cosmos. is equation is no better than that which says mind is
brhman or space is brhman. Equation of brhman and prusa, rather often called atman
In other words, according
later, begins with gurative statements and gets generalised later.
to my interpretation of this discourse,
brhman as the cosmic principle permeates the cosmos: it is immanent; we are not told
of transcendence yet.
We are told that it has two forms, the concrete and non-concrete, but we are not told
about the relation between these two forms.
erefore it would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that brhman is equal to prusa/
atmn, superimposing a later perspective on early Upanisadic texts.
with ades, because the ades of
28) At rst glance, one might think of associating etsmad
Now here is the naming [of that prusa] (namadhya):29 the reality of reality.30
e reality is [constituted by] the vital functions31 and their reality is that
[prusa].

Crucial Importance of BAU II..

A proper understanding of BAU II.., the second to last paragraph above,
is crucial for the understanding of the whole discourse. But all traditional
as well as modern scholars follow Sankara when they deal with this passage
and inappropriately bring mental impressions into the scenario, thus keep-
ing the prusa, the original subject, outside the scope of this paragraph. I
do not wantto give here any overview of such interpretations, and so I will
nti nti comes immediately before this remark. Actually, Sankara presents this as one of
the two possible alternatives when he comments on Brahmasutra III... However, if we
read carefully, we can nd that in paragraphs II.. the text is speaking only about the
prusa: its various forms appearing in dierent loci, the unique method of its indication,

its supremacy, and its naming. ough the text does not repeat etsya prusasya but simply
states thata adesh and tha namadhyam, we have to understand that both times etsya
prusasya is implied. So it is logical to associate etsmad of this remark, too, with prusa
thatis at the centre of the whole discourse.
Moreover, the same remark in the ninth kanda of the SB establishes the supremacy of
the Sacred Fire, which is the central entity in the ritualists world. I argue that it is natural to
apply the same remark in our context in the same way to establish the supremacy of prusa,
the central entity there. I therefore interpret that, after presenting the ades of nti nti,
Ajatasatru refers back to the main topic, the prusa. In fact, in the subsequent paragraph,
too, he does the same thing: after introducing the way of naming it, he returns to the prusa
and refers to it using the same pronoun etd. Logically, it is quite natural to claim the
supremacy of prusa in order to justify his unique teaching: there is no other entity superior

to prusa, and therefore, one should continue negating intermediate entities until one is
settled in the all-encompassing reality of prusa. Also in the remark cited on p. , which
is very close to our BAU remark, etd refers to the central topic of that context, not the
predicate of the preceding sentence. See also fn. below.
29) We should take namadhya here in the original sense of the term, not as a synonym of
naman: it means naming not name. It thus is parallel to indication introduced just before.
is process of naming implies a signicant point: whatever name is given, never is prusa
xed. Every name is attributed only for the sake of understanding and communicates one
particular aspect of the prusa. Philosophically, this is true for every name of every entity:

any particular name can describe only one particular aspect of the named entity; taking a
name too xedly therefore leads to error.
30) I render satysya satym as the reality of reality throughout this essay. In this rendering,
the reality is the ultimate reality but the second reality should be taken as the reality of
second degree, which is valid only for the lower practical level, or the externalised form of
reality. On this and other similar constructions, see Oertel .
31) In this passage I take pranah as an elliptical plural. I think that it stands for the set of
speech, the faculty of sight, the auditory faculty, and
the breath and others, including
only say that the discourse of Gargya and Ajatasatru has, in my opinion,
nothing to do with what Sankara supposes. e text is speaking precisely
about the prusa present everywhere, which is characterised by Ajatasatru
in his conclusion as vijanamya, the essence of the non-concrete form of
brhman; it cannot be anything else.
At this juncture, I need to justify my interpretation of some crucial words
from the BAU paragraph we are discussing (II..), and their association
with certain entities in BAU II..
I have related the saower robe to the Sun in BAU II... e saower
robe appears without precedent in BAU II.., but with some reasoning
we can nd out what it stands for, and why it appears here. First of all, it
should be noted that the text is speaking of the saower robe, not just of its
colour. It is nicely paired with the white eece, the second item in the list,
which is undoubtedly associated with the moon. e moon is described
as pandaravasah in BAU II.., so we can easily associate pandvavika of

this paragraph with that description of the moon. It is apposite
to dress
the moon in white when he is personied as a king.32 So we can say with
great probability that the saower robe as the rst item here must be
associated with the sun, the rst item there in the list of symbolic forms
standing for dierent representations of the prusa. is ts well because
when Vedic texts refer to the sun, they refer almost always to the rising
golden sun.
A crucial change is here proposed in the interpretation of indragop.
Until now, all scholars have interpreted this term in the sense of this or
that zoological species. Earlier translators have taken it for a rey or a
cochineal beetle, but modern translations after Lienhard (:) have
taken it for the red bug, and some scholars have ventured to be even more
precise; Olivelle (: ) for example explains it as a tiny velvety red
mite (a species of Trombidiidae). All of these scholars, however, are univocal
mind. No doubt even this set is not exclusive, but I sense that this set is implied, in the
light of the BAU passage I will present towards the end of this article.
In this way, we can somehow contextualise and justify the presence of this sentence here.
However, it is quite possible that the original discourse concluded with tha namadhyam
satysya satym ti and that the following sentence prana vi satym tsam es satym was
added at the time when the discourse was split in two and a new paragraph
was added to
the rst section now identied as BAU II..
32) Since our text in its present form relates a special robe each to the Sun and to the Moon
and names them kings, I suspect that our text is aware of some myth in which these objects
are associated with them as the symbols of their kingly status.
in taking the red lustre of the indragopa as the point of comparison in this
particular example presented to describe the visible form of the prusa in a
certain kind of locus.
Regarding this matter, let me rst remind readers that back in BAU
II.. Ajatasatru had associated the prusa in the wind with Indra and
his invincible army, namely, the Maruts as the guards protecting him.
Once we open our eyes to this fact, it no longer seems plausible to take
indragop in this passage for any zoological species. Instead, on gram-
matical and contextual grounds we must interpret it as Indras guard.
Unlike in the only other Vedic occurrence of the term,33 indragop in
our passage is accented on the last syllable as a tatpurusa compound. is
conrms my interpretation, and leaves no room for an entomological
one.
e next item in the list, pundrka represents the water. Here, like in its
conveys something more than just the
other early occurrences, this word
lotus ower as an object: it symbolises life, beauty and excellence emerg-
ing from the serene and profound water. One of my grounds for this
assertion is that, in the BAU itself, a person venerating the Sun is found
addressing the Sun as the unique lotus of the quarters and wishing him-
self to be the unique lotus of humans. (cf. BAU VI..: pratr aditym
pa tisthate disam ekapundarkm asy ahm manusya`nam ekapundarkm
ti).
bhu yasam
More complex is my interpretation of sakrdvidyutt. I am aware of the
fact that brhman is equated with lightning (vidyt) in the BAU itself (V.
.), and also that in the Kena Upanisad (IV.) the appearance as well as
the experience of brhman is explained with the example of the sudden
appearance and disappearance of lightning. So there is no doubt that some
aspect of brhman can be compared with lightning. Notwithstanding these
facts, sakrdvidyutt of this passage does not have to do with lightning, as has

been assumed till now. As an action in the perfected state, sakrdvidyutt-

in my view covers all aspects of irradiation by an entity of luminous and
diusive character like light or cognition. It is something that has happened
suddenly and its eect is everywhere. is is why I have translated it as
that which is suddenly irradiated, once and for all. If we pay attention
to the scheme of BAU II.., it is possible to see that sakrdvidyutt-

33)In Rgveda VIII.., the same word is accented on the rst syllable and, being a
compound, means a man who has Indra as his protector or guardian.
bahuvrhi
as the last item there in the list stands for the visible form of prusa in
the living body: what is suddenly irradiated in the body is a form of
prusa.
all these adjustments to the interpretation of this paragraph, the
After
whole of BAU II.. proves simple and unambiguous. When Ajatasatru
says that the form of that prusa is as a saower robe and as a white
eece, he refers clearly to the visible form or appearance of the prusa
in the sun and the moon respectively. e form of the prusa appearing

in the sun and the moon were described earlier as kings. ey represent
the ksatr and brhman powers respectively, and the saower robe and
white eece are their symbols. In other words, these are the specic forms
which, by means of symbolism, transform and project the all-immanent
prusa into these two kings. Two items after the white eece, the forms

corresponding to vidyt and akas, are skipped for the sake of abbreviation.
But when Ajatasatru further says that the form is as Indras guard, as
the ame of re, and as the lotus ower, he is referring to the distinct
appearances of the same purusa in wind, re, and water respectively. ree
further items are skipped again and the last item, as that which is suddenly
irradiated, refers to the last item in Gargyas list: the prusa in the living
body (atmn). It creates an enduring and illuminating eect. is sudden
irradiation involves the immediate, explosive, and all-pervasive diusion
of prusa as the true form shining forth and reaching every end of every
entityin the world of distinct forms, but in ones own body it is the self
of cognition and reaches every tip of each limb.
It should now be clear that Ajatasatru talks in this paragraph about
prusa and its appearances in its dierent manifestations. Ajatasatru had

identied the prusa at each and every place Gargya had pointed out,
beginning with theSun and ending with the living body of an individual,
as a distinct divinity: brhn, sma and so on. As indicated earlier, this was

his trick to check and correct the incomplete view of Gargya. Now since it
is his chance and duty to help Gargya know reality, he explains to Gargya
that it is the same prusa everywhere and it is its appearance that diers

according to its locus. ese appearances are so distinct that they appear to
an inattentive man as dierent prusas.
As we analyse the scheme of this discourse, we can discern that the
locus in every case represents the coarse concrete form of brhman, and the
associated name describes the immediately visible form of prusa, which
is the essence of the non-concrete form of brhman. Naming serves as
the device that gives individualized identity to a specic appearance of
prusa in a particular state. us a name just reects the function and form
sa in a specic locus. So Ajatasatru intends to clarify the various
of pru

subtle appearances of prusa. As he appears to imply, one who is stuck to

the coarse form and one particular appearance or individualized identity
cannot realize reality: the immanence of prusa. Such a persons outlook is
always incomplete.
If we reect on the entirety of this discourse, we may make the following
observation. When a seeker of truth begins his quest with an observation
of the majestic world outside and wishes to comprehend it, he rst con-
fronts the coarse and distinct individual entities. He begins with creating
a hierarchy of these entities and seeking the primordial source of them or
the essential entity. In the high tide of this quest, he rst approaches the
farthest and the highest, the prusa irradiating the solar disc and serving
as the powerhouse of the cosmos. But when his mind begins to settle, he
nally reaches the closest and the deepest, the prusa irradiating his own
body full of life. is makes him give up the notion of hierarchy based on
division and distinction. is is the state of nti nti which leads him to
the core of all entities to confront the same prusa irradiating everywhere,

the subtlest but most essential form which is all-pervasive and beyond all
distinctions.
Here I summarise Ajatasatrus scheme of presentation in tabular form:
Quest for the underlying essence

Name st- -tym Essence behind
Apparent concrete / Non-concrete / concrete / non-concrete /
form standing / moving / standing / moving /
mortal immortal mortal immortal
Worldly elements other Wind and the burning prusa in the
realm than wind and cosmic space sun solar disc
cosmic space
Bodily realm elements other breath and right eye prusa in the
than the breath inner space right eye
and inner space
Conclusion: the prusa underlying every entity is the essence of brhman,

the reality
Representation and personication of the prusa in dierent loci

Locus Name Apparent form
adity brhn maharajanm vasah
candr h
sma pandvavikam
vidyti tejasv
akas purnm pravarti
vayu h,
ndra sna indragoph
agnu
visashih agnyarch
aps
prtirupa h m
pundrka
adars rocisnh
diks dvityonapagh

sabd ash
chayayamayah
mrtyh
atmni
atmanv sakrdvidyuttm

Description of the purusa after the dierence of loci is discarded

Name Apparent form
satysya satym ytha maharajanm vaso ytha sakrdvidyuttm

e method of Indication (ades): nti nti
e nti nti ades and Its Expanded Form

After Ajatasatru has conveyed his idea in this way in a dramatic demonstra-
tion, he imparts the ades of nti nti, which is at the core of the discourse
and is indicated all through it.34 He teaches the method which one should
apply to understand brhman and reach prusa as the reality of reality,
seated deep in everything as the core of brhman. With the nti nti phrase,
Ajatasatru is summarising his approach: say no to all approximations, as
I did, until you are awakened to the whole, the immanence of prusa. In
this way, we can be sure that the nti nti phrase cannot be interpreted as
34) It seems to me that we can no longer translate ades as substitute or substitution, as

was suggested by the late Paul ieme. In fact, the scholars he criticised (cf. ieme :
) were closer to the original meaning of the term, and that meaning was tting
in the Upanisadic context. Literally, it is indication: the indicated teaching demonstrated

through a discourse (object), or it is the method or means of indicating the reality (agent). In
this specic case of Ajatasatrus discourse, it is about the method: the way of apprehending
and teaching the reality. A detailed analysis of the meaning of ades in early Upanisads will
soon be presented in a separate article.
a positive statement via double negation but as a statement of consecutive

negation.
At this point, I need to comment on the syntactical structure of the nti
nti ades and the remark following it. As I mentioned in the beginning
of this article, that following remark has been taken by traditional as well
as modern scholars, in this way or the other, as a kind of explanation or
gloss to the nti nti ades. ey have made the whole matter much more
complicated than it really is, and the task of interpreting this ades has
been bedevilled. In fact, nti nti is a very simple and colloquial expression
meaning neither so nor so, as I have translated it. e sentence following
its introduction as an ades is an extension or a full statement of the same
which claries why this simple expression is recognised in that way. But it is
not a gloss or parsing to the nti nti ades, as Geldner and Slaje have argued.
Slaje (: ) argues that [t]he commentatorial parsing added to this
ades demonstrates how the nti nti sentence was syntactically analyzed
at about the time of its composition, or at least at a time predating the
nal canonization of this text as Upanisad. In this line, he presents the
nti nti ades together with the sentence that follows it in this way(ibid.
), identifying the words of the Root text in the ostensible Gloss:
(Root text)
nti nti (= n t i n t i )
(Gloss)
n 1 hy tsmad ti 1 n 2 ti 2 anyt pram sti
Slaje however is not the rst to propose it; it was Geldner who rst viewed
this remark as an explanation of the nti nti phrase. In a short footnote
(: , fn. ), he has given his argument for translating nti nti
as an armative statement via double negation. In this footnote, he has
claimed exactly like Slaje that the nti nti phrase is explained in BAU(K)
II.. (= BAU(M) II..) and also that there it is clearly divided as na, iti
na, iti.35
35) Slaje fails to record this information and speculates that he [= Geldner] must instinc-
tively have sensed something like an iti na construction (not so) governed by the rst na
(: ). Apparently, Slaje has not used the original publication of Geldner but relied on
a popular re-edition of Geldners translation by A. Michaels (). is publication drops
all footnotes and freely rearranges the original text. How much justice can be done to the
original author by such treatment of his work?
Both Geldner and Slaje thus have gone very far to deduce a positive state-
ment from this ades, but they have not checked for another occurrence of
this remark in the SB itself. is very remark can be found in the SB itself
for the rst time in the ninth Kanda. ere, this remark is made to justify
the equation of the distance of a thousand leagues (sahasrayojan) with
the sacred re. Let me rst quote the relevant passage and translate it:
td vi sahasrayojan ti
etd dha paramm durm yt sahasrayojanm
td yd ev param m dur
m td evisam etd
dhnumsy va tanoti

yd v evaha sahasrayojan ti
aym agnh sahasrayojanm
ti nty anyt
n hy tsmad pram sti
td yd agnu juhti td evisam sahasrayojan dhnumsy va tanoti
(SB IX...)
ere actually [the mantra says] at a distance of a thousand leagues (cf. VSM
.). is distance of a thousand leagues, is of course [a manner of
referring to] the farthest [possible] distance. erefore, wherever is the farthest
distance, exactly there [the sacricer] unstrings the bows of them (the Rudras)
in this way (namely, by gratifying the Rudras in the ritual with much food; cf.
SB IX...).
Now, as to the fact that [the mantra] says, at a distance of a thousand
leagues
e distance of a thousand leagues means the Sacred Fire here. For, neither so
nor so is there anything beyond that [Sacred Fire].36
erefore, as soon [the sacricer] makes oblation in the Sacred Fire, he then
unstrings the bows of these [Rudras] at the distance of a thousand leagues.
In this occurrence the verb sti is clearly accented, and this clears all doubts
about the structure of this sentence: everything from n h to sti is a single
coherent sentence.37 is claries the main logic of the sentence; it says that
there is no other superior entity beyond the one just proposed.
36) Eggeling has the same approach and translates this remark in the following way (:
): For, neither this way nor that way is there any other thing greater than he.
37) When the same sentence appears in the BAU, just looking there we cannot decisively
say whether asti bears an accent or not, because of the method of marking the accent in the
SB: of two or more successive Udattas only the last is marked (Macdonell : ). All
doubts, however, are now dissolved with the attestation of the same remark at another place
where the accentuation of sti is unambiguously marked. With this added knowledge, we
can denitely say that our passage comprises only one sentence.
e implication of this rhetorical remark in both places of its occurrence

is the same. It claims the supremacy of the entity that prevails the respective
discourse. In the rst passage, the remark implies that people can try to
describe the reality of the ritual world in various ways, but neither so nor so
can those descriptions go beyond the Sacred Fire; all of those descriptions,
however, indicate it. For, no entity superior to that exists. erefore, in the
ritualistic Satarudrya context, the expression sahasrayojan, which signies
the farthest distance, must refer to the Sacred Fire. Likewise, in the second
passage, the remark implies that people in their philosophical pursuits can
use dierent indications, equations, or specications, but neither so nor so
can they go beyond prusa. It is the entity always indicated.
in the two places of occurrence of this remark.
But there is one dierence
In the BAU passage, the introduction of the nti nti phrase as an ades
precedes the remark but this is not the case in the other place. As far as I
can see, the aim of the BAU discourse is to highlight the importance of the
method of rejecting all xed denitions, therefore, the nti nti phrase is
introduced there as an ades, when in the other place the same method is
applied, without identifying and boosting it.
If we proceed further observing simple and apparent facts, we can say
without hesitation that the nti nti phrase is embedded in the remark itself
but it is split into two parts as for some reason the two words hy tsmad
are inserted after the rst n. Once this problem is thus rightly observed, its
solution is easy: these two words, one a particle and the other a pronominal
form, are occupying Wackernagels position, immediately after the rst
word of the sentence.38 is observation enables us to see the relation of the
nti nti ades and the remark following it. e BAU ades is a brief and
elliptical sutra-like statement, whereas the remark following it is the full
statement, which by itself justies the ades status of the nti nti phrase.
On the Syntax of nti nti

At this point, let me say a few words about the word order or syntax of
the expression nti nti, because some scholars are apparently confused
on this matter (cf. Slaje : ). When in a simple single sentence
a proposition marked or unquoted by iti is negated, it does not matter
whether na precedes that [X] iti or follows it. e only condition for such
38) For a brief statement of this rule, see Jamison : .

a sentence in normal prose is that, if X marked by iti is to be negated, the

negative particle must not come between X and iti.39 For example, *agnayo
daseti na and *nagnayo daseti are both possible formulations. is is in the
level of sentence negation, but in the case of predicate negation, too, if the
predicate to be negated is present in the sentence and is unquoted by iti,
the situation will be more or less the same as in the previous case. In this
case also, the negative particle cannot intervene between the two [X] and
iti: only [X] na iti is impossible, but na [X] iti and [X] iti na are equally
possible. Furthermore, with the introduction of the subject one can have
more alternatives. Even in the case of a rare elliptical expression where iti
itself forms the theme of na (cf. Slaje : ), the logical and syntactical
relation of the negative particle and the element to be negated remains the
same. In English too when one says it is not so, everyone understands that
the subject indicated by it is not in the way, form, condition, or manner,
as indicated, thought, or implied before. In short, so always means so [as
the way implied or indicated]. And likewise, iti always comes with [X], it
is either verbally quoted or mentally supplied. erefore, even in the case
of an elliptical expression, once this [X] is mentally supplied it does not
matter where the negative particle is placed, before or after the cluster of
[X] iti.
ough examples of this kind of negation of elliptical ti are extremely
rare, I can cite beside the nti nti phrase from the BAU section, one more
passage from the SB itself:
tha y imam prena vayus tm asminn etd dadhati

ajalna na hy tsytvabhpattir
sti (SB IX...)
Now he puts that wind which is beyond this [earth] into the sacricial hollow
in that way. With both hands open and placed side by side [as a hollow]; no
catching like so is there of that [wind beyond the earth].
is sentence is syntactically very close to the BAU remark, and these two
have the same nuance. Here the negative particle comes rst, then come
the particle h and the pronominal form etsya. After that comes the phrase
tva that modies the aspect of negation: what is denied is the eciency
39) In normal prose, ti follows the quoted sentence, phrase or word, but in poetry or in
some stylised prose, it can be brought to the beginning, after which the main statement is
made, and only then is the actual quotation mentioned. Sometimes ti stands even in prose
at the very beginning of a section (for example ChU V..), and in that case, it refers to
some action or statement reported in the previous section.
of all other ways of catching in contrast with the one just proposed, not
the ways themselves altogether. erefore the initial negative particle must
be related to the modied subject before it is related to the verb. us,
this sentence says that the most ecient catching of the wind is the way as
proposed; there is no other way like that.
Now if we compare the structure of this remark with the BAU remark,
we nd the same phenomenon: here, too, the negative particle is the rst
word of the sentence, then come the particle h and the pronomial form
etsmad, before the rest of the phrase connected with the initial negative
particle is placed. In this sentence also, the initial negative particle must be
connected with ti nti before it is related to the verb.
is enables us to see the relation of the nti nti ades and the sentence
following it. So, we can safely conclude that the nti nti ades in the BAU
is a brief sutra-like statement, whereas the remark following it is the full
statement, and tells why the ades is true. Since the BAU discourse aims to
highlight the importance of the method of negation of all xed propositions
to arrive at the reality of reality, the nti nti phrase is introduced there as
an ades.40 In the ninth Kanda of the SB, however, there is no such aim,
and therefore, the same remark is made plainly in an easy manner.
At this point, I would like to cite one more remark found in the SB itself
which denies everything else in order to make a strong armation about
the concerned entity. is concerns the sacricial formula (yjus) which
is claimed to be the ultimate form of mantric reality in the Yajurvedic
tradition and is equated with brhman. I cite it here because it is not
ambiguous at all and is comparable to our BAU remark in nuance, and
also in function and basic structure:
td etj jystham brhma n hy tsmat km can jyay sti (SB X...)

is very entity, namely, that [yjus mentioned before in the text], is the most
powerful brhman. For nothing isthere more powerful than that [yjus].41

40) Once the nti nti phrase is formalised and declared an ades, it does not just reect
on the immediate context of the BAU discourse. It is a conclusion derived from this
particular discourse, like a moral understood after a story is told, that can be used in any
epistemological analysis.
41) In this remark, td is referring to yjus anaphorically, while etd refers to it as the

central topic of the discourse, not to the predicate of the preceding sentence, as is often
the case. us, here td and etd both refer to the same. is fact is clearly expressed
in two paragraphs, one preceding and another following (SB X...: td etd yjur nne
prtisthitam, SB X...: tsya va etsya yjuso rsa evpanist).

is sentence is straightforward and does not contain any complicated

structure. erefore, it helps us to undertand the nuace of the BAU remark.
But if one strictly compares the stucture of this sentence with that of the
BAU remark, one can come to the conclusion that the phrase ti nti in the
BAU remark is an elliptical clause in parenthesis, and that the negative
particle in the beginning of the sentence should directly be related to
the verb. So it is no surprise that Goto () and Geldner () have
interpreted the BAU remark in this very way.42 Both of these scholars read ti
nti as an elliptical clause in parenthesis and take it to negate any possibility
of positive or negative statements. Even though this way of interpretation
can ultimately provide the same conclusion, for the reasons I mentioned
on pp. , we have to read the inital n together with ti nti as one
phrase.
Next comes the issue of the reduplication of the nti phrase. But for the
sake of clarity, I begin with the meaning and function of the particle ti.
Indisputably this adverbial particle means thus or so, and it refers to the
way a certain thing is done, said, seen, thought, and so on. However, as Sze-
mernyi (: ) has pointed out, the formation of ti must be viewed
in connection with kti how many, yti as many as, and tti that many.
Since it belongs to this set, we can be sure that ti originally meant this
much, this many, but this near-deictic meaning gradually became gener-
alised to in this way, and then to thus, so. is also helps us understand
the so-called quotative function of ti, meaning this much. A quotative
ti marks the end of a quotation43 and embeds it in the main sentence.44
In some special situations, however, the actual quotation intended by ti
can remain verbally unstated, being just implied and present only in the
mind of the speaker. In those rare cases, ti simply stands for that implied
42) At that time, Geldner translated the nti nti ades and the following sentence in this
way (: ): Nun seine Beschreibung: es ist weder so noch so, denn es gibt ausser ihm
nichts anderes hheres (von dem man sagen knnte:) es ist so, nicht so. Although Goto
has translated the ades dierently, his translation of the sentence following it matches with
that of Geldner and runs this way (: ): Because there is beyond this one no other
thing [that could be called] so (: this is ) [nor] not so (: this is not ).
43) In the majority of cases, one has to rely on the context or the mention of the speaker
to nd out the beginning of a quotation. Only in rare cases, particularly in the classical
scholastic style of writing, the beginning of a quotation is found marked by some verbal
form such as uktam, a forward-pointing etad, and in case a relative clause is involved, also
by yad and tad.
44) For an exhaustive treatment of the quotative ti, see Hock .
but unspecied statement or way of action. Moreover, there is sometimes a

need to refer to a series of such unspecied statements or modes of action.
We are basically concerned with such a situation, so I concentrate on these
cases and present here two such examples, one from Vedic prose and the
other from epic Sanskrit:
mdhye ha va ett pranah snta ti cti catmanam anuvyc caranti

(SB IX...)
e breaths, though being thus in the middle [of it], move up and apart along
the body in this way and in that way.
srutva tu vacanam tesam sarvesam iti ceti ca |

vasukes ca vacahsrutva
elapatro
bravd idam || (Mahabharata I..)

en having heard the statements of all of them, [which were stated] in this
way and in that way, and [nally] having heard the statement of Vasuki,
Elapatra said the following.
In both of these cases, each ti of the ti cti ca phrase stands for one
statement or action, and by means of repetition, a series of such statements
or actionssimilar but dierentis suggested. is means that in an
elliptical situation ti can itself stand in the place of the variable implied
statement or description.
is is the case in n hy tsmad ti nty anyt pram sti, the BAU remark
we are concerned with. erefore, the expression of nti nti there negates
not only two ways of denition but any this or that way. e pair of nti
nti is an abbreviation for a series of consecutive negations in which each
time a specication in the form of the predicate is denied, the subject in the
form of the ever-existing It is left unharmed. In this way, n hy tsmad
sti this full remark asserts that, whether the reality is dened either in this
way or in that way, and however many times this is done, the whole process
revolves in the periphery of nothing else but the reality of reality proposed,
the prusa in the BAU discourse and the Sacred Fire in the ritual context.

is process, however, continues as long as the investigator keeps trying to
dene brhman, the reality, by limiting it to one of its forms perceived in
one particular place. But this process is terminated as soon as he realises
that the reality cannot be dened in that way.
Conclusion
By way of conclusion, let me talk briey about possible implications of
the entire discourse of Gargya and Ajatasatru. Ajatasatru denied each of
Gargyas approximations to the prusa. As long as Gargya limited the prusa
to one particular locus, such as the Sun, or the Moon, and identied the
prusa in that particular locus as brhman, so long Ajatasatru went on

denying these identications. By way of denying fragmented incomplete
identities he arrived at the comprehensive view of the reality, at the all-
immanent prusa, the essence of all realities, which is itself undenable.
us he indicated that, if one clings to any one particular form and the
name attached to that form, one is misled by an incomplete understanding
or wrong notion of reality. So the wider implication of this discourse is that,
if one wants to understand the reality of a thing in its entirety, one must
deny each of its fragmented identities or approximations; otherwise ones
understanding will remain partial. If a seeker of truth reaches to the proper
depth, he can identify the reality of the prusa; if not, he can stop anywhere
and be satised with his understanding of it as a particular deity, or as this
or that person, or even as some material form.
is discourse further implies that brhman cannot be dened in the
conventional way by drawing a boundary of specication. As soon as one
realises this fact, however, at once all boundaries of specication collapse,
and at that very moment the series of negations is automatically termi-
nated. is makes one wake up and realise that one and the same prusa
is everywhere in the form of the essence of each entity, though it appears
dierently in dierent places. Now prusa is everything in and beyond the
world including the investigator, who can feel the reality himself as himself.
In contrast to that, if the person limits it to one particular place, however
high, he is mistaken, like Gargya. is is the gist, the indicated teaching of
this discourse, but this wisdom is applicable to all epistemological investi-
gations.
Once Ajatasatru had negated all the approximations oered by Gargya,
he saw the need to synthesise them as various appearances or personica-
tions of one and the same prusa. After distinct forms of the prusa have
been pointed out, and also the method involved in the discourse has been
stated, Ajatasatru presents the exemplary way in which prusa can be named
concludes the
in this ultimate level. He calls it the reality of reality, and
discourse. us he drops even prusa as the name of that essence.45

45) is sort of description in terms of name and form is known from BAU I..: en
Finally, I would like to present a passage from the rst adhyaya of the
BAU (I..). It states exactly the same principle as the discourse of
Gargya and Ajatasatru, for it mentions the demerits of approaching any
one particular aspect of reality, and calls for a holistic approach:
s es ih prvista a nakhagrbhyo ytha ksurh ksuradhan vahitah syad visvam-

va visvambharakulay
bhar tm n psyanty
krtsno h sh prannn ev
pran nama bhvati vdan vak psyams cksuhsrnv chrtram manvan
mnas

tany asyaitani karmanamany ev s y ta kaikam upaste n s vedakrtsno

hy s ta kaikena bhvati atmty evpastatra hy t srva kam bhvanti

at [atmn] there [in the world] is this [atmn] here which has entered
into this [body] to the very nailtips, as a razor would be placed in a razor-
case or the re in the hearth.46 People do not see that [atmn], because that,
[at the primordial time], that [brhman] was this world [but] indistinct; it got distinguished
exactly in terms of name and appearanceis is so and so by name and has such
an appearance (td dhedm trhy vyakrtam ast tn namarupabhyam ev vyakriyatasu
namaym idm
rupa ti). Clearly, in this discourse follows the same scheme.
Ajatasatru
46) Some scholars have taken visvambhar as termite and visvambharakulay as termite-hill.
However, in the line of traditional commentators and Bhtlingk, I translate visvambhar

as re. is adjectival name, meaning all-bearing, undoubtedly refers to the earth when
it is feminine, but scholars appear baed when they nd it in the masculine. Actually,
earlier than this BAU passage, visvambhar is used only once in the masculine, namely in
AVS II..AVP II... Whitney (: ) thinks that in both of these passages
visvambhar does not mean re. He is unable to state positively what it means, though
without any comment he reports that Webers conjecture for the meaning of the term in
this passage is Prajapati. Concerning our passage, however, Whitney (: ) suggests
that visvambhara may perhaps here mean some kind of insect, in accordance with its later
use. According to him, since the point of comparison is the invisibility of the things
encased, the expression visvambhar va visvambharakulay should be translated as or as
a visvambhara in a visvambhara-nest. But Lanman appears to be against this when he says
I think nevertheless that re may be meant, and refers to Deussens translation of the
Upanisads (Whitney : ; his note follows Whitneys remarks). Clearly, Lanman is
talking there about the BAU passage and remains silent about the AV passage. However, I
nd that, if we reect properly on the AV passage, we can decide the matter. at brief AV
passage reads as follows: vsvambhara vsvena ma bhrasa pahi svaha. Here the deity invoked
as visvambhar is asked to protect the invoker with all-fostering power (vsva-bhras). is
means that he is regarded as the deity responsible for or in control of vsva-bhras. Now if we
check for such a deity, he is none other than Agni. In RV IV..ab, visvbharas appears as
one of the epithets of Agni: cha voceya susucanm agnm htaram visvbharasam yjistham.
Likewise, in VS .ab, Agni gets invoked with this epithet:pursy si visvbhara
(MS
.. has visvmbhara) tharva tva pratham nr amanthad agne. As in both stanzas the
name of Agni is used alongside, the connection between visvbharas and Agni is quite clear,
and so the matter may be regarded as decided. Furthermore, I feel that this is the garhapatya
re where all cooking is done, and that is why he is called visvambhar/visvbharas. So we
should translate it as all-fostering, while all bearing (cf. Whitney :) ts the earth
best. See also Hume : , fn. .
[as seen by them], is incomplete. at comes to be named breath while

breathing, speech while speaking, the faculty of sight while seeing, the
auditory faculty while hearing, and mind while thinking. ese are merely
the names of various functions of this [atmn]. He who approaches any one of
these [entities] does not understand this [atmn]. For, [regarded] one by one
this [atmn] here becomes incomplete. One should approach all of these as
atmn rather, for here [in atmn] all these become one.47
I would like to note that this passage, which concerns atmn, not prusa,
belongs to a layer closer to Yajavalkya than to Ajatasatru. Nevertheless, it
is clear that the logic behind the method of Ajatasatru is rightly understood
at this time. In the light of this fact, we can understand the nti nti passages
in the discourses of Yajavalkya better. But that must be done separately.
Abbreviations
AVP Atharvavedasamhita, Paippalada recension. Electronic Text redacted by
A. Griths, in joint collaboration with A.M. Lubotsky, M. Witzel, and
T. Zehnder.
AVS Atharvavedasamhita, Saunaka recension. Second Revised Edition. ed. R.

Roth & W. Whitney. Berlin: Ferd. Dmmlers Verlagsbuchhandlung,
. For a Translation, see Whitney .
BAU Brhad Aranyaka Upanisad. See Bhtlingk .
ChU
Chandogya Upanisad.See Limaye & Vadekar , pp. .
KU See Limaye & Vadekar , pp. . See also
Kaustaky Upanisad.

Frenz .
ose scholars who interpret visvambhar as re take visvambharakulay for a re-

holder/re-container. However, it is more than that: literally, it means the nest of re,
which applies to the place where the sacred re is maintained. erefore, I prefer to translate
it as the hearth, the original replace in a Vedic household where the re is constantly
maintained. As I have seen in a house of an Agnihotrin, after the daily sacrice is performed,
ambers and burnt pieces of dried cow-dung, which can retain re for a long time, are
covered with hot ashes. e re thus preserved in the hearth looks like a heap of ashes,
but if scratched anywhere, one can see re underneath. Mornings and evenings, rewood is
added to the re and it is blown into ames. After the sacricial oerings, the re is again
preserved in the same way. I think our text reects a similar situation.
47) I cited this passage here as this is the most explicit elaboration of the Upanisadic method
to approach reality, but there are many other passages which apply the same method. For
example, an implication of the application of this method in a ritual context can be found
in BAU I.., and a simple explanation of it in BAU III...
It appears that the author of the KU had somehow realised the congruence of this passage
with the discourse of Gargya and Ajatasatru. For he has used the opening sentence of this
passage in the last paragraph of his version of the said discourse in the fourth chapter of the
KU.
MS Maitrayan Samhita: Die Samhita der Maitrayanya-Sakha. ed. Leopold

von Schroeder. Vols. Wiesbaden:
Franz Steiner Verlag, .
PrasU Prasna Upanisad. See Limaye & Vadekar , pp. .
SB
Satapatha-Brahma na. e atapatha-Brhmana in the Mdhyandina--
the Commentaries of Sya na, Harisvmin, and Dvive-
kh with Extracts from

daganga. ed. Albrecht Weber. Reprint of the Edition: Berlin . Leipzig:
Otto Harrassowitz, .
VSM Vajasaneyi-Samhita. Madhyandina Recension. ed. Albrecht Weber. First
Edition, Berlin . Indian Reprint, Benares .
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Indo-Iranian Journal () brill.

from Sankara,7 but in he came up with a new translation: Nicht ist

Critical Readings of BAU II. and II.

7) Geldners rendering of nti nti conforms to Sankaras model: it is neither so nor

. s hovaca gargyo y eva`sav adity prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti s

beings, the King.

. s hovaca gargyo y evasu ` candr prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti

. s hovaca gargyo y evay

. s hovaca gargyo y evaym

. s hovaca gargyo y eva`ym vayu prusa etm evah ` m brhmpasa ti s

. s hovaca gargyo y eva`ym agnu prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti

. s hovaca gargyo y evaym

. s hovaca gargyo y eva`ym adars prusa etm eva`hm brhmpasa ti s

. s hovaca gargyo y evay

. s hovaca gargyo y evay` m yntam pascac sbdo nudty etm evah ` m

. s hovaca gargyo y evay

. s hovaca gargyo y evaym

. s hovacajatasatrur etavan nu ty etavad dhti nitavata viditm bha-

Ajatasatru said: Only that much?

a. s hovacajatasatruh prtilomam vi td 14 yd brahmanh ksatryam upe-

is discourse is a dramatic and revealing presentation of a teaching session,

with BAU II..b). is passage of the KU solves much of our problem

and this connection was therefore no longer understood. Consequently,

prusa in the Sun prusa in the Moon

. s hovacajatasatrur ytrais ett supt bhud y es vijanamyah

. s ytraitt svapnyya crati t hasya lokas td utva maharaj bhvaty

pericardium.22 Like a prince or a great brahmin would be lying there after

I have placed paragraph in curly brackets ({}) to indicate that it does

. td etn murtm yd anyd vays cantriksac caitn mrtyam ett sthitm

. thamurtam vays cantriksas caitd amrtam etd yd ett tym tsyait-

. thadhyatmm idm ev murtm yd anyt pranac ca ys caym antr

. thamurtam prans ca ys caym antr atmnn akas etd amrtam etd

. tsya haitsya prusasya rupm ytha maharajanm vaso ytha pandvavi-

Crucial Importance of BAU II..

Quest for the underlying essence

Conclusion: the prusa underlying every entity is the essence of brhman,

Representation and personication of the prusa in dierent loci

e nti nti ades and Its Expanded Form

34) It seems to me that we can no longer translate ades as substitute or substitution, as

a positive statement via double negation but as a statement of consecutive

e implication of this rhetorical remark in both places of its occurrence

On the Syntax of nti nti

38) For a brief statement of this rule, see Jamison : .

a sentence in normal prose is that, if X marked by iti is to be negated, the

tha y imam prena vayus tm asminn etd dadhati

td etj jystham brhma n hy tsmat km can jyay sti (SB X...)

is sentence is straightforward and does not contain any complicated

but unspecied statement or way of action. Moreover, there is sometimes a

mdhye ha va ett pranah snta ti cti catmanam anuvyc caranti

srutva tu vacanam tesam sarvesam iti ceti ca |

s es ih prvista a nakhagrbhyo ytha ksurh ksuradhan vahitah syad visvam-

However, in the line of traditional commentators and Bhtlingk, I translate visvambhar

[as seen by them], is incomplete. at comes to be named breath while

ose scholars who interpret visvambhar as re take visvambharakulay for a re-

MS Maitrayan Samhita: Die Samhita der Maitrayanya-Sakha. ed. Leopold

Hock, Hans Henrich. . e Yajavalkya Cycle in the Brhadaranyaka Upani-

Szemernyi, Oswald. . Syntax, meaning and origin of the IE particle kwe

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