1. Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1

Hero Image & Title Thumbnail: The Ancient Bharat Ṛsi does Ascetic practice in the Wild Jungle, developed on Mar.25, 2026.

1. The Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1

First revision: Mar.25, 2026

Last change: Sep.2, 2026

Searched, gathered, rearranged, translated, and compiled by Apirak Kanchanakongkha.

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The Upaniṣads recognize only one spirit, almighty, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, self-existent, the creator, preserver, and destroyer of the world. He is the light, lord, and life of the universe, one without a second, and the sole object of worship and adoration. The half-gods of the Veda die, and the true God arrives. “How many gods are there really, O Yajñavalkya?” “One,” he said. (iii. 9.1.).
“Now answer us a further question: Agni, Vāyu, Āditya, Kāla (time), which is breath (Prāṇa), Anna (food), Brahmā, Rudra, Viṣṇu. Thus do some meditate on him, some on another. Say which of these is the best for us?” And he said to them: “These are but the chief manifestations of the highest, the immortal, the incorporeal Brahman. … Brahman, indeed, is all this, and a man may meditate on, worship, or discard also those which are its manifestations.” (i. 4. 6;)
God is to be honored not by spiritual worship but by external ceremony. We cannot save ourselves by praising God. We cannot impress Him with sacrifices. The authors of the Upaniṣads had a sufficient sense of history to know that their protest would prove ineffective if it demanded a revolution in things. They therefore ask only for a change in the spirit. They reinterpret sacrifices and allegorize them. In some passages (i. I. 2.).
“Just as when a fire is laid with damp wood, clouds of smoke spread all around, so in truth from this great being, has been breathed forth the Ṛg-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sāma-Veda, the hymns of the Atharvas and the Añgirasas, the narratives, the histories, the sciences, the mystical problems, the poems, the proverbs, and the expositions—all these have been breathed forth from Him.” (ii. 4. 10.).
It is also recognized that the Vedic knowledge is much inferior to the true divine insight (3. 5. I; iv. 4. 21; vi. 2. 1).
It is the subject which persists throughout the changes, the common factor in the states of waking, dream, sleep, death, rebirth and final deliverance. (iv. 4. 3.).

Prajāpati (प्रजापति), developed on Jul.20, 2026.

Prajāpati makes it clear that the self of man consists in the truly subjective, which can never become an object. It is the person that sees, not the object seen. (viii. 7. 3).

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“As this self in the shadow or the water is well adorned when the body is well adorned, well dressed when the body is well dressed, well cleaned when the body is well cleaned, that self will also be blind if the body is blind, lame if the body is lame, crippled if the body is crippled, and perish, in fact, as soon as the body perishes. I see no good in this.” (viii. 9. 1.).
“Though it is true that that self is not rendered faulty by faults of body, nor struck when it is struck, nor lamed when it is lamed, yet it is as if they struck him in dreams, as if they chased him. He becomes even conscious as it were of pain and sheds tears, therefore I see no good in this.” (viii. 10. 2. 2.).
Self, “There is not second outside it, no other distinct term.” (iv. 3. 23).
Self, “As breathing he is named breath, as speaking speech, as seeing eye, as hearing ear, as understanding mind, all these are but names for his operations.” (i. 4. 7).
Self, “When then he sees not, yet is he seeing, although he sees not; since for the seer there is no interruption of seeing because he is imperishable; but there is no second beside him, no other distinct from him, for him to see.” (iv. 3. 23.).
“The soul, which is not this or that, nor aught else, is intangible, for it cannot be laid hold of.” (iii. 7. 3; iv. 4. 22.).
The soul has three conditions which are all included in a fourth. They are waking, dreaming, sleeping, and what is called turīya. The first condition is that of wakefulness, where the self is conscious of the common world of external objects. It enjoys the gross things. Here the dependence on the body is predominant. The second condition is that of dreaming, where the self enjoys subtle things. (iv. 3. 9. 14).
The third is the condition of sound sleep, where we have neither dreams nor desires. It is called suṣupti. The soul is said to become temporarily one with Brahman and enjoy bliss. In deep sleep, we are lifted above all desires and freed from the vexations of the spirit. The oppositions are, so to say, lost in this pure-objectless-knowing subject condition. (ii, 1).
“The fourth is not that which is conscious of the subjective, nor that which is conscious of the objective, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is simple consciousness, nor that which is an all-sentient mass, nor that which is all darkness. It is unseen, transcendent, inapprehensible, uninferrable, unthinkable, indescribable, the sole essence of the consciousness of self, the completion of the world, the ever peaceful, all blissful, the one unit, this indeed is the Ātman.” (i. 7).
In the Taittirīya Upaniṣad.1 In chapter iii, the son approaches the father with the request to teach him the nature of reality from which all things flow and to which all return. The son is sure that life belongs to a different order from matter, though prāṇa is the essence of the body. (i. 3. 90). (Prāṇa means breath. See R.V., i. 66. I; iii. 53. 21; x. 59. 6.)

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