Talk:Māndukya Upaniṣad

By Swami Harshananda

Māndukya Upaniṣad

This is the smallest of the ten Upaniṣads and belongs to the Atharva-veda. It has only twelve verses, all in prose. But, it has been considered as basic to the principles of Vedānta, especially the Advaita Vedānta. An analysis of the three states of consciousness viz., jāgrat (wakefulness), svapna (dream) and suṣupti

(deep-sleep) and relating them to the three syllables a, u and m of Praṇava or Oṅkāra and establishing the turīya (literally ‘the fourth’) as the highest reality is the speciality of its teaching.

A brief account of the twelve verses may now be given here:

Verse 1: All this (the manifested world) is the syllable Om. Whatever exists in time—the past, the present and the future—as also whatever is beyond it, that too is Om.

Verse 2: All this is verily Brahman. This ātman (the individual soul) is Brahman. He has four aspects.

Verse 3: Vaiśvānara, the ātman

associated with the waking state, is the first aspect. He cognises external objects. He has seven limbs like the sun, the air and the earth. He has nineteen mouths such as the sense-organs and the motor-organs. He experiences gross material objects.

Verse 4: Taijasa, the second aspect is the ātman associated with the dream state and cognises internal objects. He too has seven limbs and nineteen mouths and experiences the subtle objects.

Verse 5: The prājṅa is the third aspect. He is the same ātman associated with the deep-sleep state, where there are neither dreams nor desires. He is a solid mass of cognition, full of bliss and enjoys bliss.

Verse 6: He is the lord of all, the knower of all and the inner controller. He is also the origin of this world.

Verse 7: The turīya is the fourth aspect of the ātman as it were. He is different from the other three. He is indescribable since he is beyond the ken

of all the senses. He is one without a second. He is the Ātman (Universal Self) who should be known or realised.

Verse 8: From the standpoint of the whole letter, the ātman is Om. The three syllables of Om are a, u, and m.

Verse 9: Vaiśvānara is the first syllable a. One who knows him thus will be able to attain all desires.

Verse 10: Taijasa is the second

syllable u. One who knows him thus increases his knowledge. In his family only knowers of Brahman (= Ātman) are born.

Verse 11: Prājña is the third syllable, m. He who knows this, knows all and gets merged in all.

Verse 12: The Turīya—the ‘fourth’ as it were—is beyond all the three syllables. He it is into whom the world dissolves. He is one, beyond all dualities, and the very personification of auspiciousness. One who realises him, attains his own real self.

One of the four Mahāvākyas or ‘great sentences’, accepted by the Advaita Vedāntic tradition, viz., ayam ātmā brahma, occurs in the second verse.

Proving the existence of the ātman as the pure conscious spirit, different from the body-mind complex, though existing in it or even identified with it, and, equating it with Brahman, the Absolute, the cause of and the spirit behind the universe is the main purpose of this Upaniṣad. The unique method used for this is the analysis of the three states of consciousness.

There is a long expository treatise on this Upaniṣad called Kārikā or Māndukya-kārikā by Gauḍapāda (7th Century A. D.),

teacher’s teacher of Śaṅkara (A. D. 788-820).

References

• The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore