Aitareya Upanishad

The Aitareya Upanishad is a short prose text from the Aitareya Aranyaka in the Rig Veda. It explains the symbolic meaning of the rituals described in the previous chapters of the Aranyaka, and contains particularly famous aphorisms (maha vakya) like prajnanam brahma - "Brahman is perfect knowledge". Aitareya Upanishad discusses the philosophy of the individual and the self, the theory of reincarnation, and the relationship between individual consciousness and the universal consciousness.

Aitareya 1.3.11

He thought, "How indeed can it be there without Me?" He thought, "Through which of the two ways should I enter?" He thought, "If utterance is done by the organ of speech, smelling by the sense of smell, seeing by the eye, hearing by the ear, feeling by the sense of touch, thinking by the mind, the act of drawing in (or pressing down) by Apana, ejecting by the procreative organ, then who (or what) am I?"





  • sa —

  • īkṣata —

  • kathaṃ —

  • nvidaṃ —

  • madṛte —

  • syāditi —

  • sa —

  • īkṣata —

  • katareṇa —

  • prapadyā —

  • iti —

  • sa —

  • īkṣata —

  • yadi —

  • vācā'bhivyāhṛtaṃ —

  • yadi —

  • prāṇenābhiprāṇitaṃ —

  • yadi —

  • cakṣuṣā —

  • dṛṣṭaṃ —

  • yadi —

  • śrotreṇa —

  • śrutaṃ —

  • yadi —

  • tvacā —

  • spṛṣṭaṃ —

  • yadi —

  • manasā —

  • dhyātaṃ —

  • yadyapānenābhyapānitaṃ —

  • yadi —

  • śiśnena —

  • visṛṣṭamatha —

  • ko'hamiti —

Aitareya Upanishad