Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 1, Brahmana 3. The contest of the vital breath

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Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.

Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.

Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.

॥ 1.3.5 ॥

Hearing is struck with evil

अथ ह श्रोत्रमूचुस्त्वं न उद्गायेति । तथेति तेभ्यः श्रोत्रमुदगायत् । यः श्रोत्रे भोगस्तं देवेभ्य आगायत् । यत्कल्याणं शृणोति तदात्मने । तेऽविदुरनेन वै न उद्गात्रात्येष्यन्तीति । तमभिद्रुत्य पाप्मनाविध्यन् । स यः स पाप्मा यदेवेदमप्रतिरूपं शृणोति । स एव स पाप्मा ॥

In transliteration

atha ha śrotramūcustvaṃ na udgāyeti | tatheti tebhyaḥ śrotramudagāyat | yaḥ śrotre bhogastaṃ devebhya āgāyat | yatkalyāṇaṃ śṛṇoti tadātmane | te'viduranena vai na udgātrātyeṣyantīti | tamabhidrutya pāpmanāvidhyan | sa yaḥ sa pāpmā yadevedamapratirūpaṃ śṛṇoti | sa eva sa pāpmā ||

In English

Then they said to the ear: Chant the Udgitha for us. So be it, said the ear, and chanted for them. The enjoyment that is in the ear it secured for the gods by chanting; whatever fine thing it heard, that it kept for itself. The demons knew: through this chanter they mean to surpass us. They rushed at it and struck it with evil. That evil is just this: the hearing of what is unfitting. That, then, is that evil.

In plain words

Then the gods asked the ear (shrotra) to chant. It agreed and chanted, winning the good of hearing for the gods, but keeping the pleasant things it heard for itself. The demons pierced it with evil as well. Its evil is this: the hearing of what is improper. That flaw entered the ear.

In the commentaries

Sri SankaraAdvaita

Sankara: the ear too succumbs, stained by the readiness to hear what is improper; the capacity to receive the unfitting is precisely the demons' wound, and it spares no organ bound to its sense-object.

Sri Sankara, Brhadaranyaka-bhasya 1.3.5 (via Madhavananda)

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