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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 1, Brahmana 4. In the beginning, the Self: I am Brahman

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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.

॥ 1.4.5 ॥

I myself am the creation

सोऽवेदहं वाव सृष्टिरस्म्यहं हीदं सर्वमसृक्षीति । ततः सृष्टिरभवत् । सृष्ट्यां हास्यैतस्यां भवति य एवं वेद
In transliteration
so'vedahaṃ vāva sṛṣṭirasmyahaṃ hīdaṃ sarvamasṛkṣīti | tataḥ sṛṣṭirabhavat | sṛṣṭyāṃ hāsyaitasyāṃ bhavati ya evaṃ veda

In English

He knew: "I indeed am the creation, for I have produced all this." Thence arose creation. He who knows this comes to be in this creation of his.

In plain words

He realized, "I myself am the creation (srsti), for it was I who poured all this forth," and so creation came to be. Whoever knows this shares in that creative power and stands within this very creation of his.

In the commentaries

Sri SankaraAdvaita

Sankara reads this as the creator's own recognition that the creation is not other than himself, and as the promise that one who knows the creator's identity with what is created attains that same creatorhood.

Sri Sankara, Brhadaranyaka-bhasya 1.4.5 (via Madhavananda)