Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Yajnavalkya Kanda. Adhyaya 4, Brahmana 2. The Self within the two eyes

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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.

॥ 4.2.3 ॥

Viraj in the left eye

अथैतद्वामेऽक्षणि पुरुषरूपमेषास्य पत्नी विराट् । तयोरेष संस्तावो य एषोऽन्तर्हृदय आकाशः । अथैनयोरेतदन्नं य एषोऽन्तर्हृदये लोहितपिण्डः । अथैनयोरेतत्प्रावरणं यदेतदन्तर्हृदये जालकमिव । अथैनयोरेषा सृतिः संचरणी यैषा हृदयादूर्ध्वा नाड्युच्चरति । यथा केशः सहस्रधा भिन्न एवमस्यैता हिता नाम नाड्योऽन्तर्हृदये प्रतिष्ठिता भवन्ति । एताभिर्वा एतदास्रवदास्रवति । तस्मादेष प्रविविक्ताहारतर इव भवत्यस्माच्छारीरादात्मनः

In transliteration

athaitadvāme'kṣaṇi puruṣarūpameṣāsya patnī virāṭ | tayoreṣa saṃstāvo ya eṣo'ntarhṛdaya ākāśaḥ | athainayoretadannaṃ ya eṣo'ntarhṛdaye lohitapiṇḍaḥ | athainayoretatprāvaraṇaṃ yadetadantarhṛdaye jālakamiva | athainayoreṣā sṛtiḥ saṃcaraṇī yaiṣā hṛdayādūrdhvā nāḍyuccarati | yathā keśaḥ sahasradhā bhinna evamasyaitā hitā nāma nāḍyo'ntarhṛdaye pratiṣṭhitā bhavanti | etābhirvā etadāsravadāsravati | tasmādeṣa praviviktāhāratara iva bhavatyasmācchārīrādātmanaḥ

In English

Now the person in the form that is in the left eye is his wife, Viraj. The place where the two meet is this space within the heart. Their food is this lump of blood within the heart. Their covering is this net-like web within the heart. Their road for moving about is the channel that rises upward from the heart; as a hair is split a thousandfold, so are these channels, called hita, set within the heart. Through these the flow streams on and on. Therefore this inner self takes, as it were, finer food than the bodily self.

In plain words

Facing the person in the right eye (Indha) is the form in the left eye, his wife, Viraj, who stands for matter. The two come together in the space within the heart (antar-hrdaya akasa); the lump of blood there is their food; the net-like membrane there is their wrap or covering; and their pathway is the nadi that rises upward from the heart. These channels, called hita, are as fine as a hair split into a thousand strands and are fixed within the heart, and through them the bodily essence keeps flowing. Because of this refined nourishment, the inner (subtle) self feeds on something finer than the gross bodily self does.

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