StudyVedanta
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Yajnavalkya Kanda. Adhyaya 4, Brahmana 3. The self-luminous Self: waking, dream, and the light of man

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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.

॥ 4.3.38 ॥

The breaths gather at the end

तद्यथा राजानं प्रयियासन्तमुग्राः प्रत्येनसः सूतग्रामण्योऽभिसमायन्ति । एवमेवेममात्मानमन्तकाले सर्वे प्राणा अभिसमायन्ति । यत्रैतदूर्ध्वोच्छ्वासी भवति ॥
In transliteration
tadyathā rājānaṃ prayiyāsantamugrāḥ pratyenasaḥ sūtagrāmaṇyo'bhisamāyanti | evamevemamātmānamantakāle sarve prāṇā abhisamāyanti | yatraitadūrdhvocchvāsī bhavati ||

In English

Just as, when a king is about to set out, the police officers, the magistrates, the charioteers, and the village heads gather around him, so do all the vital forces gather around this self at the time of the end, when one comes to breathe upward, gasping.

In plain words

As when a king is about to depart and his officers, magistrates, charioteers, and village heads assemble around him to see him off, so at the hour of death all the vital forces (pranas) gather around this self, when the breath turns upward and a person gasps. They draw together to leave the body along with the self.