Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Khila Kanda. Adhyaya 6, Brahmana 4. Conception, birth, and the rites of begetting

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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.

Before you read

This is a frank and difficult passage, the rites surrounding union, conception, and the begetting of a child, set down in full with the candor of an ancient ritual that reads the act of generation as a sacrifice and surrounds it with prayers and blessings for the wished-for child. One of its lines, the seventh mantra, gives an instruction about a husband overcoming a wife's refusal, and it must be named for what it is: an instruction of coercion, of sexual violence against a woman. We condemn it without reserve. Nothing in Vedanta, in its own age or in ours, makes such an act anything but wrong, and we do not stand by this instruction in any degree. Scholars read these lines in more than one way, as the praise-language of an old rite rather than a literal command, as bearing the marks of a world long gone, and no living teacher treats them as a standing instruction. We keep the words on the record because a library that quietly erases its own hard pages tells a lie about the past, not because they hold one grain of authority we accept. What is shown here is shown to be seen and reckoned with, never to be obeyed.

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॥ 6.4.19 ॥

The dawn offering before union

अथाभिप्रातरेव स्थालीपाकावृताज्यं चेष्टित्वा स्थालीपाकस्योपघातं जुहोत्यग्नये स्वाहानुमतये स्वाहा देवाय सवित्रे सत्यप्रसवाय स्वाहेति । हुत्वोद्धृत्य प्राश्नाति । प्राश्येतरस्याः प्रयच्छति । प्रक्षाल्य पाणी उदपात्रं पूरयित्वा तेनैनां त्रिरभ्युक्षति उत्तिष्ठातो विश्वावसोऽन्यामिच्छ प्रपूर्व्याम् । सं जायां पत्या सहेति ॥

In transliteration

athābhiprātareva sthālīpākāvṛtājyaṃ ceṣṭitvā sthālīpākasyopaghātaṃ juhotyagnaye svāhānumataye svāhā devāya savitre satyaprasavāya svāheti | hutvoddhṛtya prāśnāti | prāśyetarasyāḥ prayacchati | prakṣālya pāṇī udapātraṃ pūrayitvā tenaināṃ trirabhyukṣati uttiṣṭhāto viśvāvaso'nyāmiccha prapūrvyām | saṃ jāyāṃ patyā saheti ||

In English

Then, toward early morning, having prepared clarified butter in the manner of the sthalipaka offering, he offers from the sthalipaka, saying: to Agni svaha; to Anumati svaha; to the god Savitr of true impulsion svaha. Having offered, he takes up the food and eats it; having eaten, he gives to the other, his wife. Then, washing his hands and filling a vessel with water, he sprinkles her three times with it, saying: rise up from here, Visvavasu; seek another, a maiden in her father's house. Join the wife with her husband.

In plain words

Toward dawn he prepares ghee in the sthalipaka way and offers it with calls to Agni, to Anumati, and to Savitr, the god of true impulse. He eats the offered food, then gives the rest to his wife. Washing his hands, he fills a water pot and sprinkles her three times, telling the spirit Visvavasu to rise and go seek another, an unwed girl in her father's house, and to leave the wife joined to her husband.

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