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.

Reveal this passage

॥ 6.4.21 ॥

The hymn for setting the embryo

अथास्या ऊरू विहापयति विजिहीथां द्यावापृथिवी इति । तस्यामर्थं निष्ठाय मुखेन मुखं संधाय त्रिरेनामनुलोमामनुमार्ष्टि विष्णुर्योनिं कल्पयतु त्वष्टा रूपाणि पिंशतु । आ सिञ्चतु प्रजापतिर्धाता गर्भं दधातु ते । गर्भं धेहि सिनीवालि गर्भं धेहि पृथुष्टुके । गर्भं ते अश्विनौ देवावाधत्तां पुष्करस्रजौ ॥

In transliteration

athāsyā ūrū vihāpayati vijihīthāṃ dyāvāpṛthivī iti | tasyāmarthaṃ niṣṭhāya mukhena mukhaṃ saṃdhāya trirenāmanulomāmanumārṣṭi viṣṇuryoniṃ kalpayatu tvaṣṭā rūpāṇi piṃśatu | ā siñcatu prajāpatirdhātā garbhaṃ dadhātu te | garbhaṃ dhehi sinīvāli garbhaṃ dhehi pṛthuṣṭuke | garbhaṃ te aśvinau devāvādhattāṃ puṣkarasrajau ||

In English

Then he parts her thighs, saying: open wide, heaven and earth. Having joined with her and set mouth to mouth, he strokes her three times along the way of the hair, saying: may Visnu make ready the womb; may Tvastr shape the forms; may Prajapati sprinkle; may Dhatr lay the embryo within you. Lay the embryo, Sinivali; lay the embryo, broad-tressed one. May the two Asvin gods, garlanded with lotuses, lay the embryo within you.

In plain words

He parts her thighs with the words open wide, heaven and earth, joins with her, sets mouth to mouth, and strokes her three times downward, reciting: may Visnu ready the womb, Tvastr fashion the forms, Prajapati pour, and Dhatr set the embryo in you; place the embryo, Sinivali, place it, broad-tressed one; may the lotus-garlanded Asvins set the embryo in you.

All mantras