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

॥ 6.4.24 ॥

The fire kindled for the newborn

जातेऽग्निमुपसमाधायाङ्क आधाय कंसे पृषदाज्यं संनीय पृषदाज्यस्योपघातं जुहोति अस्मिन्सहस्रं पुष्यासमेधमानः स्वे गृहे । अस्योपसन्द्यां मा छैत्सीत्प्रजया च पशुभिश्च स्वाहा । मयि प्राणांस्त्वयि मनसा जुहोमि स्वाहा । यत्कर्मणात्यरीरिचं यद्वा न्यूनमिहाकरम् । अग्निष्टत्स्विष्टकृद्विद्वान् स्विष्टं सुहुतं करोतु नः स्वाहेति ॥

In transliteration

jāte'gnimupasamādhāyāṅka ādhāya kaṃse pṛṣadājyaṃ saṃnīya pṛṣadājyasyopaghātaṃ juhoti asminsahasraṃ puṣyāsamedhamānaḥ sve gṛhe | asyopasandyāṃ mā chaitsītprajayā ca paśubhiśca svāhā | mayi prāṇāṃstvayi manasā juhomi svāhā | yatkarmaṇātyarīricaṃ yadvā nyūnamihākaram | agniṣṭatsviṣṭakṛdvidvān sviṣṭaṃ suhutaṃ karotu naḥ svāheti ||

In English

When the child is born, he kindles a fire, takes the child on his lap, mixes curds and clarified butter in a cup, and offers from that mixture of curds and butter, saying: may I, increasing in this child, support a thousand in my own house; may fortune never depart from his line, with offspring and with cattle, svaha. The vital breaths that are in me I offer in mind to you, svaha. Whatever in this rite I have done in excess, or whatever I have left short, may Agni, the knower, the maker of right oblation, make it rightly offered and well offered for us, svaha.

In plain words

When the child is born, the father lights a fire, sets the child on his lap, mixes curd and ghee in a cup, and offers it, reciting: may I thrive through this child and support a thousand in my house; may his line never be cut off, but rich in offspring and cattle; the life-breaths in me I offer to him in thought; and whatever I have done too much or too little in this rite, may Agni the knower set right and make a true offering for us.

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