Brahadaranyaka Upanishad - Part 6

The final part of the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad (बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्) completes the great teaching with three strands: the supremacy of the vital breath (prana), the sacrificial and cosmic process of rebirth taught by King Pravahana, and a series of domestic rites for wealth, conception and the birth of blessed children. It ends with the famous Peace Chant, Om Purnamadah Purnamidam.

Chapter I - The Supremacy of the Prana

He who knows what is oldest and greatest becomes the oldest and greatest among his kinsmen - "the vital breath (prana) is indeed the oldest and greatest." Likewise:

The Dispute of the Organs

These organs, disputing about which was superior, went to Prajapati and asked: "Which one among us is the most excellent?" He replied: "That one among you is the most excellent by whose departure this body is considered to suffer most."

One by one, each organ went out for a whole year:

• The organ of speech departed; the others said they lived "just as dumb people live, without speaking through the tongue."
• The eye departed; they lived "just as blind people live."
• The ear departed; they lived "just as deaf people live."
• The mind departed; they lived "just as idiots live."
• The organ of generation departed; they lived "just as impotent people live."

In every case, the others continued to live "through the vital breath." Then, when the vital breath was about to depart, "it uprooted the organs from their places just as a great, noble horse of the Sindhu country tears up the pegs to which his feet are tied." They begged it to stay, and offered it the attributes they each possessed.

Asked for its food and dress, the organs replied: "Whatever food there is - including that of dogs, worms, insects and moths - will be your food and water will be your dress." He who knows the food of the vital breath to be such never eats or accepts anything that is not food. "Wise men who are versed in the Vedas therefore take a sip of water just before and after eating; they think that thereby they remove the nakedness of the vital breath."

Chapter II - The Process of Rebirth

Svetaketu and the King's Five Questions

Svetaketu, the grandson of Aruna, came to the assembly of the Panchalas, where King Pravahana, the son of Jivala, asked him five questions he could not answer:

1. "Do you know how people, after departing from this life, proceed on different paths?"
2. "Do you know how they return to this world?"
3. "Do you know why the other world is never filled up even though so many people go there again and again?"
4. "Do you know after how many offerings of oblations the water (the liquid oblation) becomes endowed with a human voice, rises up and speaks?"
5. "Do you know the means of access to the path leading to the gods or to that leading to the Manes?"

Svetaketu returned to his father Gautama and confessed he knew not one. The father took the boy and approached the king as a religious student. The king, honoring the ancient custom, taught him the secret knowledge that had never before rested with a brahmin.

The Five Fires of Rebirth

"He lives as long as he is to live. Then, when he dies," they carry him to be offered in the fire: "The fire becomes his fire, the fuel his fuel, the smoke his smoke, the flame his flame... In this fire the gods offer the man as libation. Out of this offering the man emerges in radiant splendour."

The Two Paths

• The path to the gods (Devayana): Those householders who know this teaching, and those who in the forest meditate with faith upon the Satya Brahman (Hiranyagarbha), pass from flame to the deity of the day, to the waxing fortnight, to the six months of the northward journey of the sun, to the world of the gods, to the sun, to lightning - until "a being created from the mind of Hiranyagarbha" leads them to the worlds of Brahman, where they become exalted, live for many years and "no more return to this world."
• The path of the Manes (Pitryana): Those who conquer the worlds through sacrifices, charity and austerity reach the deity of smoke, the night, the waning fortnight, the six months of the sun's southward journey, the world of the Manes and the moon, where they become food for the gods. "When their past work is exhausted" they return through akasa, air, rain and earth, are offered again in the fire of man and the fire of woman, and are reborn. "Thus do they rotate."
• "Those, however, who do not know these two ways become insects and moths and those creatures which often bite (i.e. mosquitoes and gnats)."

Chapter III - Rites for the Attainment of Wealth

Whoever wishes to attain greatness should, on an auspicious day of the waxing fortnight, under a constellation bearing a masculine name, during the northward journey of the sun, undertake for twelve days a vow connected with the Upasads: gathering herbs and grains in a fig-wood cup, sweeping and plastering the ground, laying the fire, spreading kusa grass, preparing the mantha paste and offering oblations with a long series of mantras - "Svaha to the oldest, svaha to the greatest!" and to the vital breath, the organ of speech, the eye, the ear, the mind, the organ of generation, fire, the moon, the earth, the sky, heaven, the brahmin, the kshatriya, the past, the future, the universe, all, and Prajapati.

Then he touches the paste, raises it, and eats it, reciting the Gayatri with the verses of sweetness:

• 'Tat saviturvarenyam' ("That adorable light") - "The winds blow sweetly (madhu), the rivers pour forth sweetness; may the herbs be sweet unto us!" 'Svaha to the earth (Bhuh).'
• 'Bhargo devasya dhimahi' ("Of the radiant sun we meditate upon") - "May the nights and days be sweet, may the dust of the earth be sweet, may heaven, our father, be sweet!" 'Svaha to the sky (Bhuvah).'
• 'Dhiyo yo nah prachodayit' ("May He stimulate our intellect") - "May the soma creeper be sweet unto us, may the sun be sweet, may the quarters be filled with sweetness for us!" 'Svaha to heaven (Svah).'

In the morning he salutes the sun, returns, and repeats the line of teachers. The rite was passed from Uddalaka, the son of Aruna, to his pupil Vajasaneya Yajnavalkya, and onward - each teacher saying: "Should one pour it (the paste) even on a dry stump, branches would grow and leaves spring forth." One must not teach this to anyone but a son or a pupil.

Four articles are made of fig wood: the sacrificial ladle, the bowl, the fuel and the two mixing-rods. The ten cultivated grains are: rice, barley, sesamum, beans, millet (anu), panic seeds (priyangu), wheat, lentils, pulse and vetch - crushed, soaked in curds, honey and clarified butter, and offered as an oblation.

Chapter IV - Conception and Birth as Religious Rites

The Sanctity of Union

"The earth is verily the essence of all these beings, water is the essence of the earth, herbs of water, flowers of herbs, fruits of flowers, man of fruits and semen is the essence of man." Prajapati created woman as a firm basis for the seed: "Her lap is the sacrificial altar, her hair the sacrificial grass, her skin within the organ the lighted fire; the two labia of the vulva are the two stones of the soma-press." He who knows this and practices intercourse "wins as great a world as is won through the Vajapeya sacrifice"; he who does not know it turns over his own good deeds to the woman.

Rites and Mantras for Conception

The chapter prescribes mantras for a wide range of circumstances:

• Reclaiming spilt semen: "Whatever semen of mine has spilt on earth, whatever has flowed to plants, whatever to water, I reclaim it... Let the semen return to me, let Vigour come to me again, let glow and good fortune come to me again."
• Seeing oneself in water: "May the gods bestow on me vigour, manhood, fame, wealth and merit."
• Winning the wife's consent: "With power and glory I give you glory" - and both become glorious.
• Desiring a son: "O semen, you have been produced from my every limb, especially from my heart through the essence of food... Bring this woman under my control, like a deer pierced by a poisoned arrow."
• Desiring no conception: "With power, with semen, I reclaim the semen from you."
• Desiring conception: "With power, with semen, I deposit semen in you."
• The prayer for a son: "Let Vishnu make the womb capable of bearing a son! Let Tvashtra shape the various limbs of the child! Let Prajapati pour in the semen! Let Dhatra support the embryo! O Sinivali, make her conceive... May the two Atvins, garlanded with lotuses, support the embryo!"

The Desired Children

The Birth Rites

• After the offering, the father embraces the mother: "I am the vital breath and you are speech. You are speech and I am the vital breath. I am Saman and you are Rig; I am heaven and you are earth. Come, let us strive together so that we may have a male child."
• At delivery he sprinkles her with water: "As the wind agitates a pond on every side, even so let your foetus stir and come out along with the chorion... O Indra, follow that path and come out with the foetus and the covering."
• When the son is born, he lights a fire, takes the child on his lap and offers oblations: "May I increase as the son in my own home and support a thousand people!... The vital breath that is in me, I mentally offer to you. Svaha!"
• Putting his mouth to the child's right ear, he says thrice: "Speech! Speech!" He feeds the child with a golden stick: "I put the earth (Bhuh) into you; I put the sky (Bhuvah) into you; I put heaven (Svah) into you."
• He gives the child a secret name: "You are the Veda (knowledge)."
• Presenting the child to the mother, he prays to Sarasvati to transfer her breast: "O Sarasvati, that breast of thine which is fruitful, the sustainer of all, full of milk... transfer that breast here to my wife, for my child to suck."
• He addresses the mother: "You are the adorable Arundhati, the wife of Vasishtha... Be the mother of many male children, for you have given us a son."

Chapter V - The Line of Teachers

The Upanishad closes with the unbroken line of transmission, from the sons of Pautimashi and Katyayani, through Gautami, Bharadvaji, Parasari and countless others, until "Yajnavalkya from Uddalaka... Harita Kasyapa from Silpa Kasyapa... Ambhini from the sun." These white Yajuses are "explained by Yajnavalkya, belonging to the Vajasaneyi school." A second line ends: "Tura, the son of Kavashi, from Prajapati (Hiranyagarbha). Prajapati received this knowledge from his relationship to Brahman (the Vedas). Brahman is self-existent. Salutation to Brahman."

End of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - The Peace Chant

Om. That is full; this is full. This fullness has been projected from that fullness. When this fullness merges in that fullness, all that remains is fullness.

Om. Peace! Peace! Peace!

This is the famous Shanti Mantra (शान्ति मन्त्र) - Purnamadah Purnamidam - with which the entire Upanishad concludes, affirming the indivisible fullness of Brahman.

Practical / Modern Context

• Prana as the root of health: The dispute of the organs teaches that every capacity - speech, sight, hearing, mind - depends on the vital breath. In daily life, this is a reminder to protect breath, energy and life-force through yoga, pranayama and rest, since all other powers draw on it.
• Mindful eating: The sipping of water before and after meals, explained as "removing the nakedness of the vital breath," is a beautiful basis for gratitude and attention at mealtimes - the ancestor of conscious eating.
• The two paths as lifestyle choice: Devayana (the path of knowledge and meditative faith) and Pitryana (the path of works, charity and austerity) mirror the modern tension between inner realization and outer action. The Upanishad honors both, while reminding that without understanding, one "rotates" mechanically.
• The rites as reverence for life: Chapter IV treats conception, pregnancy and birth as sacred ritual rather than mere biology - an attitude increasingly echoed in mindful, family-centered approaches to parenting.

Common Misconceptions

1. "The Upanishads reject rituals and family life." Part 6 is devoted to elaborate rites for wealth, conception and blessed children, honoring the householder's life even as it points beyond it. Both works and knowledge are affirmed.
2. "Rebirth is a mechanical recycling." The five fires describe a universe of interdependence - sun, rain, earth, man and woman - in which consciousness, food and karma circulate; the teaching is moral and cosmological, not merely physical.
3. "Only renunciates can attain liberation." The text explicitly includes "those even among householders who know this" alongside forest-dwellers meditating on the Satya Brahman among those who reach the worlds of Brahman.
4. "The rites in Chapter IV are superstition." They encode genuine psychosomatic insight - intention, visualization, mantra and nourishment working together - into a reverent framework for the most intimate of human acts.

Conclusion

Part 6 brings the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad to a serene and complete close. The supremacy of the vital breath, the five fires of rebirth, the rites of wealth and the ceremonies of conception and birth together show a tradition that honors every dimension of life - body, breath, family and cosmos - while always pointing to the fullness of Brahman. The Peace Chant, Om Purnamadah Purnamidam, leaves the seeker with the final assurance: from the Full, the Full proceeds, and the Full alone remains.

Related Prabhukedwar Guides

• Complete Guide to Chanting Gayatri Mantra
• Kashi Vishwanath Temple & Sacred Banaras
• Meaning of Om Namah Shivaya Mantra

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