Minor Upanishads - Tripura Upanishad and Turiyatita -Avadhuta Upanishad

Saturday, January 28, 2012



















Minor Upanishad

Tripura Upanishad

Translated by Dr. A. G. Krishna Warrier
Published by The Theosophical Publishing House, Chennai


.    Om ! Speech is rooted in my thought (mind) and my thought is rooted in my speech. Be manifest, patent, to me; be ye two, for me, the lynch-pins of the Veda. Let not Vedic lore desert me. With this mastered lore, I join day with night. I shall speak what is right; I shall speak what is true. Let that protect me; let that protect the speaker. Let that protect me. Let that protect the speaker, protect the speaker !
   Om ! Peace ! Peace ! Peace !
   1. Three cities are there, and pathways three for all.
   (On the dais of Fortune) are letters a, ka, tha and others.
   In them there dwells, never-ageing, ancient,
   The exceeding grandeur of the gods.
   2. Subject to Her whose sources are nine
   Shine forth the centres nine and Yogas nine,
   Nine deities and regents of the planets nine,
   Gentle healing deities nine and gestures nine.
   3. The One she was, the Foremost;
   She was the nine, the nineteen and the twenty-nine;
   The forty, she; may the radiant energies three,
   As fond mother’s love, encircle me.
   4. In the beginning was upblazing Light;
   Gloom and Motion stretched athwart the Ageless;
   The Moonlight gladness and delights; these spheres
   Adorn indeed (the knowers of Brahman).
   5. Of the three lines, abodes, three worlds and three spheres
   With triple constituents (She is the prop).
   This group of three among the sheaths is prime.
   In diagram drawn with mystic words
   The God of Love with Fortune’s Goddess dwells.
   6. The Exhilarating and the Proud,
   The Auspicious, the Lucky and the Lovely,
   The Perfected, the shy, the Witty One,
   The Gratified, the chosen and the Full,
   The Wealthy, the Forbidden, the Graceful,
   The Eloquent – (These on Consciousness do wait).
   7. Attended thus the Power of Consciousness
   Is drunk with the draught of Immortality;
   Knowing Her and worshipping Her throne
   (Her devotees) on heaven’s great vault do dwell
   And enter the supreme Triple City.
   8. Desire, the womb, the Digit of Desire,
   The Wielder of the Thunderbolt, the Cave,
   Ha sa, the Wind, the Cloud, the King of Heaven,
   Yet again the Cave, sa ka la and maya –
   Such is the primeval Wisdom, embracing all,
   Mother of the vast universe.
   9. Uttering in secret Her three basic letters –
   The sixth, the seventh and the eighth –
   Lauding the Lord, the theme of the Upanishads,
   The Seer, the Fashioner, the Free to Will,
   (Seekers) achieve the state of Immortality.
   10. The Mother of the Universe sustains
   Her abode – the Destroyer’s Face, the Circle of the Sun,
   The core of sounds, the span of time,
   The Eternal, half the lunar month;
   With sixteen (She sustains the core of their abode).
   11. Or, worshipping the digit of desire in its manifold forms,
   Enthroned in the three cavernous homes and in symbols
   Of the rounded breasts and face set in the spheres,
   The man of desires gains that which he wants.
   12. Dressed fish, goat’s flesh,
   Cooked rice, pleasure of sex,
   Who offers to the Goddess great,
   Merit and success for himself achieves.
   13. With (Sarasvati) fair and (Lakshmi), World’s Mother,
   (Gauri), roseate, primeval Power, withdrawer of the world,
   Binds with noose creatures who grasp, and tread
   Attachment’s path; and swiftly smites with bow and arrows five.
   14-15. The Power of Consciousness and desire’s Lord,
   Lord of auspicious powers, coequals both,
   Of equal prowess, in energy equal,
   Grant gifts to the fortunate here.
   Of the two, the un-ageing Power, the world’s womb,
   With offering of knowledge pleased,
   Removes the aspirant’s twofold sheath.
   With mind averted from illusion’s sphere
   He becomes Creator, Protector,
   Withdrawer of the world;
   Nay, one with Cosmic Being.    16. This is Tripura’s great Upanishad,
   Imperishable, which, in glorious words
   The Rig, Yajus, Saman and Atharvan
   And other forms of knowledge laud.
Om, Hrim, Om, Hrim – thus ends the secret doctrine.
Om ! Speech is rooted in my thought (mind) and my thought is rooted in my speech. Be manifest, patent, to me; be ye two, for me, the lynch-pins of the Veda. Let not Vedic lore desert me. With this mastered lore, I join day with night. I shall speak what is right; I shall speak what is true. Let that protect me; let that protect the speaker. Let that protect me. Let that protect the speaker, protect the speaker ! Om ! Peace ! Peace ! Peace !

Here ends the Tripura Upanishad, included in the Rig-Veda.


(My humble salutations to Sreeman A  G Krishna Warrier for the collection)






Minor Upanishad

Turiyatita-Avadhuta Upanishad


Translated by Prof. A. A. Ramanathan
Published by The Theosophical Publishing House, Chennai



   Om ! That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite. The infinite proceeds from the infinite. (Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe), It remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone.
   Om ! Let there be Peace in me ! Let there be Peace in my environment ! Let there be Peace in the forces that act on me !
   1. Now the grandfather of all people (the god Brahma) respectfully approaching his father, Adinarayana (Lord Vishnu) said, ‘What is the path of the Avadhutas after the Turiyatita stage, and what is their standing ?’ To him replied the Lord Narayana: Wise sages consider that one who remains in the path of the Avadhuta is very rare in the world and (such sages) are not many; if one becomes (an Avadhuta) he is ever pure, he is indeed the embodiment of dispassion; he is indeed the visible form of wisdom and he is indeed the personification of the Veda (Vedapurusha). He is a (truly) great man, as his mind abides in me alone. Indeed I too abide in him. In due order, having been first a hut-dwelling ascetic (Kutichaka), he reaches the stage of a mendicant monk (Bahudaka); the mendicant monk attains to the stage of a Hamsa ascetic; the Hamsa ascetic (then) becomes the highest kind of ascetic (Paramahamsa). (In this stage) by introspection he realizes the entire world (as non-different from his Self); renouncing all personal possessions in (a reservoir of) waters, (such things as) his emblematic staff, water pot, waist band, loincloth that covers (his privities) and all ritualistic duties enjoined on him (in a previous stage); becoming unclad (lit. clothed by the points of the compass); abandoning even the acceptance of a discoloured, worn out bark garment or (deer) skin; behaving thereafter (after the stage of the Paramahamsa) as one subject to no mantras (i.e. performing no rituals) and gives up shaving, oil bath, the perpendicular mark of sandal paste on the forehead, etc.
   2. He is one terminating all religious and secular duties; free of religious merit or otherwise in all situations; giving up both knowledge and ignorance; conquering (the influence of) cold and heat, happiness and misery, honour and dishonour; having burnt up in advance, with the latent influence (vasana) of the body, etc., censure, praise, pride, rivalry, ostentation, haughtiness, desire, hatred, love, anger, covetousness, delusion, (gloating) joy, intolerance, envy, clinging to life, etc.; viewing his body as a corpse, as it were; becoming equanimous effortlessly and unrestrainedly in gain or loss; sustaining his life (with food placed in the mouth) like a cow; (satisfied) with (food) as it comes without ardently longing for it; reducing to ashes the host of learning and scholarship; guarding his conduct (without vaunting his noble way of life); disowning the superiority or inferiority (of any one); (firmly) established in non-duality (of the Self) which is the highest (principle) of all and which comprises all within itself; cherishing the conviction, ‘There is nought else distinct from me’; absorbing in the Self the fuel (of concept) other than the secret known only by the gods; untouched by sorrow; unresponsive to (worldly) happiness; free of desire for affection; unattached everywhere to the auspicious or the inauspicious; with (the functioning of) all senses at standstill; unmindful of the superiority of his conduct, learning and moral merit (dharma) acquired in the previous stages of his life; giving up the conduct befitting caste and stage of life (Vanaprastha); dreamless, as night and day are the same to him; ever on the move everywhere; remaining with the body alone left to him; his water-pot being the watering-place (only); ever sensible (but) wandering alone as though he were a child, madman or ghost; always observing silence and deeply meditating on his Self, he has for his support the propless (Brahman); forgetting everything (else) in consonance with the absorption in his Self; this Turiyatita sage reaching the state of the Avadhuta ascetic and completely absorbed in non-duality (of the Atman) (finally) gives up his body as he has become one with Om (the Pranava): such an ascetic is an Avadhuta; he has accomplished his life’s purpose. Thus (ends) the Upanishad.
   Om ! That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite. The infinite proceeds from the infinite. (Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe), It remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone.
   Om ! Let there be Peace in me ! Let there be Peace in my environment ! Let there be Peace in the forces that act on me !

Here ends the Turiyatitavadhutopanishad belonging to the Sukla-Yajur-Veda. 


(My humble salutations to Sreeman A A Ramanadhan for the collection)


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