Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 1.djvu/216

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
102
KHÂNDOGYA-UPANISHAD.

Tenth Khanda[1].

1. 'These rivers, my son, run, the eastern (like the Gangâ) toward the east, the western (like the Sindhu) toward the west. They go from sea to sea (i.e. the clouds lift up the water from the sea to the sky, and send it back as rain to the sea). They become indeed sea. And as those rivers, when they are in the sea, do not know, I am this or that river,

2. 'In the same manner, my son, all these creatures, when they have come back from the True, know not that they have come back from the True. Whatever these creatures are here, whether a lion, or a wolf, or a boar, or a worm, or a midge, or a gnat, or a musquito, that they become again and again.

3. 'That which is that subtile essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it.'

'Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son.

'Be it so, my child,' the father replied.


Eleventh Khanda[2].

1. "If some one were to strike at the root of this large tree here, it would bleed, but live. If he were to strike at its stem, it would bleed, but live. If he were to strike at its top, it would bleed, but live.


  1. The next question which the son is supposed to have asked is: If a man who has slept in his own house, rises and goes to another village, he knows that he has come from his own house. Why then do people not know that they have come from the Sat?
  2. The next question is: Waves, foam, and bubbles arise from the water, and when they merge again in the water, they are gone. How is it that living beings, when in sleep or death they are merged again in the Sat, are not destroyed?