Maitri (Maitrayaniya) Upanishad

01The king in the forest

Brihadratha's question is sharp. In this foul-smelling, unsubstantial body, a heap of bone, skin, sinew, marrow and blood, afflicted by desire, anger, greed, fear, grief and old age, what good is the enjoyment of desires? He sees the gnats and mosquitoes, the grass and the trees, born only to perish, the great oceans dry up, the mountains fall, the pole star waver. Shakayanya, glowing like a smokeless fire, answers with what he learned from the sage Maitri, who had it from the Valakhilya rishis through Prajapati.

02Choose another boon, Aikshvaka

Brihadratha was a king of the Ikshvaku line. When Shakayanya first found him standing with arms raised, gazing at the sun, he told him to rise and choose a boon. The king bowed: I do not know the Self; you know the truth; tell us. This was hard to answer even long ago, said the sage. Do not ask it. Choose other pleasures, son of Ikshvaku. Brihadratha touched his feet and would not take anything else. Only then did Shakayanya begin. The scene is the Katha Upanishad's test of Nachiketa told again in a king's life: the teacher first offers the world, and the pupil earns the teaching by refusing it.

03The chariot and the elemental self

The Valakhilya rishis asked Prajapati: this body is like a cart without awareness; who drives it? Prajapati answered that the pure, peaceful Self enters the body as prana, divided fivefold, and moves it as a charioteer moves a chariot. Then the teaching turns to the bhutatman, the elemental self. Overcome by the fruits of good and bad deeds, it goes to a good or an evil birth, wanders up and down, and forgets the Lord within. Like a drop of water on a lotus leaf, the true Self is untouched by all this. Bondage lies in the sense of I and mine; one who drops it becomes free.

04You are Brahma, you are Vishnu

The fifth prapathaka is a single hymn, the stuti of Kutsayana. You are Brahma, you are Vishnu, you are Rudra, you are Prajapati; you are Agni, Varuna, Vayu, Indra and the moon. Then the Upanishad explains the gunas through the Trimurti. In the beginning this was tamas alone; moved by the Supreme it became rajas, and rajas became sattva. The part of tamas is Rudra, the part of rajas is Brahma, the part of sattva is Vishnu. For the Smarta household that worships all five deities, this is Shruti's own word that Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh are forms of the one Brahman.

05The sixfold yoga

The sixth prapathaka (6.18) names a yoga of six limbs: pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana, tarka and samadhi. It speaks of the sushumna channel rising upward, and of the body as the bow, Om as the arrow and the mind as its point, piercing the darkness to reach Brahman shining like a wheel of fire. It names the two forms of Brahman, the sounding and the soundless. It also teaches that the mind alone is the cause of bondage and of liberation: attached to objects it binds, free of them it frees. The Maitri sets out the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas, in close detail.

06Food, fire and the inner yajna

Much of the sixth prapathaka reads the outer rites inwardly. The sun is the outer Self and prana the inner; the one who knows both meditates on them as one. Food is the source of all beings, and eating is an offering into the fire within. The Gayatri is explained word by word: the radiance of Savitar to be meditated on is the one who dwells in the intellect. Even so, the Upanishad does not let the householder drop his duties. Meditation on Brahman is not for one who neither keeps the sacred fire nor knows, it says; therefore the fire is to be worshipped, built, praised and meditated upon.

07Kept by one shakha

The Maitri belongs to the Maitrayani Samhita of the Krishna Yajurveda, a shakha kept by a small number of families in Gujarat and around Nashik. In the Muktika list of 108 Upanishads, the Maitrayani is counted with the Samaveda, and the text printed with that list is arranged a little differently. It is apaurusheya Shruti. It is counted among the principal Upanishads by many modern editors, though Shankara did not write a bhashya on it. Ramatirtha's commentary, the Dipika, is the traditional one. Its prose is plain and urgent, and its description of the world's impermanence is among the most vivid in Shruti.

08Quoted by yogis and sannyasis

One line from the Maitri has travelled further than the book itself: mana eva manushyanam karanam bandhamokshayoh, the mind alone is the cause of bondage and liberation for human beings. The Amritabindu Upanishad gives it as its second verse, and teachers of every school quote it in satsang. Another verse says that when the mind, washed clean by samadhi, rests in the Self, its joy cannot be told in words; it is known only within. The sixfold yoga, with tarka in place of the yamas and niyamas, is repeated in later Yoga Upanishads. Vedanta teachers turn to the Maitri when they explain how meditation, ritual and renunciation fit together in one life.

What it contains

1. 1
   Prapathaka 1

   King Brihadratha of the Ikshvaku line leaves his kingdom and stands in tapas until Shakayanya comes. He refuses every other boon and asks for the Self. His lament over the body and the passing of all things is the great opening of the Upanishad.

2. 2
   Prapathaka 2

   Shakayanya teaches that the serene Self rises from the body and reaches the highest light in its own form. He tells how the Valakhilya rishis asked Prajapati who moves the body, and how the Self enters it as the five pranas and drives it like a chariot.

3. 3
   Prapathaka 3

   The bhutatman, the self bound to the elements and the gunas, is overcome by the fruits of karma and wanders through births. The true Self remains untouched, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf.

4. 4
   Prapathaka 4

   The Valakhilyas ask how the bhutatman can be freed. The answer joins knowledge, tapas and meditation: by tapas sattva is won, by sattva the mind, and by the mind the Self. Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra are named as the highest forms of the one Brahman, to be meditated on and worshipped, and through them the seeker rises to the One.

5. 5
   Prapathaka 5

   The hymn of Kutsayana: you are Brahma, you are Vishnu, you are Rudra. Tamas, rajas and sattva are traced back to the one, and their parts are named as Rudra, Brahma and Vishnu.

6. 6
   Prapathaka 6

   The longest prapathaka: Om, the sun and prana, food as Brahman, time and that which is beyond time, the Gayatri explained, and the sixfold yoga. It teaches the sushumna, the bow of the body and the arrow of Om, and ends with the mind as the cause of bondage and liberation.

7. 7
   Prapathaka 7

   Supplementary teachings on the Self in all directions and in the sun. It warns against false teachers and false doctrines that mislead seekers, and closes with turiya, the fourth state, greater than waking, dream and deep sleep.

Famous verses

भगवन्नस्थिचर्मस्नायुमज्जामांसशुक्रशोणितश्लेष्माश्रुदूषिते विण्मूत्रवातपित्तकफसङ्घाते दुर्गन्धे निःसारेऽस्मिञ्छरीरे किं कामोपभोगैः॥

Bhagavan, in this foul-smelling, pithless body, a mass of bone, skin, sinew, marrow, flesh, seed, blood, mucus and tears, of excrement, urine, wind, bile and phlegm, what is the use of enjoying desires?Maitri Upanishad 1.2

त्वं ब्रह्मा त्वं च वै विष्णुस्त्वं रुद्रस्त्वं प्रजापतिः। त्वमग्निर्वरुणो वायुस्त्वमिन्द्रस्त्वं निशाकरः॥

You are Brahma, and you are Vishnu; you are Rudra, you are Prajapati. You are Agni, Varuna and Vayu; you are Indra, you are the moon.Maitri Upanishad 5.1 (Kutsayana's stuti)

प्राणायामः प्रत्याहारो ध्यानं धारणा तर्कः समाधिः षडङ्गा इत्युच्यते योगः

Pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana, tarka and samadhi: this is called the yoga of six limbs.Maitri Upanishad 6.18

मन एव मनुष्याणां कारणं बन्धमोक्षयोः। बन्धाय विषयासक्तं मुक्त्यै निर्विषयं स्मृतम्॥

The mind alone is the cause of bondage and liberation for human beings. Attached to objects it leads to bondage; free of objects it leads to freedom.Maitri Upanishad 6.34