Prashna Upanishad

01Pippalada's Upanishad

The Prashna belongs to the Atharvaveda and is linked with the Pippalada shakha, named after the same rishi who teaches in it. That shakha, the Paippalada, is still recited by a few Brahmin families in Odisha. Adi Shankaracharya opens his bhashya by calling the Prashna a Brahmana that explains at length what the Mundaka, its companion in the same Veda, says in mantras. Like the Mundaka and the Mandukya, it begins with the Atharvavedic shanti mantra bhadram karnebhih shrinuyama devah: may we hear what is good with our ears, O devas, may we see what is good with our eyes, and live out our given span in praise.

02Six questions, asked in reverse

The Upanishad has six prashnas, questions, and each carries one seeker's name. The first mantra lists them beginning with Sukesha Bharadvaja and ending with Kabandhi Katyayana; the questions are then asked in the opposite order, so Kabandhi speaks first and Sukesha last. The questions climb. They start with where creatures come from, move through the breath that holds the body, the five pranas, sleep and dream, and the meditation on Om, and end at the purusha in whom everything rests. Most of the text is prose, with a few verses closing each answer.

03A year before the first question

Sukesha Bharadvaja, Shaibya Satyakama, Sauryayani Gargya, Kausalya Ashvalayana, Bhargava Vaidarbhi and Kabandhi Katyayana were already learned men, devoted to Brahman. Still Pippalada did not answer at once. Live here a year, he said, and then ask what you will; if I know, I will tell you all. The Upanishad keeps that order of discipline before instruction, and teachers have quoted it ever since to students in a hurry.

04Prana, sleep and Om

Kabandhi asks where creatures come from, and hears of Prajapati, who made the pair rayi and prana, matter and life. Bhargava asks which powers hold up the body; prana proves itself chief when it rises to leave and all the senses must rise with it. Kausalya asks how prana enters and divides into five. Gargya asks who sleeps and who stays awake in dreamless sleep. Satyakama asks what world is won by meditating on Om until death, and hears of its three measures.

05When prana rises to leave

Bhargava's question is about the powers that hold up the body. Space, air, fire, water, earth, speech, mind, eye and ear each claim the honour. Prana, the chief breath, tells them not to be deluded, and to prove it begins to rise out of the body. At once all of them must rise too, and when it settles they settle, as bees rise and settle with their king. Humbled, they praise prana as Agni, Surya, Parjanya, Indra and Vayu. Kausalya then learns that prana is born of the Atman as a shadow falls from a person, and that it spreads through a hundred and one channels of the heart, each branching a hundred times and each of those into seventy-two thousand.

06Rays returning to the sun

Gargya asks what sleeps in a man and what stays awake. Pippalada answers with the setting sun. As its rays gather back into its orb at evening and go out again at dawn, so in sleep the senses gather into the mind, and the man is said to sleep. The pranas alone stay awake in the city of the body, burning like the fires of a yajna. In dream the mind sees again what it has seen and heard, and what it has not. When it is overcome by light, it sees no dream, and joy fills the body. Then everything comes to rest in the Self as birds come home to the tree where they roost.

07One measure, two, three

Satyakama asks what world is won by one who meditates on Om until the end of life. Om, says Pippalada, is both the higher and the lower Brahman. One who meditates on it with one measure is led back quickly to the earth by the Rig mantras, and lives a life of tapas, brahmacharya and faith. One who meditates on its two measures is raised by the Yajus mantras to the world of the moon, and after enjoying it returns. One who meditates on the supreme purusha through all three measures is united with the light of the sun and, freed of sin as a snake slips its skin, is carried by the Sama chants to Brahmaloka, where he sees the purusha higher than the highest.

08The purusha of sixteen kalas

Sukesha's question closes the book. A prince of Kosala had asked him about the purusha of sixteen parts, and he had not known, and would not lie, for one who speaks untruth withers to the root. Pippalada answers that this purusha is within the body. From him came prana, faith, the elements, mind, food, strength, tapas, mantra, action and name. As rivers lose name and form in the sea, so these parts dissolve in him. The six bow to Pippalada as the one who carried them across ignorance.

09The commentators

Shankara's bhashya made the Prashna one of the ten Upanishads studied in every Advaita matha; Anandagiri wrote a gloss on it. For Shankara the sixteen kalas are names and forms superimposed on the one Self, and they vanish in it like rivers in the sea. Madhvacharya wrote a Prashna bhashya that reads the purusha of sixteen parts as Shri Hari, the lord in whom the parts rest and who stays distinct from them. Rangaramanuja Muni explained it for the Vishishtadvaita school. Badarayana's Brahma Sutra 1.3.13 discusses the purusha seen through Om in the fifth prashna and holds that it is the Supreme Brahman.

10Samidh in hand

The six seekers arrive samidh-panayah, with fuel sticks in their hands, the old sign of a student who asks to be taught and offers service to the teacher's fire. That phrase is still used for approaching a guru. Its shanti mantra, bhadram karnebhih, is among the most widely chanted Vedic prayers, said before Atharvaveda study, at the start of functions and in school assemblies. The Prashna's account of prana and its five currents, prana, apana, vyana, samana and udana, is the vocabulary that pranayama teachers and Ayurvedic vaidyas use to this day.

What it contains

1. 1
   Prashna 1: Kabandhi Katyayana

   Pippalada first sends the six away to live a year with him in tapas, brahmacharya and faith. Kabandhi then asks whence creatures are born. Prajapati, desiring offspring, made the pair rayi and prana, matter and life, seen in the moon and the sun, and the Upanishad describes the two paths after death, the northern path of the sun and the southern path of the ancestors.

2. 2
   Prashna 2: Bhargava Vaidarbhi

   Which devas uphold the body, and which is chief? The senses and elements each claim the place until prana rises to leave and they are all forced to rise with it. They then praise prana, on which everything rests as spokes rest in the hub of a wheel.

3. 3
   Prashna 3: Kausalya Ashvalayana

   Where is prana born, how does it enter the body and how does it divide itself? It is born of the Atman like a shadow from a man and divides into prana, apana, vyana, samana and udana, each with its own seat. Udana leads the soul out at death, to a good world, an evil one, or back to the human world.

4. 4
   Prashna 4: Sauryayani Gargya

   What sleeps and what stays awake in a man? The senses gather into the mind as rays into the setting sun, while the pranas keep watch like sacred fires. In dreamless sleep the mind is overcome by light, and all things rest in the imperishable Self as birds in their tree.

5. 5
   Prashna 5: Shaibya Satyakama

   What world does one win by meditating on Om until death? Om is the higher and the lower Brahman. Meditation on one, two or three measures leads to the human world, the world of the moon, or Brahmaloka, where the seeker beholds the supreme purusha.

6. 6
   Prashna 6: Sukesha Bharadvaja

   Prince Hiranyanabha of Kosala had asked Sukesha about the purusha of sixteen kalas, and Sukesha would not invent an answer. Pippalada teaches that this purusha is within the body, that the sixteen parts arise from him and dissolve in him as rivers lose their names in the sea. The six seekers honour Pippalada as the father who carried them across ignorance.

Famous verses

भूय एव तपसा ब्रह्मचर्येण श्रद्धया संवत्सरं संवत्स्यथ यथाकामं प्रश्नान् पृच्छत यदि विज्ञास्यामः सर्वं ह वो वक्ष्याम इति॥

Live here one more year with tapas, brahmacharya and faith. Then ask whatever questions you wish, and if we know, we shall tell you all.Prashna Upanishad 1.2

अरा इव रथनाभौ प्राणे सर्वं प्रतिष्ठितम्। ऋचो यजूँषि सामानि यज्ञः क्षत्रं ब्रह्म च॥

As spokes in the hub of a wheel, all is set in prana: the Rig, Yajus and Sama mantras, the yajna, the Kshatriya and the Brahmin.Prashna Upanishad 2.6

एतद्वै सत्यकाम परं चापरं च ब्रह्म यदोङ्कारः। तस्माद्विद्वानेतेनैवायतनेनैकतरमन्वेति॥

Satyakama, this Om is both the higher and the lower Brahman. So the knower, by this support alone, reaches the one or the other.Prashna Upanishad 5.2

स यथेमा नद्यः स्यन्दमानाः समुद्रायणाः समुद्रं प्राप्यास्तं गच्छन्ति भिद्येते तासां नामरूपे समुद्र इत्येवं प्रोच्यते।

As these flowing rivers, bound for the sea, reach the sea and disappear, their names and forms broken, and are spoken of only as the sea.Prashna Upanishad 6.5