THIRD ADHYÂYA.

The Upanishads, Part 1 (SBE01), by Max Müller, [1879], at sacred-texts.com

FIRST KHANDA.

1. Let him begin this day ² with singing 'Him,' thus they say.

2. Verily, the sound Him is Brahman, that day also is Brahman. He who knows this, obtains Brahman even by Brahman.

3. As he begins with the sound Him, surely that masculine sound of Him and the feminine Rik (the verse) make a couple. Thus he makes a couple at the beginning of the hymn in order to get offspring ³. He who knows this, gets cattle and offspring.

4. Or, as he begins with the sound Him, surely like a wooden spade, so the sound Him serves to dig up Brahman (the sap of the Veda). And as a man wishes to dig up any, even the hardest soil, with a spade, thus he digs up Brahman.

5. He who knows this digs up, by means of the sound Him, everything he may desire.

6. If he begins with the sound Him, that sound is the holding apart of divine and human speech.

p. 177

Therefore, he who begins, after having uttered the sound Him, holds apart divine and human speech ¹.

Footnotes

176:2 The Nishkevalya-sastra, of the noon-libation; Cf. I, 2, 2, 1.

176:3 Cf. I, 2, 4, 10.

177:1 Human speech is the ordinary speech, divine speech that of the Veda. Thus between the hymns, or the divine speech, and the ordinary language of conversation the sound Him is interposed as a barrier.