भगवः इति ह प्रतिशुश्राव ब्रह्मविदः इव सोम्य मुखम् भाति कः नु त्वा अनुशशास इति कः नु मा अनुशिश्यात् भोः इति इह अपेव निह्नुते इमे नूनम् ईदृशाः अन्यादृशाः इति इह अग्नीन् अभ्यूदे किम् नु सोम्य किल ते अवोचन् इति
bhagavaḥ iti ha pratiśuśrāva brahmavidaḥ iva somya mukham bhāti kaḥ nu tvā anuśaśāsa iti kaḥ nu mā anuśiśyāt bhoḥ iti iha apeva nihnute ime nūnam īdṛśāḥ anyādṛśāḥ iti iha agnīn abhyūde kim nu somya kila te avocan iti
"Sir!" he answered. "My dear, your face shines like that of one who knows Brahman. Who has instructed you?" He as it were evaded: "Who could have instructed me, sir?" — and he glanced aside at the fires: "There they are, such now, though they were otherwise." — "What, then, my dear, did they say to you?"
4dd055cebc29 · published Jul 26, 2026, 11:22:39 PM UTC
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The scene repeats Gautama's recognition of Satyakāma (4.9.2) almost word for word: "your face shines like that of one who knows Brahman". Knowledge again betrays itself by light; brahma-varcasa cannot be hidden. But how finely the two pupils' answers differ! Satyakāma said plainly: "others than men instructed me." Upakosala "as it were evades" (apeva nihnute): "who could have instructed me?" — and only with a glance indicates the fires: "there they are, such now, though they were otherwise" — the flames that have given up their secret look at the initiate in a new way, like fellow-conspirators.
His evasiveness is not a lie but a pupil's delicacy: he does not presume to declare himself taught apart from his guru, and leaves it to the teacher to bring out what has happened. Humility here becomes a form of honesty. And the teacher, understanding everything, asks not "is it true?" but "what exactly did they say to you?" — a master checks not the fact of a revelation but its content: in a paramparā every gift is collated with the chain.