अभ्रम् भूत्वा मेघः भवति मेघः भूत्वा प्रवर्षति ते इह व्रीहियवाः ओषधिवनस्पतयः तिलमाषाः इति जायन्ते अतः वै खलु दुर्निष्प्रपतरम् यः यः हि अन्नम् अत्ति यः रेतः सिञ्चति तत् भूयः एव भवति
abhram bhūtvā meghaḥ bhavati meghaḥ bhūtvā pravarṣati te iha vrīhiyavāḥ oṣadhivanaspatayaḥ tilamāṣāḥ iti jāyante ataḥ vai khalu durniṣprapataram yaḥ yaḥ hi annam atti yaḥ retaḥ siñcati tat bhūyaḥ eva bhavati
having become mist, they become a cloud; having become a cloud, they pour down as rain. Here they are born as rice and barley, as herbs and trees, as sesame and beans. To get out from here is hardest of all: only when someone eats them as food and pours them forth as seed do they go further on their way.
76361f41b9ba · published Jul 26, 2026, 11:29:09 PM UTC
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The bottom of the returning arc: down as rain into the earth, to be born "as rice and barley, as herbs and trees". A soul that lodged on the moon stands as an ear of grain in a field. And here the Upaniṣad sets down the most terrible phrase of the section: ato vai khalu durniṣprapataram — "to get out from here is hardest of all". A plant does not choose: it may be mown, burned, eaten by cattle — and only if the grain is eaten by a man capable of begetting will the moisture of the former soul move on toward a new conception. Not torment, but dumbness and chance — that is the horror of the circle's lowest point.
It is for the sake of this horror that the whole vidyā is told: so that the hearer, while he is still one who speaks and chooses, may recoil from a road on which there will be no choosing. The mercy of this fear is that it turns one to the path of light, where the soul is led from hand to hand and not sent back. To return as a human being is rare good fortune; to spend that fortune amassing lunar merits is to stake it over and over again.