याज्ञवल्क्येति ह उवाच यद् इदं सर्वम् मृत्युनाप्तम् सर्वम् मृत्युनाभिपन्नम् केन यजमानः मृत्योः आप्तिम् अतिमुच्यते इति होत्रर्त्विजाग्निना वाचा वाक् वै यज्ञस्य होता तद् या इयं वाक् सः अयम् अग्निः सः होता सा मुक्तिः सा अतिमुक्तिः
yājñavalkyeti ha uvāca yad idaṃ sarvam mṛtyunāptam sarvam mṛtyunābhipannam kena yajamānaḥ mṛtyoḥ āptim atimucyate iti hotrartvijāgninā vācā vāk vai yajñasya hotā tad yā iyaṃ vāk saḥ ayam agniḥ saḥ hotā sā muktiḥ sā atimuktiḥ
"Yājñavalkya," he said, "if all this is grasped by death, all overtaken by death, by what does the sacrificer free himself from the grasp of death?" — "By the hotṛ priest, by fire, by speech: speech is the hotṛ of the sacrifice. This speech is this fire; it is the hotṛ, it is liberation, it is complete liberation."
0a515f7aebf7 · published Jul 27, 2026, 12:58:45 AM UTC
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The first questioner is Aśvala, the court hotṛ, and he asks about his own province: the sacrifice is performed in a world where "all is grasped by death" — so how can a mortal rite break out of death? The question strikes at the foundation of his profession: does not the ship of sacrifice itself sink in the very sea from which it is supposed to save?
Yājñavalkya's answer opens a series of "liberations" (atimukti): what saves is not the rite as such but the recognition, in its members, of their cosmic correspondences. The hotṛ of the sacrifice is speech; speech is fire; and fire, as we remember (1.3.12), is speech already carried beyond death. A priest who knows this recites not with a mortal throat but with the mouth of the immortal fire: the rite becomes a crossing when its human instruments are recognised as immortal. It is not the sacrifice that saves from death — what saves is knowing by what the sacrifice is really performed.