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Upanishads · Dattātreya 1.8
॥
Devanāgarī
षोडशाक्षरं व्याख्यास्ये
Transliteration (IAST)
ṣoḍaśākṣaraṃ vyākhyāsye
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
षोडश-अक्षरं व्याख्यास्येṣoḍaśa-akṣaraṃ vyākhyāsyeI shall explain the sixteen-syllable [mantra]
Translation
«I shall explain the sixteen-syllable [mantra]».
Version
a203a2c4ac95 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
A one-line passage, and it is worth saying why it stands apart. It is an announcement, and what follows is not the mantra but a condition: before setting out the sixteen-syllable mantra, the book states its cost. This construction is, to my mind, deliberate: the longer the mantra, the stricter the condition; and this was the practice.
Let us add what deserves knowing about the number sixteen in this literature. Sixteen is the number of fullness: the moon has that many phases, and the full moon is called ṣoḍaśa-kalā, “sixteen-phased.” Hence the Highest is often described through this number; and the Praśna (6.1–5) sets out a whole teaching of the ṣoḍaśa-kalā-puruṣa, “the person of sixteen parts,” where the sixteenth part is the one that does not wane.
The Vaiṣṇava side points to this and derives its own word for fullness from it: pūrṇa, “full,” and the Lord, for it, is called pūrṇatama, “most full,” as distinct from pūrṇatara, “more full,” and pūrṇa, “full.” These three degrees, in its teaching, denote three measures of manifestation; and that even within fullness itself degrees are distinguished was discussed reading the Gopāla-tāpanī. That is, the sixteen-syllable mantra is not named so by count alone: the number itself is an indication that it is complete.