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Upanishads · Dattātreya 1.12
॥
Devanāgarī
सौरित्यन्ते श्रीवैष्णव इत्युच्यते । तज्जापी विष्णुरूपी भवति
Transliteration (IAST)
saurityante śrīvaiṣṇava ityucyate | tajjāpī viṣṇurūpī bhavati
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
सौः इति अन्तेsauḥ iti ante"sauḥ" at the end
श्री-वैष्णवः इति उच्यतेśrī-vaiṣṇavaḥ iti ucyateis called a Śrī-Vaiṣṇava
तत्-जापी विष्णु-रूपी भवतिtat-jāpī viṣṇu-rūpī bhavatione who repeats it becomes having the form of Viṣṇu
Translation
«[One who places] "sauḥ" at the end is called a Śrī-Vaiṣṇava; one who repeats it becomes having the form of Viṣṇu».
Version
50cb0b77b3be · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
Here is a short passage, and a very notable one, for it names the name of a school: śrī-vaiṣṇava. This word is the self-designation of the followers of Rāmānuja, and its appearance in an upaniṣad deserves note. It shows that this book is late, composed in a milieu where the schools had already formed and were called by name; and the Vaiṣṇava side does not conceal this, for mantra-śāstra is a living literature, not an ancient one.
Note, too, what is said of the fruit: taj-jāpī viṣṇu-rūpī bhavati, “one who repeats it becomes having the form of Viṣṇu.” The word rūpin, “having a form,” we examined reading the Hayagrīva (1.1), where it denoted possession, not identity. Here it is applied to a person and means what the Vaiṣṇava side calls sārūpya, “likeness of form.”
This deserves saying, for it is one of five kinds of liberation, and the list is as follows. Sālokya — dwelling in the same world as Him; sāmīpya — closeness; sārūpya — likeness of form; sārṣṭi — equal opulence; sāyujya — merging. The first four it accepts, the fifth it rejects, as was discussed reading the Kṛṣṇa Upaniṣad.
Its argument is brief: one who merges ceases to serve, and service is the very thing for whose sake everything was done; and the Bhāgavatam says that its devotees do not take even an offered merging. Here precisely the third is promised: form, not merging; and this, to my mind, is a precise indication of which category this book belongs to.