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Upanishads · Jābāli 16
॥
Devanāgarī
स सर्वान्देवान्ध्यातो भवति । स सर्वेषु तीर्थेषु स्नातो भवति । स सकलरुद्रमन्त्रजापी भवति । न स पुनरावर्तते न स पुनरावर्तते ॥ इति । ओं सत्यमित्युपनिषत्
Transliteration (IAST)
sa sarvāndevāndhyāto bhavati | sa sarveṣu tīrtheṣu snāto bhavati | sa sakalarudramantrajāpī bhavati | na sa punarāvartate na sa punarāvartate || iti | oṃ satyamityupaniṣat
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
सः सर्वान् देवान् ध्यातः भवतिsaḥ sarvān devān dhyātaḥ bhavatihe becomes one who has contemplated all the gods
सः सर्वेषु तीर्थेषु स्नातः भवतिsaḥ sarveṣu tīrtheṣu snātaḥ bhavatihe becomes one bathed in all the tīrthas
सः सकल-रुद्र-मन्त्र-जापी भवतिsaḥ sakala-rudra-mantra-jāpī bhavatihe becomes one who has recited all the mantras of Rudra
न सः पुनः आवर्ततेna saḥ punaḥ āvartatehe does not return again
न सः पुनः आवर्ततेna saḥ punaḥ āvartatehe does not return again
ओं सत्यम् इति उपनिषत्oṃ satyam iti upaniṣat“om, truth” — such is the upaniṣad
Translation
“He becomes one who has contemplated all the gods; he becomes one bathed in all the holy waters; he becomes one who has recited all the mantras of Rudra. He does not return again, he does not return again. ‘Om, truth.’ Such is the upaniṣad.”
Version
fe6725e34433 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The book ends, and it ends with a doubling: na sa punar āvartate na sa punar āvartate, “he does not return again, he does not return again.” Doubling at the close of an upaniṣad is a mark of conclusion: this is how the full stop is set, as discussed reading the earliest books in this collection. Note the phrase itself, for it is Vedic and weighty.
Na punar āvartate stands in the Chāndogya (4.15.6, 8.15.1) in the description of the path of the gods; and the same phrase stands in the Gītā: yam prāpya na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṃ mama, “having reached which, they do not return — that is My highest abode” (15.6). Let us compare the two passages, for the difference between them is exactly the one we discussed reading the tenth passage. Here it is stated only negatively: does not return.
In the Gītā the same negation stands beside the words dhāma mama, “My abode”: first a place is named, and then it is said that from there one does not return. That is, there non-return is a property of the place, not the goal itself; and the difference between “I shall not return” and “I shall arrive and remain” is, to my mind, the whole difference between two moods. Let us look back over the book as a whole. It is small — sixteen passages — and falls into two parts.
The first, the better one, is a conversation: the pupil asks three times, digging down to the source, and the chain ends not in a book but in worship (2); and he asks “how exactly?” of the comparison, unsatisfied with a mere word (6). The second is a rite: ash, three lines, and nine rows of correspondences for each of them. The best thing in it, to my mind, is that the three lines are a, u, and m: one who wears them wears upon his forehead the word, uttered.
And the main thing to remember about it is the word paśu: the very same name means, for some, a work-animal under a rope, and, for others, cows running at the sound of a flute.