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Upanishads · Muktikā 2.21
॥
Devanāgarī
संत्यक्तवासनान्मौनादृते नास्त्युत्तमं पदम्
Transliteration (IAST)
saṃtyaktavāsanānmaunādṛte nāstyuttamaṃ padam
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
संत्यक्त-वासनात् मौनात्saṃtyakta-vāsanāt maunātapart from silence that has abandoned habit
ऋते न अस्ति उत्तमं पदम्ṛte na asti uttamaṃ padamthere is no higher place
Translation
«Apart from silence that has abandoned habit, there is no higher place».
Version
b2d536d34d6c · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The verse is short — it holds one half-line — and is, I think, the most compressed statement of where this whole chapter leads: maunāt ṛte nāsty uttamaṃ padam, «apart from silence there is no higher place». Worth noting that the silence here is called santyakta-vāsanā, «that has abandoned habit»; that is, the matter is not about not speaking, but about there being no rut. Add what the Vaishnava side says of silence as an ultimate, examined at Varāha (3.6); let it be repeated briefly.
There are two silences. The first — silence instead of speech: nothing was said, because there was nothing to say. The second — silence after speech: everything was said, and one fell silent because there is nothing further to utter.
The first is emptiness; the second is fullness. And add what was said there too: the silence one arrives at is a fruit; the silence that is prescribed is a technique; and this technique is dangerous, for the silent one has nothing by which to verify himself. Add what this very book itself gives against such a reading.
It begins with a scene where Rāma is praised day and night by the Kumāras, Vasiṣṭha, and Śuka (1.2); that is, the very ones set up in other books as models of silence are here singing. And it will end — as we shall see — with a verse where those who see are called vipra, vipanyavaḥ, jāgṛvāṃsaḥ, «trembling, praising, and wakeful». That is, at the beginning and at the end of the book stands sound, and «silence» stands in the middle, in a chapter taken from another's work.