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Upanishads · Muktikā 2.76
॥
Devanāgarī
जीवन्मुक्तपदं त्यक्त्वा स्वदेहे कालसात्कृते । विशत्यदेहमुक्तत्वं पवनोऽस्पन्दतामिव
Transliteration (IAST)
jīvanmuktapadaṃ tyaktvā svadehe kālasātkṛte | viśatyadehamuktatvaṃ pavano'spandatāmiva
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
जीवत्-मुक्त-पदं त्यक्त्वाjīvat-mukta-padaṃ tyaktvāhaving abandoned the state of one liberated while alive
स्व-देहे काल-सात्-कृतेsva-dehe kāla-sāt-kṛtewhen one's own body is given over to time
विशति अ-देह-मुक्तत्वंviśati a-deha-muktatvaṃenters bodiless liberation
पवनः अ-स्पन्दताम् इवpavanaḥ a-spandatām ivalike the wind into stillness
Translation
«Having abandoned the state of one liberated while alive, when one's own body is given over to time, he enters bodiless liberation — like the wind entering stillness».
Version
f12bc15ec1db · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The last verse of the second chapter, and in it a comparison: pavano'spandatām iva, «as the wind [enters] stillness». Worth examining it, for it is the last comparison of the whole collection and hence worth attention. Wind that has stopped blowing is not destroyed: the air remains, and it is the same air; only the movement has ceased.
That is, the comparison speaks not of vanishing, but of the cessation of movement while the substance is preserved. And this, I think, is the gentlest of all the definitions of bodiless liberation we have read: not a wisp of smoke over what is spent (Saubhāgyalakṣmī 3.8), not the dissolving of salt, not emptiness — but a wind grown still. The Vaishnava side does not dispute the comparison and has one remark to make on it, and it is its constant one.
It says: wind that has stopped blowing may blow again; and what has stilled is not what has vanished. And it adds its own: for it, movement does not cease, but changes direction; and it was spoken of at Varāha (5.38) that its word for the limit is līlā, «play», not laya, «dissolution». Add that the book does not end with this verse.
After it stands one more line — that very verse with which Varāha too ended — and of it we shall speak in the last unit.