Upanishads · Gopāla-tāpanī Uttara 38
॥
Devanāgarī
स होवाच तं ह नारायणो देवः
Transliteration (IAST)
sa hovāca taṁ ha nārāyaṇo devaḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
सः ह उवाचsaḥ ha uvācaand He said; then He spoke
तम् हtam hato him; to him precisely
नारायणः देवःnārāyaṇaḥ devaḥthe God Nārāyaṇa; the Deity Nārāyaṇa
Translation
And the God Nārāyaṇa said to him.
Version
325066e9da60 · published Jul 28, 2026, 2:30:24 PM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
A connective marking that Nārāyaṇa now speaks. With it begins the long answer that will occupy the rest of the book.
Here something must be said about the gap. Mantras 35, 36 and 37 are absent from the edition by which we give the text: the editors expressly note that they were not in the manuscript before them. We keep the gap — as we keep the lacunae in the Govinda-bhāṣya — because it is more honest to show a break than to close it with a plausible insertion.
From the content of the neighbouring mantras it is plain that the lost verses concerned the beginning of the answer: that the highest descent is Gopāla and that His manifestation takes place in Mathurā. It is precisely with the description of Mathurā and its forests that the text resumes.
Note that the account is built as a transmission down a chain: Nārāyaṇa told Brahmā, Brahmā the sages, Durvāsā the cowherd women, and now we read it all. In the Upaniṣads such a chain is no ornament: knowledge is held trustworthy precisely because it is known from whom it came.