Upanishads · Rāma-tāpanī Pūrva 4.59
॥
Devanāgarī
क्षुधा क्रोधिन्यमोघा च विश्वमप्यथ मेधया । युक्ता दीर्घज्वालिनी च सुसूक्ष्मा मृत्युरूपिणी
Transliteration (IAST)
kṣudhā krodhinyamoghā ca viśvamapyatha medhayā | yuktā dīrghajvālinī ca susūkṣmā mṛtyurūpiṇī
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
क्षुधा क्रोधिनी अमोघा चkṣudhā krodhinī amoghā cahunger, the wrathful one and the unfailing one; kṣudhā, krodhinī and amoghā
विश्वम् अपि अथ मेधयाviśvam api atha medhayāand “all” — then with wisdom; and viśva — with medhā
युक्ता दीर्घज्वालिनी चyuktā dīrghajvālinī cajoined, and the long blazing one; furnished, and the protracted jvālinī
सुसूक्ष्मा मृत्युरूपिणीsusūkṣmā mṛtyurūpiṇīthe most subtle, having the form of death; exceedingly fine, death-shaped
Translation
Hunger, the wrathful one, the unfailing one, and “all” — joined with wisdom; and the long blazing one, the most subtle, having the form of death…
Version
bcef1aad6a4a · published Jul 29, 2026, 5:15:19 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The code goes on, and its words grow grim: hunger, wrath, flame, death.
This should not disturb. The names of letters in such charts are taken from various rows — from names of goddesses, from elements, from states; the row “wrathful, blazing, death-shaped” is simply a row of the names of śakti in her fearsome manifestations.
Every chart of letters matches the sounds with powers, and the powers are of every kind. The alphabet in these books is no set of marks but a list of acting principles; hence in it are both hunger and death.
Note su-sūkṣmā — “the most subtle”. The word points to a sound, yet is exact in itself: the letter is the subtlest thing that can be named at all. Of it is composed the syllable, of the syllable the word, of the word the world — as the tree from the banyan seed, of which the second verse of the second Upaniṣad spoke.
To the reader to whom these verses seem deaf I will say this. We are reading here another's memorandum — what the mantrin held in memory so as not to forget the order of the letters. It need not be intelligible to an outsider.
What matters is something else: the book thought it needful to preserve it, and we preserve it.