Upanishads · Rāma-tāpanī Uttara 5.19
॥
Devanāgarī
महापातकपापिष्ठ सङ्गत्या संचितं च यत् । नाशयेत् तत्कथालाप शयनासनभोजनैः
Transliteration (IAST)
mahāpātakapāpiṣṭha saṅgatyā saṃcitaṃ ca yat | nāśayet tatkathālāpa śayanāsanabhojanaiḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
महापातकपापिष्ठmahāpātakapāpiṣṭhawith the most sinful of great sinners; with the doer of a mahāpātaka
सङ्गत्या संचितम् च यत्saṅgatyā saṃcitam ca yatand what is gathered by association; and what is amassed from closeness
नाशयेत् तत्कथालापnāśayet tatkathālāpait will destroy — from talks with him; it will annihilate — from conversing with him
शयनासनभोजनैःśayanāsanabhojanaiḥfrom shared bed, seat and meals; from common couch, sitting and food
Translation
“And what has been gathered by association with the most sinful of great sinners — from talks with him, from shared bed, seat and meals — that it will destroy.”
Version
b49a82be8b79 · published Jul 29, 2026, 5:15:19 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The fifth of the great sins, which I mentioned in reading the tenth verse: saṁsarga, “fellowship” with one who has committed any of the four.
The law counts such association an independent crime, and here it is spelled out: conversations, a shared bed, a shared seat, a shared meal.
The list is domestic and therefore expressive. The speech is not of complicity in the deed, but of a man's simply having lived alongside.
In the old society this had a direct and cruel sense: the outcast became contagious, and whoever ate with him was cast out too.
Here this too is named removable.
It is worth seeing where this leads. If the very “contagion” is removed, then the chief instrument of expulsion is annulled. He who could not be received at the table may be received.
And recall the fifth paragraph of this chapter, where the repeater of the mantra was named paṅkti-pāvana — “the purifier of the row”: he in whose presence the table becomes clean.
The one explains the other.