Upanishads · Tripurātāpinī 31
॥
Devanāgarī
य एवं वेद । तान्होवाच
Transliteration (IAST)
ya evaṃ veda | tānhovāca
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
यः एवं वेदyaḥ evaṃ vedawho knows thus
तान् ह उवाचtān ha uvācato them he said
Translation
«Who knows thus. — To them he said…»
Version
330d0161f8b5 · published Aug 7, 2026, 5:19:24 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
A half-line, and in it appears tān, «to them», in the plural. Speech, then, has listeners, and there are many of them. Who they are, the next line will say; but the appearance of the plural itself changes the character of the book: until now it was exposition, now a conversation begins.
This device is constant in the upaniṣads. Exposition is interrupted by the appearance of questioners, and an answer follows; this device makes the book not a treatise but a record of a conversation. The difference between the two is not one of style, but of substance. A treatise is addressed to whoever reads it; a conversation is addressed to those who have come and sat down. The former can be taken and carried away; the latter must be received.
Hence Vaishnava literature prizes so highly the circumstances under which something was said: who asked, where, before whom. The Gītā would not be the Gītā if Kṛṣṇa had set it down in writing; it is spoken on a battlefield, between two armies, to a man who had sat down and did not want to fight — and half its force lies in the fact that this is recorded.