Upanishads · Tripurātāpinī 112
॥
Devanāgarī
जानीते सोऽक्षरे परमे व्योमन्यधिवसति । य एतां विद्यां तुरीयां ब्रह्मयोनिस्वरूपां तामिहायुषे शरणमहं प्रपद्ये । आकाशाद्यनुक्रमेण सर्वेषां वा एतद्भूतानामाकाशः
Transliteration (IAST)
jānīte so'kṣare parame vyomanyadhivasati | ya etāṃ vidyāṃ turīyāṃ brahmayonisvarūpāṃ tāmihāyuṣe śaraṇamahaṃ prapadye | ākāśādyanukrameṇa sarveṣāṃ vā etadbhūtānāmākāśaḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
यः एतां विद्यां तुरीयांyaḥ etāṃ vidyāṃ turīyāṃwho this fourth vidyā
ब्रह्म-योनि-स्वरूपांbrahma-yoni-svarūpāṃhaving the own-form of the womb of Brahman
ताम् इह आयुषेtām iha āyuṣethat, here, for the sake of life
शरणम् अहं प्रपद्येśaraṇam ahaṃ prapadyeI come for refuge
सर्वेषां भूतानाम् आकाशः परायणम्sarveṣāṃ bhūtānām ākāśaḥ parāyaṇamthe space of all these beings is the highest support
Translation
«…knows — that one dwells in the Imperishable, in the highest sky. Whoever [knows] this fourth vidyā, having the own-form of the womb of Brahman — that, here, for the sake of life — I come for refuge. In order, from space: the space of all these beings is the highest support».
Version
928021fd62a4 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
After Gauḍapāda, after the pot and the moon in water, after «there is neither the bound nor the liberated», the book utters: śaraṇam ahaṃ prapadye, «I come for refuge». This is the second time in the book (the first was at 62), and this time it is said at the very end, as the final word. Worth comparing this with what was read six lines earlier. There it was affirmed that there is neither a seeker nor a doer; here the speaker himself declares himself a seeker and performs an act — he comes. The verb prapadye stands in the first person singular: «I come»; and one does not come for refuge to oneself.
This contradiction is, in my view, the best passage in the whole book — not because it catches the author out, but because it shows where a person arrives when arguments run out. One can write that there is no doer; but the one who wrote it, in that very moment, seeks someone to shelter behind — and shelters not behind the assertion, but behind someone. The word prapatti, from the same root, is in Vaishnava theology the name of an entire path: complete self-surrender, its six conditions, the famous carama-śloka of the Gītā (18.66). And that a Śākta tantric composition, having set forth the most extreme teaching of oneness, ends with this very word is testimony that cannot be forged.
Added to this is iha āyuṣe, «here, for the sake of life». Not for the sake of dissolution, and not for the sake of exiting existence — for the sake of life, and life here at that. The book's final request turns out to be a request to live.