प्रातरधीयानो रात्रिकृतं पापं नाशयति । सायमधीयानो दिवसकृतं पापं नाशयति । तत्सायं प्रातः प्रयुञ्जानः पापोऽपापो भवति । निशीथे तुरीयसन्ध्यायां जप्त्वा वाक्सिद्धिर्भवति । नूतनप्रतिमायां जप्त्वा देवतासांनिध्यं भवति । प्राणप्रतिष्ठायां जप्त्वा प्राणानां प्रतिष्ठा भवति । भौमाश्विन्यां महादेवी संनिधौ जप्त्वा महामृत्युं तरति । य एवं वेदेत्युपनिषत्
prātaradhīyāno rātrikṛtaṃ pāpaṃ nāśayati | sāyamadhīyāno divasakṛtaṃ pāpaṃ nāśayati | tatsāyaṃ prātaḥ prayuñjānaḥ pāpo'pāpo bhavati | niśīthe turīyasandhyāyāṃ japtvā vāksiddhirbhavati | nūtanapratimāyāṃ japtvā devatāsāṃnidhyaṃ bhavati | prāṇapratiṣṭhāyāṃ japtvā prāṇānāṃ pratiṣṭhā bhavati | bhaumāśvinyāṃ mahādevī saṃnidhau japtvā mahāmṛtyuṃ tarati | ya evaṃ vedetyupaniṣat
«Reading in the morning destroys the sin done at night; reading in the evening destroys the sin done in the day. Applying it in the evening and the morning, the sinful becomes sinless. Having repeated it at midnight, at the fourth sandhyā, one obtains perfection of speech. Having repeated it over a new image, one obtains the presence of the deity. Having repeated it while directing the breath, one obtains the establishment of the breaths. Having repeated it on a Tuesday, on the day of the Aśvins, near the great Goddess, one crosses over great death. Whoever knows thus — such is the upaniṣad».
629523bbdd9e · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
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The book ends with a promise that must be addressed plainly, for it is dangerous: pāpo 'pāpo bhavati, “the sinful becomes sinless” — from reading morning and evening.
This is stated without any condition. Not “one who repents,” not “one who has stopped,” but simply one who reads twice a day; and the sin committed at night is removed by the morning reading, and the sin committed by day, by the evening one.
Read this way, the promise sets up a cycle in which nothing changes: sin at night, read in the morning; sin by day, read in the evening. The person remains the same, while the count resets twice every day.
The Vaiṣṇava side rejects this understanding firmly, and rejects it not out of strictness but on the merits. Among the ten offenses against the name, the gravest is named nāma-balena pāpa-buddhiḥ, “the thought of sin, presuming on the strength of the name” — that is, the calculation to sin knowing the name will purify. And of this one it is said what is said of no other: the name purifies everything, but this it does not purify, for here the thing to be purified is the very intention to make use of purification.
In fairness it must be added that this same book, in its twelfth line, set a condition — śuddha-cetasaḥ, “with pure consciousness”; and reading the book as a whole, the promise of the twenty-second line should be understood in light of the twelfth. Then it makes sense: reading morning and evening keeps a person in order — as any daily practice keeps a person — and sin, finding no place for itself between two such hours, dwindles and falls away on its own.
This is the right note on which to end a reading of this book. It is small, obscure in places, composed in places of borrowed verses; but in it is said “one and not-one” (17), a mother-intercessor is named, “I come for refuge” is spoken twice (4, 19), and once it is honestly added who it is that comes: one frightened of existence.