Upanishads · Rudrākṣajābāla 2.5
॥
Devanāgarī
पञ्चवक्त्रं तु रुद्राक्षं पञ्चब्रह्मस्वरूपकम् । पञ्चवक्त्रः स्वयं ब्रह्म पुंहत्यां च व्यपोहति
Transliteration (IAST)
pañcavaktraṃ tu rudrākṣaṃ pañcabrahmasvarūpakam | pañcavaktraḥ svayaṃ brahma puṃhatyāṃ ca vyapohati
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
पञ्च-वक्त्रं तु रुद्राक्षंpañca-vaktraṃ tu rudrākṣaṃbut the five-faced rudrākṣa
पञ्च-ब्रह्म-स्वरूपकम्pañca-brahma-svarūpakamhas the form of the five brahmans
पञ्च-वक्त्रः स्वयं ब्रह्मpañca-vaktraḥ svayaṃ brahmathe five-faced is himself brahman
पुं-हत्यां च व्यपोहतिpuṃ-hatyāṃ ca vyapohatiand removes the killing of a man
Translation
The five-faced rudrākṣa has the form of the five brahmans; the five-faced is himself brahman, and he removes the killing of a man.
Version
de0951f0586c · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
Here are two claims, and the second requires that it be said outright: puṃ-hatyāṃ ca vyapohati, "and removes the killing of a man." Such a promise is no rarity in books of this kind, and we have already met it in the Bhasma-jābāla, where washing the liṅga promised to cleanse one of the killing of a brāhmaṇa. What was said there is worth repeating, for it has not gone stale.
First: the removal of guilt is not the undoing of what was done. The slain does not rise again, and no seed will bring him back; all that can be spoken of here is the killer's fate, not the victim's. Second: such promises are addressed to the repentant. A person who reads this and goes to kill counting on a seed falls under the one thing no purification covers — a conscious reckoning on forgiveness.
The Bhāgavatam speaks of this with full definiteness and calls such a reckoning nāma-aparādha, "an offense against the Name": to sin in hope of purification by the Name is the gravest of offenses, and it is said that it is not washed away by the very means one relied on (6.2.10). Third, and this deserves its own word. True repentance is known not by rite but by the fact that a person has stopped; and the Bhāgavatam gives, for hypocritical purification, the image of an elephant who bathes and at once rolls in dust again (6.1.9–10).
The first half of the line — pañca-vaktraḥ svayaṃ brahma, "the five-faced is himself brahman" — is the identification usual for these books, and how it works was discussed when reading the previous line.