Upanishads · Gaṇapati 3.1
॥
Devanāgarī
अव दातारम् । अव धातारम् । अवानूचानमव शिष्यम्
Transliteration (IAST)
ava dātāram | ava dhātāram | avānūcānamava śiṣyam
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
अव दातारम्ava dātāramprotect the giver
अव धातारम्ava dhātāramprotect the supporter
अव अनूचानम्ava anūcānamprotect the reciter
अव शिष्यम्ava śiṣyamprotect the pupil
Translation
Protect the giver, protect the supporter, protect the reciter, protect the pupil.
Version
3c75f37505f6 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
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The list of those to be protected continues, and it is worth seeing who has entered it: dātā ("giver"), dhātā ("supporter"), anūcāna ("reciter, one who knows by heart"), śiṣya ("pupil"). This is, in essence, an inventory of what sustains the transmission of the teaching. Someone gives the means; someone maintains; someone remembers by heart; someone learns. Remove any one of the four and the chain breaks.
The dātā, "giver," that is, the donor, deserves special note. In our understanding of piety he occupies a modest and slightly shameful place: he gives money rather than praying. Here he is placed first, named before the teacher.
This order, to my mind, is honest. Without the one who maintains, no teacher teaches and no pupil learns; and to pretend that the teaching is sustained by spirit alone is not to know what actually sustains it. The Vaiṣṇava side expresses this position through śaraṇāgati, "surrender," where the sixth and last mark is named ātma-nikṣepa, "the offering of oneself," and the fifth, trust; but its practice is even more telling: in its list of services, giving alms and laboring for the community stand on a par with hearing and reciting.
Anūcāna deserves its own word. It means "one who has followed after" — one who repeats what the teacher said, following right after him; thus was called a man who knew the Veda by heart. This occupation seems mechanical from outside, but is in fact the sole means by which these texts have reached us: not through libraries, but through people who remembered them.