Upanishads · Gaṇapati 14.3
॥
Devanāgarī
महाप्रत्यवायात् प्रमुच्यते । स सर्वविद्भवति स सर्वविद्भवति । य एवं वेद । इत्युपनिषत्
Transliteration (IAST)
mahāpratyavāyāt pramucyate | sa sarvavidbhavati sa sarvavidbhavati | ya evaṃ veda | ityupaniṣat
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
महा-प्रत्यवायात् प्रमुच्यतेmahā-pratyavāyāt pramucyateis freed from great omission
सः सर्व-वित् भवतिsaḥ sarva-vit bhavatihe becomes all-knowing
यः एवं वेदyaḥ evaṃ vedawhoever knows thus
इति उपनिषत्iti upaniṣatsuch is the upaniṣad
Translation
He is freed from great omission; he becomes all-knowing, he becomes all-knowing. Whoever knows thus. Such is the upaniṣad.
Version
a7b43aa90318 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
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The book closes with the formula ya evaṃ veda, "whoever knows thus" — the very one with which almost all upaniṣads close. This formula deserves a final word. Veda here means neither "heard" nor "read," but knows; and everything promised is promised to the one who knows, not to the one who merely carries, performs, or pays.
Let us look back over what has been read and say what is in this book and what is not. Its peculiarity is that it is, from beginning to end, addressed in the second person. "You are the creator, you the sustainer, you beyond the three times, you in the mūlādhāra, protect me from every side." And even the great pronouncements of unity are set within this address: "you yourself are visibly 'that thou art'" (1.1).
This, to my mind, is its chief testimony, and it is not stated outright by the book itself. A book that took up the strongest of the pronouncements of non-duality could not utter it otherwise than by saying it to someone; and five lines later the same voice asks: "protect me from behind, from before, from above, from below" (3.2). There are also places that coincide directly with Vaiṣṇava language: bhakta-anukampin, "compassionate to devotees," acyuta, and — most important — prakṛteḥ puruṣāt param, "beyond prakṛti and puruṣa" (9.3), that is, the same movement of thought as in the Gītā's teaching on Puruṣottama (15.16–18): beyond matter, spirit, and beyond spirit, a Third.
There is also what cannot be accepted, and we have not softened it: the prohibition on transmitting to a non-pupil under threat of sin (11.3), while the Gītā, in neighboring verses, commands dissemination (18.68); the instruction to teach eight brahmins as a condition (14.1); and the promise to fulfill any desire with a thousand repetitions (11.3), turning an address to a person into the use of an instrument. Its chief virtue, however, lies in its structure: it begins with a bow, passes through abstract definitions, through grammar, through the description of a red, pot-bellied God with fan-like ears — and ends with bows (10.1). The argument turns out not to replace reverence but to be what is placed between two bows; and this arrangement of parts says more about its understanding of the matter than any of its assertions.