Upanishads · Jābāladarśana 4.6
॥
Devanāgarī
तिष्ठन्ति परितस्तस्या नाडयो मुनिपुङ्गव । द्विसप्ततिसहस्राणि तासां मुख्याश्चतुर्दश
Transliteration (IAST)
tiṣṭhanti paritastasyā nāḍayo munipuṅgava | dvisaptatisahasrāṇi tāsāṃ mukhyāścaturdaśa
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
तिष्ठन्ति परितः तस्याःtiṣṭhanti paritaḥ tasyāḥthey stand around it
नाडयः मुनि-पुङ्गवnāḍayaḥ muni-puṅgavathe passages, O bull among sages
द्वि-सप्तति-सहस्राणिdvi-saptati-sahasrāṇiseventy-two thousand
तासां मुख्याः चतुर्दशtāsāṃ mukhyāḥ caturdaśaof them, the chief are fourteen
Translation
"Around it stand the passages, O bull among sages — seventy-two thousand; of them, the chief are fourteen."
Version
ca8a87c4bce4 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
A number is named: seventy-two thousand passages. This number appears everywhere in books on yoga and, by all indications, is a conventional number meaning "very many." Other books name three hundred fifty thousand, others seventy-two thousand; there is no agreement.
It is worth examining how a reader should proceed in such cases, for the instance is instructive. A number that different books state differently is not information; it is a manner of expression. To dispute whether there are seventy-two thousand passages or three hundred fifty thousand is as useless as disputing whether "I told you so" was said a thousand times or a hundred thousand.
A general rule follows from this, useful far beyond this passage. Where traditions disagree on a number, the number is not the subject of the teaching; the teaching must be sought in what they agree on. And here all agree on one thing: the passages are many, and they form a network with a single center.
The Vaishnava side treats such lists the same way and applies the same rule to its own books. The Puranas disagree on numbers — in the duration of the yugas, in the number of worlds, in the count of descents; and its commentators say that numbers in narrative serve the impression, not the reckoning, and that to seek precision in them is to demand of a book what it was not written for.