Upanishads · Jābāladarśana 4.34
॥
Devanāgarī
निमीलनादि कूर्मस्य क्षुधा तु कृकरस्य च । देवदत्तस्य विप्रेन्द्र तन्द्रीकर्म प्रकीर्तितम्
Transliteration (IAST)
nimīlanādi kūrmasya kṣudhā tu kṛkarasya ca | devadattasya viprendra tandrīkarma prakīrtitam
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
निमीलन-आदि कूर्मस्यnimīlana-ādi kūrmasyablinking and the rest — of kurma
क्षुधा तु कृकरस्य चkṣudhā tu kṛkarasya cahunger, however — of krikara
देवदत्तस्य विप्र-इन्द्रdevadattasya vipra-indraof devadatta, O lord of the vipras
तन्द्री-कर्म प्रकीर्तितम्tandrī-karma prakīrtitamyawning is proclaimed as the work
Translation
"Blinking and the rest — of kurma; hunger — of krikara; of devadatta, O lord of the vipras, yawning is proclaimed the work."
Version
13616b8bea3b · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The chart is brought to its end, and its last lines are on blinking, hunger, and yawning. Worth noting is what unites all five secondary breaths: belching, blinking, hunger, yawning, swelling. All of this is what happens without us.
This, in my view, is the true content of this list, though the book does not state it. It is an inventory of the involuntary: everything that occurs in a person apart from his decision. Such an inventory is useful in itself, apart from any breaths. Everyone should, on occasion, count how much happens in him without his participation; this reckoning is sobering.
We blink, swallow, grow, age, hunger, fall asleep — and choose not one of these acts. And yet we say "I blinked," "I felt hungry," as though these were our own deeds. The Vaishnava side builds one of its chief arguments on this observation, and it deserves citing in full, for it now concerns not the body but the whole of life.
The Gita says: "deeds are, in every case, performed by the gunas of nature; deluded by the ego, one thinks, 'I am the doer'" — ahan-kara-vimudhatma karta'ham iti manyate (3.27). The word ahan-kara literally means "the making of I": not "self," but the production of the thought "I." That is, the discourse here is not about there being no person, but about a person appropriating to himself what happens without him.
The conclusion drawn from this is not that one should not act, but that one should distinguish: what is from me, and what is not from me. And this distinction, carried out honestly, leaves a person with far less than he thought — but leaves him with what is truly his own.