Upanishads · Jābāladarśana 4.45
॥
Devanāgarī
तदन्त्यं विषुवं प्रोक्तं तापसैस्तत्त्वचिन्तकैः । निःश्वासोच्छ्वासनं सर्वं मासानां संक्रमो भवेत्
Transliteration (IAST)
tadantyaṃ viṣuvaṃ proktaṃ tāpasaistattvacintakaiḥ | niḥśvāsocchvāsanaṃ sarvaṃ māsānāṃ saṃkramo bhavet
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
तत् अन्त्यं विषुवं प्रोक्तंtat antyaṃ viṣuvaṃ proktaṃthat is called the last equinox
तापसैः तत्त्व-चिन्तकैःtāpasaiḥ tattva-cintakaiḥby ascetics who reflect on the truth
निःश्वास-उच्छ्वासनं सर्वंniḥśvāsa-ucchvāsanaṃ sarvaṃevery exhale and inhale
मासानां संक्रमः भवेत्māsānāṃ saṃkramaḥ bhavetlet it be the passage of the months
Translation
"That is called, by ascetics who reflect on the truth, the last equinox. And let every exhale and inhale be the passage of the months."
Version
106966353cc8 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The correspondence is carried to its limit: every inbreath and outbreath is the passage of a month. Here the full measure of this construction is revealed, and it deserves being stated. If every breath is a month, then in a day a person passes through roughly twenty-one thousand months; and no calendar results from this at all.
The correspondence, then, has ceased to be a correspondence and has become a manner of speech: anything at all is called a month, so long as there is movement. This case is telling, and deserves noting as a lesson in reading. Every image has a limit beyond which it stops working; and by extending it to everything, one ruins it.
This flaw is common in ancient books and springs from their very virtue — the aspiration to explain everything by a single means. Having found an apt correspondence, one stretches it further than it can bear. The Vaishnava side is not free of this, and its commentators too sometimes stretch images; but it has a rule, worth repeating: decide by the places where a subject is expounded, not by the places where it is merely likened to something.
Let us add a practical consideration, useful when reading any symbolism. If nothing follows from a likening — if it changes neither conduct nor understanding — then it is an ornament, and need not be held in mind. Likening breath to a month entails nothing; likening death to a change of garments (Gita 2.22) entails a great deal — and hence the second is worth remembering, and the first can be let go.