Upanishads · Mahāvākya p1
॥
Devanāgarī
अथ होवाच भगवान्ब्रह्मापरोक्षानुभवपरोपनिषदं व्याख्यास्यामः
Transliteration (IAST)
atha hovāca bhagavānbrahmāparokṣānubhavaparopaniṣadaṃ vyākhyāsyāmaḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
अथ ह उवाच भगवान् ब्रह्माatha ha uvāca bhagavān brahmāand now said the Lord Brahmā
अ-परोक्ष-अनुभव-पर-उपनिषदंa-parokṣa-anubhava-para-upaniṣadaṃthe upaniṣad about direct experience
व्याख्यास्यामःvyākhyāsyāmaḥwe shall expound
Translation
«And now the Lord Brahmā said: we shall expound the upaniṣad devoted to direct experience.»
Version
144d9665a26b · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The book opens with a word deserving examination, for it sets its measure: aparokṣa-anubhava, “direct experience.” Parokṣa literally means “behind the eye”: what is outside the field of vision, known by hearsay. Aparokṣa is its opposite: “not behind the eye,” that is, right before the eyes.
Anubhava — “experience, that which is undergone oneself,” from anu-bhū, “to be after, to undergo.” That is, it is declared that the subject will not be what is told, but what happens to a person. This distinction has its own name in Indian literature, and a whole science of the kinds of knowledge. A distinction is drawn among śabda (“from the word”), anumāna (“by inference”), and pratyakṣa (“by direct sight”); and the last is held the most direct.
The Vaiṣṇava side accepts this distinction but rearranges the categories, and it is worth saying how. Of the Highest, it says, pratyakṣa is impossible: the eye does not grasp Him, and this is said in every book. Inference does not serve either, for one infers from the observable, and here there is nothing observable.
What remains is śabda, “word”; and hence its chief means of knowledge is recognized as testimony — precisely what this book places lowest. But it also has an answer to the objection that testimony is knowledge from another's words, and this answer deserves citing. Testimony leads to anubhava: one listens not in order to know by hearsay, but in order to experience; and the Bhāgavatam promises that upon listening, ruci, a taste, arises — that is, an experience, not information.
The order, then, is: word — then experience; and both are needed. One cannot begin with experience, bypassing the word, for it is not known what to experience.