Upanishads · Pañcabrahma p7
॥
Devanāgarī
तस्मै नमो महादेवाय महारुद्राय प्रोवाच तस्मै भगवान्महेशः
Transliteration (IAST)
tasmai namo mahādevāya mahārudrāya provāca tasmai bhagavānmaheśaḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
तस्मै नमः महा-देवायtasmai namaḥ mahā-devāyahomage to him, the great god
महा-रुद्राय प्रोवाचmahā-rudrāya provācathe great Rudra; he proclaimed
तस्मै भगवान् महेशःtasmai bhagavān maheśaḥto him, the lord Maheśa
Translation
"Homage to him, the great god, the great Rudra. And the lord Maheśa proclaimed to him …"
Version
d989b05ad2b7 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The prose section ends with an homage and an indication that the answer will follow. It is worth noting the arrangement: first homage, then teaching. This order is constant in the upaniṣads, and we noted it when reading the Gaṇapati (10.1), where the whole book turned out to be enclosed between two acts of homage.
Let us add here what was not said there and explains why the order is precisely this. Homage is an acknowledgment that the questioner is not equal to the one who answers. Without such acknowledgment, a question turns into a dispute, and an answer into an argument; and the teaching is not transmitted in this case, for it is transmitted only to one willing to receive.
This consideration is a worldly one and familiar to everyone. A person who comes with a question, inwardly convinced that he already knows, learns nothing, even if he is answered. The Vaiṣṇava side builds on this the first of the Gītā's three conditions — praṇipāta, "homage" (4.34) — and explains it exactly this way: not as courtesy, but as a condition of reception.
Let us add what follows from this for the reading of these very books. To read them ready to object is possible, and we do so; but one must begin with an attempt to understand as it is said, and object afterward. Otherwise the result is a conversation with oneself.