Upanishads · Prāṇāgnihotra 2.1
॥
Devanāgarī
विश्वोऽसि वैश्वानरो विश्वरूपं त्वया धार्यते जायमानम् । विश्वं त्वाहुतथः सर्वा यत्र ब्रह्माऽमृतोऽसि
Transliteration (IAST)
viśvo'si vaiśvānaro viśvarūpaṃ tvayā dhāryate jāyamānam | viśvaṃ tvāhutathaḥ sarvā yatra brahmā'mṛto'si
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
विश्वः असि वैश्वानरःviśvaḥ asi vaiśvānaraḥyou are all, you are Vaiśvānara
विश्व-रूपं त्वया धार्यते जायमानम्viśva-rūpaṃ tvayā dhāryate jāyamānamthe universal form, being born, is sustained by you
विश्वं त्वा आहुतयःviśvaṃ tvā āhutayaḥall libations reach you
सर्वाः यत्र ब्रह्मा अ-मृतः असिsarvāḥ yatra brahmā a-mṛtaḥ asiall, where everything is; you are the immortal brahman
Translation
You are all, you are Vaiśvānara; the universal form, being born, is sustained by you; all libations reach you, all, where everything is; you are the immortal brahman.
Version
9fc22077019f · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The second part begins, and in it stands a word defining its whole subject: Vaiśvānara, "belonging to all men, universal." This name, in the Vedas, is a name of fire; but in the upaniṣads it means something else, and the distinction deserves examining. The Chāndogya devotes a whole conversation to Vaiśvānara (5.11–18): five householders go to King Aśvapati to ask about him, and each answers in his own way — one says Vaiśvānara is heaven, another that he is the sun, a third that he is wind.
The king answers that all are right in part, and explains: Vaiśvānara is the Ātman, whose head is heaven, whose eye is the sun, whose breath is the wind, whose trunk is space, whose bladder is the waters, whose feet are the earth. And he adds the decisive point: "one who worships him in parts eats in parts; one who worships him as a whole eats in all the worlds" (5.18.1). From there, too, comes the famous conclusion of that conversation: one who eats knowing this feeds everything; and all beings partake in his eating.
This is the very foundation of our whole book: the eating of one person, performed with knowledge, is the feeding of the whole. The Vaiṣṇava side counts Vaiśvānara among the Lord's manifestations and points out that the Gītā speaks of it in the first person: ahaṃ vaiśvānaro bhūtvā prāṇinaṃ deham āśritaḥ, prāṇāpāna-samāyuktaḥ pacāmy annaṃ catur-vidham — "I, having become Vaiśvānara, dwell in the body of living beings and, joined with the in-breath and out-breath, digest the four kinds of food" (15.14). This verse deserves being held as the key to this whole book: it is not the stomach that digests, but the One within it.