Upanishads · Prāṇāgnihotra 4.7
॥
Devanāgarī
वाराणस्यां मृतो वापि इदं वा ब्रह्म यः पठेत् । एकेन जन्मना जन्तुर्मोक्षं च प्राप्नुयादिति मोक्षं च प्राप्नुयादित्युपनिषत्
Transliteration (IAST)
vārāṇasyāṃ mṛto vāpi idaṃ vā brahma yaḥ paṭhet | ekena janmanā janturmokṣaṃ ca prāpnuyāditi mokṣaṃ ca prāpnuyādityupaniṣat
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
वाराणस्यां मृतः वा अपिvārāṇasyāṃ mṛtaḥ vā apione who dies in Vārāṇasī, or else
इदं वा ब्रह्म यः पठेत्idaṃ vā brahma yaḥ paṭhetwhoever reads this brahman
एकेन जन्मना जन्तुःekena janmanā jantuḥwith one birth, that being
मोक्षं च प्राप्नुयात् इतिmokṣaṃ ca prāpnuyāt itiattains liberation
Translation
One who dies in Vārāṇasī, or else whoever reads this brahman — with one birth that being attains liberation, attains liberation. Such is the upaniṣad.
Version
38d8c7daa02e · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The book ends with an equation: to die in Kāśī, or to read this book. Equations of this kind were discussed when reading the Mahāvākya (p25), and it was said there that they rest not on calculation, but on a shared subject. It is worth, however, examining this one separately, for it is curiously constructed.
Not everyone can die in Kāśī: one must get there, and before that, have the means and the time. Anyone literate can read it, and even the illiterate can hear it. That is, the equation here equalizes rights: what is available to few is declared equal to what is available to all.
We have met this device in every book in a row, and every time noted it as their best feature: "or something else" in the Bhasma-jābāla (2.46); "any cow at all, given with faith" in the Rudrākṣa-jābāla (3p13); "a boy or a young man" there too (3p11). Let us say, however, what cannot be accepted here. The promise of liberation ekena janmanā, "with one birth," for a single reading, is an excessive promise; and the measure of such promises has been discussed more than once.
Let us now look back over the whole book and say what is in it. It is small and structured as a transfer: a rite that required property and priests has been transferred into the body, where everyone already has all of this. Food became the libation, the breaths became deities, the four fires became altars, the whole of life became one rite from birth to death.
Three passages in it are the finest. Kāmaḥ paśuḥ, "desire is the sacrificial animal" (4.4), by which the old difficulty over slaughter is removed at a stroke. Smṛtir dayā kṣāntir ahiṃsā in the place of the sacrifices with the wife (4.3) — character inserted into the rite, not set up instead of it. And avabhṛtam maraṇāt, "the concluding ablution is death" (4.5), by which life is called a single consecration, having an entrance and an exit.
The verse that explains the whole book, however, stands not in it, but in the Gītā: ahaṃ vaiśvānaro bhūtvā... pacāmy annaṃ catur-vidham, "I, having become Vaiśvānara, digest food of four kinds" (15.14). It is not the fire that digests, but the One within it; and so the eating, of which so much has been said here, is not an operation, but a meeting.