य इमां ब्रह्मविद्यामेकादश्यां पठेद्धयग्रीवप्रभावेन महापुरुषो भवति । स जीवन्मुक्तो भवति । ओं नमो ब्रह्मणे धारणं मे अस्त्वनिराकरणं धारयिता भूयासं कर्णयोः श्रुतं माच्योढ्वं ममामुष्य ओमित्युपनिषत्
ya imāṃ brahmavidyāmekādaśyāṃ paṭheddhayagrīvaprabhāvena mahāpuruṣo bhavati | sa jīvanmukto bhavati | oṃ namo brahmaṇe dhāraṇaṃ me astvanirākaraṇaṃ dhārayitā bhūyāsaṃ karṇayoḥ śrutaṃ mācyoḍhvaṃ mamāmuṣya omityupaniṣat
«Whoever reads this knowledge of brahman on the eleventh day becomes, by the power of Hayagrīva, a great person; he becomes liberated while living. "Om, homage to brahman! Let there be for me retention and non-rejection; may I become one who retains; let what was heard by the ears not fall away from me, so-and-so. Om." Such is the upaniṣad».
bb06b3e8ab67 · publicado 12 ago 2026, 5:00:00 UTC
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The book ends, and it ends with a prayer for memory; it is worth examining, for it is both ancient and moving. Dhāraṇaṃ me astu, “let there be retention for me,” from dhṛ, “to hold.” Anirākaraṇam, “non-rejection”: may I not be rejected, that is, may I not be refused.
Dhāraitā bhūyāsam, “may I become one who retains.” Karṇayoḥ śrutaṃ mā cyoḍhvam, “let what was heard by the ears not fall away.” This prayer stands at the end of the Taittirīya (1.4) and elsewhere; it is the prayer of a pupil before instruction, and it asks for one thing only — not to forget.
Its simplicity deserves appreciation. Neither power nor liberation nor vision is asked for; what is asked is that what was heard should remain. And in this, to my mind, lies the whole measure of this literature’s regard for the word: what is heard is treated as entrusted for safekeeping, and the same was discussed reading Śāṭyāyanīya (33), where knowledge pleaded: “keep me, I am your treasure.”
Add, too, the word mama-amuṣya, “from me, so-and-so.” Amuṣya is a pronoun in whose place the speaker inserts his own name. This detail is common in ritual texts and is quite apt here: in a book made entirely of syllables and seeds, the last word leaves a blank — for the name of whoever reads it.
Let us look back over the book as a whole. It is small — nineteen parts — and it is a mantra-śāstra, not a discourse. The best things in it, to my mind, are three passages: the distinction between those who repeat and those who know (2.p2), where it is said that sound by itself gives benefits, while liberation is given by knowledge of whose name it is; the equation of the four great sayings with mantras addressed to a person with a name and a form (2.p7); and the four hymns to Speech, where the word is never once called a hindrance, and at the top turns out to be a thousand syllables.