स होवाच बालाकिर्य एवैष वायौ पुरुषस्तमेवाहमुपास इति तं होवाचाजातशत्रुर्मा मैतस्मिन्समवादयिष्ठा इन्द्रो वैकुण्ठोऽपराजिता सेनेति वा अहमेतमुपास इति स यो हैतमेवमुपास्ते । जिष्णुर्ह वापराजिष्णुरन्यतस्यजायी भवति
sa hovāca bālākirya evaiṣa vāyau puruṣastamevāhamupāsa iti taṃ hovācājātaśatrurmā maitasminsamavādayiṣṭhā indro vaikuṇṭho'parājitā seneti vā ahametamupāsa iti sa yo haitamevamupāste | jiṣṇurha vāparājiṣṇuranyatasyajāyī bhavati
Bālāki said: “The puruṣa who is in the wind — him I revere.” Ajātaśatru said to him: “Do not draw me into talk of him! I revere him as Indra Vaikuṇṭha, as the unconquered host.” And he who so reveres him becomes victorious, unconquerable, a vanquisher of others.
909207928c0e · publicado 29 jul 2026, 3:43:45 UTC
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The sixth pointing is to the wind, and the correction names it with the names of power: Indra Vaikuṇṭha and “the unconquered host”.
The choice of image is transparent. The wind is the one element that can be neither stopped, nor seized, nor broken; it passes everywhere and yields only of itself. Hence it is called an army that cannot be defeated.
The name Vaikuṇṭha means “the irresistible, he for whom there is no barrier”. In the later tradition it became the name of Viṣṇu's abode; here it still stands in its original sense.
Note also the tie to the second adhyāya. There, in the analysis of the “dying-around”, the wind proved last: all the deities enter it and, “dead in the wind, do not perish”. It was named that which does not go out. Here the same trait of it is named in the language of war: unconquerableness.
And the fruit by likeness: the reverer of the unconquered becomes unconquerable. For a king whose name means “he to whom no enemy has been born”, this reverence fits exactly — and the Upaniṣad, it seems, not without design puts it into the mouth of Ajātaśatru.