सः ब्रूयात् न अस्य जरया एतत् जीर्यति न वधेन अस्य हन्यते एतत् सत्यम् ब्रह्मपुरम् अस्मिन् कामाः समाहिताः एषः आत्मा अपहतपाप्मा विजरः विमृत्युः विशोकः विजिघत्सः अपिपासः सत्यकामः सत्यसंकल्पः यथा हि एव इह प्रजाः अन्वाविशन्ति यथा अनुशासनम् यम् यम् अन्तम् अभिकामाः भवन्ति यम् जनपदम् यम् क्षेत्रभागम् तम् तम् एव उपजीवन्ति
saḥ brūyāt na asya jarayā etat jīryati na vadhena asya hanyate etat satyam brahmapuram asmin kāmāḥ samāhitāḥ eṣaḥ ātmā apahatapāpmā vijaraḥ vimṛtyuḥ viśokaḥ vijighatsaḥ apipāsaḥ satyakāmaḥ satyasaṃkalpaḥ yathā hi eva iha prajāḥ anvāviśanti yathā anuśāsanam yam yam antam abhikāmāḥ bhavanti yam janapadam yam kṣetrabhāgam tam tam eva upajīvanti
let him answer: "By its old age this does not age; by its destruction this is not killed. This is the true city of Brahman; in it desires are contained. This is the ātman, free from evil, ageless, deathless, sorrowless, hungerless, thirstless; his desires are true, his resolves are true. As here people live by command — whatever region, whatever plot of land they desire, by that they live —
ae301b66d77a · प्रकाशित 26 जुल॰ 2026, 11:49:49 pm UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
The answer separates the city from the King: the body ages — "this" does not age; the body perishes — "this" is not killed. The true brahmapura is not the flesh but that in it which is not subject to the flesh's fate. And there follows the great eightfold confession of the ātman, which this chapter will repeat three times like a creed: apahata-pāpmā vijaro vimṛtyur viśoko vijighatso 'pipāsaḥ satya-kāmaḥ satya-saṁkalpaḥ — "free from evil, ageless, deathless, sorrowless, hungerless, thirstless, whose desires are true and whose resolves are true".
Five negations remove everything the city suffers from; but the last two members are affirmations, and in them lies the whole surprise: the ātman has desires and resolves — true ones! A Vedānta of renunciation would prefer "desireless"; the Upaniṣad says otherwise: desire is not cut away but healed into truthfulness. The soul is not a dispassionate stone — it is desiring by nature; the trouble is not in desire but in its falsity. This is the direct antechamber of bhakti: perfection is not an empty heart but a heart whose desires have become true, that is, in accord with Being.
The contrast is completed by a picture of servile life: "here" people live yathānuśāsanam, "by command" of karma, in whatever region and on whatever allotment has fallen to them. The freedom of true desires against the serfdom of false ones: that is the stake of the whole chapter.