उषा वा अश्वस्य मेध्यस्य शिरः सूर्यः चक्षुः वातः प्राणः व्यात्तम् अग्निः वैश्वानरः संवत्सरः आत्मा अश्वस्य मेध्यस्य द्यौः पृष्ठम् अन्तरिक्षम् उदरम् पृथिवी पाजस्यं दिशः पार्श्वे अवान्तरदिशः पर्शवः ऋतवः अङ्गानि मासाः च अर्धमासाः च पर्वाणि अहोरात्राणि प्रतिष्ठा नक्षत्राणि अस्थीनि नभः मांसानि ऊवध्यम् सिकताः सिन्धवः गुदाः यकृत् च क्लोमानः च पर्वताः ओषधयः च वनस्पतयः च लोमानि उद्यन् पूर्वार्धः निम्लोचन् जघनार्धः यद् विजृम्भते तद् विद्योतते यद् विधूनुते तद् स्तनयति यन् मेहति तद् वर्षति वाक् एव अस्य वाक्
uṣā vā aśvasya medhyasya śiraḥ sūryaḥ cakṣuḥ vātaḥ prāṇaḥ vyāttam agniḥ vaiśvānaraḥ saṃvatsaraḥ ātmā aśvasya medhyasya dyauḥ pṛṣṭham antarikṣam udaram pṛthivī pājasyaṃ diśaḥ pārśve avāntaradiśaḥ parśavaḥ ṛtavaḥ aṅgāni māsāḥ ca ardhamāsāḥ ca parvāṇi ahorātrāṇi pratiṣṭhā nakṣatrāṇi asthīni nabhaḥ māṃsāni ūvadhyam sikatāḥ sindhavaḥ gudāḥ yakṛt ca klomānaḥ ca parvatāḥ oṣadhayaḥ ca vanaspatayaḥ ca lomāni udyan pūrvārdhaḥ nimlocan jaghanārdhaḥ yad vijṛmbhate tad vidyotate yad vidhūnute tad stanayati yan mehati tad varṣati vāk eva asya vāk
The dawn is the head of the sacrificial horse; the sun is its eye, the wind its breath, its gaping mouth the Vaiśvānara fire; the year is the body of the sacrificial horse. Heaven is its back, the mid-region its belly, the earth its underbelly; the quarters of space are its flanks, the intermediate quarters its ribs, the seasons its limbs, the months and fortnights its joints, the days and nights its feet, the stars its bones, the clouds its flesh. The food in its stomach is the sands, the rivers its veins, its liver and lungs the mountains, the herbs and trees its hair. The rising sun is its forward half, the setting sun its hinder half. When it yawns, the lightning flashes; when it shakes itself, the thunder rolls; when it stales, the rain falls. Its voice is speech itself.
2a8fb88c6d2d · प्रकाशित 27 जुल॰ 2026, 12:37:41 am UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
So the Bṛhadāraṇyaka opens — the "Great Forest" upaniṣad, the largest and deepest of them all — not with an argument but with a vision. Before us is the aśvamedha, the royal horse sacrifice — but the horse is taken cosmically: the dawn is its head, the year its body, the stars its bones, the rivers its veins. The Upaniṣad begins by widening the altar to the edge of the universe: the real sacrifice was always being performed in the cosmos, and the cosmos was always the sacrificial horse — a world-body in which time, space and the elements are jointed like limbs and joints.
This is the first lesson of the "forest" book: to see every small sacred act inscribed within the great one, and the whole world not as a warehouse of things but as the living body of a single order. The Gītā will show the same truth to Arjuna's eyes as the viśva-rūpa, the universal form in which suns are eyes and worlds are limbs (BG 11); the Bhāgavatam will describe the virāṭ-rūpa by the same articulation. For one who has learned to look so, lightning is the bared teeth of the living, rain its outpouring, and his own speech an echo of the world-Horse's voice.
And mark where it begins: with the dawn, the head. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka has begun at daybreak; the whole of it will be a book of awakening, and its first image is a world lifting its head with the dawn.