अथेमा दश दश नाड्यो भवन्ति । तासामेकैकस्या द्वासप्ततिर्द्वासप्ततिः शाखा नाडीसहस्राणि भवन्ति यस्मिन्नयमात्मा स्वपिति शब्दानां च करोत्यथ यद्द्वितीये सङ्कोशे स्वपिति तदेमं च लोकं परं च लोकं पश्यति सर्वाञ्छब्दान्विजानाति स सम्प्रसाद इत्याचक्षते प्राणः शरीरं परिरक्षति हरितस्य नीलस्य पीतस्य लोहितस्य श्वेतस्य नाड्यो रुधिरस्य पूर्णाः
athemā daśa daśa nāḍyo bhavanti | tāsāmekaikasyā dvāsaptatirdvāsaptatiḥ śākhā nāḍīsahasrāṇi bhavanti yasminnayamātmā svapiti śabdānāṃ ca karotyatha yaddvitīye saṅkośe svapiti tademaṃ ca lokaṃ paraṃ ca lokaṃ paśyati sarvāñchabdānvijānāti sa samprasāda ityācakṣate prāṇaḥ śarīraṃ parirakṣati haritasya nīlasya pītasya lohitasya śvetasya nāḍyo rudhirasya pūrṇāḥ
And now there are ten and ten channels, and each of them has seventy-two thousand branching channels, in which this self sleeps and produces sounds. And when he sleeps in the second sheath, then he sees both this world and the other world, and distinguishes all sounds; this they call “serenity”. The breath guards the body. The channels — green, blue, yellow, red and white — are full of blood.
ab9b6a08b764 · प्रकाशित 29 जुल॰ 2026, 4:12:03 am UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
The description of sleep continues, and now its place is named: the net of channels, the nāḍīs.
The numbers given are enormous: ten by ten chief ones, and each with seventy-two thousand branches. One should not look for a count of vessels here; the number serves to make felt the thickness of the net in which the soul dwells during sleep.
The addition is remarkable: in them the soul “sleeps and produces sounds”. Anyone who has heard a sleeper's muttering will recognise the observation. Sleep is described not as silence, but as a state in which speech still remains, yet is addressed to no one.
Then “the second receptacle” is named — the second sheath, the second layer. And it is said that there the soul sees at once “both this world and that one”: the border between the here and the beyond ceases to hold.
This state is named with the word samprasāda — “serenity, complete clarity, tranquillity”. It means not dreaming, but that peace of deep sleep where there are neither images nor alarm. Other Upaniṣads know the word too: in the Chāndogya it is precisely the samprasāda that rises out of the body and appears in its own form.
And there is added what no metaphysics cancels: “the breath guards the body”. While the soul wanders, someone stays to watch the house; and that is the breath.
The last line returns to the flesh and lists the channels by their colours: green, blue, yellow, red, white — “full of blood”. The same list of colours is in the Kauṣītaki and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka. Here too the book does not tear the spiritual from the bodily: the very channels that are full of blood are also the place where the soul sleeps.