उपनिषद् · Yājñavalkya 23
॥
देवनागरी
चिदिहास्तीति चिन्मात्रमिदं चिन्मयमेव च । चित्त्वं चिदहमेते च लोकाश्चिदिति भावय
लिप्यंतरण (IAST)
cidihāstīti cinmātramidaṃ cinmayameva ca | cittvaṃ cidahamete ca lokāściditi bhāvaya
शब्दशः अर्थ
संस्कृतIASTअर्थ
चित् इह अस्ति इति चित्-मात्रम्cit iha asti iti cit-mātram"consciousness is here" — consciousness alone
इदं चित्-मयम् एव चidaṃ cit-mayam eva caand this consists of consciousness
चित् त्वं चित् अहम्cit tvaṃ cit ahamconsciousness — you; consciousness — I
एते चete caand these
लोकाः चित् इति भावयlokāḥ cit iti bhāvayaworlds are consciousness — so meditate
अनुवाद
"Consciousness is here" — consciousness alone; and this consists of consciousness. Consciousness — you; consciousness — I; and these worlds are consciousness — so meditate.
संस्करण
c30db6971ee8 · प्रकाशित 6 अग॰ 2026, 6:42:51 pm UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
The second-to-last verse is an exposition of non-dual teaching, and it must be examined the same way as similar ones before. That way is to look at the grammar; and the grammar here is telling. It says: cit tvaṃ cid ahaṃ, "consciousness — you; consciousness — I."
That is, within the very assertion of unity stand two pronouns: "you" and "I." If the unity were complete, there would be no second person: the speaker could not address the listener and name him apart from himself. Let us add the verb with which the verse ends: bhāvaya, "meditate," the imperative of bhū in the causative form.
That is, a practice is prescribed, not a fact communicated. We have drawn this distinction more than once — when reading the Jābāla-darśana (4.61) and the Tārasāra (3.10) — and it recurs here: formulas of this kind are upāsanā, "reverent contemplation," not a description of reality. Confirmation is found in the very word: a description does not come in the imperative. One does not say "be assured that two times two is four"; one says "two times two is four."
Let us add what the Vaiṣṇava side asserts about the word cit and what distinguishes her reckoning. Consciousness, for her, is a property of a person, not an independent substance; and that consciousness is always someone's was discussed when reading the Jābāla-darśana (6.13), where the argument about space in a pot was cited: space does not know, but the soul knows.