The verse and its meaning · Upanishads · Shvetashvatara · Two Birds and the Unborn

Woman, Man, Youth, Elder

Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4.3

त्वं स्त्री पुमानसि त्वं कुमार उत वा कुमारी । त्वं जीर्णो दण्डेन वञ्चसि त्वं जातो भवसि विश्वतोमुखः

Meaning · English

You are woman and man, boy and girl too. You are the old one wobbling along on a stick. Once born, you face every direction.

Up to now the text has spoken of the one god as "That." Here it turns and speaks to it as "you," and the "you" turns out to be ordinary people. A woman, a man, a boy, a girl, an old person unsteady on a stick: each one is the god, not a copy of it or a place it visits. The last line adds that by taking birth, this one comes to have faces turned toward every side. Every face anywhere is one of its faces.

At sunset a street of houses catches the light. Every window blazes: tall ones, narrow ones, a cracked pane in an old shed, each seeming to hold its own fire. It is one sun in all of them. The woman, the boy and the old man on his stick are those windows. The light inside each is the same.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Every Power Is That · Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4.2
• Next: Lightning, Seasons and Seas · Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4.4
• All of Upanishads · Ask Krishna about it

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