Verse 8

Mundaka

Sanskrit (Devanagari)

न चक्षुषा गृह्यते नापि वाचा नान्यैर्देवैस्तपसा कर्मण वा । ज्ञानप्रसादेन विशुद्धसत्त्वस्ततस्तु तं पश्यते निष्कलं ध्यायमानः ॥८॥

Padapatha (Word Split)

न । चक्षुषा । गृह्यते । न । अपि । वाचा । न । अन्यैः । देवैः । तपसा । कर्मणः । वा । ज्ञान-प्रसादेन । विशुद्ध-सत्त्वः । ततः । तु । तम् । पश्यते । निष्कलम् । ध्यायमानः ॥८॥

IAST Transliteration

na cakṣuṣā gṛhyate nāpi vācā nānyair devais tapasā karmaṇo vā | jñānaprasādena viśuddhasattvas tatas tu taṃ paśyate niṣkalaṃ dhyāyamānaḥ ||8||

Translation

ထိုတော်ကို မျက်စိဖြင့် မဖမ်းယူနိုင်၊ စကားဖြင့်လည်း မရောက်နိုင်၊ အခြားဒေဝတားများ (အာရုံအင်္ဂါများ) ဖြင့်လည်း မရနိုင်။ တပသ (အတိအကျင့်) ဖြင့်မဟုတ်၊ ကမ္မ (ပူဇော်ပွဲအလုပ်) ဖြင့်လည်း မဟုတ်။ သို့သော် ဉာဏ်၏ကြည်လင်သောကျေးဇူးကြောင့် စတ္တဝ (အတွင်းသဘော) သန့်စင်ပြီးသူသည် သမาธိ၌ တရားအပိုင်းမဲ့ (နိෂ္ကလ) ထိုဗြဟ္မန်ကို မြင်နိုင်၏။

Academic Translation

It is not grasped by the eye, nor even by speech, nor by other deities (i.e., senses); not by austerity, nor by ritual action. But by the clarity (grace) of knowledge, one whose sattva is purified—then, meditating, sees That partless (Brahman).

Verse Context

• Apperception of nirguṇa/niṣkala Brahman through jñāna and sattva-śuddhi; limits of sense/karma
• Mahavakya: Aligns with the import of ‘प्रज्ञानं ब्रह्म’ (Aitareya) and ‘अहं ब्रह्मास्मि’: Brahman is known as immediate consciousness, not as a sensory object; emphasizes jñāna as the means rather than karma.
• Atharva
• Atharvaṇa (Śaunaka-śākhā; traditionally transmitted within Atharvavedic recensions) Shakha
• Chandas: Mixed/Upaniṣadic verse (non-strict; often aligned to Triṣṭubh/Jagatī-type cadence)