Mandukya Upanishad

The Mandukya Upanishad, belonging to the Atharva Veda, consists of only twelve brief verses — the shortest of the ten principal Upanishads, yet the most influential in the entire history of Advaita Vedanta. The commentary Gaudapada wrote upon it, the extensive verse-treatise known as the Karika, became the very foundation of Gaudapada's non-dual vision, and Adi Shankaracharya, in turn, built the whole summit of Vedantic philosophy upon that very foundation. That a text this short should carry an influence this vast is, in itself, astonishing.

The Upanishad opens with the declaration: "om ity etad aksharam idam sarvam tasyopavyakhyanam bhutam bhavad bhavishyad iti sarvam omkara eva, yach chanyat trikalatitam tad apy omkara eva" — Om, this syllable, is all this; its explanation is this — whatever was, whatever is, whatever will be, all of it is simply the syllable Om; and whatever lies beyond the three times as well, that too is simply Om. This declaration is extraordinarily bold — an ordinary, single-syllable sound is here fully equated with the whole of existence, with all time, and with that which lies beyond time itself.

The second verse establishes the foundation for this equation: "sarvam hy etad brahmayam atma brahma so'yam atma chatushpat" — all this is indeed Brahman; this Self is Brahman; and this very Self has four quarters. This verse is the key to the entire structure of the Upanishad — the remaining ten verses will offer a step-by-step analysis of these very four quarters of the "four-quartered Self," while also showing how the phonetic structure of Om (A-U-M-silence) corresponds precisely to these same four quarters.

Even in this brief, dense opening, the Mandukya Upanishad's essential method becomes clear — rather than treating Brahman as some distant, abstract principle, it seeks to reveal it directly within the four states of the seeker's own consciousness. As long as the Self is regarded as some external object, it will forever remain something to be searched for; but the moment the seeker recognizes that the waking, dreaming, and deep-sleep states experienced every single day are themselves the very quarters of that Self, Self-knowledge stops being some distant achievement and becomes the direct experience of each and every moment.

The third verse describes the first quarter of the Self — "jagaritasthano bahishprajnah saptanga ekonavimshatimukhah sthulabhug vaishvanarah prathamah padah" — established in the waking state, conscious of external things, having seven limbs and nineteen mouths (the five organs of perception, the five organs of action, the five pranas, and mind, intellect, ego-sense, and memory-mind, taken as the four inner faculties), and enjoying gross objects — this is Vaishvanara, the first quarter. This is the state in which we experience the outer world every day upon waking, in which consciousness turns outward, through the senses, toward gross objects.

The fourth verse describes the second quarter — "svapnasthano'ntahprajnah saptanga ekonavimshatimukhah praviviktabhuk taijaso dvitiyah padah" — established in the dream state, conscious of internal things, having those same seven limbs and nineteen mouths, but now enjoying subtle objects — this is Taijasa, the second quarter. In dreaming, consciousness withdraws from the outer world and constructs its own world within the mind — here the senses remain quiet, yet the mind, on its own, fashions sights, sounds, and experiences, all built from impressions gathered during waking.

The fifth verse describes the third quarter, deep sleep — "yatra supto na kanchana kamam kamayate na kanchana svapnam pashyati tat sushuptam, sushuptasthana ekibhutah prajnanaghana evanandamayo hy anandabhuk chetomukhah prajnas tritiyah padah" — where the sleeper desires no desire at all, and sees no dream at all, that is deep, dreamless sleep; established in that state, unified, a mass of pure consciousness, blissful, enjoying bliss, the very gateway of consciousness — this is Prajna, the third quarter. It is remarkably significant that deep sleep is here described as "blissful" — though on waking we recall nothing of it, we all know from experience that after a deep, dreamless sleep, we feel far more rested and clear — subtle evidence that in that state we come nearest of all to our own blissful nature.

The sixth verse explains that this Prajna is the lord of all, the knower of all, the inner ruler of all, and the very source and dissolution of all beings. One notable subtlety appears here — in the state of Prajna, knowledge becomes fully "unified," meaning the distinction between subject and object dissolves; and yet this state is still, in a sense, a seed-form of ignorance (the causal body), because upon waking, the very same person returns once more into the world. It is precisely for this reason that the Upanishad now points toward a fourth state, lying beyond all three.

The seventh verse is the summit of the entire Upanishad, describing the "turiya" (fourth) state — "nantahprajnam na bahishprajnam nobhayatahprajnam na prajnanaghanam na prajnam naprajnam, adrishtam avyavaharyam agrahyam alakshanam achintyam avyapadeshyam ekatmapratyayasaram prapanchopasham shantam shivam advaitam chaturtham manyante sa atma sa vijneyah" — it is not consciousness turned inward, not consciousness turned outward, not consciousness turned both ways, not a mass of consciousness, neither consciousness nor unconsciousness; it is unseen, beyond ordinary dealing, ungraspable, without distinguishing marks, unthinkable, indescribable, whose very essence is the single certainty of its own Self, in which the whole of manifest existence has come to rest, peaceful, auspicious, non-dual — this they consider the fourth; this is the Self; this is what is to be known.

This verse adopts a distinctive technique in its very structure — rather than defining turiya through some positive attribute, it surrounds it with an unbroken chain of negations ("not this, not that"), a method known in Vedanta as "neti neti." The reason is clear — turiya is not some fourth "state" set alongside waking, dream, and deep sleep; it is that very consciousness which remains equally, unchangingly present within all three states, making them possible, yet never itself becoming any one of them.

A simple analogy helps here — just as one and the same electric current appears as spinning in a fan, as light in a bulb, and as heat in a heater, while the electricity itself neither spins, nor shines, nor grows hot — in exactly the same way, turiya is that consciousness which grants waking the power to see, dreaming the power to imagine, and deep sleep the power to rest, while remaining itself, always, in pure witnessing form, beyond all of them.

The word "prapanchopasham" deserves special attention — it means that state in which the entire clamor of manifest existence comes to rest. This is not a state of emptiness or absence — it is, rather, the very summit of fullness — "shantam shivam advaitam" — peaceful, auspicious, non-dual. This is the very state that the whole of Upanishadic literature has, without pause, been in search of, and the Mandukya Upanishad dares to define it in the shortest, most precise words of all.

In its final portion, the Upanishad offers an extraordinary synthesis — it links the phonetic structure of Om precisely to the four states of the Self. Om is composed of three measures — A, U, and M — and alongside these three measures there exists a fourth, measureless (amatra) element as well, experienced in the silence that spreads out after the sound is spoken. This structure is so exact that it cannot be mere coincidence — each measure emerges as the symbol of one particular state.

The measure "A" is linked to Vaishvanara (waking), since it signifies "apti" (attainment) and "adimattva" (being first) — just as the sound "A" is the very first of all vowels, the waking state is the starting point of the whole chain of experience. A seeker who fully understands this connection attains all their desires and becomes foremost among all. The measure "U" is linked to Taijasa (dream), since it signifies "utkarsha" (elevation) and "ubhayatva" (being between the two) — just as the sound "U" forms a bridge between "A" and "M," the dream state is the link between waking and deep sleep. One who knows this carries the tradition of knowledge forward, becomes even-minded, and no one ignorant of Brahman is born into their family.

The measure "M" is linked to Prajna (deep sleep), since it signifies "miti" (measuring, an ending) and "apiti" (dissolution) — just as the sound "M" brings a word's utterance to its close, deep sleep is where all experience becomes gathered into that same one consciousness. One who knows this measures out this entire world, so to speak, and comes to be dissolved within it. But beyond these three measures lies that fourth element, amatra, which cannot be measured by any sound or by any ordinary dealing at all — this is turiya, that silence which remains once the sound has been uttered, and into which the entire clamor of manifest existence comes finally to rest.

In its final verse, the Upanishad declares that the seeker who comes to know Om in this way, together with the four quarters of the Self, enters, through their own Self, into the Self itself — "atmana'tmanam pravishati" — an extraordinarily beautiful phrase, revealing that Self-realization is no journey outward at all, but an entry into one's own depths, deeper and deeper still. And so this shortest of all Upanishads offers a complete method of practice, turning the three ordinary experiences of every single day — waking, dreaming, and sleeping — into the very ladder of Self-knowledge, and, within a single sacred syllable, Om, dissolving the entire distance between the universe and one's own self.