The Krishna Library

Volume 79

Sri Svetasvatara Upanisad

Dedication

To my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, this translation of
Sri Svetasvatara Muni’s Upanisad, which describes the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is
respectfully dedicated.

Invocation

Om. May he protect us. May He maintain us. May we become powerful. May we study diligently.
May we not hate each other. Om. Peace. Peace. Peace.

Chapter 1

Text 1

Hari. Om. The Brahmavadis say: What is the first, great cause? From where were we born? How do
we remain alive? Where do we go at death? O knowers of Brahman, by whose will we are subject
to pleasure and pain?

Text 2

Neither time, nature, destiny, chance, the material elements, the mother’s womb, nor the father are
the first cause. All of them taken together are not the first cause. Because he has no great control
over the happiness and distress fate brings him, the individual living entity is not the first cause.

Text 3

Rapt in meditation, the sages then saw the mysterious potency and transcendental qualities of the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, the first cause, who alone dominates the secondary causes, from
time to the individual living entity.

Text 4

They saw the potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as a great wheel with a single rim
divided first into three and then into sixteen, with 50 spokes, 20 counter-spokes, six groups of eight,
one rope, three paths, and an illusion with two causes.

Note: Sri Ranga Ramanuja explains that the three divisions of the rim are the material modes of
goodness, passion, and ignorance, the sixteen divisions are the five gross elements (earth, water,
fire, air, and ether), the five working senses (voice, arms, legs, belly, and genital), the five
knowledge acquiring senses (eyes, ears, tongue, nose and touch), and the mind, the 50 spokes and
20 counter-spokes are the varieties of material suffering, the six groups of eight are 1. earth, water,
fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego, 2. the outer layer of the skin, the inner layer of the
skin, flesh, blood, bones, marrow, fat, and semen, 3. mercy, forbearance, non-enviousness,
diligence, being a source of auspiciousness for others, generosity, and freedom from material desire,
4. the eight mystic powers, 5. piety, knowledge, renunciation, opulence, sinfulness, ignorance,
sense-happiness, and poverty, and 6. Brahma, the prajapatis, devas, gandharvas, yaksas, raksasas,
pitas, pisacas, the single rope is material desire, the three paths are karma (fruitive action), jnana
(the search for knowledge), and bhakti (devotional service) and the two causes of illusion are
sense-pleasure and material piety.

Text 5

We meditate on the potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as a river with five currents,
five tortuous curves, five waves, five sources of knowledge, five whirlpools, five floods of pain,
fifty parts and five parts.

Note: Sri Ranga Ramanuja explains that the five currents are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and touch,
the five tortuous curves are earth, water, fire, air, and ether, the five waves are the voice, arms, legs,
belly and genital, the five sources of knowledge are sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, the five
whirlpools are form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, the five floods of pain are life in the womb,
birth, old age, disease, and death, the fifty parts are the many sufferings of this world, and the five
parts are ignorance, false ego, attachment to sense-pleasures, hatred, and attachment to material life.

Text 6

A swan wanders in the great circle of material life. When he learns that he is different from the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, and becomes active in his service, the swan attains immortality.

Text 7

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is glorified in all the Vedas. In Him the three divisions of the
world rest. He is the first cause. He is eternal and imperishable. Knowing that He is present
everywhere in this world, the wise become devoted to Him. Free from having again to enter a
mother's womb, the wise enter the spiritual world.

Text 8

The Supreme Personality of Godhead maintains this universe, which consists of the temporary and
eternal, the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual spirit soul is not the Supreme Personality of
Godhead. When the individual soul tries to become the supreme enjoyer he becomes bound, and
when he understands the real nature of the Supreme Lord, he become free from bondage.

Text 9

Two, one the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the other not the Supreme Personality of
Godhead, are eternal. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is limitless. His form fills the entire
world. He is not bound to perform any work. When one understands these three, he finds the
Supreme Lord.

Text 10
The material world is temporary. The individual soul is eternal. The one Supreme Personality of
Godhead is the master of both temporary matter and the eternal individual soul. By meditating on
the Lord, by yoga, and by understanding the truth, at the end the individual spirit soul becomes free
from the illusion of the world.

Text 11

As he approaches the Supreme Personality of Godhead in yoga, the yogi attains the forms of mist,
smoke, the sun, the wind, fire, fireflies, lightning, crystal and the moon.

Text 12

When the five elements earth, water, fire, air and ether are dissolved the yogi attains a body made of
the fire of yoga and free of disease, old age and death.

Text 13

The wise say that the first results of yoga are the ability to become very light, freedom from disease,
steadiness, splendid handsomeness, eloquence, a sweet fragrance, and only the slightest discharge
of stool and urine.

Text 14

As a jewel washed of mud shines brightly so an embodied soul who sees the Supreme Personality
of Godhead becomes glorious and free from all sufferings.

Text 15

With the lamp of spiritual knowledge he sees the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Knowing that
the Supreme Personality of Godhead is unborn, eternal, and supremely pure, he becomes free from
all bondage.

Text 16

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is everywhere. he existed before the material universes. He is
present in the universe. He was born in the past and He will be born again in the future. He stands in
every living entity.

Text 17

Obeisances, obeisances to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is in fire, who is in the water,
who entered the material universe, who is in plants and who is in trees.

Chapter 3

Text 1

They who understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the master of the network of maya, who
alone, with His potencies, rules all the worlds in their creation and maintenance, becomes immortal.
Text 2

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is one without a second, with His potencies rules the
worlds. He stays within the living entities. He protects the worlds. He created the worlds and at the
last moment He withdraws them.

Text 3

His eyes are everywhere. His faces are everywhere. His feet are everywhere. He, the one Supreme
Personality of Godhead, who breathed life into they who have two arms on the land and they who
have wings in the sky.

Text 4

May the omniscient Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the creator and the protector of the
demigods, and who in the beginning fathered the demigod Brahma, give us good intelligence.

Text 5

O Supreme Personality of Godhead, please show us Your auspicious, handsome, sinless, peaceful
form.

Text 6

O good Supreme Personality of Godhead, please make auspicious the arrow You hold in Your hand
for the living entities. Please don’t harm the people of the world.

Text 7

The who know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is greater than the greatest, who is hidden
in all living entities, and who is present everywhere in the material world, become immortal.

Text 8

I know that Supreme Personality of Godhead who is transcendental to all material conceptions of
darkness. Only he who knows Him can transcend the bonds of birth and death. There is no way for
liberation other than this knowledge of that Supreme Person.

Text 9

There is no truth superior to that Supreme Person because He is the supermost. He is smaller than
the smallest, and He is greater than the greatest. He is situated as a silent tree, and he illumines the
transcendental sky, and as a tree spreads its roots, He spreads His extensive energies.

Text 10

They who know that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is greater than the greatest, and has no
material body and no faults, become immortal. They who do not know Him suffer.

Text 11
His faces, hands, and necks are everywhere. He hides in all beings. He is everywhere. The
auspicious Personality of Godhead is everywhere.

Text 12

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the source of the Brahman effulgence, and He is
imperishable. He is the Supreme Controller. He controls the mode of goodness, and He awards
various kinds of intelligence to the living entities. He is the controller of spiritual purity and of
liberation.

Text 13

They become immortal who know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who in a form the size of a
thumb always stays in the living entities’ hearts, who is the master of all knowledge, and who is
meditated on in the heart.

Text 14

That Supreme Personality of Godhead is all-pervading within the material world. His uncountable
thousands of heads, eyes, and feet are situated everywhere. His form is so large that not only does it
cover the entire universe, but it has surpassed the boundaries of the material creation by the
measurement of ten fingers.

Text 15

That Supreme Personality of Godhead is everything, all that has been, and all that ever will be, for
everything is simply the manifestation of His energy. When He wishes He frees the conditioned
living entities from the bondage of past karmic reactions, and grants them liberation and eternal
residence in the spiritual world.

Text 16

Everywhere are His hands and legs, His eyes and faces, and He hears everything. In this way the
Supersoul exists.

Text 17

The Supersoul is the original source of all senses, yet He is without senses. He is unattached, yet He
is the maintainer of all living beings. He transcends the modes of nature, and at the same time He is
the master of all modes of material nature.

Text 18

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is living within the body of a living entity, is the
controller of all living entities all over the universe. The body consists of nine gates: two eyes, two
nostrils, two ears, one mouth, the anus and the genital. The living entity in his conditioned stage
identifies himself with the body, but when he identifies himself with the Lord within himself, he
becomes just as free as the Lord, even while in the body.

Text 19
Learned transcendentalists explain that God is the greatest, the original person. He has no material
hands, but He can take anything. He has no material legs, but He can travel; faster than anyone. He
has no material eyes, but He sees everything. He has no material ears, but He hears everything. He
knows everyone, but no one knows Him.

Text 20

Both the Supersoul(Paramatma) and the atomic soul (jivatma) are situated on the same tree of the
body within the same heart of the living being, and only one who has become free from all material
desires as well as lamentations can, by the grace of the Supreme, understand the glories of the soul.

Text 21

I know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the oldest, who never grows old, who is in
everyone’s heart, who is everywhere, and who the transcendentalists say is eternal and is never
born.

Chapter 4

Text 1

May the one Supreme Personality of Godhead, who has no material qualities, who by His potencies
created by the varieties of the material world in the beginning, and who dissolves the material world
in the end, grant us good intelligence.

Text 2

He is fire. He is the sun. He is air. He is the moon. He is the stars. He is Prajapati. He is water.

Text 3

You are woman. You are man. You are boy. You are girl. As an old man You walk with a cane. You
are born again, O all-pervading Lord.

Text 4

You are the black bee, the green parrot, the red-eyed cuckoo, the storm-cloud with lightning, the
seasons, and the oceans. You are everywhere. You are beginningless. The worlds are born from you.

Text 5

An unborn man enjoys an unborn red, white, and black woman who bears many children like
herself. Another unborn man first enjoys and then forsakes her.

Text 6

The individual spirit-soul and the Supersoul. Personality of Godhead, are like two friendly birds
sitting on the same tree. One of the birds (the individual atomic soul) is eating the fruits of the tree
(the sense gratification afforded to the material body), and the other bird(the Supersoul) is not trying
to eat these fruits, but is simply watching His friend.
Text 7

Although the two birds are on the same tree, the eating bird is fully engrossed with anxiety and
moroseness as the enjoyer of the fruits of the tree. But if in some way or other he turns his face to
his friend who is the Lord and knows His glories, at once the suffering bird becomes free from all
anxieties.

Text 8

In the eternal spiritual sky the demigods and the Vedic hymns serve the Supreme Personality of
Godhead. What will he who does not know Him do with the Vedic hymns? They who know Him
have attained the goal of life.

Text 9

The Vedas describe a bewildering variety of hymns, prayers, sacrifices, rituals, vows, austerities,
history, and predictions of the future. Simply by studying the Vedas, it is very difficult for the
conditioned soul, illusioned by maya and trapped in the material world, to understand the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, the controller of the illusory potency and the creator of the material
universes.

Text 10

One should know that although maya (illusion) is false or temporary, the background of maya is the
supreme magician, the Personality of Godhead, who is Mahesvara, the Supreme Controller, and
whose limbs are everywhere in the material universe.

Text 11

One who knows the generous and glorious Supreme Personality of Godhead, who alone created the
material world and in whom it enters at the end, attains perfect peace.

Text 12

May the omniscient Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the demigods' father and the material
universes' creator, maintainer and destroyer, and who with a glance fathered the demigod Brahma,
give good intelligence to us.

Text 13

With offerings of clarified butter let us worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the
master of the demigods, in whom the worlds rest, and who rules the two-footed and the four-footed.

Text 14

One who knows the auspicious Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is more subtle than the
subtlest, who is the creator of the material universe, who has many forms, and who is present
everywhere, attains perfect peace.

Text 15
One who knows the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who protects the worlds, who hides in all
living entities, and in whom the demigods and sages take shelter, cuts the ropes of death.

Text 16

One who knows the auspicious, all-pervading Supreme Personality of Godhead, who hides in
everyone’s heart as butter hides in milk, becomes free from all bondage.

Text 17

They become immortal who know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the universes’ creator, who
always stays in everyone’s heart and is the object of the wise heart’s meditation.

Text 18

When the darkness of universal destruction comes there is no day. There is no night. There is no
cause. There is no effect. The only the auspicious, eternal, splendid, omniscient, ancient Supreme
Personality of Godhead exists.

Text 19

For him there is no up, no across, and no middle. For Him there are no limits. His name is His great
glory.

Text 20

They become immortal who know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose form is not within
the perception of material senses, whose is not seen by the material eye, whose form in the heart is
seen only by the heart of love.

Text 21

O Lord, because You are beyond the world of birth and death this frightened soul surrenders unto
You. Please show me Your merciful face. Please save me.

Text 22

In this life let there be no calamities for our children, grandchildren, cows, and horses. Let there be
no harm to our heroic protectors. We always worship You with sacrifices of clarified butter.

Chapter 5

Text 1

Both knowledge and ignorance rest in the limitless, eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Ignorance is death, but knowledge is immortality. He rules knowledge and ignorance although He is
beyond them both.

Text 2
He alone rules all species, forms, and universes. In the beginning He fathered the demigod Brahma
with a glance and taught Him the truth.

Text 3

Spreading His net everywhere, the Supreme Personality of Godhead retracts the material world.
Then again the Supreme Personality of Godhead creates the demigods. The Supreme Personality of
Godhead rules all.

Text 4

As the sun shines in all directions: above, below, and across, so the glorious Supreme Personality of
Godhead rules all creatures.

Text 5

He creates the world. He develops and transforms the creation. he alone rules all the world. He
controls the modes of nature.

Text 6

Knowing Him, who is the author of the Vedas, who is hidden in the Vedas and Upanisads, and
whom the demigod Brahma also knows, the great demigods and sages become immortal.

Text 7

Bewildered by the modes of nature, the conditioned soul performs fruitive acts and then experiences
their results. Bewildered by the modes, he accept s different forms, by his karma travelling here and
there on the path of sin, piety, and transcendental knowledge.

Text 8

The conditioned soul is small as a thumb, splendid as the sun, and filled with false-ego and material
desire. Different from Him is the Supersoul, whose form is also very small, but who is filled with
intelligence and spiritual knowledge.

Text 9

If we divide the tip of a hair into one hundred parts and then take one part and divide this into
another one hundred parts, that ten-thousandth part is the dimension of the living entity . Although
encased within the material body, the tiny soul may one day qualify itself to become liberated and
return to the eternal spiritual world.

Text 10

The individual spirit soul is not female. It is not male. It is not neuter. These designations arise only
from the various material bodies the soul accepts.

Text 11
With the illusions of lusty glances and touches, and with a rain of food and drink, the conditioned
soul nourishes his next birth. According to his deeds he attains different bodies in different
conditions of life.

Text 12

According to his own merit the conditioned soul accepts many different bodies, both large and
small. According to his deeds and character he is linked to different bodies. Thus it is seen he is
different from the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Text 13

By knowing the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who has no beginning and no end, who has many
forms, who created the universe, and who is present everywhere in the universe, one becomes free
from all bondage.

Text 14

By knowing the auspicious Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is attained only by love, who is
not material, who is the creator and destroyer of the worlds, and who is the creator of time, the
individual souls become free from having to accept another material body.

Chapter 6

Text 1

Some thinkers say the material universe is self-manifest. Other bewildered men say that time
created universe. The truth is the universe turns by the power of the Supreme Personality of
Godhead.

Text 2

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is present everywhere, who knows everything, who
controls time, and who has all auspicious qualities, created earth, water, fire, air, and ether.

Text 3

Having created these He mixed one with another. He mixed one, two, three, and eight. He mixed
them with time and with the subtle elements.

Text 4

Serving the Supreme Personality of Godhead with every thought and deed, the soul destroys the
reactions of past deeds. When the reactions of the past deed are destroyed, in truth he leaves this
world.

Text 5
The devotee worships the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the cause of all causes, who is
above the three phases of time, whose form is not material, who is seen by His devotees, whose
form is the entire universe, who created the universe, and who stays in His devotees heart.

Text 6

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is not touched by the material nature and He is free from the
entanglement of the complex tree of material time. He is the origin of material creation, and it is due
to Him only that everything changes. He is the protector of religion, and the annihilator of all sinful
activities. He is the master of all opulences and everything rests within Him. He is the Supersoul
present in everyone’s heart. They who understand and worship Him become free from the cycle of
birth and death in the material world and return to the eternal spiritual world.

Text 7

We meditate on the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is the controller of all other controllers,
and He is the greatest of all the diverse planetary leaders. Everyone is under His control. All entities
are delegated with particular power only by the Supreme Lord; they are supreme themselves. He is
also worshipable by all demigods and is the supreme director of all directors. Therefore, He is
transcendental to all kinds of material leaders and controllers and is worshipable by all. There is no
one greater than Him, and He is the supreme cause of all causes.

Text 8

He does not possess bodily form like that of an ordinary living entity. There is no difference
between His body and His soul. He is absolute. All His senses are transcendental. Any one of His
senses can perform the action of any other sense. Therefore, no one is greater than Him or equal to
Him. His potencies are multifarious, and thus His deeds are automatically performed as a natural
sequence.

Text 9

No one is His master. No one controls Him. He does not have a material body. He is the cause of all
causes. He is the master of all the masters of the senses. No one is His father. No one is His king.

Text 10

As a spider with its web, the Supreme Personality of Godhead with His potencies captures His
devotees and grants them His association in the spiritual world.

Text 11

The Supreme Personality of Godhead manifests Himself as the all-pervading Supersoul, the witness
present in the hearts of all living entities. He witnesses all activities of the living entity. He is the
supreme living force, and yet He is transcendental to all material qualities.

Text 12

Wise men who in their hearts see the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who controls all loving
entities, and who created great variety from the seed of material energy, attain eternal peace. Others
cannot.
Text 13

They who know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the supreme eternal among all
conscious entities, who fulfils everyone’s desires and needs, who is the cause of all causes, and who
is attained by sankhya-yoga, become free of all bondage.

Text 14

In the sva-dhama (the abode) of the Lord there is no need of sun, moon or stars for illumination.
Nor is there need of electricity, so what to speak of ignited lamps? On the other hand it is because
those planets are self-illuminating that all effulgence has become possible, and whatever there is
that is dazzling is due to the reflection of that sva-dhama.

Text 15

He is the only swan in the middle of the world. He is a fire burning on the water. They who know
Him cross beyond death. There is no other path to liberation.

Text 16

The Supreme Lord, the creator of this cosmic manifestation, knows every nook and corner of His
creation. Although He is the cause of creation, there is no cause for His appearance. He is fully
aware of everything. He is the Supersoul, the master of all transcendental qualities, and He is the
master of this cosmic manifestation in regard to bondage to the conditional stage of material
existence and liberation from that bondage.

Text 17

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the spiritual, immortal, all-knowing, all-pervading,

Text 18

Because I desire liberation, let me surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who first
enlightened Lord Brahma in Vedic knowledge through Lord Brahma’s heart. The Lord is the
original source of all enlightenment and spiritual advancement.

Text 19

Let me surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is perfect, complete, free from
material activities, peaceful, pure, and free from the touch of matter. Who is a bridge to immortality,
and who is a blazing fire greedily consuming fuel.

Text 20

Only when they can cover all outer space with a tent the living entities will become free of suffering
without knowing the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Text 21
By the power of his austerities, and by the Lord’s mercy, learned Svetasvatara Muni thus described
the pure Supreme Personality of Godhead to the best of saintly sages.

Text 22

This ancient Svetasvatara Upanisad, which is the supreme secret of Vedic literature, should not be
spoken to one who is not peaceful or in control of his senses, nor to one who is not a dutiful son or
an obedient disciple.

Text 23

Only unto those great souls who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master are all
the imports of Vedic knowledge automatically revealed.