^223:2 Bhur bhuvah svah are explained by Dvivedaganga as the Rig-veda, Yagur-veda, and Sama-veda. They might also be earth, air, and heaven. See Sankhayana, Grihya-sutras 1, 24; Bhur rigvedam tvayi dadhami, &c.

^223:3 The Madhyandinas add here another verse, which the father recites while he strokes his boy: 'Be a stone, be an axe, be pure gold. Thou art my Self, called my son; live a hundred harvests.' The same verse occurs in the Asvalayana Grihya-sutras I, 15, 3.

^223:4 The two ceremonies, here described, are the ayushya-karman and the medhaganana. They are here treated rather confusedly. Paraskara (Grihya-sutras I, 16, 3) distinguishes the medhaganana and the ayushya. He treats the medhaganana first, which consists in feeding the boy with honey and clarified butter, and saying to him bhus tvayi dadhami, &c. The ayushya consists in repeating certain verses in the boy's ear, wishing him a long life, &c. In Asvalayana's Grihya-sutras, I, 15, 1 contains the ayushya, I, 15, 2 the medhaganana. Sankhayana also (I, 24) treats the ayushya first, and the medhaganana afterwards, and the same order prevails in the Madhyandina text of the Brihadaranyaka-upanishad.

^223:5 In the Madhyandina text these acts are differently arranged.

^223:6 Rig-veda I, 164, 49.

^223:7 These verses are differently explained by various commentators. Anandagiri explains ila as stutya, bhogya. He derives Maitravaruni from Maitravaruna, i.e. Vasishtha, the son of Mitravarunau, and identifies her with Arundhati. Dvivedaganga takes ida as bhogya, or idapatri, or prithivirupa, and admits that she may be called Maitravaruni, because born of Mitravarunau. Vire is rightly taken as a vocative by Dvivedaganga, while Anandagiri explains it as a locative, mayi nimittabhute. One expects agiganah instead of agiganat, which is the reading of A. and B. The reading of the Madhyandinas, agiganathah, is right grammatically, but it offends against the metre, and is a theoretical rather than a real form. If we read agiganah, we must also read akarah, unless we are prepared to follow the commentator, who supplies bhavati.

Note by Redactor

For reasons of Victorian modesty, Muller left certain aspects of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, VI, 4, untranslated. This is because this particular Brahmana has passages which discuss aspects of Vedic era sex magic. To fill in the gap, I have appended a 1921 translation of the same Brahmana. This is from the translation of Robert Ernest Hume, and includes English translations of the passages Muller left untranslated. Note that Hume uses a slightly different transcription method for Sanskrit than the SBE system.--J. B. Hare.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Translated by Robert Ernest Hume

Oxford University Press

[1921]