Sacred Learning

Devī Upaniṣad 1 (Sanskrit Documents numbering)

Canonical source text

सर्वे वै देवा देवीमुपतस्थुः । कासि त्वं महादेवि । साब्रवीदहं ब्रह्मस्वरूपिणी । मत्तः प्रकृतिपुरुषात्मकं जगच्छून्यं चाशून्यं च ।

IAST transliteration

sarve vai devā devīm upatasthuḥ | kāsi tvaṃ mahādevi | sābravīd ahaṃ brahmasvarūpiṇī | mattaḥ prakṛtipuruṣātmakaṃ jagac chūnyaṃ cāśūnyaṃ ca |

Close translation

All the gods approached the Goddess. ‘Who are you, Great Goddess?’ She said: ‘I am the form of Brahman. From me is the world of prakṛti and puruṣa — empty and not-empty.’

Reader-friendly meaning

The teaching begins as a question put to the Goddess, and an answer that She is Brahman itself, source of the paired world.

Meenananda editorial explanation

In the Ashram the first hearing is welcome: the Mother answers as the vastness named in the Upanishads.

Devī Upaniṣad 1 as numbered in the Sanskrit Documents recension (devi.html), public-domain Devanagari. Sanskrit: public-domain Devanagari as encoded at Sanskrit Documents (sanskritdocuments.org). Foundation translations: CC BY-SA 4.0.

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English

All the gods approached the Goddess. ‘Who are you, Great Goddess?’ She said: ‘I am the form of Brahman. From me is the world of prakṛti and puruṣa — empty and not-empty.’

বাংলা

সমস্ত দেবতা দেবীর কাছে এলেন। ‘মহাদেবি, তুমি কে?’ তিনি বললেন: ‘আমি ব্রহ্মস্বরূপিণী। আমা থেকে প্রকৃতি-পুরুষের জগৎ — শূন্য ও অশূন্য।’

हिन्दी

सभी देव देवी के पास आये। ‘महादेवि, तुम कौन हो?’ उन्होंने कहा: ‘मैं ब्रह्मस्वरूपिणी हूँ। मुझसे प्रकृति-पुरुष का जगत् है — शून्य और अशून्य।’