Hinduism · Yoga · Advaita Vedanta · Vedic tradition
Yajnavalkya
याज्ञवल्क्य
Historicity debated
Vedic sage, protagonist of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad and ritual authority of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, texts of the White Yajurveda school attributed to him. At the court of Janaka of Videha he defeats the brahmins, teaches Gārgī about the imperishable and the king that the ātman is its own light, definable only as "not this, not this". Before leaving as an ascetic he teaches his wife Maitreyī. His historicity is debated; the Yājñavalkya Smṛti and the Yoga Yājñavalkya, which bear his name, are much later.
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Yājñavalkya con el rey Janaka (relieve) · CC BY-SA 3.0
In their words
«It is not for the love of the husband, my dear, that a husband is loved, but for the love of the ātman. […] It is the ātman, my dear, that must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon, Maitreyī.»Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.4.5 (traducción propia del sánscrito)
Their central idea
Neti neti ("not this, not this"): The formula with which the Bṛhadāraṇyaka designates the ātman or brahman: it cannot be described by any attribute, because anything said of it would turn it into one object among others.
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Biography
5 min read
A name found in only two books
Almost everything that can be said about Yājñavalkya comes from two texts of the White Yajurveda school: the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the great treatise on sacrifice, and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, which forms its last book. Both have come down in two recensions, the Kāṇva and the Mādhyandina, and that double tradition allows us, according to Michael Witzel, to check that the portrait is not the invention of a single school. There is no inscription, chronicle or outside witness: Yājñavalkya is a character in texts, and his historicity is debated. What can be said is that tradition credits him with the revelation of the "white" Yajus formulas, and that the Śatapatha itself closes its line of teachers by stating that those formulas, received from the Sun, were proclaimed by Yājñavalkya Vājasaneya.
The ritualist who laughed at the rules
The earliest Yājñavalkya is a priest. In books one to five of the Śatapatha, and again in books eleven to thirteen, he debates technical points of ritual with a sharpness that sometimes borders on insolence. When the text forbids eating the flesh of cow or ox because those animals "support everything here on earth", it adds without transition: "Yet Yājñavalkya said: I, for one, eat it, provided it is tender" (Śatapatha 3.1.2.21). In another passage he is already old, showing his grey-haired arms. Witzel notes that he is absent from books six to ten, which come from a more western tradition, and describes him as a figure of the east, of the kingdom of Videha, even though the text counts him among the brahmins of Kuru and Pañcāla: an immigrant, then, in an east that was being drawn into Vedic culture in the centuries before the Buddha.
A thousand cows at Janaka's court
The scene that gave him literary immortality is in the third book of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka. Janaka, king of Videha, holds a sacrifice with lavish gifts and sets aside a thousand cows with gold coins tied to their horns for the wisest of the brahmins. No one dares to claim them except Yājñavalkya, who tells his pupil Sāmaśravas to drive them home; when the others protest, he replies that he bows to the wisest, but he simply wants the cows. He is questioned in turn by Aśvala, Ārtabhāga, Bhujyu, Uṣasta, Kahola, Gārgī Vācaknavī, Uddālaka Āruṇi, Gārgī again and, finally, Vidagdha Śākalya. With Ārtabhāga he withdraws to speak in private, and what they discussed, the text says, was action: one becomes good by good action and bad by bad action. Gārgī, who asks what supports the worlds of brahman, is warned not to ask too much lest her head fall off; when she returns with two questions "like arrows", he speaks to her of the imperishable, which sees without being seen. Śākalya, who presses on, dies with his head shattered.
The light of man and "not this, not this"
In the fourth book Yājñavalkya teaches Janaka himself. The king asks him what the light of man is: the sun, he answers, and when the sun has set, the moon; then fire, then speech, and when all of these are gone, the self, the ātman, which is its own light. There follows an exploration of the states of consciousness, waking, dreaming and deep sleep, in which the seer becomes "one ocean, without a second", and an account of death and rebirth according to desire and action: "as one acts, so one becomes". The ātman can only be pointed to by negation: neti neti, "not this, not this"; it is ungraspable, indestructible, unattached. In the end Janaka offers himself and his people to the teacher as slaves.
Maitreyī and the departure
Twice the Upaniṣad tells how Yājñavalkya, about to give up the life of a householder, wished to divide his property between his two wives, Maitreyī and Kātyāyanī. Maitreyī, whom the text calls "one who discourses on brahman", asks whether the whole earth full of wealth would make her immortal; told that it would not, she replies: "What would I do with something that does not make me immortal?" He then teaches her that one does not love a husband, a wife, children or wealth for their own sake, but for the sake of the ātman, and that where everything has become the ātman there is no one left to see another. Witzel points out that he is the first person of whom an Indian text says that he leaves home to live without one; Joel Brereton has shown how the two versions of the dialogue were composed and assembled according to a deliberate plan.
What the texts say and what scholarship says
Patrick Olivelle places the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and the Chāndogya, the two oldest Upaniṣads, around the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, before the Buddha, and stresses that the former is a layered composition. Witzel, following Tsuji, holds that the ritualist of the Śatapatha and the thinker of the Upaniṣad are one and the same person, and that his contemporaries — Uddālaka Āruṇi, Janaka of Videha, Ajātaśatru of Kāśī — point to a period before the Buddha; other scholars, such as Horsch and Ruben, doubted that unity. Brian Black and Steven Lindquist read the character as a literary construction: the model of the brahmin who wins debates, whose biography is written through those very debates. None of these readings allows birth or death dates to be fixed.
The name that kept growing
After the Upaniṣads, Yājñavalkya's name became a magnet. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa tells how his teacher Vaiśaṃpāyana, offended, demanded that he give back what he had learned; he vomited the Yajus formulas, which other pupils picked up in the form of partridges (tittiri), whence the name of the Taittirīya school, and he then received from the Sun, in the form of a horse, the white Yajus of the Vājasaneyins. The Mahābhārata has him expound Sāṃkhya doctrine to King Janaka, and the Jain canon counts him among its sages under the name Jannavakka. Much later works circulate under his name: the Yājñavalkya Smṛti, a treatise on dharma and law that Olivelle dates to around the fourth or fifth century CE and which, with the Mitākṣarā commentary, governed much of Hindu law; and the Yoga Yājñavalkya, a yoga manual whose date is disputed between the beginning of the Common Era and the twelfth century.
A legacy at the root of Vedānta
Śaṅkara commented on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, and the method of negation, the ātman as its own light and the unity of ātman and brahman found in Yājñavalkya's dialogues became central pieces of Advaita Vedānta. The traditions of renunciation saw his departure as the model of saṃnyāsa, and two late Upaniṣads, the Jābāla and the one that bears his name, show him teaching how to become a monk. For comparative philosophy, Yājñavalkya ranks among the first thinkers of whom something like a personal voice survives: ironic, eager for cows, relentless in debate and, at the same time, the first to say that the ultimate cannot be named.
Sources: Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5. · Olivelle, Patrick (trad.). Upaniṣads. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. · Müller, F. Max (trad.). The Upanishads, Part II (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 15). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884. Incluye la Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. · Eggeling, Julius (trad.). The Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa according to the Text of the Mādhyandina School, 5 vols. (Sacred Books of the East, vols. 12, 26, 41, 43, 44). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882–1900. · Black, Brian. The Character of the Self in Ancient India: Priests, Kings, and Women in the Early Upaniṣads. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Timeline
A life, year by year
Each point is a documented event. Click to read it, with its source and degree of certainty.
VIII century BCE – 600 BCEVideha y Kuru-Pañcāla (llanura del Ganges)
The ritualist of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa
The ritual opinions attributed to Yājñavalkya in books 1–5 and 11–13 of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa reflect, according to Witzel, the late Vedic period before the Buddha. The range is an estimate, not a date.
ProbableWitzel, Michael. «Yājñavalkya as Ritualist and Philosopher, and His Personal Language». En Siamak Adhami (ed.), Paitimāna: Essays in Iranian, Indo-European, and Indian Studies in Honor of Hanns-Peter Schmidt. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2003, pp. 103–143.
VIII century BCE – 600 BCE
The ritualist of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa
The ritual opinions attributed to Yājñavalkya in books 1–5 and 11–13 of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa reflect, according to Witzel, the late Vedic period before the Buddha. The range is an estimate, not a date.
Probable
VII century BCE
Revelation of the White Yajus (according to tradition)
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka (6.5.3) credits Yājñavalkya Vājasaneya with proclaiming the "white" Yajus formulas received from the Sun; the Purāṇas add the story of Vaiśaṃpāyana and the partridges.
Tradition
VII century BCE
The debate of the thousand cows
At Janaka's sacrifice Yājñavalkya answers nine interlocutors, including Gārgī Vācaknavī and Uddālaka Āruṇi (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.1–3.9). It is a literary account of uncertain date.
Tradition
VII century BCE
The teachings to Janaka
The light of man, the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep, death and rebirth, and "neti neti" (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.1–4.4).
Tradition
VII century BCE
Dialogue with Maitreyī and departure as an ascetic
Before leaving household life he teaches Maitreyī the doctrine of the ātman (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4 and 4.5). Witzel regards it as the first textual case of a "proto-renouncer".
Tradition
II century BCE – 400
Yājñavalkya in the Mahābhārata
The Śāntiparvan (12.298 ff.) has him expound Sāṃkhya doctrine to Janaka. The epic took shape between the third century BCE and the fourth century CE.
Probable
IV century – 500
Composition of the Yājñavalkya Smṛti
Treatise on dharma in three books attributed to Yājñavalkya; Olivelle dates it to around the fourth or fifth century CE.
Probable
XI century
Vijñāneśvara's Mitākṣarā
Vijñāneśvara's commentary on the Yājñavalkya Smṛti (late eleventh or twelfth century) became the principal authority of Hindu law in much of India and, later, the basis of the "Hindu law" of British courts.
Probable
1884
Max Müller's translation
Max Müller publishes the Bṛhadāraṇyaka in volume 15 of the Sacred Books of the East, which made Yājñavalkya's dialogues known in the West.
Documented
2019
Olivelle's edition of the Yājñavalkya Smṛti
Patrick Olivelle publishes the text and translation of the Smṛti in the Murty Classical Library of India.
Documented
Works
Essential works
The works without which their legacy cannot be understood.
Later compilation · VII century BCE
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (The Great Forest Upaniṣad)
बृहदारण्यकोपनिषद् (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad)
The longest and probably the oldest of the Upaniṣads. It is traditionally divided into three sections: the Madhu-kāṇḍa (chapters 1–2), with the first dialogue between Yājñavalkya and Maitreyī; the Muni- or Yājñavalkya-kāṇḍa (3–4), with the debate at Janaka's court and the teachings to the king on the light of the ātman, the states of consciousness, death and "neti neti"; and the Khila-kāṇḍa (5–6), a supplement of doctrines and rites ending with the lists of teachers. It is the main source for the early form of the doctrine of karma and rebirth, and one of the textual foundations of Vedānta.
13 editions · amazon.es
Traditional attribution · VII century BCE
Yājñavalkya-kāṇḍa (Muni-kāṇḍa): the debate at Janaka's court and the teachings to the king
याज्ञवल्कीयकाण्ड / मुनिकाण्ड (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3–4)
Chapter 3 narrates the contest at the sacrifice of Janaka of Videha: Yājñavalkya answers Aśvala, Ārtabhāga, Bhujyu, Uṣasta, Kahola, Gārgī Vācaknavī, Uddālaka Āruṇi and Vidagdha Śākalya on ritual, death, karma, the "inner controller" (antaryāmin) and the imperishable (akṣara). Chapter 4 records his conversations with Janaka: the light of man, the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep, death and rebirth, desire and liberation, and the doctrine of the ātman as "not this, not this". It ends with the second version of the dialogue with Maitreyī.
3 editions · amazon.es
Yajnavalkya
Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (The Brāhmaṇa of a Hundred Paths)
Traditional attribution · VIII century BCE
Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (The Brāhmaṇa of a Hundred Paths)
शतपथब्राह्मण (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa)
The longest of the Vedic prose treatises on sacrifice. It explains, rite by rite, the meaning of the new- and full-moon offerings, the soma sacrifice, the great fire altar (agnicayana), royal consecration and the horse sacrifice, and includes famous narratives such as the flood and Manu, Purūravas and Urvaśī, and Videgha Māthava, which tells of the eastward spread of the sacrificial fire. Its later books contain the first speculative debates (brahmodya) involving Yājñavalkya, Uddālaka Āruṇi and Janaka.
4 editions
Traditional attribution · IV century
Yājñavalkya Smṛti (Yājñavalkya's Treatise on Dharma)
याज्ञवल्क्यस्मृति (Yājñavalkya Smṛti)
About a thousand verses in three books: conduct (ācāra), legal procedure (vyavahāra) and expiation (prāyaścitta). More concise and systematic than the Laws of Manu, it gives priority to documentary evidence, describes the trial in four stages (plaint, answer, proof and verdict) and grants women broader inheritance rights. It also includes passages on medicine, embryology and yoga. With Vijñāneśvara's Mitākṣarā commentary (eleventh–twelfth century) it was the main authority of Hindu law across much of India and the basis of the "Hindu law" applied by British courts.
5 editions
Complete works (12)
The dialogue with Maitreyī
650
Yajnavalkya
Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā (White Yajurveda)
The Conscious LibraryVājasaneyi Saṃhitā (White Yajurveda)
800
Yoga Yājñavalkya
Yajnavalkya
Bṛhad Yogi Yājñavalkya Smṛti
The Conscious LibraryBṛhad Yogi Yājñavalkya Smṛti
Jābāla Upaniṣad and Yājñavalkya Upaniṣad (Upaniṣads of renunciation)
Yajnavalkya
The dialogue of Yājñavalkya and Janaka in the Mahābhārata
The Conscious LibraryThe dialogue of Yājñavalkya and Janaka in the Mahābhārata
100
Yajnavalkya
Vṛddha-Yājñavalkya and Bṛhad-Yājñavalkya (fragments)
The Conscious LibraryVṛddha-Yājñavalkya and Bṛhad-Yājñavalkya (fragments)
Yajnavalkya
Yājñavalkya Śikṣā (treatise on phonetics)
The Conscious LibraryYājñavalkya Śikṣā (treatise on phonetics)
Quotations
Quotations located in a specific work. Each carries its provenance and its level of confidence.
It is not for the love of the husband, my dear, that a husband is loved, but for the love of the ātman. […] It is the ātman, my dear, that must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon, Maitreyī.न वा अरे पत्युः कामाय पतिः प्रियो भवत्यात्मनस्तु कामाय पतिः प्रियो भवति । … आत्मा वा अरे द्रष्टव्यः श्रोतव्यो मन्तव्यो निदिध्यासितव्यो मैत्रेयि ।
VerifiedBṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.4.5 (traducción propia del sánscrito)
Last words
There are no verifiable records of their last words.
There is no record of his death or of his last words. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka closes his story with a departure, not a death: the last words the text gives him are those addressed to Maitreyī, "such, my dear, is immortality" (etāvad are khalv amṛtatvam), after which "Yājñavalkya went away" (4.5.15). They are not last words in a biographical sense. What the Purāṇas and the local traditions of Mithilā tell afterwards is late hagiography.
Source: Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5.
Ask
What their work answers
Twelve great human questions and what their texts allow us to answer, with references. We never put words in their mouth.
What is the Absolute? Does God exist?
«Not this, not this»: the ultimate cannot be the object of any knowing
The unnameableStated explicitly
In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, Yājñavalkya designates the ātman, identical with brahman, by the formula «not this, not this» (neti neti): it is ungraspable because it cannot be grasped, indestructible because it is not destroyed. To Gārgī he describes the imperishable (akṣara) through a long series of negations —neither coarse nor fine, neither short nor long, with no inside or outside— and, at the same time, as that under whose command the sun and moon are held apart. The reason for so much negation is epistemological: the ultimate is the knower, and he asks Maitreyī by what the knower could be known. It is not nihilism; it is the impossibility of turning into an object what is the subject of all knowing.
Compare this question with other teachersWho am I? Is there a true self?
The ātman sees without being seen: it is its own light and is brahman
The Self is the AbsoluteStated explicitly
In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Yājñavalkya defines the ātman as the ultimate subject of experience: the one who sees without being seen, hears without being heard, thinks without being thought and knows without being known (3.7.23). When King Janaka asks him what the light of a person is once the sun and moon have set, the fire has gone out and the voice is silent, he answers that the ātman is then its own light (4.3.6). That ātman persists in waking, dream and deep sleep, where it becomes «one ocean, without a second» (4.3.32). And Yājñavalkya identifies it plainly with the principle of everything: «this ātman is brahman» (4.4.5). The true self is not the body or the mind, but what illumines them and cannot be known as an object.
Compare this question with other teachersWhy do we suffer?
Everything other than the ātman is afflicted
Ignorance of what we areStated explicitly
In the debate at Janaka's court, Yājñavalkya closes several of his answers with the same phrase: what is other than the ātman is afflicted (ārta). He says it to Uṣasta, to Kahola and to Uddālaka Āruṇi, after describing the ātman as the one who sees without being seen (3.4.2; 3.5.1; 3.7.23). Suffering is thus tied to living turned towards what is perceived as something else, instead of recognising oneself in the subject who perceives it. Before Janaka he adds the mechanism: a person is made of desire; as is his desire, so is his will, as his will, so his action, and as his action, so he becomes (4.4.5). Whoever knows the ātman, he tells Kahola, leaves behind hunger, thirst, sorrow, delusion, old age and death.
Compare this question with other teachersWhat happens after death?
As a caterpillar moves from blade to blade, the ātman passes to another body
Rebirth according to karmaStated explicitly
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka contains, in Yājñavalkya's mouth, one of the first formulations of transmigration according to one's deeds. What he discusses alone with Ārtabhāga, away from the debate, is action: one becomes good by good action and bad by bad (3.2.13). Before Janaka he describes death: the senses gather in the heart, and the ātman, with its knowledge, its deeds and its past experience, leaves the body like a caterpillar that reaches for another blade before letting go of the last, or like a goldsmith who gives gold a new and more beautiful form (4.4.3–4). As is his desire, so will be his action, and as his action, so he will become. But one who desires nothing, whose only desire is the ātman, does not transmigrate: being brahman, he goes to brahman (4.4.6).
Compare this question with other teachersHow is liberation or salvation attained?
Whoever knows the ātman and desires nothing more becomes brahman
Through direct knowledgeStated explicitly
For the Yājñavalkya of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, liberation is knowledge. He tells Maitreyī that it is the ātman that must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon, for by knowing it everything is known (2.4.5). He teaches Janaka that one who desires nothing, whose only desire is the ātman, does not transmigrate: being brahman, he goes to brahman (4.4.6). That knowledge goes together with renunciation: the brahmins who know the ātman, he says, give up the desire for sons, wealth and worlds, and live on alms (3.5.1). Ritual, Vedic study, generosity and austerity serve to make one wish to know it (4.4.22), but do not produce it. He himself, before departing as an ascetic, proposes to divide his goods between his two wives.
Compare this question with other teachersIs a teacher necessary?
Knowledge is won in debate and passes through a lineage of teachers
Community and traditionInferred from their doctrine
Yājñavalkya appears in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka within a network of teachers and disciples. He is presented as a pupil of Uddālaka Āruṇi (6.3.7) and in turn teaches King Janaka, his wife Maitreyī and those who question him at court. Knowledge is tested in public, in the theological debate (brahmodya) for Janaka's thousand cows, where Yājñavalkya answers eight opponents, and transmitted in private, as when he withdraws with Ārtabhāga to speak of action. The Upaniṣad closes its sections with lists of lineages (vaṃśa) that trace the teaching from teacher to teacher back to its source. The text contains no thesis on the need for a teacher: what it shows is that knowledge of the ātman lives in a community that debates, transmits and tests.
Compare this question with other teachersIs the world real?
Where there is something like duality, one sees the other
Appearance over the one realityInferred from their doctrine
Yājñavalkya does not deny that the world exists: he explains to Gārgī that all that is above the sky, below the earth and between them is woven on space, and space on the imperishable (3.8). But he introduces a decisive distinction. He tells Maitreyī that where there is «something like duality» (dvaitam iva) one sees, hears and knows the other; when everything has become one's own ātman, with what and whom would one see? (2.4.14). Multiplicity belongs to ordinary experience; in the ultimate vision there is no second. Verses he quotes before Janaka add that there is no diversity here at all, and that whoever sees as if there were goes from death to death (4.4.19). The world is real as that in which the ātman is manifest, not as something separate from it.
Compare this question with other teachersWhat is love?
The husband is not loved for the husband's sake, but for the ātman
Longing and unionStated explicitly
Yājñavalkya's most famous passage on love is in his farewell dialogue with Maitreyī. Before leaving as an ascetic he offers to divide his goods; she asks whether wealth would make her immortal, and he answers with a teaching: it is not for love of the husband that the husband is dear, but for love of the ātman; and likewise the wife, the sons, wealth, the gods and all beings (2.4.5). All love has the ātman as its ultimate object, and that is why it is the ātman that must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon. Love, then, is not rejected: one discovers what it was always seeking. Beneath every bond lies a longing for the one thing that is not lost, and wisdom consists in recognising it.
Compare this question with other teachersAre we free, or is everything determined?
As is one's desire, so is one's will; as one's action, so one becomes
Karma and choiceStated explicitly
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka ascribes to Yājñavalkya an early and precise formulation of the relation between action and destiny. Before Janaka he explains that a person is made of desire: as is his desire, so is his will; as his will, so his action; and according to the action he performs, so he becomes (4.4.5). As one acts and behaves, so one becomes: the one who does good becomes good; the one who does evil, evil. The past conditions, because at death the ātman departs accompanied by its deeds and experience; but the chain begins in desire, and that is why it can be broken. One who desires nothing, whose only desire is the ātman, leaves it. Responsibility thus rests on what each person desires and does.
Compare this question with other teachersWhy meditate or pray?
It is the ātman that must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon
Returning to the source of the IStated explicitly
The phrase Yājñavalkya addresses to Maitreyī —it is the ātman, my dear, that must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon (2.4.5)— became the programme of Vedāntic practice: hearing the teaching (śravaṇa), reflecting on it (manana) and meditating on it until it becomes evident (nididhyāsana). What is meditated on is not an image or an external god, but the subject itself: the one who sees without being seen and knows without being known. His dialogues with Janaka traverse the states of waking, dream and deep sleep to show what remains in all three, and ask the knower to become calm, restrained, withdrawn, patient and collected, and to see the ātman in himself (4.4.23).
Compare this question with other teachersCan reason know the ultimate?
By what could one know the knower?
The ultimate lies beyond the mindStated explicitly
Yājñavalkya is a master of debate: at Janaka's court he answers eight opponents and wins the king's thousand cows. And yet what he defends with arguments is that the ultimate cannot be reached by them. To Uṣasta, who asks him to show the ātman as one points to a cow, he replies that one cannot see the seer of seeing or think the thinker of thought (3.4.2). He asks Maitreyī by what one could know the knower (2.4.14). To Gārgī, who insists on asking on what brahman is woven, he warns her not to ask too much, or her head will fall off (3.6.1). Reasoning can clear away errors and point towards the subject, but the subject never becomes an object of thought.
Compare this question with other teachersWithdraw from the world or transform it?
Those who know the ātman leave sons, wealth and worlds, and beg
Withdraw in order to findStated explicitly
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka presents Yājñavalkya on the point of «going forth» from his home to lead a wandering life: before leaving he wishes to divide his goods between his two wives, and Maitreyī asks for his teaching instead (2.4.1; 4.5.2). In Janaka's debate he describes the knowers of the ātman as those who, giving up the desire for sons, wealth and worlds, live on alms (3.5.1). Knowledge of the ātman leads to detachment from everything else, and detachment is expressed in a way of life. Michael Witzel regards him as the first textual case of a «proto-renouncer», prior to the systematisation of the stages of life. The late Upaniṣads of renunciation made him the teacher par excellence of saṃnyāsa.
Compare this question with other teachers
Affinities & tensions
Affinities and tensions
Calculated question by question from their positions. The reason for each agreement or clash, on click.
Thinks most like
Vasishtha
They agree on: Who am I? Is there a true self? · Why do we suffer? · How is liberation or salvation attained?
Nisargadatta Maharaj
They agree on: What is the Absolute? Does God exist? · Who am I? Is there a true self? · Why do we suffer?
Sadhguru
They agree on: Who am I? Is there a true self? · What happens after death? · Is the world real?
Bodhidharma
They agree on: Who am I? Is there a true self? · What happens after death? · Are we free, or is everything determined?
Thinks most unlike
Ignatius of Loyola
They clash on: Who am I? Is there a true self? · What happens after death? · Is the world real?
Teresa of Ávila
They clash on: Who am I? Is there a true self? · What happens after death? · Is the world real?
Jesus of Nazareth
They clash on: Is the world real? · Who am I? Is there a true self? · What happens after death?
Francis of Assisi
They clash on: Who am I? Is there a true self? · What happens after death? · Is the world real?
Anecdotes and stories
Anecdotes and stories
Documentedépoca védica tardía (ss. VII–VI a. C., según la datación del texto)
The thousand cows with gold on their horns
Origin of the story: Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.1.1–2 (parallel in Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 11.6.3). "Documented" means here that the story is in the text; it does not imply that the scene is historical.
Source: Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5.
Documentedépoca védica tardía
Gārgī and the two arrows
Origin of the story: Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.6 and 3.8. Later traditions turn her into a philosopher of Janaka's court or, in one manuscript of the Yoga Yājñavalkya, into Yājñavalkya's wife; none of this is in the Upaniṣad.
Source: Lindquist, Steven E. «Gender at Janaka's Court: Women in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad Reconsidered». Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 405–426.
Documentedépoca védica tardía
The death of Śākalya
Origin of the story: Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.9 (with a parallel in Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 11.6.3 and in Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 2.76–77, according to Witzel). The analysis is Lindquist's (2011).
Source: Lindquist, Steven E. «Literary Lives and a Literal Death: Yājñavalkya, Śākalya, and an Upaniṣadic Death Sentence». Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79, n.º 1 (2011): 33–57.
Documentedépoca védica tardía
"I eat it, provided it is tender"
Origin of the story: Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 3.1.2.21 (and 3.8.2.24 for the scene of the grey-haired arms), following Eggeling's translation and Witzel's analysis (2003).
Hagiographic accountrelato purāṇico (primer milenio d. C.)
The pupil who vomited the Veda
Origin of the story: Viṣṇu Purāṇa 3.5 and Bhāgavata Purāṇa 12.6. It does not come from the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, as is sometimes said, but from the Purāṇas, which thus explain the names of the two schools of the Yajurveda. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka (6.5.3) says only that the white formulas come from the Sun.
Documentedépoca védica tardía
Janaka offers himself as a slave
Origin of the story: Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.3.1–4.4.23 (the final sentence at 4.4.23). The reading of the relation between king and brahmin is Black's (2007).
Source: Black, Brian. The Character of the Self in Ancient India: Priests, Kings, and Women in the Early Upaniṣads. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Teachings
Teachings
The notions that structure their thought, explained in context.
Neti neti ("not this, not this")neti-neti
Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.3.6, 3.9.26, 4.2.4, 4.4.22, 4.5.15 (Kāṇva recension). Gauḍapāda quotes it in the Māṇḍūkya Kārikā 3.26.
Source: Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5.
Ātman (the self)atman
Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.4–3.7, 4.3–4.5.
Source: Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5.
Karma and rebirthkarman-y-renacimiento
Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.2.13 and 4.4.2–7; Witzel 2003.
Akṣara (the imperishable)akshara
Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.8.
Source: Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5.
Antaryāmin (the inner controller)antaryamin
Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.7.
Source: Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5.
Renunciation (saṃnyāsa)renuncia-samnyasa
Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.5.1, 4.4.22, 4.5.1; Olivelle 1992.
Source: Olivelle, Patrick (trad.). The Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1992 (incluye la Jābāla y la Yājñavalkya Upaniṣad).
Videos
Videos
Recordings, interviews and documentaries. Videos play from YouTube; they are not hosted here.
1. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Introduction | Swami Sarvapriyananda
Lecture· EN· 2026· 71 min
Vedanta Society of New YorkOfficial channel
3. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Mantras 2.4.1 to 2.4.5 | Swami Sarvapriyananda
Lecture· EN· 2026· 73 min
Vedanta Society of New YorkOfficial channel
4. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Mantra 2.4.5 continued | Swami Sarvapriyananda
Lecture· EN· 2026· 68 min
Vedanta Society of New YorkOfficial channel
5. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Mantra 2.4.6 | Swami Sarvapriyananda
Lecture· EN· 2026· 75 min
Vedanta Society of New YorkOfficial channel
Swami Atmajnanananda on "Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi - An Interesting Dialogue"
Lecture· EN· 2016· 66 min
Austin VedantaOfficial channel
Swami Yogatmananda - Dialogue on the Self (Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi)
Lecture· EN· 2021· 58 min
VedantaSTLOfficial channel
Yagnavalkya Upadesham (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad) | Kanchipuram | 2024
Lecture· TA· 2024· 95 min
Voice of Rishis Swami Ramanacharanatirtha (Nochur)Official channel
Understanding the Dharma Shastras: A Conversation with Dr. Patrick Olivelle and Dr. Donald Davis
Interview· EN· 2022· 113 min
Meru Media
Patrick Olivelle on Law, Religion, and Dharma
Lecture· EN· 2014· 45 min
Central European UniversityOfficial channel
The Central Doctrines of the Upanishads
Lecture· EN· 2016· 37 min
Vidya-mitraOfficial channel
'Introduction to Shatpath Brahmana' - 100 paths of Moksha; Dr Aparna Dhir Khandelwal
Lecture· EN· 2021· 31 min
Sattology
Shatapatha Brahmana Parayana in presence of His Holiness
Original recording· SA· 2020· 20 min
Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, KanchipuramOfficial channel
Yajnavalkya / ಯಾಜ್ಞವಲ್ಕ್ಯ | Upanishat Rushigalu | Vid C G Vijayasimha Acharya
Lecture· KN· 2021· 12 min
JnanaGamya Prasarana
YAJNAVALKYA: La Búsqueda del Conocimiento Interior y de la Realidad Última. 1
Analysis· ES· 2024· 28 min
Una Historia Pequeña de la Filosofía
La metafísica de los Upanishad. José Carlos Fernández
Lecture· ES· 2021· 60 min
Nueva Acrópolis EspañaOfficial channel
Gallery
Gallery
Images with verified licences. Each keeps its authorship and attribution.
Manuscripts
Manuscripts
Manuscript witnesses and ancient texts, with their custodian and conditions of access.
SA · Devanagari · c. ss. VII–VI a. C. (Olivelle)
बृहदारण्यकोपनिषद् (adhyāya 1, folio 3b)
- Surviving witness
- Manuscrito en papel sin fecha publicada
- Custodian
- University of Pennsylvania Libraries (Filadelfia)
- Digitisation
- commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brihadaranyaka_u…
SA · Devanagari · c. ss. VIII–VI a. C.
शतपथब्राह्मण (kāṇḍa 14, prapāṭhaka 3–4)
- Surviving witness
- Manuscrito del siglo XIII según la descripción de Commons
- Digitisation
- commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:13th-century_Sha…
SA · Escrituras del norte de la India sobre hoja de palma · Fecha discutida (entre el inicio de la era común y el s. XII)
योगयाज्ञवल्क्य
- Surviving witness
- Manuscritos en hoja de palma de finales del s. IX o inicios del X y de 1024 d. C., según Wujastyk
- Custodian
- National Archives of Nepal (Katmandú, NAK 5-696) y British Library (Londres, Or. 3568) · NAK 5-696; BL Or. 3568
Connections
Connections
Influences, discipleships and affinities. Documented relations are distinguished from similarities identified by analysis.
Disagreed with
Debate on the "thread" and the "inner controller" (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.7), which Uddālaka loses.
Documented relation
Disciple of
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka's lists of teachers make him a pupil of Uddālaka Āruṇi: in the list for the mantha rite (6.3.7, Kāṇva recension) and in the final lineage, "Yājñavalkya from Uddālaka; Uddālaka from Aruṇa"; in 3.7 Uddālaka questions him at Janaka's court and falls silent. Witzel regards them as contemporaries.
Documented relation
Teacher of
Janaka de Videha
King of Videha, organizer of the contest and Yājñavalkya's pupil in Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.1–4.4 and Śatapatha 11.6.2.
Documented relation
Met
Gārgī Vācaknavī
His interlocutor in Bṛhadāraṇyaka 3.6 and 3.8.
Documented relation
Family of
Maitreyī
One of his two wives, together with Kātyāyanī; recipient of the dialogue on the ātman (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4 and 4.5).
Documented relation
Influenced
Śaṅkara wrote an extensive commentary on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and based much of his doctrine of the ātman and of renunciation on Yājñavalkya's dialogues.
Documented relation
Influenced
The Māṇḍūkya Kārikā (3.26) quotes the Bṛhadāraṇyaka's "neti neti" as proof that scripture denies all difference.
Documented relation
Influenced by
According to the Purāṇas, Yājñavalkya was a pupil of Vaiśaṃpāyana, himself a pupil of Vyāsa, who is said to have divided the Veda. This is a traditional lineage, not a historical fact.
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
The Yājñavalkya of the Mahābhārata (12.298 ff.) expounds to Janaka the Sāṃkhya doctrine that tradition attributes to Kapila.
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
The Yoga Yājñavalkya expands the eight-limbed yoga of the Yoga Sūtras (ten restraints and ten observances instead of five and five).
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
Ramana's "Who am I?" inquiry and his description of the self as an objectless witness recall "neti neti" and the ātman that sees without being seen.
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
His method of denying identification with body and mind has a clear precedent in "not this, not this".
Similarity identified by analysis
Ideas akin to
A classic comparison in comparative philosophy (Rudolf Otto, among others) between Eckhart's negative way and the ungraspable ātman of the Upaniṣads.
Similarity identified by analysis
Sources
Sources
Bibliography and catalogues consulted for this profile.
- Wikidata, «Yajnavalkya», QID Q1423663.
- Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1998 (South Asia Research). Introducción (datación, pp. 12–13) y Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4, 3.1–3.9, 4.1–4.5, 6.5.
- Olivelle, Patrick (trad.). Upaniṣads. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
- Müller, F. Max (trad.). The Upanishads, Part II (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 15). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884. Incluye la Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad.
- Eggeling, Julius (trad.). The Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa according to the Text of the Mādhyandina School, 5 vols. (Sacred Books of the East, vols. 12, 26, 41, 43, 44). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882–1900.
- Witzel, Michael. «Yājñavalkya as Ritualist and Philosopher, and His Personal Language». En Siamak Adhami (ed.), Paitimāna: Essays in Iranian, Indo-European, and Indian Studies in Honor of Hanns-Peter Schmidt. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 2003, pp. 103–143.
- Brereton, Joel P. «The Composition of the Maitreyī Dialogue in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad». Journal of the American Oriental Society 126, n.º 3 (2006): 323–345.
- Black, Brian. The Character of the Self in Ancient India: Priests, Kings, and Women in the Early Upaniṣads. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
- Lindquist, Steven E. «Literary Lives and a Literal Death: Yājñavalkya, Śākalya, and an Upaniṣadic Death Sentence». Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79, n.º 1 (2011): 33–57.
- Olivelle, Patrick (ed. y trad.). Yājñavalkya: A Treatise on Dharma. Murty Classical Library of India 20. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 2019. Introducción, pp. vii–xxxvii.
- Mohan, A. G., con Ganesh Mohan (trad.). Yoga Yājñavalkya. 2.ª ed. Singapur: Svastha Yoga, 2013.
- Dutt, Manmatha Nath (trad.). A Prose English Translation of Vishnupuranam. Calcuta, 1896; libro III, cap. 5 (la historia de Yājñavalkya y Vaiśaṃpāyana). Project Gutenberg n.º 66208. Véase también H. H. Wilson, The Vishńu Puráńa, Londres, 1840.
- Mahābhārata, Śāntiparvan 12.298 y ss. (edición crítica de Poona): diálogo de Yājñavalkya y Janaka (Daivarāti). Trad. inglesa de Kisari Mohan Ganguli, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Calcuta, 1883–1896.
- Wikipedia (en inglés), «Yajnavalkya», consultada el 26 de octubre de 2026.
- Hume, Robert Ernest (trad.). The Thirteen Principal Upanishads. Londres: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Herold, A.-Ferdinand (trad.). L'Upanishad du grand Aranyaka (Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad). París: Librairie de l'art indépendant, 1894.
- Wikisource en sánscrito, «बृहदारण्यकोपनिषद्» (texto sánscrito, seis adhyāya).
- Röer, Edward, y W. A. Montriou (trads.). Hindu Law and Judicature from the Dharma-Sástra of Yájnavalkya. Calcuta, 1859. Project Gutenberg n.º 21918.
- Divanji, Prahlad Chandrashekhar (ed.). Yoga-Yājñavalkya: A Treatise on Yoga as Taught by Yogī Yājñavalkya. Bombay: Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1954.
- Wikipedia (en inglés), «Yoga Yajnavalkya» y «Yajnavalkya Smriti» (resumen de las dataciones de Divanji, Mohan, White, Wujastyk y Olivelle), consultadas el 26 de octubre de 2026.
- Ilárraz, Félix G., y Óscar Pujol (trads.). La sabiduría del bosque: antología de las principales Upaniṣad. Madrid: Trotta, 2003.
- Martín, Consuelo (trad.). Gran Upaniṣad del Bosque (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad), con el comentario advaita de Śaṅkara. Madrid: Trotta, 2002.
- Wikisource en sánscrito, «याज्ञवल्क्यस्मृतिः» (texto de la Yājñavalkya Smṛti por prakaraṇa).
- Wikisource en sánscrito, «शतपथब्राह्मणम्» (texto del Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa por kāṇḍa).
- Deussen, Paul (trad.). Sechzig Upanishad's des Veda. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1897.
- Wikimedia Commons, ficheros y metadatos de licencia consultados mediante la API (imageinfo/extmetadata).
- Olivelle, Patrick (trad.). The Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 1992 (incluye la Jābāla y la Yājñavalkya Upaniṣad).
- Dvivedi, Manilal N. (trad.). The Māṇḍūkyopanishad with Gauḍapāda's Kārikās and the Bhāshya of Śaṅkara. Bombay: Tookaram Tatya, 1894 (Kārikā 3.26).
- Lindquist, Steven E. «Gender at Janaka's Court: Women in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad Reconsidered». Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 405–426.
- Rights holder
- Los textos sánscritos (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Yājñavalkya Smṛti, Yoga Yājñavalkya) son de dominio público. Las traducciones modernas tienen derechos propios: Oxford University Press (Olivelle; Hume hasta 2029 en España), Harvard University Press (Olivelle 2019), Trotta (Ilárraz y Pujol; Consuelo Martín), Penguin (Roebuck), Svastha Yoga (Mohan). Las de Müller (1884), Eggeling (1882–1900), Herold (1894), Deussen (1897), Stenzler (1849), Röer y Montriou (1859) y Vidyarnava (1918) son de dominio público.
Pending confirmation
What this profile has not yet been able to settle. We would rather say so than fill it in.
- Mahābhārata: confirmar en la edición crítica de Poona el final del diálogo de Yājñavalkya y Janaka (empieza en 12.298) y la equivalencia con las secciones de Ganguli; confirmar el año del volumen de Ganguli (Śānti Parva).
- Bṛhad Yogi Yājñavalkya Smṛti: confirmar año y responsables de la edición de Kaivalyadhama y localizar el estudio de 2017 que revisa la tesis de White sobre la autoría común con el Yoga Yājñavalkya.
- Yoga Yājñavalkya: comprobar en el libro la atribución a T. K. V. Desikachar de la edición del Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (ISBN 9788187847007); Open Library no indica traductor.
- Ediciones: buscar ISBN de traducciones al español, alemán, italiano, ruso e hindi de la Bṛhadāraṇyaka y de la Yājñavalkya Smṛti; confirmar el ISBN de la edición de Motilal de Deussen (Sixty Upanishads).
- Sala de lectura: no se ha encontrado en Internet Archive un escaneo con OCR de Deussen, Sechzig Upanishad's des Veda (1897); no hay texto español de dominio público de la Bṛhadāraṇyaka en es.wikisource.
- Relaciones: los slugs janaka-de-videha, gargi-vachaknavi y maitreyi no existen todavía en el Atlas.
- Isibhāsiyāiṃ: localizar el capítulo exacto de «Jannavakka» en la edición de Schubring.
- Vídeos: no se ha encontrado una clase universitaria monográfica en español ni un documental de televisión pública sobre Yājñavalkya.
Researched on 2026-10-26