Traditional attribution
The dialogue with Maitreyī
मैत्रेयीब्राह्मण (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.4 y 4.5)
Before giving up household life, Yājñavalkya wishes to divide his property between his wives. Maitreyī asks whether wealth would make her immortal and, told that it would not, asks for knowledge instead. He explains that everything one loves is loved for the sake of the ātman, that the ātman must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon, and that where everything has become the ātman there is no duality and no one to know the knower. The second version (4.5) adds the mention of his other wife, Kātyāyanī, and closes with his departure. It is one of the passages most commented on by Śaṅkara and Sureśvara.
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Authorship note
Two versions within the Bṛhadāraṇyaka (2.4 and 4.5). Brereton (2006) has studied how the dialogue was composed and expanded; tradition attributes it to Yājñavalkya.
Editions and translations
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English
Sureśvara's Vārtika on Yājñavalkya-Maitreyī Dialogue
Motilal Banarsidass, 1991
Translation: Shoun Hino
ISBN 9788120807297
2.ª ed.; estudio del comentario de Sureśvara.
Other works by Yajnavalkya
- Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (The Great Forest Upaniṣad) · 650
- Yājñavalkya-kāṇḍa (Muni-kāṇḍa): the debate at Janaka's court and the teachings to the king · 650
- Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (The Brāhmaṇa of a Hundred Paths) · 750
- Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā (White Yajurveda) · 800
- Yājñavalkya Smṛti (Yājñavalkya's Treatise on Dharma) · 400
- Yoga Yājñavalkya
- Bṛhad Yogi Yājñavalkya Smṛti
- Jābāla Upaniṣad and Yājñavalkya Upaniṣad (Upaniṣads of renunciation)
- The dialogue of Yājñavalkya and Janaka in the Mahābhārata · 100
- Vṛddha-Yājñavalkya and Bṛhad-Yājñavalkya (fragments)
- Yājñavalkya Śikṣā (treatise on phonetics)
Sources
- 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.
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