Mundaka

The Mundaka Upanishad is an ancient Sanskrit Vedic text, embedded inside Atharva Veda. It is a Mukhya (primary) Upanishad and is listed as number 5 in the Muktika canon of 108 Upanishads of Hinduism. It is among the most widely translated Upanishads. It is presented as a dialogue between great sacrificer Saunaka and sage Angiras. It is a poetic verse style Upanishad, with 64 verses, written in the form of mantras. However, these mantras are not used in rituals, rather they are used for teaching and meditation on spiritual knowledge. The Mundaka Upanishad contains three Mundakams (parts), each with two sections. The first Mundakam defines the science of "Higher Knowledge" and "Lower Knowledge", and then asserts that acts of oblations and pious gifts are foolish and do nothing to reduce unhappiness in current life or next, rather it is knowledge that frees. The second Mundakam describes the nature of the Brahman, the Self, the relation between the empirical world and the Brahman, and the path to know Brahman. The third Mundakam expands the ideas in the second Mundakam and then asserts that the state of knowing Brahman is one of freedom, fearlessness, complete liberation, self-sufficiency and bliss. Mundaka literally means "shaved (as in shaved head), shorn, lopped trunk of a tree". The Mundaka Upanishad opens with declaring Brahma as the first of gods, the creator of the universe, and the knowledge of Brahman (Ultimate Reality, Eternal Principle, Cosmic Self) to be the foundation of all knowledge. The text then lists a succession of teachers who shared the knowledge of Brahman with the next generation.

Immerse yourself in timeless spiritual knowledge.