The Song of the Syllable and the Bliss of the Infinite

Worship ye OM, the eternal syllable; thou art That, O Swetaketu.

The Chhāndogya is the Upanishad of the singers of the Sāma, the Veda of melody, and it begins, as such a book should, with a note: Let a man meditate on the syllable Om (1.1.1). It ends eight chapters later with a scholar come home from his teacher's house, settled among his own people and keeping in memory what he has learnt (8.15.1). Between the syllable and the homecoming passes the whole range of Vedic seeking, from the chants of the ritual and the honey of the sun to the words that men have carried in their hearts ever since, Thou art That and the Infinite is bliss. Sri Aurobindo called it "the summary history of one of the greatest & most interesting ages of human thought"; and the reader will feel in it, as in the Brihadaranyaka, the stir of a people in the first great hour of seeking.

He left little upon it. He translated the opening of the first chapter, and wrote Notes on the initial mantra and on the story of Satyakāma Jābāla, breaking off as the tale unfolds; for the rest we have the sayings of the Upanishad that he set as epigraphs to chapters of The Life Divine, and a few passages elsewhere. The mantras in this edition are given in Max Müller's English, with three in Hume's. Where Sri Aurobindo's own English is meant it is set apart as a quotation, with its volume and page, so that the reader may always know whose voice is speaking.

Sri Aurobindo’s writings on it · 2

The text · 629 passages

Translation by F. Max Müller, with R. E. Hume where noted, and Sri Aurobindo’s renderings wherever he made them.

The Song of the Syllable and the Bliss of the Infinite

The text · 629 passages

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