Contents · 4 sections · 2 min
Key Ideas
That which speech cannot express, but by which speech is expressed — know that as Brahman.
It is known to him to whom it is not known; he to whom it is known does not know it.
The gods and the yakṣa — Agni cannot burn a blade of grass, Vāyu cannot blow it away.
Umā Haimavatī, the goddess, reveals Brahman to Indra.
The Kena Upaniṣad takes its name from its first word, kena, “by whom?”. A short text of four parts (the first two in verse, the last two in prose), belonging to the Talavakāra Brāhmaṇa of the Sāma Veda, it is one of the principal The Upaniṣads, probably composed in the mid-first millennium BCE. Its subject is the paradox at the heart of Upaniṣadic thought: the Self or Brahman is the knower behind all knowing, and therefore can never be known as an object.
The questions
The Upaniṣad opens:
By whom impelled, by whom directed, does the mind go to its objects? By whom commanded does the first breath move? By whom is this speech impelled which people speak? What god directs the eye and the ear? (1.1)
The answer: it is “the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, the eye of the eye”. The eye does not go there, nor speech, nor mind. And then a refrain repeated five times:
That which is not expressed by speech, but by which speech is expressed — know that alone as Brahman, not this which people worship here. That which one does not think with the mind, but by which, they say, the mind is thought… That which one does not see with the eye, but by which one sees the eyes… (1.4–8)
The paradox of knowing
The second part gives the Upaniṣad’s most famous lines:
If you think “I know it well”, you surely know very little of the form of Brahman… It is known to him to whom it is not known; he to whom it is known does not know it. It is not understood by those who understand; it is understood by those who do not understand. (2.1–3)
This “learned ignorance” anticipates the negative theology of later mystics, East and West — Nicholas of Cusa’s docta ignorantia — and Yājñavalkya’s neti neti.
The gods and the yakṣa
The prose sections tell a parable. Brahman won a victory for the gods, but the gods grew proud, thinking the victory theirs. Brahman appeared before them as a mysterious spirit (yakṣa). The gods sent Agni, the fire god, to find out who it was. “I am Agni, who can burn everything on earth.” The spirit set down a blade of grass: “Burn this.” Agni could not. Then Vāyu, the wind god: “I can carry off everything on earth.” He could not move the blade of grass. Then Indra, king of the gods, approached — and the spirit vanished, and in its place appeared a beautiful woman, Umā Haimavatī, daughter of the Himālaya, who told him: “It is Brahman. It was through Brahman’s victory that you were exalted” (3–4). The gods’ powers were never their own.
Significance
Śaṅkara wrote two commentaries on it. Its insistence that Brahman is the subject, not an object, became central to Advaita; its parable of the blade of grass remains a favourite story about pride and the source of power.
Curiosities
did you know?- The goddess Umā Haimavatī (‘daughter of the Himālaya’) who appears in it is one of the earliest appearances in Vedic literature of the goddess later known as Pārvatī.
Questions to Argue About
debate club →- Can you know something that can never be an object of knowledge?
Explore Next
related by shared connectionsMuṇḍaka Upaniṣad
The Upaniṣad of the “shaven head” — it distinguishes the “lower knowledge” of the Vedas and sciences from the “higher knowledge” of the imperishable, compares ritual to leaky boats, gives the image of two birds on one tree, and India its national motto, “Truth alone triumphs”.
Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad
The most theistic of the principal Upaniṣads — it identifies Brahman with Rudra-Śiva, a personal Lord to be loved, blends Vedānta with early Sāṃkhya and Yoga, and first uses the words māyā and bhakti in their later senses.
Īśā Upaniṣad
The shortest of the principal Upaniṣads — eighteen verses that begin “All this is pervaded by the Lord” and reconcile renunciation with action, knowledge with works, and the one with the many.
Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad
The shortest Upaniṣad — twelve verses on the syllable Oṃ and the four states of consciousness, waking, dreaming, deep sleep and the “fourth” (turīya), the pure Self. Said to be enough, by itself, for liberation.
Taittirīya Upaniṣad
The Upaniṣad of the five sheaths and the graduation address — it defines Brahman as “truth, knowledge, infinity”, peels away the layers of the self from food to bliss, measures the bliss of Brahman, and tells departing students “Treat your mother as a god.”
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
The philosopher-statesman who presented Indian philosophy to the West as a living tradition — Oxford’s Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions, author of Indian Philosophy, and India’s second President. Teachers’ Day is his birthday.