माण्डूक्योपनिषद्māṇḍūkya-upaniṣad
The Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, Om and the four states
2 min read · Updated October 17, 2026 · sources checked October 17, 2026
In short
The Māṇḍūkya Upanishad is the shortest principal Upanishad: twelve prose verses of the Atharvaveda. It says that Om is all this (verse 1), that the self has four quarters, waking, dream, deep sleep and a fourth beyond them (verses 3-7), and that the sounds A, U and M correspond to the first three, while the soundless fourth is the self (verses 8-12).
A whole teaching in twelve verses
The Māṇḍūkya belongs to the Atharvaveda and is the shortest of the principal Upanishads. In twelve verses of prose it does something no other text does as neatly: it takes the sacred syllable Om, splits it into its sounds, and lays it over the three states every human being passes through each day. Then it points to a fourth that is not a state at all.
The plan
| Verses | Content |
|---|---|
| 1 | Om is all this: past, present, future, and what is beyond time |
| 2 | All this is brahman; this self is brahman; this self has four quarters (pāda) |
| 3 | First quarter: the waking state, knowing outward, vaiśvānara, "common to all men" |
| 4 | Second quarter: the dream state, knowing inward, taijasa, "the shining one" |
| 5 | Third quarter: deep sleep, one mass of knowing, made of bliss, prājña, "the knowing one" |
| 6 | The third is the lord of all, the knower of all, the inner controller, the source |
| 7 | The fourth (caturtha): described only by negations; this is the self, to be known |
| 8 | Om, the syllable, is this self; its measures are the quarters: A, U, M |
| 9-11 | A is waking, U is dream, M is deep sleep, each with its reason and its fruit |
| 12 | The fourth has no measure: Om is the self itself |
The key verses
The opening (verse 1).
ओमित्येतदक्षरमिदं सर्वं तस्योपव्याख्यानं भूतं भवद्भविष्यदिति सर्वमोंकार एव । यच्चान्यत्त्रिकालातीतं तदप्योंकार एव ॥
om ity etad akṣaram idaṃ sarvaṃ tasyopavyākhyānaṃ bhūtaṃ bhavad bhaviṣyad iti sarvam oṃkāra eva | yac cānyat trikālātītaṃ tad apy oṃkāra eva ||
Om: this syllable is all this. Here is its explanation. What was, what is and what will be: all of it is Om. And whatever else lies beyond the three times, that too is Om.
The self has four quarters (verse 2). The Upanishad moves at once from the sound to the self, using one of the "great sayings" of Vedānta, ayam ātmā brahma, this self is brahman.
सर्वं ह्येतद्ब्रह्मायमात्मा ब्रह्म सोऽयमात्मा चतुष्पात् ॥
sarvaṃ hy etad brahmāyam ātmā brahma so 'yam ātmā catuṣpāt ||
For all this is brahman. This self is brahman. This self has four quarters.
The fourth (end of verse 7). After a long string of negations, neither inward-knowing nor outward-knowing, nor a mass of knowing, unseen, beyond dealings, ungraspable, without marks, unthinkable, unnameable, the verse ends:
प्रपञ्चोपशमं शान्तं शिवमद्वैतं चतुर्थं मन्यन्ते । स आत्मा स विज्ञेयः ॥
prapañcopaśamaṃ śāntaṃ śivam advaitaṃ caturthaṃ manyante | sa ātmā sa vijñeyaḥ ||
Where the manifold world comes to rest, peaceful, auspicious, without a second: this they hold to be the fourth. That is the self; that is what is to be known.
The two GRETIL versions differ on one word in the list of negations (adṛṣṭam or adṛśyam, both "unseen"); the lines quoted here are identical in both.
Om and its sounds (verse 8).
सोऽयमात्माध्यक्षरमोंकारः । अधिमात्रं पादा मात्रा मात्राश्च पादा अकार उकारो मकार इति ॥
so 'yam ātmādhyakṣaram oṃkāraḥ | adhimātraṃ pādā mātrā mātrāś ca pādā akāra ukāro makāra iti ||
This self, in terms of the syllable, is Om; in terms of its measures, the quarters are the measures and the measures are the quarters: the sound A, the sound U, the sound M.
The measureless fourth (verse 12).
अमात्रश्चतुर्थोऽव्यवहार्यः प्रपञ्चोपशमः शिवोऽद्वैतः । एवमोंकार आत्मैव । संविशत्यात्मनात्मानं य एवं वेद ॥
amātraś caturtho 'vyavahāryaḥ prapañcopaśamaḥ śivo 'dvaitaḥ | evam oṃkāra ātmaiva | saṃviśaty ātmanātmānaṃ ya evaṃ veda ||
The fourth has no measure: beyond all dealings, where the manifold comes to rest, auspicious, without a second. So Om is the self itself. Whoever knows this enters the self by the self.
The map in one table
| Sound | State | Name of the self | How it knows | Verse |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | waking (jāgarita) | vaiśvānara | outward, enjoying the gross | 3, 9 |
| U | dream (svapna) | taijasa | inward, enjoying the subtle | 4, 10 |
| M | deep sleep (suṣupta) | prājña | a single mass of knowing, enjoying bliss | 5, 11 |
| silence | the fourth (turīya, caturtha) | the self (ātman) | not a state of knowing, but what all three appear in | 7, 12 |
The word the Upanishad itself uses for the fourth is caturtha; turīya, with the same meaning, is the name given by Gauḍapāda's Kārikā and later Vedānta.
A practice from the text
The Māṇḍūkya does not prescribe a technique, but generations of practitioners have taken it as one. A simple form:
- Sit upright and breathe quietly for a minute.
- Chant Om slowly, letting it unfold in three parts: an open A felt in the chest, a rounded U in the throat, a closed M humming in the head.
- Let the sound end, and stay in the silence that follows as long as it lasts, without filling it.
- Repeat three to twelve times. At the end, sit for a few minutes, noticing that you are aware of the silence as clearly as of the sound.
The three sounds stand for what comes and goes; the silence, in the Upanishad's image, for what does not. Pronunciation and the symbol ॐ are explained on Om; the wider use of sacred sound on mantras.
Reading it with its commentary
Almost no one reads the Māṇḍūkya alone. It is traditionally printed with the Māṇḍūkya Kārikā of Gauḍapāda, 215 verses in four chapters, and the commentary attributed to Śaṅkara. The Kārikā turns the twelve verses into a full philosophy of non-duality (advaita). For a first reading, take the Upanishad alone, then Robert Ernest Hume's public-domain translation (1921), then the Kārikā.
Our book The Upanishads for Yogis has a full chapter on the Māṇḍūkya: its key verses (1-5, 7, 8 and 12) in Devanāgarī, transliteration and our own translation, the others summarised, and a practice of Om drawn from the text.
Questions people ask
How many verses are in the Mandukya Upanishad?
Twelve, in prose. Printed editions often interleave them with the 215 verses of the Māṇḍūkya Kārikā attributed to Gauḍapāda, which is why the text can look much longer.
What is turiya?
Turīya or caturtha, the fourth: the state the Māṇḍūkya places beyond waking, dream and deep sleep. Verse 7 describes it only by negations, neither inward- nor outward-knowing, unseen, beyond dealings, and calls it peaceful, auspicious, without a second: this is the self.
When was the Mandukya Upanishad written?
Its date is uncertain. Some scholars place it around the fifth to fourth century BCE, others, such as Hajime Nakamura and Richard King, in the first or second century CE. The Kārikā that comments on it is attributed to Gauḍapāda, often placed around the sixth century CE.
What does Mandukya mean?
The name is usually linked either to māṇḍūka, a Vedic school or teacher (Paul Deussen saw in it a half-lost school), or to maṇḍūka, frog. Neither explanation is given in the text itself.
Sources
- Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad with Gauḍapāda's Kārikā and the commentary attributed to Śaṅkara, Sanskrit text (Sansknet, checked against Limaye and Vadekar), GRETIL checked October 17, 2026
- Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, alternative version, Sanskrit text (GRETIL) checked October 17, 2026
- Mandukya Upanishad, Wikipedia (dating after Mahony, Nakamura and King; the Kārikā) checked October 17, 2026
- Robert Ernest Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads (1921), Māṇḍūkya, Internet Archive checked October 17, 2026