Nada Bindu Upanishad

Nada Bindu Upanishad (Devanagari: नाद-बिन्दु उपनिषद् or नादबिन्दूपनिषत) is one of the 'minor' Upanishads and is considered part of the Rig Veda. The status of the Nada Bindu Upanishad as a 'minor' Upanishad is contestable but this is how it was first presented to English scholarship with its inclusion by K. Narayanasvami Aiyar in his Thirty Minor Upanishads (1914)^[1].

Nomenclature, orthography and etymology

'Nāda' (Devanagari: नाद)
'Bindu' (Devanagari: बिन्द)
'Upanishad' (Devanagari:उपनिषद)

English scholarship

The Nada Bindu Upanishad first entered English discourse with the rendering of K. Narayanasvami Aiyar (1914).

Primary literature

'Prarabdha' (Devanagari: प्रारब्ध) is employed in the Nada Bindu Upanishad verse 21 as follows in Devanagari for probity and as rendered in English by K. Narayanasvami Aiyar (1914):

आत्मानं सततं ज्ञात्वा कालं नय महामते | प्रारब्धमखिलं भुञ्जन्नोद्वेगं कर्तुमर्हसि || २१||^[2]

21. O intelligent [person]*, spend your life always in the knowing of the supreme bliss, enjoying the whole of your Prarabdha (that portion of past Karma now being enjoyed) without making any complaint (of it).^[3]

* Caveat lector: the Sexism of "man" was written out with "person", it must be remembered the translation and extant Sanskrit text were both a product of their time.

Primary source

Nada Bindu Upanishad as a Sanskrit text rendered in Devanagari script and encoded with Unicode font is held at Wikisource: नाद-बिन्दु उपनिषद्

References

1. ^ Aiyar, K. Narayanasvami (trans.) (1914). Thirty Minor Upanishads. Source: [1] (accessed: Sunday February 7, 2010)
2. ^ Source: [2] (accessed: Sunday February 7, 2010)
3. ^ Source: [3] (accessed: Sunday February 7, 2010)

External sources

• Notes on Nad-bindu Upanishad
• Nada Bindu Upanishad (English with Sanskrit in Devanagari encoded in Unicode) Version: 9 February 2010 @ Scribd which is downloadable as an editable document under Creative Commons.