Asatho Maa Sadh Gamaya – Learn Sanskrit through Slokas

Welcome back to the series of learning Sanskrit through Slokas! This being our 10th edition, I have included a summary of sanskrit words that we have learnt so far. Please scroll down to view the same. 

Today’s verse is from Bruhadaaranyaka Upanishad from the Vedas known as the Pavamaana mantra (‘the pure’).

Om asatho maa sadh gamaya
thamaso maa jyotir gamaya
mruthyor maa amrutham gamaya

Let’s discuss the word-by-word meaning of the above sloka.

Om asatho maa sadh gamaya

• Om is the ultimate reality or consciousness. It is also known as the pranava mantra
• asatho – ‘sath’ is the truth or reality. Thus ‘asath’ is falsehood or unreal things. asatho would mean ‘from the falsehood or un-reality’
• maa is “me”, first person pronoun
• sath is the truth or reality. Sathyam is derived from this word.
• gamaya is ‘to lead’. From the verb root ‘gam’ which means “to go”

To summarize, the total phrase would mean, ‘lead me from the falsehood to reality’

thamaso maa jyotir gamaya

• thamaso — thamas is darkness. thamaso is “from darkness”
• jyoti: is light

The full meaning would be ‘from darkness, lead me to light.’

mruthyor maa amrutham gamaya

• mruthyor — mruthyu is death. mruthyo: is “from death”
• amrutham is immortality

Thus this means, ‘lead from death to immortality.’

The full meaning would be, ‘ Om, O Lord, keep me not in world of un-reality, but make me seek the reality (about self), keep me not in darkness (of ignorance) but lead me towards the light (of knowledge), keep me not in the world of mortality (impermanence) but take me me to the world of Immortality (self-realization).’

Here is a summary of the Sanskrit words that we have learnt from the last 10 slokas. 

Previous posts in this series

Part 9 Part 8  Part 7  Part 6   Part 5     Part 4     Part 3     Part 2     Part 1