अन्यदेवाहुर्विद्यया अन्यदाहुरविद्यया । इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥
anyad evāhur vidyayā anyad āhur avidyayā / iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire //
Plain EnglishOne result, they say, comes from knowledge — another from ignorance. So have we heard from the wise who explained this to us.
Layer 2 — What it means
A transitional verse — the Upaniṣad pauses to cite its own authority. Not its own logic alone, but: this is what the wise (dhīrāṇām) have said, those who explained it to us. The Upaniṣad is embedded in a tradition of transmission from teacher to student. It cites that tradition here, at the hinge point between the paradox of verse 9 and its resolution in verse 11.
The two results are left unstated in this verse — deliberately. They are both named in verse 11: crossing death (through avidyā) and attaining immortality (through vidyā). The pause here is pedagogically significant: the student is required to hold the paradox of verse 9 without resolution for a moment, before the resolution is given.
Reading this page will give you the concept clearly. But the Upanishads were not written to be understood the way you understand chemistry or history. They were written to point toward something you can only recognise in yourself. That recognition is not on this page. This page only clears the way.
अन्यदेवाहुर्विद्यया अन्यदाहुरविद्यया । इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥
anyad evāhur vidyayā anyad āhur avidyayā / iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire //
Plain EnglishOne result, they say, comes from knowledge — another from ignorance. So have we heard from the wise who explained this to us.
Layer 2 — Philosophical meaning
Śuśruma (we have heard) is in the perfect tense of the oral tradition — not a recent report but an ancient, transmitted statement. The formula iti śuśruma dhīrāṇām echoes throughout Vedic and Upanishadic texts as a marker of received tradition, distinguishing what is being transmitted from independent philosophical speculation. Śaṅkara reads dhīrāṇām (the steady, wise ones) as referring to his own lineage of Advaita ācāryas — those who have both heard and directly recognised what is being pointed at. The verse's function in the structure of the Upaniṣad is to establish that the resolution in verse 11 is not a novel invention but the traditional understanding.
Reading this page will give you the concept clearly. But the Upanishads were not written to be understood the way you understand chemistry or history. They were written to point toward something you can only recognise in yourself. That recognition is not on this page. This page only clears the way.
Primary sourceĪśāvāsyopaniṣad verse 10. Trans. Swami Gambhirananda, Eight Upaniṣads Vol. 1 (Advaita Ashrama, 2009); S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upaniṣads (Allen & Unwin, 1953).
Layer 1 — The verse
अन्यदेवाहुर्विद्यया अन्यदाहुरविद्यया । इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥
anyad evāhur vidyayā anyad āhur avidyayā / iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire //
Plain EnglishOne result, they say, comes from knowledge — another from ignorance. So have we heard from the wise who explained this to us.
Layer 2 — Scholarly and textual analysis
Reading this page will give you the concept clearly. But the Upanishads were not written to be understood the way you understand chemistry or history. They were written to point toward something you can only recognise in yourself. That recognition is not on this page. This page only clears the way.