Original text
ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते । पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥ ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ ॥ बृहदारण्यकोपनिषद् ५.१.१ ॥
Transliteration
Om purnamadah purnamidam purnatpurnamudachyate Purnasya purnamadaya purnamevavashishyate || Om shantih shantih shantih ||
Where it appears
This verse opens the fifth chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (5.1.1), the oldest and longest of the Upanishads, and it is the shanti path, the peace invocation, recited before and after the Isha Upanishad and the other Upanishads of the Shukla Yajurveda. In the Brihadaranyaka it leads straight into the next teaching, Om kham Brahma, "Om, Brahman is space", so it stands at the doorway to a discussion of the infinite.
What it says
- Purnam adah: that is full. "That" is what lies beyond what we perceive: Brahman, the unmanifest, the infinite.
- Purnam idam: this is full. "This" is what is here: the visible world, and the individual self.
- Purnat purnam udachyate: from the full, the full arises. The world comes out of the infinite.
- Purnasya purnam adaya, purnam evavashishyate: taking the full from the full, the full alone remains.
The verse plays with a paradox that only works with the infinite. Ordinary quantities shrink when you take something from them. The infinite does not. The world comes out of Brahman without Brahman becoming less, and the world itself, rightly seen, is not a fragment but whole. Teachers often use the image of one lamp lighting another, the second flame complete and the first undiminished, or the mathematical point that infinity minus infinity can still be infinity.
Why it is said for peace
As a shanti mantra, the verse reassures before study begins: nothing is lacking, in the source or in us. The student who sits down to learn about Brahman is reminded that they are not a deficient part trying to reach a distant whole, but already purnam, full. Read devotionally, it says the same of God and the devotee. Read practically, many people find in it a calm antidote to the feeling of never being enough. The triple shanti that follows asks for peace from within, from others and from the forces of nature.
When it is recited
It is chanted at the start and end of Upanishad study, especially the Isha and Brihadaranyaka; at the beginning or close of puja, havan and satsang; in yoga and meditation sessions; and on occasions of loss, when its assurance that "the full remains" is a comfort. It is short enough to memorise in a day. Many people say it before meditation, letting each purnam settle before going on to the next.
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