Maitreyi

At a glance

• Name: Maitreyi (मैत्रेयी).
• Category: Brahmavadini — the Upanishad's own word for her: "a woman who discussed Brahman".
• Spouse: Yajnavalkya, whose other wife was Katyayani.
• Source: Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4 and 4.5 — the same dialogue told twice, the second time more fully.
• Era: late Vedic age (the Upanishad is generally dated to around the 7th–6th century BCE).
• Associated place: Mithila (Videha), Yajnavalkya's home.
• Best known for: refusing wealth for the knowledge of immortality, and receiving Yajnavalkya's teaching on the Self (atman).

Birth and family background

The Upanishad does not name Maitreyi's parents; her name itself suggests descent from a Mitra or Maitreya family, and later traditions build on that. What it does tell us is the household: "Yajnavalkya had two wives, Maitreyi and Katyayani. Of the two, Maitreyi was a brahmavadini; Katyayani then had only such knowledge as women generally had." In Sanskrit, maitreyī brahmavādinī babhūva strīprajñaiva tarhi kātyāyanī. Shankara's commentary adds that Maitreyi was the elder wife.

Life and key episodes

The offer

Yajnavalkya decides to leave household life and become a wandering renunciant. "Maitreyi," he says, "I am about to go forth from this state. Let me make a settlement between you and Katyayani."

The question

Maitreyi asks: if this whole earth full of wealth were mine, would I become immortal through it? No, says Yajnavalkya — your life would be like the life of the rich, but there is no hope of immortality through wealth. Her reply is one of the most quoted lines in the Upanishads:

येनाहं नामृता स्यां किमहं तेन कुर्याम् — "What should I do with that which will not make me immortal? Tell me, sir, only what you know."

Yajnavalkya is delighted: "You were dear to me, and now you speak what is dear."

The teaching

He tells her that nothing is loved for its own sake. "It is not for the love of the husband that a husband is dear, but for the love of the Self. It is not for the love of the wife that a wife is dear, but for the love of the Self." He runs through sons, wealth, cattle, the priestly and royal powers, the worlds, the gods, the Vedas, all beings — and all of it, he says, is dear for the sake of the Self. Then the central instruction:

आत्मा वा अरे द्रष्टव्यः श्रोतव्यो मन्तव्यो निदिध्यासितव्यः — "The Self, Maitreyi, is to be seen, to be heard about, to be reflected on, to be deeply meditated upon. When the Self is seen, heard, reflected on and known, all this is known."

Hearing, reflection and meditation — shravana, manana, nididhyasana — became, through this sentence, the three classic stages of Vedantic practice.

"You have bewildered me"

Yajnavalkya goes further. As a lump of salt is salt through and through, with no inside or outside, so the Self is pure consciousness through and through; arising from these elements, it vanishes with them, and "after death there is no awareness". Maitreyi stops him: "Here, sir, you have led me into utter bewilderment — I do not understand this." He answers that he is not speaking bewilderment: the Self is imperishable, of an indestructible nature. Where there is duality, one sees another, smells another, knows another; but where everything has become one's own Self, by what and whom would one see — by what would one know the knower? With that, Yajnavalkya departs.

Achievements and contributions

• The question that opens the teaching. The Maitreyi dialogue is one of the foundational passages of Vedanta, and it exists because she refused the inheritance and asked for knowledge instead.
• Shravana, manana, nididhyasana. The threefold path of hearing, reflecting and meditating, taught to her, became the standard method of Advaita study.
• The honest objection. Her "you have bewildered me" is one of the few places in the Upanishads where a student says plainly that a teaching is confusing — and earns a clearer answer.

Writings attributed to her

No text is attributed to Maitreyi. Her words survive in the dialogue of Brihadaranyaka 2.4 and 4.5. Hymns sometimes credited to her in popular articles cannot be traced to her in the Vedic texts.

Why she is revered today

• She stands for the choice of wisdom over wealth, and her question is quoted in sermons, school textbooks and Vedanta classes alike.
• With Gargi, she is the classic example of the learned women of the Vedic age. Maitreyi College of the University of Delhi is named after her.
• Many people meet her line "yenāhaṃ nāmṛtā syāṃ kim ahaṃ tena kuryām" before they meet the Upanishad itself.

Variant traditions and a historical note

The two tellings in the Brihadaranyaka differ slightly: only the second (4.5) calls Maitreyi a brahmavadini and describes Katyayani, and some lines are worded differently. The Mahabharata and later literature present a learned Maitreyi in other settings, and it is not certain these are the same figure. The contrast with Katyayani reflects the Upanishad's own framing; it says nothing about Katyayani's character beyond that line.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Maitreyi?

A learned woman (brahmavadini) of the Upanishadic age and the wife of the sage Yajnavalkya, known from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

What did Maitreyi ask Yajnavalkya?

Whether a whole earth full of wealth would make her immortal. When he said no, she asked: "What should I do with that which will not make me immortal?" and requested his knowledge instead.

What did Yajnavalkya teach Maitreyi?

That everything is dear for the sake of the Self, that the Self must be heard about, reflected on and meditated upon, and that the Self is imperishable consciousness beyond the duality of knower and known.

Who was Katyayani?

Yajnavalkya's other wife. The Upanishad says she had ordinary womanly knowledge, unlike Maitreyi; she received a share of his property.

Where is the Maitreyi–Yajnavalkya dialogue found?

In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, twice: chapter 2, section 4, and chapter 4, section 5.

Is Maitreyi the same as Gargi?

No. Gargi Vachaknavi questioned Yajnavalkya in Janaka's public assembly; Maitreyi was his wife, taught in private as he left home.