At a glance
- Name & meaning: Yajnavalkya (याज्ञवल्क्य) — a name built on yajna, sacrifice, fitting for a priest-sage of the Yajurveda.
- Other names: Vajasaneya (from the Vajasaneyi Samhita); Yogishvara (“lord of yogis”), the title the Yajnavalkya Smriti gives him in its opening verse.
- Category: Maharshi; Upanishadic teacher; seer of the Shukla (White) Yajurveda.
- Father: Brahmarata according to the Vishnu Purana; Devarata according to the Bhagavata Purana (12.6). Some regional traditions name his parents Brahmarata and Sunanda.
- Mother: Sunanda in some traditions; the early texts do not name her.
- Spouses: Maitreyi and Katyayani (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad).
- Teachers: Vaishampayana (his maternal uncle, in Puranic tradition) and Uddalaka Aruni; ultimately Surya, the Sun, from whom he received the Shukla Yajurveda.
- Disciples: The Upanishad names his student Samashravas; the Kanva and Madhyandina recensions of the Shukla Yajurveda are traditionally traced to his disciples.
- Era: The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is generally dated to around the 7th–6th century BCE, placing the Upanishadic Yajnavalkya in the late Vedic age.
- Associated places: Mithila (Videha), the court of King Janaka; Mithila honours him as its own sage.
- Major works (attributed): Shukla Yajurveda (Vajasaneyi Samhita) and Shatapatha Brahmana in tradition; teachings in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad; the Yajnavalkya Smriti and Yoga Yajnavalkya carry his name.
- Best known for: The debate at Janaka’s court, the dialogue with Maitreyi, and the teaching of the Self as “neti, neti” — not this, not this.
Birth and family background
The Upanishads are interested in what Yajnavalkya said, not in his genealogy, so his family details come from later texts — and they differ. The Vishnu Purana calls him the son of Brahmarata; the Bhagavata Purana calls him the son of Devarata. Some traditions, especially in Mithila, remember his parents as Brahmarata and Sunanda and place his birth there. A Puranic tradition, found in the Skanda Purana, even makes him a partial incarnation of Brahma. These are best read as parallel family memories, not contradictions to be settled.
About his household the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is clear: he had two wives. Katyayani, it says, had ordinary womanly knowledge; Maitreyi was a brahmavadini, a woman who discussed Brahman. Their conversation became one of the most loved passages in the Upanishads.
Life and key episodes
Giving back the Veda — and receiving a new one from the Sun
The Vishnu Purana (3.5) and the Bhagavata (12.6) tell the story that explains the two branches of the Yajurveda. Yajnavalkya was a brilliant pupil of Vaishampayana, the disciple to whom Ved Vyasa had entrusted the Yajurveda. When Vaishampayana incurred the sin of accidentally killing his sister’s child, he asked his students to perform the expiation for him. Yajnavalkya declared that the other students were feeble and that he would do it alone. His teacher, angered by this arrogance, ordered him to give back everything he had learned. Yajnavalkya vomited up the Yajus texts, and the other disciples, taking the form of partridges (tittiri), picked them up — which is why that recension is called the Taittiriya (the Black Yajurveda).
Now without a Veda, Yajnavalkya worshipped the Sun. Surya appeared in the form of a horse (vaji) and taught him fresh Yajus mantras not known to his teacher. These became the Shukla Yajurveda, also called the Vajasaneyi Samhita. For this reason Yajnavalkya is especially linked to sun-worship; see also the Aditya Hridaya Stotra.
The great debate at Janaka’s court
The third chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad describes the most famous debate in Indian philosophy. King Janaka of Videha held a sacrifice with rich gifts and set aside a thousand cows, with gold fastened to their horns, for the most learned brahmin present. While everyone else hesitated, Yajnavalkya told his pupil Samashravas to drive them home. The outraged scholars challenged him one after another — Ashvala the king’s priest, Artabhaga, Bhujyu, Ushasta, Kahola, Uddalaka Aruni, Vidagdha Shakalya — and he answered each. Asked how many gods there are, he counts them down until he reaches one. The scholar-woman Gargi Vachaknavi questions him twice, pressing him on what everything is ultimately “woven upon”; he answers with the imperishable (akshara), and she then tells the assembly that none of them will defeat him. It is a rare scene in ancient literature: a woman judging a public philosophical contest.
Maitreyi and the Self
When Yajnavalkya decides to renounce household life, he offers to divide his property between his two wives (Brihadaranyaka 2.4 and again 4.5). Maitreyi asks whether the whole earth full of wealth would make her immortal. No, he says — her life would be like that of the wealthy, but there is no hope of immortality through wealth. Her reply is famous: “What should I do with that which will not make me immortal?” He then teaches that a husband, wife, children or wealth are dear not for their own sake but for the sake of the Self (atman), and that the Self is what must be seen, heard, reflected on and meditated upon.
Teaching King Janaka
In Brihadaranyaka 4.3, Janaka asks what light a person lives by. The sun, says Yajnavalkya; when the sun sets, the moon; then fire; then speech; and when all these are gone — the Self is his light. The dialogue goes on to explore waking, dream, deep sleep, death and liberation, and is regarded as one of the richest passages in the Upanishads.
Achievements and contributions
- “Neti, neti”. His method of describing the Self by negation — it is not this, not this; it cannot be grasped, does not decay, does not cling — became a cornerstone of Advaita Vedanta.
- Early teaching on karma and rebirth. Some of the earliest clear statements of how a person becomes what they do, and passes on at death, are put in his mouth.
- Founder of a Vedic school. The Shukla Yajurveda tradition — still recited today in the Madhyandina and Kanva recensions — looks to him as its seer.
- Renunciation. His leaving home after teaching Maitreyi became a model for the sannyasa ideal.
Writings attributed to Yajnavalkya
Shukla Yajurveda and Shatapatha Brahmana. Tradition treats him as the seer of the Vajasaneyi Samhita and as a central authority of the Shatapatha Brahmana, where he is frequently quoted.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Large parts of this Upanishad, the concluding portion of the Shatapatha Brahmana, record his teaching.
Yajnavalkya Smriti. A Dharmashastra of about 1,010 verses in three books — conduct (achara), legal procedure (vyavahara) and expiation (prayashchitta). It is presented as Yajnavalkya teaching the sages of Mithila, but scholars date it to roughly the 3rd–5th century CE, many centuries after the Upanishadic sage, and see the attribution as one of reverence. Through Vijnaneshvara’s 12th-century commentary, the Mitakshara, it shaped Hindu inheritance law down to modern times.
Yoga Yajnavalkya. A text on yoga bearing his name; scholars consider its author a much later Yajnavalkya, not the Vedic sage.
Why he is revered today
- Yajnavalkya Jayanti is observed by many in north India on Phalguna Shukla Panchami; other regions use different dates, including Phalguna Krishna Panchami and dates in Kartika.
- In Mithila (north Bihar) he is remembered as the region’s great sage, and the Mithila school of Hindu law traces itself to his Smriti.
- Shukla Yajurvedi brahmins recite the Vajasaneyi Samhita as his Veda; the Gayatri mantra is found in the Yajurveda as well as the Rigveda.
- Students of Vedanta meet him in the Brihadaranyaka, the longest of the principal Upanishads.
Variant traditions and a historical note
As with many rishis, “Yajnavalkya” likely names more than one figure: the Upanishadic philosopher, the reputed author of the Smriti, and the author of the Yoga text are generally held by scholars to be different people. The Brihadaranyaka itself survives in two recensions, Kanva and Madhyandina, with differences in wording. The Mahabharata presents Maitreyi differently from the Upanishad — as a learned woman who does not marry. The partridge story is a Puranic explanation of the Veda’s branches, not a historical account. Some sources call Uddalaka Aruni his teacher, while in the Janaka debate the two appear as rivals.
Frequently asked questions
What does “neti, neti” mean?
“Not this, not this.” Yajnavalkya uses it to say that the Self cannot be described as any object — whatever you can point to, it is not that.
Who were Yajnavalkya’s wives?
Maitreyi and Katyayani, according to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Maitreyi is remembered as a philosopher in her own right.
Did Yajnavalkya write the Yajnavalkya Smriti?
Tradition says so; scholars date the text to around the 3rd–5th century CE and see the name as an honorific attribution to the ancient sage.