From the Unreal to the Real

Asato ma sad gamaya is the pavamana mantra of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, spoken by the priest during the pressing of the soma. Its three clauses ask to be led from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality (amrita). It is one of the few Sanskrit formulas whose plain meaning does most of the work, it is a genuine petition rather than an opaque sound-formula, and this has helped it travel widely into interfaith and modern devotional settings.

Within the Upanishad the three movements are read not as three separate requests but as one: the passage from the unreal to the real is itself the passage from darkness to light and from death to deathlessness, so that what is asked for is realisation of the self (atman) that Upanishadic teaching identifies with ultimate reality (brahman). Recited to close contemplative sessions and gatherings, it compresses the direction of the whole Upanishadic project into a single line, and its portability has made it, for many outside the tradition, the best-known verse of the Upanishads.