The Kena Upanishad belongs to the Samaveda and takes its name from its opening word, kena — by whom. It is part of the Talavakara Brahmana and is also called the Talavakara Upanishad. Its four short sections move from verse into prose: the verses ask what moves the mind and the senses, and the prose tells a story of the gods.
It opens by asking at whose wish the mind, breath, speech, eye and ear do their work. The answer is that which is the ear of the ear and the mind of the mind — what speech cannot express but by which speech is expressed: that alone, the text says, is Brahman. Whoever thinks he knows it, the second section adds, does not know it. In the story, Brahman wins a victory for the gods, who take the glory as their own, and a wondrous being, a yaksha, appears before them. Agni cannot burn the blade of grass it lays before him, nor can Vayu lift it; when Indra comes near, the being vanishes, and in that same space stands Uma Haimavati, radiant, who tells him it was Brahman.
The Kena comes second in the Muktika Upanishad's list of the ten principal Upanishads, and it shares its peace chant, apyayantu mamangani — may my limbs, speech, breath, eyes and ears grow strong — with the Chandogya. Tradition attributes two commentaries on it to Adi Shankaracharya, and one of them reads Uma Haimavati in two ways: as knowledge itself, appearing in a radiant woman's form, or as Uma, the daughter of the Himalaya, ever beside the all-knowing Lord. In this collection she is worshipped with Shiva as Uma Maheswara at Yaganti.