The Mundaka Upanishad belongs to the Atharvaveda and is set out in sixty-four verses, in three chapters of two sections each. It traces its own teaching from Brahma to his son, Rishi Atharvan, and through the rishis Angir and Satyavaha Bharadvaja to Rishi Angiras, to whom the householder Shaunaka comes with one question: what is that which, once known, makes all this known?
Rishi Angiras answers that two kinds of knowledge are to be known, which the text calls apara and para. Apara is the four Vedas with phonetics, ritual, grammar, etymology, metre and astronomy; para, the higher, is the knowledge by which the imperishable is reached. From the imperishable the world comes forth as a spider sends out its thread, and as sparks leap by the thousand from a blazing fire. Om is the bow, the self is the arrow and Brahman the target, to be struck by one who is undistracted. Two birds sit on one tree: one eats its sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating, and when the one sees the other, the Lord, its sorrow leaves it. As rivers flowing into the sea give up name and form, the one who knows is freed from name and form; whoever knows Brahman becomes Brahman.
From its third chapter comes satyameva jayate — truth alone triumphs — adopted as India's national motto on 26 January 1950 and written in Devanagari beneath the Lion Capital of Ashoka in the national emblem. The Mundaka shares its peace chant, bhadram karnebhih — may we hear with our ears what is auspicious — with the Prashna and the Mandukya, and the same chant frames the Ganapati Atharvashirsha. It comes fifth in the Muktika Upanishad's list of the ten principal Upanishads.