Yajur Veda · Krishna Yajur Veda · 5 mantras
Garbha Upanishad
Garbhopaniṣad
Central theme: Embryology and gestation as a vehicle for non-dual teaching on the embodied Self
Five long mantras (often divided into prose paragraphs) presenting a remarkably detailed pre-modern embryology alongside Vedanta. Catalogues the human body — five elements, six tastes, seven dhatus, ten doors, three humours, 180 joints, 107 marmas, 900 sinews, four-and-a-half crore hairs — then walks month-by-month through gestation: liquefaction in the first month, hardening into a lump in the second, limb-budding in the third, bones in the fourth, skin in the fifth, mouth/nose/eyes/ears in the sixth, jiva-entry in the seventh, completion in the eighth, descent in the ninth. The seventh-month foetus, conscious in the womb, recollects past lives and resolves to seek liberation; at birth the maya of Vaishnavi obliterates the memory. The closing teaching: this body, however constructed, is not the Self.
Garbha Upanishad 3
सप्तमे मासि जीवेन संयुक्तो भवति । अष्टमे मासि सर्वसंपूर्णो भवति
Saptame māsi jīvena saṁyukto bhavati, aṣṭame māsi sarva-sampūrṇo bhavati
In the seventh month it becomes united with the jiva; in the eighth month it becomes complete in every respect.
The Self that resolved liberation in the womb is the same Self reading these words — only the maya is thicker now.