With roots above and branches below, this Aśvattha tree is eternal. That is the pure, that is Brahman, that is called the immortal. In it rest all the worlds; no one transcends it.

The image of the inverted tree is one of the most powerful in Upanishadic literature, famously taken up in the Bhagavad Gītā (chapter 15).

Ūrdhva-mūla — with roots above. The tree of the world has its root on high, in Brahman, the supreme reality. Roots are the origin; placing them above inverts the ordinary perspective: the supreme is not below (on earth) but above (in transcendence).

Avāk-śākha — with branches downward. The branches of this tree extend downward, toward manifestation. They are the worlds, the beings, the experiences — all that we know as “creation.”

Aśvattha — the sacred fig tree (Ficus religiosa), the bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. Etymologically it can be interpreted as “a-śva-ttha” — that which will not remain until tomorrow, the impermanent. Paradoxically, this impermanent tree is sanātana — eternal. Manifestation changes continuously but the process itself is without beginning or end.

Tad eva śukram — That is the pure, the luminous. Tad brahma — That is Brahman. Tad eva amṛtam — That is the immortal. Triple identification pointing to the root of the tree: Brahman.

Tasmin lokāḥ śritāḥ sarve — in Him rest all the worlds. Everything manifested depends on Brahman for its existence. Tadu nātyeti kaścana — no one goes beyond Him. Brahman is the absolute limit; there is no reality beyond.

For the yogi, contemplating this inverted tree is to remember that the source of all is “above” — not in the spatial sense but in the sense of the subtlest, the most interior, the most essential.