THE ISA UPANISAD
An Attempt at
Interpretation
Arunava Gupta
The Isa Upanisad appears to be an abstruse text, with many
terms and concepts difficult to pierceTP[1]PT and commentators varying considerably in
their interpretations. In this paper, an attempt is made to decipher the
meaning of the Isa drawing from the ‘resources’ – ideas and teachings - of the
other seminal texts of Hinduism such as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Srimad-Bhagavata
which may, besides aiding in our understanding of the text, also facilitate a
more constructive engagement with it.
The passage beginning īśā vāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ to kurvann
eveha karmāṇiTP[2]PT
In the very first verse of
the Isa itself (right after the santi-patha or the peace invocation) is
encountered a ‘difficult’ term. Some scholars seem to opine that ‘īśā vāsyam
idaṃ sarvaṃ’
means ‘all this is enveloped by the Lord’ while others feel that ‘dwelt in’
might be more appropriate[3]PT. While admitting that
these two meanings need not be mutually exclusive- surely they are not, as lines
such as sarvāṇi bhūtāny ātmany, ‘all beings within the Self’ (IsUp_6) quite clearly demonstrate - one feels
that, as is the general consensus, the latter reading is more apposite in the
context of the work in question. The maturest products of the Hindu spiritual
mind have always laid more stress on the immanent aspect of GodTP[4]PT. Krishna ,
for instance, in the Bhagavata, exhorts Uddhava to seek sole-refuge (Eka-Sarana)
in Him who is ‘sarva dehinam’, the ‘Soul of all embodied beingsTP[5]PT’. The great preachers of
the devotional Bhakti movements are also no exception to this. Sankaradeva,
illustrating the all-pervasive immanence of the Lord, says, “In Thy sva-rupa
as Isa, O Hari, Thou art seated in all containers (bodies), just as the
sky is contained within all pitchers[6]PT”. Therefore, rather than
‘all this is enveloped by the Lord’, the more appropriate translation would be
‘all this is dwelt in by the Lord’ or ‘within all beings, the Lord resides’.
That would bring out the immanence of God more clearly. The Lord, the atman
(Self) of the world, is present (as the supreme consciousness) within ‘whatever
living being there is in the world’. He is not merely a transcendent God but
also an immanent Lord.
It is at this point that
one feels that, although not considered (in certain editions) to be an integral
part of the mula text of the Isa, the santi-patha (purnamadah)
or ‘peace-invocation’ prepended to it, seems to determine the ‘agenda’, so to
speak, of this Upanishad. The first verse’s īśā vāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ follows beautifully from it. The higher wisdom, we get an inkling, is set to be
revealed within the ‘frame of reference’ of an immanent Self. It is likely that
purnam here is an epithet of the Lord. As regards meaning, it seems to
have a great connection with the famous catuhsloki contained in the
Srimad-BhagavataTP[7]PT. That the (complete) Lord
alone existed in the beginning (pre-creation), that it is only He who is to be
perceived within the entire creation, the transcendent God becoming immanent,
fully or immutably, within His creation[8]PT and that, at the end,
‘when the full is subtracted from the full’ – when He withdraws His own
creation – it is He alone who remains, immutably again, as the ‘resultant’ (avasisyate),
as it were – this seems to be the eternal truth conveyed by these verses.
But, our seer seems to be more concerned with the ‘middle
stage’ implied in the invocation. This is understandable as for the embodied
beings, the immediate concern is not so much with things occurring pre-creation
or post-creation, but rather with the path one ought to tread presently. What
is the ‘good path to the felicity’ – the supathā in the final stanza -
for man to follow in this world that will lead to the Highest Good?
Now, the Isa is a short Upanisad. Therefore, it
comes straight to the point or, at least, that is what the reader is led to think.
A view is immediately put forth that ‘as all this is permeated by the Lord’ (in
continuation of the line of thinking in the santi-patha), therefore, men
should ‘enjoy leading a life of renunciation’, doing only ‘niskama karma’,
desireless (ritual) action according to some traditional commentators, and should
not ‘aspire for others’ wealth’. This is, without doubt, advice practical and
sound, especially for the man of the world, but, to the critical ‘connoisseur’
of the Upanisad, it still does not quite taste of the higher wisdom one expects
from the ‘End of the Vedas’. Which leads one to suspect if it is a view put
forward simply for demolishing.
Proponents of the theory
of karma (works) are quick to leap on this, however, and, in the next
verse, kurvann eveha karmāṇi
(‘verily by doing works alone’).
The exponents of the Arya Samaj feel that this highlights the supremacy of the
performance of Vedic karmaTP[9]PT.
It must be noted that ‘karma’ here is interpreted by many commentators
as the religious duties enjoined by the VedaTP[10]PT. And it may well be so.
But is this really the verdict, the siddhanta, of the text or merely a
tentative thesis (for demolishing) put forward by the seer himself or some purva-paksa?
Could it be a ‘lower truth’ - a stepping stone to higher things - or maybe, just
a part of the dialogue as in the Gita, for instance?
The answer seems to lie in the scoffing tone of the
author. Now, tone is one thing that not all translators try to grasp, but it
seems necessary to factor in this important aspect into the translation as,
thereby, many subtle shades of (hidden) meaning may be revealed. “Simply perform
desireless works and live happily for a hundred years, jijīviṣecchataṃ samāḥ (is there anything more that you want!)” This
scoffing nature of the tone of the preceptor assumes significance in the light
of the fact that many prayers in the Vedas were largely petitions for long life,
etc. Thus, by this tentative ‘assertion’, the seer seems to be mocking at those
who, regarding the Lord as an ordinary deity, may be prone to seeking such
material gains from Him. They would be the ones whose minds have not yet been fully
soaked in the Glory of the immanent God.
Of course, again, this ‘path’
might also be a way of testing the student-seeker, in the manner of a Yama
testing Naciketas, for instance, or Krishna ,
Arjuna. If the seeker is satisfied with this ‘path’, and goes away (in the
manner of a Bali in the Chandogya, for
instance), then there is no need for any upward ascent[11]PT.
The passage beginning
asuryā nāma te lokā
In this, it appears, there
is the censure of ‘all those people who kill the Self’. Although it is not explicitly
specified who these people are, it may safely be assumed from the internal
evidence afforded by the text (e.g., IsUp_9, 12) that these are the people who
have not grasped the correct knowledge of the Reality, perhaps as a result of
betaking to false paths. In Muller’s rendering, they are the ones “Twho perform works, without having arrived at a
knowledge of the true Self”.T
In any case, they are said
to fall after death into worlds ‘demonic’ or ‘sunlessTP[12]PT’ enveloped by ‘blinding
darkness’. This is in consequence of their spiritual suicide. In Vedanta,
ignorance is always dark and death-like. People who do not follow the true, sun-lit
path will most certainly grope in darkness.
‘Killing’ the Self would
mean the misidentification of (imperishable) self with (perishable) bodyTP[13]PT, an ‘act’ more sinful than
it is fatal for, thereby, Spirit is reduced to matter. The in-dwelling Lord, eternal,
undying, unborn, is reduced to lowly impermanence. For this heinous crime
against Spirit, the individual self is condemned ultimately to be ensnared in
the vicious cycle of births and deaths.
This verse, one feels, is some sort of a link
between the ‘lower truth’ pronounced in IsUp_1, 2 and the higher wisdom to
follow. Before moving on to illuminate the mind of the aspirant, the seer seems
to consider it necessary to alert the seeker to the danger that attends on
imperfect knowledge and/or a false path. That may also be his way of
repudiating the notion of ‘desireless works’ advanced tentatively in the
earlier verses.
The passage beginning
anejad ekaṃ manaso to tad ejati tan naijati
After negating the theory of works, the positive
instruction here begins. These verses seem to be truly Vedantic in character. The
inconceivable, inestimable potencies of God are first revealed. These are
beyond the grasp of intellect. He is no ordinary person. Even the gods cannot
catch Him. He is peerless. He seems to be a transcendental Person. He is
both transcendent and immanent. Within Him all causal processes (of the cosmos)
go on (‘Matarisvan places the waters’) and yet how supremely amazing it is that
He Himself is within this causal process (tad antar asya sarvasya)!
The passage beginning
yas tu sarvāṇi bhūtāny to sa paryagāc chukram
The teaching in verses IsUp_6-8 seems to be more
prescriptive in nature. We must see the Lord in all (and all in the Lord).
Knowing is not enough; we must see (anupaśyati). Once this oneness is
internalized, delusion, sorrow et al simply vanishes. All is the Lord.
Whom shall we fear, whom shall we hate.
The Self will then not seek to ‘hide’ from us (na
vijugupsate) i.e. following the true path, ignorance is removed; blessed
with the seer’s vision, we would then see the Lord seated in our heart (inmost
consciousness). ‘It does not hide from him’ seems to be the immediate meaning.
But, of course, ‘he does not hate anybody’ is also an excellent interpretation
which, however, would follow automatically from the more immediate meaning.
IsUp_8 seems to lay down
the ‘benefits’ of following such a path. Perhaps the idea conveyed here is that
he who has acquired true knowledge of the Self
‘reaches’ the Self, that ageless, eternal One, that ‘wise sage’ who ‘disposed
all things rightly for eternal years’. He realizes that like the Lord, he too
is ‘bright, incorporeal, scatheless, pure’. He is really ‘without sinews’,
‘without muscles’. ‘I am not this body’– realization dawns. Body is
un-eternal.
The passage beginning
andhaṃ tamaḥ
praviśanti to saṃbhūtiṃ
ca vināśaṃ ca
This section seems to be concerned with determining
the parameters of true worship or upasana. We must exercise
discrimination in our process of upasana. The approach of the seer is as
discriminating as that of the swan. Equipped with true vidya, only the
Lord must be worshipped. Only Spirit, not matter.
True knowledge (vidya) is knowledge
of the Self, the Lord (as already taught by the seer in the preceding verses). Similarly,
the true unmanifested (asambhūti) is really the Lord, the Self. But, if
one were to commit the fatal mistake of (falsely) identifying the real with the
unreal, then, again, as in IsUp_3 (asuryā nāma te lokā), one is condemned
to fall into the andhaṃ tamaḥ, the
‘blinding darkness’ of the ‘sunless worlds’.
They who are steeped in
rank ignorance ‘make a cult of nescience’. They degrade themselves spiritually by
such worship but receiving the counsel of the saints and seers, they would
correct themselves. They did not know. In that way, their ignorance holds them
in good stead. But the middle category of half-learned persons who have crossed
the stage of total ignorance (by possessing imperfect knowledge) yet have not
grasped the correct knowledge of Reality (but would never admit it, unlike the
totally ignorant,) are irredeemable. Their minds are closed. They plunge, as it
were, into greater darkness. The Bhagavata talks of such ‘godless people’ who, shrouding
their Self in ignorance, mistake karma for knowledge and fall down deep
into hellTP[14]PT.
The following diagram may help us to analyze the
ideas contained in these verses with some clarity. The shaded boxes are the
‘rungs’ of a mental ladder corresponding to the upward climb of the intellect
through a systemic process of discernment.
 |
| The Upward Climb of The Intellect |
To obtain the true knowledge, shedding ignorance is not sufficient. We must also come out of false knowledge. Similarly, rejecting matter (in the process of upasana) is not enough; we must also reject the material manifestations, in order to receive the embrace of the Pure Spirit. If we do not endeavor to understand these concepts and entities ‘both together’, then we will fall. If we are stuck in a ‘higher’ stage of ignorance, for instance, we fall harder than the ones below on the ‘lower rung’ of this (mental) ladder. But if we climb ‘both together’ these two ‘rungs’ of avidya and false-vidya, then we attain ‘immortality’, the true knowledge of the Self. Then, truly we transcend ‘avidya’ (the dotted line in the figure above). From this point, there is no fall.
In other words, in the case of avidya-vidya discernment,
first we (1) eliminate total ignorance, climb up, then (2) eliminate
false-knowledge, climb up and, finally, True Knowledge is reached.
In the second set of verses, ‘asambhūti’ tends
to remind us of the ‘unmanifested prakrti’, the lower, non-eternal avyakta,
mentioned by Krishna in the Gita[15].
Emergence and dissolution are the twin-processes of the material realm. Though,
from the stand-point of the process of cosmic evolution, unmanifested prakrti
may occupy a higher position than the material manifestations of God such as
the demi-gods, still, for the process of mental discernment, inverse has
to be the case. We do not rise up to (soul-less) matter, rather climb up
from it. Therefore, unlike in the analysis of the first pair (avidya
and vidya), we first have to invert the ‘ladder’. Then the discernment
begins as before: first we (1) reject matter, climb up, then (2) reject ‘matter
plus soul’, climb up and finally the non-dual Spirit is reached.
In both cases (avidya-vidya, asambhūti-sambhūti)
we must climb ‘both together’ (vedobhayaṃ saha). Otherwise, little learning will prove to be
dangerous thing. Multiplicity will be perceived rather than unity. And the
consequences in both cases are far more hellish.
In order to bring out the meaning of this abstruse
passage more clearly, the following translation is proposed: -
“They who worship
ignorance enter into blinding darkness
They who delight
in false-knowledge into darkness greater still || IsUp_9 ||
“Quite other[16]
is the result obtained from false-knowledge
Other (of course) is the result obtained
from ignorance
When we do not know BOTH TOGETHER || IsUp_10 ||
“But, if we know BOTH of them–
false-knowledge and ignorance –TOGETHER, then
Climbing up from ignorance to false-knowledge, one crosses death
AND climbing up from false-knowledge
to True Knowledge, attains to immortality” || IsUp_11 ||
“They who worship prakrti, the false unmanifested, enter
into blinding darkness
They who delight
in worshiping the material manifestations into darkness greater still ||
IsUp_12 ||
“Quite other[17]
is the result obtained from material manifestations
Other (of course) is the result obtained
from prakrti, the false unmanifested
When we do not know BOTH TOGETHER || IsUp_13 ||
“But, if we know BOTH of them– material manifestations and matter –TOGETHER,
then
Climbing up from matter to manifestation, one crosses death
AND climbing up from manifestation to the
True Unmanifested- the Pure Spirit -attains to immortality” || IsUp_14 ||
Upasana,
translated rather loosely as ‘worship’, is a subtle but critical process. False,
unscientific upasana can degrade the mind towards matter instead of
elevating it towards Spirit. Therefore one must first engage in tattva-vicara,
a thorough analysis of the ‘eternal’ and the ‘non-eternal’.
The passage beginning
hiraṇmayena pātreṇa to pūṣann ekarṣe yama
The teaching now appears to be moving swiftly towards
its final climax. There is a sudden acceleration[18];
the tone of the seer seems to be suddenly charged with a new energy. It is one
associated with intense emotionalism. The poet-seer’s heart is a-thrill with
joy (so 'ham asmi!) Are we seeing the germ of Bhakti in the Isa?
The seer sees the Lord as
a (transcendental) person; he sees the ‘face’ of God as being covered, hidden
by a ‘golden vessel’. ‘Hidden’ is perhaps more apposite, in tune with vijugupsate
in an earlier verse (IsUp_6). Clearly,
this ‘vessel’ is playing an obscuring role for, unless something obscures, one
would not entreat tat tvaṃ pūṣann apāvṛṇu. As the passage itself says, it is masking
(apihitaṃ)
the face of the True, ‘the nature of the True’ (satyadharmāya).
In the light of what has
already been said in the earlier verses, we are almost irresistibly drawn
towards the conclusion that in this there is the repudiation of the doctrine of
karma or activism. According to the Monier Williams' Sanskrit-English
Dictionary, pātrīya means ‘a kind of sacrificial vessel’. In the Brihadaranyaka,
there is indeed a reference to a golden sacrificial vessel[19]PT. ‘Works’ (karma-kanda)
is blocking true spirituality, the realization of the Self, atma-tattva;
‘hiraṇmayena pātreṇa’ is the poet-seer’s way, perhaps, of expressing
this.
An important conclusion that
could be drawn in the light of ‘vijugupsate’ earlier is that the
doctrine of the ‘golden vessel’ is incompatible with the realization of the
immanent Glory of the Lord, a barrier to viewing the Lord in the heart of beings[20]PT. As soon as that barrier
is removed, the realization (of this immanence) dawns – “I am He!TP[21]PT”
The passage beginning
vāyur anilam amṛtam to agne naya supathā rāye
In these two climactic verses, we see the ‘final
movement’ of the Upanisad (in Sri Aurobindo’s words). The ‘golden vessel’ - the
doctrine of works - has now been removed. The death-like ignorance is dying; deha-buddhi,
the false identification of the self with body, is disappearing; nitya-anitya
vastu-viveka, discrimination between eternal and non-eternal, has dawned.
The seeker will now
surrender completely reposing firm faith in the Lord. We can almost hear at
this point the preceptor saying, as in the Gita, “The Lord abides in the hearts
of all beings. Flee unto Him for shelter with all Thy being, O BharataTP[22]PT”.
Some commentators have pointed out that that these
lines are supposed to be uttered by a man in the hour of death. The seer is suddenly
seen to be making preparations to leave the mortal coil. This physical
interpretation is somewhat surprising considering the fact that in Vedanta, the
unreal is verily death, the darkness is verily death and, so, if we pick up
this thread of understanding, then it would not be difficult to accept that
ignorance is verily death. Assuming that the previous verses, especially IsUp_9-14,
were designed to remove the ignorance of the aspirant which indeed they looked
like doing, then it is quite apparent that rather than the seer, it is the
death-like ignorance of the seeker that is now going. He now identifies himself
neither with the gross body nor with the vital air(s) but with the Self.
‘Krato’ seems to refer not to ‘deed’ as in some translations but rather to the
Lord. In the Gita (9:16), Krishna says, “I am kratu
(the ritual action)”. Similarly, ‘kritam’ would refer to the Supreme
Truth or God Himself. Such a belief
would be strengthened by Krishna ’s ‘Fix thy
mind on Me’ (manmana bhava) in the Gita which, like in the Isa, also comes
in the final stage of the Teaching.
The words agne naya supathā rāye again look
to be the words not of the preceptor but of the pupil. “O God! O Agni! Lead us
by the good path to the felicity”. ‘Agni’ here most likely is an epithet used
to address the Lord in His capacity as the giver of light or the dispeller of
ignorance– the supreme teacher, the Guru. The student-seeker thus appears to
have taken sole-refuge in his Preceptor: -
“Lead me from the unreal to the real! Lead me from
darkness to light! Lead me from death to immortality![23]”
The whole of the Isa, in fact, appears to be
structured in the manner of a dialogue. Of course, in texts as pithy and
aphoristic as the Isa, the speaker would never be indicated, but a close
reading of the text does lead to a feeling that this is not a monologue here; there
are two parties necessarily involved in this discourse and these two must
inevitably be the pupil and the teacher, for the very etymology of ‘Upanishad’ suggests
‘sitting down near a teacher to receive instruction’. Krishna
and Arjuna in the Gita is the best example of such a combination. In Hindu
thought, spiritual knowledge is best transmitted through this dialogue between
teacher and student. In view of these factors, viewing the Isa as a soliloquy
would not be, we feel, doing full justice to this important text.
This last verse again is
striking, ‘lead us along the good path to riches […] and the highest song of
praise, we shall offer to you’. This seems to be a radical transformation
of the traditional Vedic prayer[24]PT seeking material benefits
to one that seeks now only spiritual ‘gain’. Hereafter, it seems, prayer is to
be the only offering[25]PT.
The Path of the Isa
Upanisad
From this discussion, the following may be said to
be a rough outline of the Path suggested by the Isa: -
- Know the Lord of Infinite
Glory as immanent in all beings, seated in the hearts of all – (īśā
vāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ, sarvabhūteṣu cātmānaṃ)
- Know the body as
destructible (bhasmāntaṃ
śarīram) and only the Lord,
the Self, as eternal (asnāviraṃ, chāśvatībhyaḥ)
- Finally, surrender oneself completely to the
Lord forsaking all karmas (symbolized by hiraṇmayena pātreṇa);
seek sole-refuge (Eka-Sarana in the GitaTP[26]PT and the
BhagavataTP[27]PT) in Him.
Such a siddhanta or verdict would be fully
consistent with the key utterances and highest teachings of both the Gita and
the Bhagavata.
Only when he takes to this supremely beneficial
path (supathā rāye) will the Grace of the Lord be bestowed on the seeker;
sorrow and delusion then would come to naught (ko mohaḥ kaḥ
śoka).
Significance of the
Isa in Hindu spiritual thought
The Isa Upanisad is certainly a monumental text in
so far as it seems to provide the germ for the full development of the path of
Bhakti, the maturest phase of which is witnessed in the texts such as the Srimad-Bhagavata,
the ‘ripened fruit of the Vedic tree’. The Isa also seems to be the forerunner
of the central (Bhaktic) doctrine of Grace of the Lord contained in the Bhagavad
Gita. It is in a way the Gita in miniature[28].
Krishna is vedanta-gayaka, the ‘singer
of the Vedantic verse’ and He certainly sings many tunes from the Isa.
Profound would be the implications of the Isa at
the level of upasana. Worship of prakrti or demi-gods would not find
sanction; karma-kanda is sure upbraided.
Hindu spiritual thought, it may be affirmed in the
light of this interpretation, is a continuum. The Vedanta teaches that the
transcendent and the immanent must be reconciled but the stress is definitely
on the Self, the immanent, and this central Vedantic theme persists even in the
maturest phases of evolution of Hindu spiritual thought.
TP[1]PT
“This Upanishad, though apparently simple and intelligible, is in reality one
of the most difficult to understand properly” (Max Muller)
TP[2]PT
The transliteration of the verses and the scheme for numbering of the same is
from GRETIL etexts
The portions of translations quoted throughout, either
in original or in re-phrased form, are mostly from translations of the Isa by Olivelle,
Muller and Sri Aurobindo
TP[3]PT
Max Muller’s translation, for instance, conveys such a sense in this regard,
“All this […] is to be hidden in the Lord” HTUhttp://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe01/sbe01243.htmUTH
There also
appears to be another reading and that is ‘all this envelops the Lord’.
According to Sri Aurobindo, “TThere are three possible senses ofTT TTvasyam, “to be clothed”, “to be worn as garment” and “to be
inhabited”. The first is the ordinarily accepted meaning. Shankara explains it
in this significance […] The image is of the world either as a garment or as a
dwelling-place for the informing and governing Spirit. The latter significance
agrees better with the thought of the Upanishad.”
TP[4]PT
Radhakrishnan, in his translation of the very first mantra (the
‘peace-invocation’) comments that ‘Brahman is both transcendent and immanent’ (cited
in Interpreting the Upanishads, Ananda Wood, 2003, p. 4). But
the stress seems to be more on the immanent. If the first few words of the next
verse (IsUp_1) were to be read as “The Lord resides in every being of this
[creation]”, it would follow quite logically from the earlier verse.
TP[6]PT
‘isa svarupe hari sava ghate baithaha jaisana gagana viyapi’. Early History
of the Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Assam
nānyad yat sad-asat param
paścād ahaḿ yad etac ca
yo 'vaśiṣyeta so 'smy aham (2.9.33)
TP[8]PT
It is tempting in this context to bring in the theory of incarnation (avataravada)
of God. Reading the Upanishad in a Bhaktic or Bhagavatic light, it would
perhaps not be going too far if one were to view the immanent God (purnam
idam) residing in all creatures as a kind of avatara. In the
Bhagavata (11.4.3), it is found that, “When the primeval Lord Nārāyaṇa
created His universal body out of the five elements produced from Himself and
then entered within that universal body by His own plenary portion, He thus
became known as the Puruṣa” [avatara]. HTUhttp://vedabase.net/sb/11/4/enUTH
Interestingly, in the Isa also, we find the word ‘purusa’,
pyo 'sāv asau puruṣaḥ so 'ham asmi (IsUp_16)
TP[10]PT
The Nine Upanishads, Isa and the others, Hari Krishna Dasa Goyandaka (Int.),
Gita Press, Gorakhpur
TP[11]PT
To digress further, this mocking tone in the second verse apart, there also
appears to be a paradoxical tune to the first as well. If indeed “all beings
are the Lord”, if all things and properties be, in truth, the Lord’s, then how
can one possibly renounce (tyaktena) in the full import of the term?
Renunciation, if it were to be true, would assume a person to be really in
possession of something but, if, that ‘something’ is in actuality the Lord’s,
then how can there be genuine renunciation? Renunciation, therefore, has to be
unspiritual, a ‘lower truth’, and tyaktena bhunjitha (interpreted as ‘niskama
karma’ by some) cannot be the real path.
TP[12]PT
‘Sunless’ indeed seems to be more apposite, in the context of verses such as IsUp_16.
According to Sri Aurobindo, “The third verse is, in the thought structure of
the Upanishad, the starting-point for the final movement in the last four
verses […] The prayer to the Sun refers back in thought to the sunless worlds
and their blind gloom, which are recalled in the ninth and twelfth verses”
TP[14]PT
“These godless people hate Lord Hari – their very indwelling self who abides in
the bodies of others as well (as their Soul); and fixing their attachment to
their mortal body….fall down deep into hell.
“Those who have not grasped the correct knowledge of
Reality and have crossed the stage of total ignorance (by possessing imperfect
knowledge) regard themselves as non-momentary (permanent); […] such persons
(who thus follow a suicidal path) ruin themselves.
“Such people shrouding their Self in ignorance and
with their desires unrequited, mistake ignorance (karma) for knowledge.
Being thwarted in achieving their objects and their hopes and wishes being
frustrated by the Time-Spirit they ruin themselves (and suffer misery)”.
The
Bhagavata Purana, Translated and Annotated by Dr. GV Tagare, Part V, Motilal
Banarsidass, 1978, p. 1923, Slokas 15-17 (11.5). It is striking that the words
used to describe such people are ātma-hano 'śāntā. Significantly enough,
these were spoken by a ‘master of atmic lore’. The translator (Tagare)
makes a note of this connection with the Isa in the footnote. Svami Bhaktivedanta
Prabhupada also notes this fact in his commentary on the passage in question.
See HTUhttp://vedabase.net/sb/11/5/17/enUTH
[15]
“Here the unmanifested [avyakta] is prakrti”, Bhagavad Gita, Radhakrishnan
(Tr.), p. 233, ‘Yoga of the Imperishable Absolute’ (8.18)
[16]
‘Quite other’ emphasizes the ‘harder fall’
[17]
‘Quite other’ emphasizes the ‘harder fall’
[18]
There is, at this point, a sudden ‘shower’ of exclamation marks in the
translations!
TP[19]PT
“Verily Day arose after the horse as the (golden) vessel, called Mahiman (greatness),
which (at the sacrifice) is placed before the horse”.
“Two vessels, to hold the sacrificial libations, are
placed at the Asvamedha before and behind the horse, the former made of gold,
the latter made of silver. They are called Mahiman in the technical language of
the ceremonial”. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, First Adhyaya, First Brahmana, Max
Muller (Tr.)
- When
a man sees the Self in all beings, He (the Self) does not ‘hide’ from him;
- The
hiraṇmayena pātreṇa (theory of karma) is keeping
the Self hidden from man; He is, as it were, ‘hiding’ from him;
Therefore, by logic, a probable reason could be that
man is not seeing the Self in all beings (not conceiving of the Lord as being
immanent in all beings). And, if that be the case, the direct cause would be
that hiraṇmayena
pātreṇa
(theory of karma). An affirmation of such a view comes from the Srimad-Bhagavata
(10.86.47), hrdi-stho 'py_ati-dura-sthah karma-viksipta-cetasam. Also,
in 11.12.14 of the same text, Krishna asks
Uddhava to renounce both pravrtti and nivrtti types of karmas and
then take sole-refuge in Him who is the Soul of all beings,. ‘tasmattvamuddhavotsrjya
codanam praticodanam / pravrttinca nivrttinca srotavyam srutameva ca…’
TP[21]PT
Rather than ‘I am He!’, the more accurate rendering of so 'ham asmi
in this context would perhaps be ‘that (Lord) is (actually) this ‘me’!’
as the supreme truth (purnam adah purnam idam).seems to point inwards
rather than outwards.
TP[22]PT
‘isvarah sarvabhutanam hrddese ‘rjuna tisthati […] tam eva saranam
gaccha sarvabhavena bharata’, Bhagavad Gita, Radhakrishnan (Tr.),
pp. 374-375
[23]
Brihadaranyaka (1.3.27)
TP[24]PT
“Through Agni man obtaineth wealth, yea, plenty waxing day by day…”, Rig Veda,
Hymn I, Book I, RTH Griffith (Tr.)
TP[25]PT
“The wordT TvidhemaT Tis used of the ordering of the sacrifice, the disposal of
the offerings to the God […] Here the offering is that of completest submission
and the self-surrender…”, Sri Aurobindo, op cit
TP[27]PT
‘mamekameva saranamatmanam sarva dehinam / yahi sarvatmabhavena maya syah
hyakutobhayah’ Srimad-Bhagavata (11.12.15)
[28]
Strikingly enough, the Isa has eighteen verses and the Gita, eighteen chapters.
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