Katha Upanishad with Shankara’s Commentary
by S. Sitarama Sastri | 1928 | 23,822 words
The Katha Upanishad is a collection of philosophical poems representing a conversation between the sage Naciketas and Yama (god of death). They discuss the nature of Atman, Brahman and Moksha (liberation). The book is made up of six sections (Valli). This commentary by Shankara focuses on ‘Advaita Vedanta’, or non-dualism: one of the classical ort...
Verse 2.1.3
येन रूपं रसं गन्धं शब्दान्स्पर्शाँश्च मैथुनान् ।
एतेनैव विजानाति किमत्र परिशिष्यते । एतद्वैतत् ॥ ३ ॥yena rūpaṃ rasaṃ gandhaṃ śabdānsparśām̐śca maithunān |
etenaiva vijānāti kimatra pariśiṣyate | etadvaitat || 3 ||3. By which alone, one knows form, taste, smell, sounds, touch and the pleasures of the sexes; what remains here unknown to that. This verily is that.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—How is that to be known, other than the knowledge of which Brahmins do not crave anything. This is explained. By which, i.e., the atman whose nature is intelligence; all the world clearly knows form, taste, smell, sounds, touches and the pleasurable sensations due to the commingling of the sexes. It may here be objected that the experience of the world is not in the form ‘I know by the atman distinct from the body, etc.’; but that all the world thinks in the form ‘I, the combination of the body, etc., Know.’ Not so; even the combination of the body, etc., not being distinguishable in its nature from sounds and the rest and being in the nature of a knowable, it is not reasonable to attribute the nature of knower to it; for if the combination of the body, etc., being no other than form, etc., could perceive other forms, etc., even external forms, etc., may perceive their own and