Mundaka Upanishad with Shankara’s Commentary
by S. Sitarama Sastri | 1905 | 19,662 words
The Mundaka Upanishad is a collection of philosophical poems used to teach meditation and spiritual knowledge regarding the true nature of Brahma and the Self (Atman). It is composed of the three main parts (mundakas): 1) The first of three parts expounds the science of higher and lower knowledge. 2) The second part describes the true nature of t...
Verse 2.2.10
न तत्र सूर्यो भाति न चन्द्रतारकं नेमा विद्युतो भान्ति कुतोऽयमग्निः ।
तमेव भान्तमनुभाति सर्वं तस्य भासा सर्वमिदं विभाति ॥ १० ॥na tatra sūryo bhāti na candratārakaṃ nemā vidyuto bhānti kuto'yamagniḥ |
tameva bhāntamanubhāti sarvaṃ tasya bhāsā sarvamidaṃ vibhāti || 10 ||10. The sun shines not there, nor the moon and the stars. Nor do these lightnings shine. How could this fire? All shine after him who shines. All this is illumined by his radiance.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—How that is the light of all lights is explained. The sun, though enlightening all. does not shine in, i.e., does not illumine the Brahman which is his Atman; for, the sun illumines the whole universe other than the Atman with the light of the Brahman, but has not in himself the capacity to illuminate. Similarly neither the moon and the stars nor the lightning shines. How could this file which is in the range of our vision? Why dilate? This universe which shines, shines with the light of Him, the Lord of all, who shines being himself luminosity. Just as water and the rest by their contact with fire, heat with the heat of the fire, but not by their own inherent power, so all this universe, the sun and the rest shine with the light of the Brahman. As it is the Brahman alone that thus shines and shines with varying light in its diverse manifestations, itself luminosity, is inferred; for, that which is not itself light cannot illumine others as we see that pots, etc., do not illumine others and that the sun and the rest having light, illumine others.