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...

गताः कलाः पञ्चदश प्रतिष्ठा देवाश्च सर्वे प्रतिदेवतासु ।
कर्माणि विज्ञानमयश्च आत्मा परेऽव्यये सर्वे एकीभवन्ति ॥ ७ ॥

gatāḥ kalāḥ pañcadaśa pratiṣṭhā devāśca sarve pratidevatāsu |
karmāṇi vijñānamayaśca ātmā pare'vyaye sarve ekībhavanti || 7 ||

7. The fifteen kalas go back to their source; all the powers seated on the senses go back to their corresponding deities and all his karma and the atman, all these become one, in the highest and imperishable Brahman.

 

 

Shankara’s Commentary:

Com.—Moreover, the knowers of Brahman regard emancipation as consisting only in the release from bondage, samsara, ignorance and the rest not as something produced. Besides at the time of emancipation the kalas which produce the body, pranas etc., go back to their own seat, i.e., cause. The word ‘Pratishtha’ is accusative plural. Fifteen: fifteen in number already enumerated in the last prasna and well known. Devas, the powers adhering to the body, and lodged in the senses such as the eye, etc.; all these go to the corresponding deities such as the sun, etc.; also those actions of the seeker after emancipation which have not begun to bear fruit (for those which have begun to bear fruit can be consumed only by enjoyment) and the Atman limited by the intellect, i.e., who, mistaking the condition of the intellect so caused by ignorance for the Atman, has here entered into various bodies like the image of the sun, etc., into water, etc. (Karma being intended for the benefit of the Atman). Therefore ‘Vijnanamaya’ means ‘chiefly possessed of intellect.’ These and the Vijnanamaya Atman, after removal of the conditions imposed, become mingled as one in the Brahman, the highest, the imperishable, endless, indestructible, all-pervading like the akas, unborn, undecaying, immortal, beneficent, fearless, having neither before nor after, nor in, nor out, without a second, unconditioned, lose their distinctive features, i.e., become one as the images of the sun, etc., become one with the sun when the surface, such as water (in which lie is reflected) is withdrawn and as the akas within the pot, etc., becomes one with the akas when the pot, etc., is withdrawn.

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