Prashna Upanishad with Shankara’s Commentary
by S. Sitarama Sastri | 1928 | 19,194 words
The Prashna Upanishad is a series philosophical poems presented as questions (prashna) inquired by various Hindu sages (Rishi) and answered by Sage Pippalada. The questions discuss knowledge about Brahman, the relation of the individual (Purusha) with the universal (Atman), meditation, immortality and various other Spiritual topics. This commentar...
Verse 2.2
तस्मै स होवाचाकाशो ह वा एष देवो वायुरग्निरापः पृथिवी वाङ्मनश्चक्शुः श्रोत्रं च । ते प्रकाश्याभिवदन्ति वयमेतद्बाणमवष्टभ्य विधारयामः ॥ २ ॥
tasmai sa hovācākāśo ha vā eṣa devo vāyuragnirāpaḥ pṛthivī vāṅmanaścakśuḥ śrotraṃ ca | te prakāśyābhivadanti vayametadbāṇamavaṣṭabhya vidhārayāmaḥ || 2 ||
2. To him he said, “This Deva is the akasa, wind, fire water, earth, speech, mind, eye and ear. They revealing their glory say, ‘we hold together and support this body.’
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—To him, who thus questioned, he replied: ‘This Deva is the akasa, wind, fire, water, earth, i e., these five great elements, Bhutas, the constituent elements of the body and speech, mind, eye, ear and the rest, i.e., the senses of acting and the senses of intellect; these Devas of the nature of effects and instruments, manifesting their glory and competing for pre-eminence, say this body, this bundle of causes and effects, we hold together, as pillars do the vault, from going to pieces and chiefly support. The thought of each is that the body—the bundle—is supported by it alone.’