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 2.8
देवानामसि वह्नितमः पितृणां प्रथमा स्वधा ।
ऋषीणां चरितं सत्यमथर्वाङ्गिरसामसि ॥ ८ ॥devānāmasi vahnitamaḥ pitṛṇāṃ prathamā svadhā |
ṛṣīṇāṃ caritaṃ satyamatharvāṅgirasāmasi || 8 ||8. You are the best carrier to the celestials, the first oblation to the manes. You are the true active principle of the senses (pranas) which form the sap of the body.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—Moreover, you are the best of the carriers of oblations to the Devas such as Indra. The food given to the manes in the Nandi sraddha is prior even to that offered to the chief of the Devas. You alone are the carrier of that to the manes. Besides, of the senses such as the eye, etc., (pranas) which are called atharva, and in whose absence the limbs are dried up, you are the active principle aiding in the support, etc., of the body.