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 2.11
व्रात्यस्त्वं प्राणैकर्षरत्ता विश्वस्य सत्पतिः ।
वयमाद्यस्य दातारः पिता त्वं मातरिश्वनः ॥ ११ ॥vrātyastvaṃ prāṇaikarṣarattā viśvasya satpatiḥ |
vayamādyasya dātāraḥ pitā tvaṃ mātariśvanaḥ || 11 ||11. Oh Prana, you are unpurified, you are the fire called Ekarshi, eater, lord of all the existing universe; we are the givers of oblations, Oh Matarisvan! you are our father.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—Again, being first born and there being none other to purify you, you are unpurified. The meaning is you are, by nature itself, pure. Oh Prana, you are the eater of all oblations being Ekarshi, i.e., fire well-known among the followers of the Atharva Veda, by the name of Ekarshi. You alone are the lord of all the universe which exists. Or, the word ‘satpatih’ may be interpreted as ‘good lord.’ But we are the givers of oblations to be eaten by you. You are, Oh Matarisvan! our father; or, you are the father of Matarisvan, i.e., wind. Therefore, it is established that you are the father of all the universe.