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 6.7-8
तान् होवाचैतावदेवाहमेतत्परं ब्रह्म वेद । नातः परमस्तीति ॥ ७ ॥
ते तमर्चयन्तस्त्वं हि नः पिता योऽस्माकमविध्यायाः परं परं तारयसीति । नमः परमऋषिभ्यो नमः परमऋषिभ्यः ॥ ८ ॥tān hovācaitāvadevāhametatparaṃ brahma veda | nātaḥ paramastīti || 7 ||
te tamarcayantastvaṃ hi naḥ pitā yo'smākamavidhyāyāḥ paraṃ paraṃ tārayasīti | namaḥ paramaṛṣibhyo namaḥ paramaṛṣibhyaḥ || 8 ||7. He said to them, ‘Thus much alone I know, this supreme Brahman; there is nothing beyond this.’
8. They worshipping him, said: ‘you are our father who helps us to cross to the other shore of ignorance; adoration to the great sages; adoration to the great sages.’
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—Having thus instructed them, Pippalada said to them: “Thus far, I know the supreme Brahman worthy to be known. There is nothing beyond this, more excellent or worthy to be known. This he said to remove any doubt in the minds of disciples, that there was yet something not known and to produce a belief in their minds that their object had been accomplished. Then, what did the disciples instructed by the preceptor, their purpose accomplished and finding no return for knowledge received, do for their preceptor is explained. They worshipped him by throwing handfuls of flowers at his feet and by prostrating before him. What they said is stated: ‘You are our father; because, you are the creator, by giving us knowledge of the Brahman—body, eternal, undecaying, deathless and fearless as it were—because you alone have helped us to cross by means of the boat of knowledge to the other shore (supreme emancipation characterised by the absence of return to samsara) of the ocean of ignorance consisting in perverse knowledge and infested by such evils as birth, old age, death, sickness, misery, etc.; your being our father is more appropriate than others.’ Even that other father who creates the mere physical body is still to be worshipped most of all, in the world. What need be said of him who confers thorough immunity from fear?” This is the drift. Adoration to the great sages who transmitted the knowledge of Brahman. Adoration to the great sages. The repetition indicates regard.