Vivekachudamani
by Shankara | 1921 | 49,785 words | ISBN-13: 9788175051065
The Vivekachudamani is a collection of poetical couplets authored by Shankara around the eighth century. The philosophical school this compilation attempts to expose is called ‘Advaita Vedanta’, or non-dualism, one of the classical orthodox philosophies of Hinduism. The book teaches Viveka: discrimination between the real and the unreal. Shankara d...
Verse 137
अत्रानात्मन्यहमिति मतिर्बन्ध एषोऽस्य पुंसः
प्राप्तोऽज्ञानाज्जननमरणक्लेशसंपातहेतुः ।
येनैवायं वपुरिदमसत्सत्यमित्यात्मबुद्ध्या
पुष्यत्युक्षत्यवति विषयैस्तन्तुभिः कोशकृद्वत् ॥ १३७ ॥atrānātmanyahamiti matirbandha eṣo'sya puṃsaḥ
prāpto'jñānājjananamaraṇakleśasaṃpātahetuḥ |
yenaivāyaṃ vapuridamasatsatyamityātmabuddhyā
puṣyatyukṣatyavati viṣayaistantubhiḥ kośakṛdvat || 137 ||137. Identifying the Self with this non-Self – this is the bondage of man, which is due to his ignorance, and brings in its train the miseries of birth and death. It is through this that one considers this evanescent body as real, and identifying oneself with it, nourishes, bathes, and preserves it by means of (agreeable) sense-objects, by which he becomes bound as the caterpillar by the threads of its cocoon.
Notes:
[Bathes—keeps it clean and tidy.
Sense-objects &c.—He runs after sense-pleasures thinking that will conduce to the well-being of the body, but these in turn throw him into a terrible bondage, and he has to abjure them wholly to attain his freedom, as the caterpillar has to cut through its cocoon. ]