Brahma Sutras (Shankara Bhashya)
by Swami Vireshwarananda | 1936 | 124,571 words | ISBN-10: 8175050063
This is the English translation of the Brahma-sutras including the commentary (Bhashya) of Shankara. The Brahma-sutra (or, Vedanta-sutra) is one of the three canonical texts of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy and represents an early exposition the Vedantic interpretation of the Upanishads. This edition has the original Sanskrit text, the r...
Chapter IV, Section II, Adhikarana VII
Adhikarana summary: The organs of the knower of the Nirguna Brahman get merged in It at death
Brahma-Sutra 4.2.15: Sanskrit text and English translation.
तानि परे, तथाह्याह ॥ १५ ॥
tāni pare, tathāhyāha || 15 ||
tāni—Those; pare—in the Supreme Brahman; tathā—so; hi—for; āha—(the scripture) says.
15. Those (Pranas) (are merged) in the Supreme Brahman, for so (the scripture) says.
This Sutra describes what happens to the Pranas (organs) and the fine essence of the gross elements in which they abide, in the case of a knower of Brahman who dies. These organs and the elements get merged in the Supreme Brahman. “The sixteen digits of this witness, the Purusha, having their goal in Him are dissolved on reaching Him” (Pr. 6. 5). The text, “All the fifteen parts of their body enter into their causes” etc. (Mu. 3. 2. 7) gives the end from a relative standpoint, according to which the body disintegrates and goes back to its cause, the elements. The former text speaks from a transcendental standpoint, according to which the whole aggregate is merged in Brahman, even as the illusory snake is merged in the rope when knowledge dawns.