Chandogya Upanishad (english Translation)

by Swami Lokeswarananda | 165,421 words | ISBN-10: 8185843910 | ISBN-13: 9788185843919

This is the English translation of the Chandogya-upanishad, including a commentary based on Swami Lokeswarananda’s weekly discourses; incorporating extracts from Shankara’s bhasya. The Chandogya Upanishad is a major Hindu philosophical text incorporated in the Sama Veda, and dealing with meditation and Brahman. This edition includes the Sanskrit t...

Verse 7.24.2

गोअश्वमिह महिमेत्याचक्षते हस्तिहिरण्यं दासभार्यं क्षेत्राण्यायतनानीति नाहमेवं ब्रवीमि ब्रवीमीति होवाचान्योह्यन्यस्मिन्प्रतिष्ठित इति ॥ ७.२४.२ ॥
॥ इति चतुर्विंशः खण्डः ॥

goaśvamiha mahimetyācakṣate hastihiraṇyaṃ dāsabhāryaṃ kṣetrāṇyāyatanānīti nāhamevaṃ bravīmi bravīmīti hovācānyohyanyasminpratiṣṭhita iti || 7.24.2 ||
|| iti caturviṃśaḥ khaṇḍaḥ ||

2. In this world it is said that cattle, horses, elephants, gold, servants, wives, farmlands, and houses are a person’s glory. I do not mean this type of glory, for these things are not independent of each other. This is what I am talking about—

Word-for-word explanation:

Go-aśvam, cows and horses; iha, in this world; mahimā iti ācakṣate, are called the glory; hasti-hiraṇyam, elephants and gold; dāsa-bhāryam, servants and wives; kṣetrāṇi āyatanāni iti, farmlands and houses; aham evam na bravīmi, I am not speaking of this kind [of glory]; anyaḥ hi anyasmin pratiṣṭhitaḥ iti, something depending on something else; bravīmi iti ha uvāca, this is what I am saying. Iti caturviṃśaḥ khaṇḍaḥ, here ends the twenty-fourth section.

Commentary:

In those days in India if you had cattle and other animals, you were considered very rich because they supported you. They were a source of income. So also if you had gold or fields or other property.

In this type of situation, there are two separate things—you, the owner, and the things you own. One supports the other. But if there is only one, then the question of supporting does not arise. Who supports whom?

So Sanatkumāra tells Nārada, bhūmā is everything. It is one without a second, and it is self-sufficient.

Section Twenty-five

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