Chandogya Upanishad (Shankara Bhashya)
by Ganganatha Jha | 1942 | 149,749 words | ISBN-10: 8170842840 | ISBN-13: 9788170842842
This is the English translation of the Chandogya Upanishad, an ancient philosophical text originally written in Sanksrit and dating to at least the 8th century BCE. Having eight chapters (adhyayas) and many sub-sections (khandas), this text is counted among the largest of it's kind. The Chandogya Upanishad, being connected to the Samaveda, represen...
Section 4.11 (eleventh khaṇḍa) (two texts)
Upaniṣad text:
Then the Gārhapatya Fire instructed him—‘Earth, Fire, Food and Sun. The person that is seen in the Sun—that I am, that indeed am I.’—(1)
Commentary (Śaṅkara Bhāṣya):
Jointly, the three fires taught the Religious Student as above. Now, then, each of them proceeded to instruct him regarding the philosophy pertaining to itself.—So, first of all, the Gārhapatya Fire instructed him,— the Religious Student; ‘Earth, Fire, Food and Sun,—these are my four bodies (forms). Of these, the Person that is seen in the Sun,—that I am, i.e. the Gārhapatya fire;— and that which is the Gārhapatya fire, that indeed am I, the person in the Sun’. There is reiteration of the same in the assertion ‘that indeed am I’. The relationship between the Gārhapatya Fire and the Sun is not like that between the Fire and the Earth and Food, which latter are in the nature of something to be eaten, enjoyed; in fact the characters of being the Eater, the Ripener and the Illuminator belong equally to both the Sun and the Fire; that is why there is absolute identity between these two (as asserted in the Text).’ As for Earth and Food, these are related to the Fire as objects of enjoyment.—(1)
Upaniṣad text:
‘One who knowing this thus, meditates upon it, destroys sin, wins regions for himself, reaches the full life-span, lives gloriously, and his descendants never perish. We protect him in this world, and in the other,—whosoever knowing this thus meditates upon it’.—(2)
Commentary (Śaṅkara Bhāṣya):
Any one who knows this—the abovedescribed Gārhapatya fire as food and food-eater, divided into forms, and meditates upon it,—he destroys—eradicates —sin—evil deeds;—wins regions for himself, i.e., wins the regions of fire, like ourselves;—reaches the full life-span—of a hundred years,—lives gloriously,—that is, does not remain insignificant; his discendants,—that is, persons descended from him, in his line of descent,—never perish; that his line never ceases.—Further, we protect him—while he is living—in this world and also in the other—the other region,—him whosoever knowing this, meditates upon what has been described above;—to him accrues all this reward.—(2)
End of Section (11) of Discourse IV