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 7.23 (twenty-third khaṇḍa) (one text)
Upaniṣad text:
‘That which is Infinite is Bliss; there is no Bliss in what is finite; the Infinite alone is Bliss. But the Infinite itself should be sought to be understood.’—‘Revered sir, I wish to understand the Infinite.’—(1)
Commentary (Śaṅkara Bhāṣya):
That which is Infinite,—large, unexcelled (highest), Much—all these are synonyms;—and this is Bliss;—what is less than the Infinite is excelled by this letter; hence, it is called ‘finite’ (small); hence, in what is finite there is no Bliss; because the finite or the small always gives rise to longing for what is more than that; and all longing is a source of pain; and in the world it has been found that what is a source of pain,—such as, fever and other diseases,—is not Bliss. Hence, it is quite correct to say that there is no Bliss in what is finite; hence, the Infinite alone is Bliss, specially because in the Infinite, there is no possibility of any sources of pain like longing and the rest.
End of Section (23) of Discourse VII.