Mantra 14

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Īśa-upaniṣad mantra 14:

संभूतिं च विनाशं च यस्तद्वेदोभयं सह ।
विनाशेन मृत्युं तीर्त्वा संभूत्यामृतमश्नुते ॥ १४ ॥

saṃbhūtiṃ ca vināśaṃ ca yastadvedobhayaṃ saha |
vināśena mṛtyuṃ tīrtvā saṃbhūtyāmṛtamaśnute || 14 ||

sambhutim—knowing him as Creator; ca—and; vināśam—knowing him as destroyer also; ca—and; yaḥ—who; tat—that; veda—knows their inter-dependence; ubhayam—both; saha—together; vināśena—by destruction; mṛtyum—death; tīrtvā—having overcome; sambhūtyā—by the knowledge of production or effect. Amṛtam, immortality; agnute—enjoys, obtains.

14. Of these two, the Creator and the Destroyer, by (a knowledge of) the Destroyer alone, death is overcome; but knowing both, these together by (a knowledge of) the Creator also, he obtains liberation.

Commentary: The Bhāṣya of Madhva (Madhvācārya):

(English translation of Madhva’s 13th-century commentary called the Īśāvāsyopaniṣadbhāṣya or Īśopaniṣadbhāṣya)

Quotation from the Kūrma Purāṇa.—(continued)

Similarly those also, who do not acknowledge that Hari is the Creator, go to deep darkness and so also those who do not acknowledge Him as the Destroyer. Therefore those, who thus know the Lord, as possessing all qualities, as the Creator of all as the Lord of Lords, as the destroyer of all, become freed from the bonds of embodied existence through their knowledge that the Lord is the destroyer; and by the knowledge that He is the creator of all joy and knowledge, etc., get verily joy and knowledge. Let one know that the Lord, the sifter of men, is eternally free from all faults and full of all auspicious qualities; and let him not divide or take away any of His attributes, nor let him imagine that the released souls can ever become equal to Hari, or that they become identical with Viṣṇu. Nor similarly should he imagine that a freed soul can become equal to Brahmā and the rest. Let one know that oven among the Released, souls from men up to Brahmā, there is difference between them and that Viṣṇu is the highest of all beings (whether they be bound or released souls)—for only by such complete knowledge is there mukti.” (Kūrma Purāṇa).

[Having described the nature of God, and the realisation of Him in His two aspects, Matter and Spirit, Creator and Destroyer, as the means of perfect liberation, the Śruti next teaches that such direct God-vision takes place only through the grace of God and not by mere self-exertion.]