Katha Upanishad with Shankara’s Commentary
by S. Sitarama Sastri | 1928 | 23,822 words
The Katha Upanishad is a collection of philosophical poems representing a conversation between the sage Naciketas and Yama (god of death). They discuss the nature of Atman, Brahman and Moksha (liberation). The book is made up of six sections (Valli). This commentary by Shankara focuses on ‘Advaita Vedanta’, or non-dualism: one of the classical ort...
Verse 2.2.4
अस्य विस्रंसमानस्य शरीरस्थस्य देहिनः ।
देहाद्विमुच्यमानस्य किमत्र परिशिष्यते । एतद्वैतत् ॥ ४ ॥asya visraṃsamānasya śarīrasthasya dehinaḥ |
dehādvimucyamānasya kimatra pariśiṣyate | etadvaitat || 4 ||4. When this atman seated in the body escapes from the body what here remains? This verily is that.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—Again, of this atman in the body, visramsamanasya ] escaping. Dehinah ] embodied. The meaning of the word visramsamana is explained by the expression dehat vimuchyamanasya (being free from the body); what here remains? nothing of the whole lot of prana, etc., remains. Here] in the body; the atman, on whose leaving the body, all this lot of effects and causes becomes in an instant enervated, destroyed and defunct, as in the case of the inhabitants of a city, when the lord of the city, is driven out of it, has been established to be some other than all this.