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 2.3.6
इन्द्रियाणां पृथग्भावमुदयास्तमयौ च यत् ।
पृथगुत्पद्यमानानां मत्वा धीरो न शोचति ॥ ६ ॥indriyāṇāṃ pṛthagbhāvamudayāstamayau ca yat |
pṛthagutpadyamānānāṃ matvā dhīro na śocati || 6 ||6. The intelligent man knowing that the senses separately produced are distinct (from the atman) and also their rising and setting, does not grieve.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—How is he to be known and what avails it to know him are explained. Of the senses, such as the ear, etc., separately originating from their causes, the akasa, etc., for perceiving their respective objects, knowing their distinctness, i.e., dissimilarity of their nature to the nature of the atman extremely pure, untainted, and all intelligence; and also the rising and setting, i.e., the creation and absorption of the senses, to depend on the waking and sleeping states and that the atman has neither beginning nor end, the intelligent man does not grieve. The eternally identical nature of the atman never changing, there can be no cause of grief. So also another sruti says ‘The knower of the atman crosses grief.’