Kena upanishad (Madhva commentary)
by Srisa Chandra Vasu | 1909 | 11,760 words | ISBN-13: 9789332869165
This is Mantra 4.5 of the Kena-upanishad (Kenopanishad), the English translation and commentary of Madhva (Madhvacharya) called the Bhasya. The Kena Upanishad deals with topics such as Brahman and Atman (soul) and also discusses the symbolic representation of the Gods as forces of nature. It is an important text in the Vedanta schools of Hindu philsophy. This is Mantra 5 of section 4 called ‘Caturtha-Khanda’.
Mantra 4.5
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Kena-upaniṣad mantra 4.5:
अथाध्यात्मं यद्देतद्गच्छतीव च मनोऽनेन चैतदुपस्मरत्यभीक्ष्णम् सङ्कल्पः ॥ ५ ॥
athādhyātmaṃ yaddetadgacchatīva ca mano'nena caitadupasmaratyabhīkṣṇam saṅkalpaḥ || 5 ||
atha—now; next after describing the Adhidaivic aspect; adhyātmam—psychological, the teaching as regards the Pratyagātman—the substrate of all consciousness, the subjective self; dehe—‘in the body’ as opposed to non-self; yat—that which; etad—this; Aniruddha aspect of Brahman; gacchati iva—seems to move, goes as it were, tries to enter into or know, seems to perceive as it were (but really mind does not fully perceive it, because Brahman is not an object of complete mental perception), does not fully go, does not fully comprehend; iva—fully; ca—and; manaḥ—the mind; anena—by whom, by Aniruddha; ca—and, “eva”, alone is another reading; etad—this Brahman; Madhva reads by this Aniruddha alone that things of world; upa-smarati—becomes an instrument of memory, remembers; The power of memory of the mind comes from the Aniruddha aspect. abhīkṣṇam—constantly, again and again, multitude of objects, untiring; saṅkalpaḥ—desire or thought; Thought-maker, imagination, will; The saṅkalpa is here taken to mean mind, the part for the whole.
5. Next the adhyātma teaching, that which is this Aniruddha aspect of Brahman, whom the mind, as if, struggles to enter into and comprehend, but whom it never fully knows, is the Lord, through whom this eternal thought-maker (the mind) gets its faculty of memory.
Commentary: The Bhāṣya of Madhva (Madhvācārya):
(English translation of Madhva’s 13th-century commentary called the Īśāvāsyopaniṣadbhāṣya or Īśopaniṣadbhāṣya)
The instruction about Brahman, so far as adhyātma (Psychological) is concerned is as follows
“That whom the mind partly apprehends, but whom it does never completely comprehend (literally in whom the manas enters as if, and at the same time does not enter) by whom the memory even functions, that Lord of Lords, called Aniruddha is praised as the Supreme Brahman.”