Prashna Upanishad with Shankara’s Commentary
by S. Sitarama Sastri | 1928 | 19,194 words
The Prashna Upanishad is a series philosophical poems presented as questions (prashna) inquired by various Hindu sages (Rishi) and answered by Sage Pippalada. The questions discuss knowledge about Brahman, the relation of the individual (Purusha) with the universal (Atman), meditation, immortality and various other Spiritual topics. This commentar...
Verse 1.6
अथादित्य उदयन्यत्प्राचीं दिशं प्रविशति तेन प्राच्यान्प्राणान्रश्मिषु सन्निधत्ते । यद्दक्शिणां यत्प्रतीचीं यदुदीचीं यदधो यदूर्ध्वं यदन्तरा दिशो यत्सर्वं प्रकाशयति तेन सर्वान्प्राणान्रश्मिषु सन्निधत्ते ॥ ६ ॥
athāditya udayanyatprācīṃ diśaṃ praviśati tena prācyānprāṇānraśmiṣu sannidhatte । yaddakśiṇāṃ yatpratīcīṃ yadudīcīṃ yadadho yadūrdhvaṃ yadantarā diśo yatsarvaṃ prakāśayati tena sarvānprāṇānraśmiṣu sannidhatte || 6 ||
6. Now the sun rising enters the east. By that, he bathes, in his rays, all prana in the east. When he lights up the south, the west, the north, the nadir, the zenith, the inter-space and all, by that, he bathes in his rays, all prana.
Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—Similarly, though formless the prana, i.e., the eater, is all, and food also is prana; how? Now the sun rising, i.e., becoming perceivable by the eyes of living beings, lights up the east with his light; by thus pervading all with his light makes all the lives in the east one with his own self, all living beings being pervaded by his all-pervading rays of light; similarly also, when he lights the south, the west, the north, the nadir, the zenith, the inter-space, the cardinal points and those between them, he bathes all lives in all those directions in his all-pervading light.