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...

पञ्चपादं पितरं द्वादशाकृतिं दिव आहुः परे अर्धे पुरीषिणम् ।
अथेमे अन्य उ परे विचक्शणं सप्तचक्रे षडर आहुरर्पितमिति ॥ ११ ॥

pañcapādaṃ pitaraṃ dvādaśākṛtiṃ diva āhuḥ pare ardhe purīṣiṇam |
atheme anya u pare vicakśaṇaṃ saptacakre ṣaḍara āhurarpitamiti || 11 ||

11. Having five feet, the father of all, having twelve forms, they say he is seated in a place higher than Dyuloka, full of water. These others say that the world is lodged in him, all knowing, ever moving with seven wheels and six spokes.

 

Shankara’s Commentary:

Com.—Having five feet] the five seasons are, as it were, the feet of the sun which is no other than the year. With these seasons as ‘feet,’ the year moves. This analogy makes but one of the hemanta and the sisira seasons. Father] he is called father because he is the creator of all. Having twelve forms] the twelve months are the forms, i.e., limbs or component parts of the year. In a place higher than Dyuloka (sky), i.e., in the third heaven. Purishinam, full of water. They say] those who know Time say. The same, some others who know Time say, is omniscient; and that the world is fixed to the wheel of Time, ever on the move, in the form of seven horses and having six seasons. They say that all the universe is fixed there as spokes in a wheel. Whether having five feet and twelve limbs, or whether possessed of seven wheels and six spokes, in any view, the year, of the nature of Time, the lord of creation, in the form of the sun and the moon, is the cause of the universe.

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