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...

तेषामसौ विरजो ब्रह्मलोको न येषु जिह्ममनृतं न माया चेति ॥ १६ ॥

teṣāmasau virajo brahmaloko na yeṣu jihmamanṛtaṃ na māyā ceti || 16 ||

16. To them, is that Brahmaloka devoid of taint; in them there is no deceit, falsehood or dissimulation.

 

Shankara’s Commentary:

Com.—But to whom is that state of lower Brahman marked by the sun, reached by the northern route, untainted, i.e., pure, not tainted like the Brahmaloka of the moon, subject to increase and diminution, is explained. They in whom fraud does not exist, as necessarily it does in householders, resulting in many conflicting modes of conduct; those for whom-falsehood is not unavoidable, as it is in the case of householders on account of play, mirth, etc.; similarly, those in whom there is no dissimulation as in householders. Dissimulation consists in disclosing one’s self in one manner and acting otherwise. It is of the nature of duplicity in behaviour. To those men duly fitted, i.e., the Brahmacharin, the hermit and the sanyasin in whom, from absence of cause, these faults, such as duplicity, etc., do not exist, is this untainted Brahmaloka, according to the means they employ. Thus, this is the goal of those who combine karma with knowledge (worship). The Brahmaloka previously explained and marked by the moon is for those who perform mere karma.

 

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॥ इति प्रश्नोपनिषदि प्रथमः प्रश्नः ॥

|| iti praśnopaniṣadi prathamaḥ praśnaḥ ||

Thus ends the First Prasna.

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