Taittiriya Upanishad Bhashya Vartika
by R. Balasubramanian | 151,292 words | ISBN-10: 8185208115 | ISBN-13: 9788185208114
The English translation of Sureshvara’s Taittiriya Vartika, which is a commentary on Shankara’s Bhashya on the Taittiriya Upanishad. Taittiriya Vartika contains a further explanation of the words of Shankara-Acharya, the famous commentator who wrote many texts belonging to Advaita-Vedanta. Sureshvaracharya was his direct disciple and lived in the 9...
Verse 1.69
Sanskrit text and transliteration:
छन्दःशब्दस्त्रयो वेदास्तत्प्रधानत्वकारणात् ।
ऋषभो विश्वरूपश्च सर्ववाग्व्याप्तिकारणात् ॥ ६९ ॥
chandaḥśabdastrayo vedāstatpradhānatvakāraṇāt |
ṛṣabho viśvarūpaśca sarvavāgvyāptikāraṇāt || 69 ||
English translation of verse 1.69:
The word chandas refers to the three Vedas. The syllable Om is the most exalted (in the Vedas), because it is the most important therein. And also, it is all-pervasive, since it pervades all speech.
Notes:
The word ṛṣabha refers to the syllable Om. Like the bull in a herd of cattle, the syllable Om is the the most pre-eminent or exalted (ṛṣabhaḥ, śreṣṭhaḥ) in the Vedas. The following text from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (II.xxiii, 3) speaks about Om as the underlying principle or the self of all (sarvātmakatva): “Just as all leaves are permeated by the stalk, so is all speech permeated by Om. Verily, this syllable Om is all this.” The purport of this text is to show that the reality of the world of objects is speech, and that the reality of speech is the sound Om. The text, therefore, concludes that Om is all this, that it is all-pervasive.