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 2.151
Sanskrit text and transliteration:
तिमिरोपप्लुतो यद्वद्भिन्नमिव समीक्षते ।
चन्द्रिकामात्मनस्तद्वत्कार्यं भिन्नं समीक्षते ॥ १५१ ॥
timiropapluto yadvadbhinnamiva samīkṣate |
candrikāmātmanastadvatkāryaṃ bhinnaṃ samīkṣate || 151 ||
English translation of verse 2.151:
Just as a person who is suffering from eye-disease sees the moon as double, so also (due to avidyā) one sees the effect (viz., the world) which comes into being from the Self as different from it.
Notes:
The pot which is an effect of clay is not seen as different from it. As an effect which comes into being from Brahman-Ātman, the world should not be seen as different from it. But inasmuch as it is seen to be so, it is argued, it is not an effect which comes into being from Brahman-Ātman.
This argument is without force. Though the world as an effect is not really different from Brahman-Ātman, it appears to be so due to avidyā. An unreflective person says that the pot, which is a modification of clay, is different from it, but one who knows the real state of affairs says that the pot is really non-different from the clay. In the same way, a wise man (yidvān) says that the world which, being an appearance of Brahman, does not have a status of its own is non-different from Brahman.