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 2.183
Sanskrit text and transliteration:
पुरीषमांसबुद्ध्यंशैर्मूत्रासृक्प्राणरश्मिभिः ।
तथाऽस्थिमज्जावाग्भागैरन्नाप्तेजांसि कालतः ॥ १८३ ॥
purīṣamāṃsabuddhyaṃśairmūtrāsṛkprāṇaraśmibhiḥ |
tathā'sthimajjāvāgbhāgairannāptejāṃsi kālataḥ || 183 ||
English translation of verse 2.183:
In course of time, (the grossest, subtle, and the subtlest portions of) the solid food get transformed into faeces, flesh, and intellect respectively. Similarly (the grossest, subtle, and the subtlest portions of) the watery food get transformed into urine, blood, and the vital airs respectively; and in the same way (the grossest, subtle, and the subtlest portions of) the fiery food are transformed into bone, marrow, and speech respectively.
Notes:
The transformation that takes place with regard to food and other substances is at two stages. First of all, food and other substances when consumed become threefold. Secondly, each one of these three portions undergoes transformation in a particular form.
In the course of his commentary on the Chāndogya text (VI, v, 3) Śaṅkara says that we consume heat in the shape of oil, butter, etc.
Since mind is a development of food, it is material, though very subtle. It is, therefore, wrong to hold, as in the Vaiśesika, that the mind is eternal and impartible (annopacitatvān manaso bhautikatvam eva, na vaiśeṣika-tantrokta-lakṣaṇaṃ niṭyaṃ niravayavaṃ ceti gṛhyate).