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 2.308
Sanskrit text and transliteration:
आत्मचैतन्यरूपा धीः कर्त्र्यात्मा न ध्रुवत्वतः ।
यज्ञारम्भस्य हेतुत्वात्तदभावाद् वृथा यजिः ॥ ३०८ ॥
ātmacaitanyarūpā dhīḥ kartryātmā na dhruvatvataḥ |
yajñārambhasya hetutvāttadabhāvād vṛthā yajiḥ || 308 ||
English translation of verse 2.308:
The intellect which contains the semblance of the Knowledge-self is the agent; the Self is not the agent, because it is immutable. (The intellect must be regarded as the agent), because it is the cause of the commencement of a sacrificial rite, and in the absence of it no sacrificial rite would be possible.
Notes:
The Self which is immutable cannot be the agent. But the intellect alone which is illumined by the consciousness is the agent (kartā) who performs yajña, etc. If it be said that the intellect, too, is not the agent, no sacrificial rite would be possible, for there is no other agent who could do it. It has, therefore, to be said that the intellect which carries the semblance of the consciousness is the agent, for it has the power of knowing and acting. It is this vijñāna or buddhi which is commonly spoken of as “I” (aham). The first upādhi which limits as it were the transcendent Self in its transmigratory existence is vijñāna. The next is
manas. And thereafter, there is prāṇa. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka (IV, iv, 5) says: “That self (which transmigrates) is, indeed, Brahman identified with the intellect (vijñānamaya), the mind (manomaya), the vital force (prāṇamaya), etc.