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 3.17
Sanskrit text and transliteration:
तपोविशेषादित्सा स्यात्तत्साधनतमत्वतः ।
यद्दुस्तरं यद्दुरापमिति स्मृत्यनुशासनात् ॥ १७ ॥
tapoviśeṣāditsā syāttatsādhanatamatvataḥ |
yaddustaraṃ yaddurāpamiti smṛtyanuśāsanāt || 17 ||
English translation of verse 3.17:
Bhṛgu desired to practise tapas, since it was the best means as declared in a smṛti text: “Whatever is hard to be traversed, whatever is hard to be attained (may be accomplished by tapas).”
Notes:
Tapas is of different kinds. Studying one’s own Veda is the tapas prescribed for a celibate-student. For a house-holder, the practice of charity is tapas. Fasting is the tapas for a forest-dweller.. Concentration of mind and the senses which is the tapas for an ascetic, is the best means to the knowledge of Brahman.
A text in the Manusmṛti (XI, 239) quoted in the second line of the verse brings out the importance of tapas as follows: “Whatever is hard to be traversed, whatever is hard to be attained, whatever is hard to be reached, whatever is hard to be performed—all these may be accomplished by tapas; tapas, indeed, possesses a power which it is difficult to surpass.”