Brahma Sutras (Shankaracharya)

by George Thibaut | 1890 | 203,611 words

English translation of the Brahma sutras (aka. Vedanta Sutras) with commentary by Shankaracharya (Shankara Bhashya): One of the three canonical texts of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. The Brahma sutra is the exposition of the philosophy of the Upanishads. It is an attempt to systematise the various strands of the Upanishads which form the ...

3. Beyond lightning (there is) Varuṇa, on account of the connexion (of the two).

The Chāndogya continues, 'From Āditya to the moon, from the moon to lightning.' Here Varuṇa (mentioned in the Kauṣītaki-upan.) has to be brought in so that above that lightning he goes to the world of Varuṇa. For there is a connexion between lightning and Varuṇa; the broad lightnings dance forth from the womb of the clouds with the sound of deep thunder, and then water falls down. And a Brāhmaṇa also says, 'It lightens, it thunders, it will rain' (Ch. Up. VII, 11, 1). But the lord of all water is Varuṇa, as known from Śruti and Smṛti.--And above Varuṇa there come Indra and Prajāpati, as there is no other place for them, and according to the force of the text, as it stands. Varuṇa and so on should be inserted at the end, for that reason also that they are merely additional, no particular place being assigned to them. And lightning is the end of the road beginning with light[1].

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

So that Varuṇa and so on are to be placed after lightning.

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