Vivekachudamani
by Shankara | 1921 | 49,785 words | ISBN-13: 9788175051065
The Vivekachudamani is a collection of poetical couplets authored by Shankara around the eighth century. The philosophical school this compilation attempts to expose is called ‘Advaita Vedanta’, or non-dualism, one of the classical orthodox philosophies of Hinduism. The book teaches Viveka: discrimination between the real and the unreal. Shankara d...
Verse 6
वदन्तु शास्त्राणि यजन्तु देवान्
कुर्वन्तु कर्माणि भजन्तु देवताः ।
आत्मैक्यबोधेन विनापि मुक्तिः
न सिध्यति ब्रह्मशतान्तरेऽपि ॥ ६ ॥vadantu śāstrāṇi yajantu devān
kurvantu karmāṇi bhajantu devatāḥ |
ātmaikyabodhena vināpi muktiḥ
na sidhyati brahmaśatāntare'pi || 6 ||6. Let people quote the Scriptures and sacrifice to the gods, let them perform rituals and worship the deities, but there is no Liberation without the realisation of one’s identity with the Ātman, no, not even in the lifetime of a hundred Brahmas put together.
Notes:
[Lifetime &c.—i. e., an indefinite length of time. One day of Brahma (the Creator) is equivalent to 432 million years of human computation, which is supposed to be the duration of the world. ]