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 374
वैराग्यबोधौ पुरुषस्य पक्षिवत्
पक्षौ विजानीहि विचक्षण त्वम् ।
विमुक्तिसौधाग्रलताधिरोहणं
ताभ्यां विना नान्यतरेण सिध्यति ॥ ३७४ ॥vairāgyabodhau puruṣasya pakṣivat
pakṣau vijānīhi vicakṣaṇa tvam |
vimuktisaudhāgralatādhirohaṇaṃ
tābhyāṃ vinā nānyatareṇa sidhyati || 374 ||374. Know, O wise man, dispassion and discrimination to be like the two wings of a bird in the case of an aspirant. Unless both are there, none can, with the help of either one, reach the creeper of Liberation that grows, as it were, on the top of an edifice.
Notes:
[Mukti has been compared to a creeper growing on the top of a lofty building, a temple for instance, as it is inaccessible to the ordinary man.]