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 387
यत्र भ्रान्त्या कल्पितं तद्विवेके
तत्तन्मात्रं नैव तस्माद्विभिन्नम् ।
भ्रान्तेर्नाशे भाति दृष्टाहितत्त्वं
रज्जुस्तद्वद्विश्वमात्मस्वरूपम् ॥ ३८७ ॥yatra bhrāntyā kalpitaṃ tadviveke
tattanmātraṃ naiva tasmādvibhinnam |
bhrānternāśe bhāti dṛṣṭāhitattvaṃ
rajjustadvadviśvamātmasvarūpam || 387 ||387. That in which something is imagined to exist through error, is, when rightly discriminated, that thing itself, and not distinct from it. When the error is gone, the reality about the snake falsely perceived becomes the rope. Similarly the universe is in reality the Ātman.
Notes:
[The rope is always the rope and never actually turns into a snake; similarly the universe also is Brahman, always.]