yenāvṛtaṃ, nityam idaṃ hi sarvaṃ; jñaḥ kāla-kālo, guṇī sarva-vidyaḥ | Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
teneśitaṃ, karma vivartate ha; pṛthivyāp-tejo, 'nila-khāni cintyam ||2|| Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
In the printed text, the Bhāṣya attributed to Śaṅkara gives kālakāra, the ‘maker of time’. The all-knowing Lord pervades and directs the world. Under his direction, karma performed by the Jīva becomes effective and unfolds into the five elements that constitute the world of experience.
Śaṅkarānanda reads kālakāla: the Lord is the destroyer even of all-destroying time. Jña denotes his consciousness, while the guṇas are ascribed to him only through Avidyā. Karma directed by him develops into the fivefold elemental world on which one is to meditate.
Nārāyaṇa explains kālakāla as the director even of time. The three guṇas stand under his sovereignty, and the whole world appears as a transformation of the karma he directs into the five elements. Alongside sarvavidya, the commentary records sarvavāyu, the vital breath of all beings.
Vijñānabhagavat understands kālakāla as the director and dissolver of time. In association with Māyā, the Lord appears to possess the guṇas and causes the karmic world to emerge as a mere unfolding into the five elements. The commentary explains their sequence according to the intended sense, not merely the wording.
<2: That is, the world.>
<3: The same list of five cosmic elements as in 2. 12 b.>
<3: The destroyer of time. Vijñānātman reads kālākālo, and explains it by kālasya niyantā, upahartā. Śaṅkarānanda explains kālaḥ sarvavināśakārī, tasyāpi vināśakaraḥ. See also verse 16.>
<4: Or sarvavid yaḥ.>
tat karma kṛtvā, vinivartya bhūyas; tattvasya, tattvena sametya yogam | Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
ekena dvābhyāṃ, tribhir aṣṭabhir vā; kālena caivā,tma-guṇaiś ca sūkṣmaiḥ ||3|| Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
The Bhāṣya attributed to Śaṅkara relates ‘one’ to earth and the subsequent numbers to expanding groups of elements; ‘eight’ denotes the eightfold Prakṛti of five elements, mind, Buddhi, and the maker of the ‘I’. Time and subtle inner qualities such as desire are added. The Lord joins these created entities to the Self.
Śaṅkarānanda develops a fixed catalogue of categories: one is Avidyā, two are Dharma and Adharma, three are the guṇas, and eight are the five gross elements together with mind, Buddhi, and the maker of the ‘I’. Time comprises creation, continuance, and dissolution; subtle qualities of the self are desire and related movements in seed form. The statement of identity leads beyond them.
Nārāyaṇa reads the numbers biographically rather than cosmologically. According to one's maturity, a person reaches Brahman through good action and inner detachment in one, two, three, eight, or still more births. Time and subtle qualities of the self, such as Dharma and knowledge, determine when instruction in the Mahāvākya bears fruit.
Vijñānabhagavat turns the numerical sequence into a path of practice. One is approaching the teacher; two are devotion to teacher and God; three are hearing, reflection, and deep contemplation; eight are the limbs of Yoga. Time means the present or a later birth; as subtle qualities of the self, he names eight virtues such as compassion, patience, purity, and freedom from pretension.
<1: Zu tattvasya tattvena vgl. Bṛh. 2,1,20. 2,3,6 satyasya satyam.>
<2: mutmaßlich: einer, der Purusha; zwei, Avyaktam und Vyaktam; drei, Sattvam, Rajas, Tamas; acht, Buddhi, Ahaṅkāra, Manas, Tanmātra’s.>
<4: That is, the principles as arranged in groups by systematized Sāṅkhya philosophy: the sole principle—the Person (Purusha); dual principles—the Unmanifest (avyakta) and the Manifest (vyakta); triple principles—the three Qualities (guṇa), i. e. Pureness (sattva), Passion (rajas), and Darkness (tamas); eight principles—the five cosmic elements together with mind, intellect, and self-consciousness (so enumerated, e. g., at BhG. 7. 4.)>
Or,
Having created that world of (original) effects, having looked at (them), and having brought about the combination of the individual soul with (various) substances, either with one, two, three or eight, and with Time, as well as with the subtle qualifications of the mind (the Creator completed the Creation).
<1: Zu tattvasya tattvena vgl. Bṛh. 2,1,20. 2,3,6 satyasya satyam.>
<2: mutmaßlich: einer, der Purusha; zwei, Avyaktam und Vyaktam; drei, Sattvam, Rajas, Tamas; acht, Buddhi, Ahaṅkāra, Manas, Tanmātra’s.>
<5: Instead of vinivartya, Vijñānātman and Śaṅkarānanda read vinivṛtya.>
<1: The eight principles are the eight producers of the Sānkhya, viz. nature the root of all, intellect, self-consciousness, and the five subtle elements of matter. Śaṅkara quotes a passage, probably of a Purāṇa, in which “mind” is substituted for nature as root of all.—The one principle, to which the soul is joined, is nature, the two are perhaps nature and intellect, and the three nature, intellect and self-consciousness.>
teṣām abhāve, kṛta-karma-nāśaḥ; karma-kṣaye, yāti sa tattvato 'nyaḥ ||4|| Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
The Bhāṣya attributed to Śaṅkara requires all actions and qualities to be surrendered to the Lord, without asserting a personal relation to them. Former bonds are thereby destroyed; after the purification of Sattva and the exhaustion of operative karma, the practitioner recognises Brahman beyond the entities of Prakṛti.
Śaṅkarānanda presents the Lord as assigning every state and activity. When Avidyā disappears, its karmic effects are uprooted and the Jīva rests in its own form. The commentary thereby emphasises that knowledge of the Self preserves the truth of the Vedic statement and does not end in mere negation.
Nārāyaṇa connects sāttvic action with a gradual meditation on dissolution: objects dissolve into senses, deities, elements, air, space, and finally the Self. Alternatively, desires are offered into the Self. When desire ceases and karma is consumed, the Self appears as distinct from the Tattvas.
Vijñānabhagavat develops a comprehensive cosmic withdrawal from the individual gross body through collective elements, Tanmātras, Prakṛti, and Māyā to being, consciousness, joy, and non-duality. Knowledge destroys karma not yet begun and future karma; when Prārabdha has run its course, bodiless liberation follows.
<5: Compare the similar line 5. 5 c.>
<6: Āruhya for ārabhya, Śaṅkarānanda.>
<7: These two verses are again extremely obscure, and the explanations of the commentators throw little light on their real, original meaning. To begin with Śaṅkara, he assumes the subject to be the same as he at whose command this work unfolds itself, and explains tattvasya tattvena sametya yogam by ātmano bhūmyādinā yogam saṃgamayya. As the eight Tattvas he gives earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, thought, personality, while the Ātmaguṇas are, according to him, the affections of the mind, love, anger, &c. In the second verse, however, Śaṅkara seems to assume a different subject. ‘If a man,’ he says, ‘having done works, infected by qualities, should transfer them on Īśvara, the Lord, there would be destruction of the works formerly done by him, because there would be no more connection with the self.’ Something is left out, but that this is Śaṅkara’s idea, appears from the verses which he quotes in support, and which are intended to show that Yogins, transferring all their acts, good, bad, or indifferent, on Brahman, are no longer affected by them. ‘That person,’ Śaṅkara continues, ‘his works being destroyed and his nature purified, moves on, different from all things (tattva), from all the results of ignorance, knowing himself to be Brahman.’ ‘Or,’ he adds, ‘if we read anyad, it means, he goes to that Brahman which is different from all things.’ Śaṅkarānanda takes a different view. He says: ‘If a man has performed sacrifices, and has finished them, or, has turned away from them again as vain, and if he has obtained union with that which is the real of the (apparently) real, &c.’ The commentator then asks what is that with which he obtains union, and replies, ‘the one, i.e. ignorance; the two, i.e. right and wrong; the three, i.e. the three colours, red, white, and black; and the eight, i.e. the five elements, with mind, thought, and personality; also with time, and with the subtile affections of the mind.’ He then goes on, ‘If that man, after having begun qualified works, should take on himself all states (resulting from ignorance), yet, when these states cease, there would be an end of the work, good or bad, done by him, and when his work has come to an end, he abides in truth (according to the Veda); while the other, who differs from the Veda, is wrong.’ Śaṅkarānanda, however, evidently feels that this is a doubtful interpretation, and he suggests another, viz. ‘If the Lord himself,’ he says, ‘determined these states (bhāva), it would seem that there would be no end of saṃsāra. He therefore says, that when these states, ignorance &c., cease, the work done by man ceases; and when the work done ceases, the living soul gets free of saṃsāra, being in truth another, i.e. different from ignorance and its products.’ Vijñānātman says: ‘If a man, having done work, turns away from it, and obtains union of one tattva (the tvam, or self) with the real tattva (the tat, or the Lord);—and how? By means of the one, i.e. the teaching of the Guru; the two, i.e. love of the Guru and of the Lord; the three, i.e. hearing, remembering, and meditating; the eight, i.e. restraint, penance, postures, regulation of the breath, abstraction, devotion, contemplation, and meditation (Yoga-sūtras II, 29); by time, i.e. the right time for work; by the qualities of the self, i.e. pity, &c.; by the subtile ones, i.e. the good dispositions for knowledge, then (we must supply) he becomes free.’ And this he explains more fully in the next verse. ‘If, after having done qualified works, i.e. works to please the Lord, a Yati discards all things, and recognises the phenomenal character of all states, and traces them back to their real source in Mūlaprakṛti and, in the end, in the Saccidānanda, he becomes free. If they (the states) cease, i.e. are known in their real source, the work done ceases also in its effects, and when the work has been annihilated, he goes to freedom, being another in truth; or, if we read anyat, he goes to what is different from all these things, namely, to the Lord; or, he goes to a state of perfect lordship in truth, having discovered the highest truth, the oneness of the self with the Highest Self.’ I think that, judging from the context, the subject is really the same in both verses, viz. the Lord, as passing through different states, and at last knowing himself to be above them all. Yet, the other explanations may be defended, and if the subject were taken to be different in each verse, some difficulties would disappear.>
<1: That is to say, he becomes like Brahma.>
ādiḥ sa, saṃyoga-nimitta-hetuḥ; paras tri-kālād, akalo 'pi dṛṣṭaḥ | Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
taṃ viśva-rūpaṃ, bhava-bhūtam īḍyaṃ; devaṃ sva-citta,-stham upāsya pūrvam ||5|| Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
The Bhāṣya attributed to Śaṅkara calls the Lord the source and support of the conjunction of Jīva and world, together with its causes. He lies beyond the three times and the sixteen Kalās. First one should contemplate the all-formed, true Lord within one's own mind; knowledge ripens from this.
Śaṅkarānanda understands the Lord as the ground and object of Avidyā without himself entering into time or parts. Only knowers of Brahman apprehend this self-luminous source. Preparatory meditation therefore turns inwards towards him as one's own Self and the form of all appearances.
Nārāyaṇa identifies the Lord as the source of the world and of the causes that produce its conjunctions. He is beyond time, partless, and self-luminous. The seeker should apprehend him not outside but as the Self to be worshipped within.
Vijñānabhagavat combines a nirguṇa and a saguṇa reading. The Lord is both the unchanging ground and the source of the means through which conjunction and knowledge arise. Inner worship of the all-formed Self leads from the imagined form to his non-dual nature.
<3: Die drei Zeiten sind: Vergangenheit, Gegenwart, Zukunft.>
<4: Auch der Telugudruck liest akalo.>
<1: That is, without past, present, or future—as in Māṇḍ. 1.>
<3: Die drei Zeiten sind: Vergangenheit, Gegenwart, Zukunft.>
<4: Auch der Telugudruck liest akalo.>
<1: Vijñānātman and Śaṅkarānanda read akalo ’pi, without parts, and Śaṅkara, too, presupposes that reading, though the text is corrupt in Roer’s edition.>
sa vṛkṣa-kālā,kṛtibhiḥ paro 'nyo; yasmāt prapañcaḥ, parivartate 'yam | Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
dharmāvahaṃ, pāpa-nudaṃ bhageśaṃ; jñātvātma-stham, amṛtaṃ viśva-dhāma ||6|| Analysis ▾ Analysis ▴
The Bhāṣya attributed to Śaṅkara places the Lord beyond the tree of Saṃsāra, time, and every form. From him proceeds the movement of the world. He grants Dharma, removes fault, possesses divine abundance understood in six ways, and remains present as the immortal inner support.
Śaṅkarānanda interprets the tree as Saṃsāra, forms as appearances of Avidyā, and time as their course. The Lord remains distinct from all three. As the immortal inner Self, he gives Dharma, removes wrongdoing, and possesses the six aspects of divine power.
Nārāyaṇa places the Lord beyond the body-bound tree, time, and all forms. He remains untouched although worldly events depend on him. Worship leads to Dharma and release from fault, because the Lord lives within all as their immortal support.
Vijñānabhagavat compares the world supported by the Self to a dream. Worship generates Dharma and removes what is unwholesome; knowledge also burns its seed. As bearer of divine abundance, the Lord is both the innermost Self and immortal ground of appearing Saṃsāra.
<2: Which is described in Kaṭha 6. 1.>
<2: Explained as saṃsāravṛkṣa, the world-tree, as described in the Kaṭha Up. VI, 1.>
<3: It seems possible to translate this verse in analogy with the former, and without supplying the verb either from yāti, in verse 4, or from vidāma, in verse 7. The poet seems to have said, he is that, he is seen as that, when one has worshipped him, or when one has known him within oneself.>
<1: Vid. Kāṭh 6, 1.>
<2: From creation to preservation and destruction, from destruction to creation.>
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