Taittiriya Upanishad Bhashya Vartika
by R. Balasubramanian | 151,292 words | ISBN-10: 8185208115 | ISBN-13: 9788185208114
The English translation of Sureshvara’s Taittiriya Vartika, which is a commentary on Shankara’s Bhashya on the Taittiriya Upanishad. Taittiriya Vartika contains a further explanation of the words of Shankara-Acharya, the famous commentator who wrote many texts belonging to Advaita-Vedanta. Sureshvaracharya was his direct disciple and lived in the 9...
Verse 2.602
Sanskrit text and transliteration:
माहात्म्यमेतच्छब्दस्य यदविद्यां निरस्यति ।
सुषुप्त इव निद्राया दुर्बलत्वाच्च बाध्यते ॥ ६०२ ॥
māhātmyametacchabdasya yadavidyāṃ nirasyati |
suṣupta iva nidrāyā durbalatvācca bādhyate || 602 ||
English translation of verse 2.602:
The peculiar power of the word is such that it removes the ignorance (concerning the Self) as the man who is asleep is removed from his sleep (by the power of the word). Since avidyā also is not firmly established, it is removed.
Notes:
If Brahman-Ātman cannot be made known by the words and by the cognition generated by them, how can the ignorance about Brahman be removed through śabda? In order to answer this question, let us first consider an example. A person is fast asleep. In order to wake him up we utter the words: “O! Devadatta, get up.” These words do not reach him, because he is fast asleep. Nevertheless, they are capable of rousing him from his sleep. In the same way the scriptural utterance tat tvam asi is capable of removing the ignorance about Brahman-Ātman, though it does not directly reveal its nature.
Since avidyā is not pramāṇa-siddha, it is really weak, and so it disappears at the onset of knowledge.