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 2.704
Sanskrit text and transliteration:
प्रमाऽभावस्वरूपत्वान्नाप्यभावाद्भिदेष्यते ।
संवित्त्यभावो नैवेह प्रकाशयति किञ्चन ॥ ७०४ ॥
pramā'bhāvasvarūpatvānnāpyabhāvādbhideṣyate |
saṃvittyabhāvo naiveha prakāśayati kiñcana || 704 ||
English translation of verse 2.704:
Nor can it be said that difference is known from the absence of pramāṇa, which is negative. The absence of knowledge can never reveal anything.
Notes:
It may be argued that difference (bheda), which is said to be negative, is known through non-cognition (anupalabdhi). Even this argument is not tenable. Anupalabdhi may mean either the absence of pramāṇa (pramāṇābhāva) or the absence of knowledge (saṃvittyabhāva). The first line of the verse rejects the first alternative, while the second line the second one. It is absurd to say that the absence of pramāṇa is the pramāṇa by which abhāva is known. Nor is it possible to say that the absence of knowledge is the means for knowing abhāva. Knowledge alone reveals an object. If so, how can anything be known through the absence of knowledge?