[Advaita-l] A wonderful string of adjectives for Brahman

Praveen R. Bhat bhatpraveen at gmail.com
Thu Feb 16 07:39:24 EST 2017


Namaste,

On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 3:00 PM, Siva Senani Nori via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> 10. apUrvam = without prior11. anaparam = without posterior12. anantaram =
> homogeneous (some people, esp. Max Muller while translating this term in
> Br. Up. and others who follow him, translate this as "without anything
> inside" or something like that. Such a translation would make Brahman the
> same as Sunyam. Sankaracarya explains this term (in Br. Up. where it
> occurs, don't have references handy now) as without differences of jAti
> etc. within Itself. Swami Gambhirananda correctly translates this term as
> "homogenous" in his translation of Brahmasutrabhashya where this particular
> sentence from Br. Up. is quoted)13. abAhyam = without anything outside =
> all encompassing
>

​To add to Siva Senani ji's translation, other possible translations of the
4 following words are: apUrva =causeless/ that which is not the cause,
anapara =effectless/ that which is not an effect, anantara =that without
inner-side (not that without inside like Max Mueller's translation leading
to shUnyatA), abAhya =that without outer-side.

Kind rgds,
--Praveen R. Bhat
/* येनेदं सर्वं विजानाति, तं केन विजानीयात्। Through what should one know
That owing to which all this is known! [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */
​


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