help locating source

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> Brahmasatyam jagan mithya
> jivo brahmaiva na paraha
>
> ...
> Brahman." The verse is usually attributed to Sankara but wise counsel has
>
> informed me, this is not the case. Can anyone lead me to the original source?

This occurs as verse no. 20 and 21 in a variant form.

"brahma satyam jaganmithyA iti evam rUpo viniScaya: ||20||
so'yam nityAnityavastuviveka: samudAhr.ta: | "

in the vivekacUDAmaNi. The portion "jIvobrahmaiva nA para:" is not
found in this work. The authorship of the vivekacUDAmaNi by Sankara
is doubted by some scholars, but the advaita tradition regards it
as one of the most important prakaraNa granthas of Sankara's.

Swami Chandrasekhara Bharati has written a commentary to the vivekacUDAmaNi,
where he explains it from a soteriological perspective, in keeping with the
purport of verse 21. The jagat is called "mithyA" in order to reinforce the
disciple's power of discrimination between nitya and anitya entities. Even
if a pleasure is known to be ephemeral, men still yearn for it. On the other
hand, if something is said to be mithyA, its attraction would be correspondingly
less. Hence the guru says "jagan mithyA" essentially to encourage the student
in nityAnityavastuviveka.

I would agree that the part about "jIvo brahmaiva nA para:" does not sound
Sankaran at all. The verse as quoted does not appear in any of his undisputed
works, nor in the more well-known prakaraNa granthas. When explaining
 tattvamasi,
Sankara takes great care to elaborate in what sense the jIva is brahman, and
does not declare the identity in one pithy sentence which is more likely to be
misunderstood. The whole point of explaining tattvamasi in terms of
jahadajahallakshaNa is not to say that the jIva is brahman in and of itself,
but to draw attention to the AtmA-anAtmA distinction that is preliminary to
realizing the identity of AtmA with brahman.

Regards,

S. Vidyasankar