[Advaita-l] Taittiriya Upanishad question

Vidyasankar Sundaresan svidyasankar at hotmail.com
Wed Apr 20 11:04:33 CDT 2011


> 
> bhaskar :
> 
> yesterday I was this bhAshya bhAga and read Sri SSS's Kannada commentary 
> also..But I am not able to corelate this bhAshya vAkya with krama-mukti 
> prabhuji. Here it has been said that shruti enumerates the pancha kOsha-s 
> invented by avidyA beginning with annamayAtma and goes on to explain other 
> kosha-s like by saying there is another self, prANamaya which is different 

I re-read the various bhAshya passages I had mentioned, thanks to your
above comments. Yes, in the bhAshya on AnandavallI and bhRguvallI,
Sankara bhagavatpAda does not talk of krama mukti per se. And it is 
also true that saMkramaNa is taken in a figurative sense. However, note
the words "maraNakAle" in explanation of the vAkya "etaM ha vA va na
tapati" in AnandavallI. Also note that in brahmasUtra bhAshya 3.3.11-13,
there is a lot of discussion of upAsana. In the taittirIyopanishat itself, in
the SikshAvallI, there is an upAsana based on manomaya purusha (sa ya
esho 'ntar hRdaya AkASaH), as also the reference in chAndogyopanishat -
manomayaH prANaSarIraH (which is where satya-saMkalpa-tva is first
mentioned in chAndogya). It is not the case that the descriptions of the
panca koSas are completely unrelated to various upAsana-s. And where
there is an upAsana theme, there is necessarily a distinction between
saguNopAsana and jnAna.
 
So, to rephrase and clarify my earlier comments, what I wish to emphasize
is this - when Sruti talks of attaining all desires as a lakshaNa of moksha,
one has to carefully understand whether the context is krama mukti or not,
whether the description is about upAsana or not and whether the immediate
intent of the said Sruti vAkya is praise of brahmavidyA or not. 

 
Regards,
Vidyasankar
                  		 	   		  


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