[Advaita-l] 'dhyAna, dhAraNa, etc.'

[V Subrahmanian]

2012/10/13 V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>

> In the Taittiriyopanishad bhashya on the shIkShAvalli 11th anuvAka (the
> last one) I came across this sentence:
>
> ...विद्योत्पत्तौ साधकतमानि असंकीर्णानि विद्यन्ते *ध्यानधारणादिलक्षणानि *च
> । वक्ष्यति च  ’तपसा ब्रह्म विजिज्ञासस्व’ इति ।
>
> Here Shankara is saying that agnihotra etc. alone do not constitute
> 'karma' but brahmacharya, tapas, satyavachanam, damaH, ahimsA, etc. too
> which are 'karma-s' that are popular in the 'other Ashrama' (brahmacharya
> and sannyAsa), too are eminent means, sAdhana-s, in the engendering of
> knowledge (self-realization) along with 'dhyAna, dhAraNa, etc.'.  I think
> here Shankara has in mind the patanjali yoga shAstra prasiddha
> 'dhAraNA-dhyAna-samAdhi' since the context is AtmajnAnotpatti sAdhanam.
>

I just wanted to add that the author of the bhAmatI, Sri Vachaspati Mishra,
has said in BSB 2.3.39: shravana and manana is dhAraNa, nididhyasana is
dhyana and darshana is samAdhi.  And cites the yoga sutra too here. One can
see that there is a basis for this in the Shankara's comments shown above.

regards
subrahmanian.v

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