[Advaita-l] 'Prana' as Brahman

[Kaushik Chevendra]

On Sat, 18 Feb, 2023, 5:42 pm V Subrahmanian, <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
wrote:

It is Vishnu, Ishwara, Indra and Prana, four entities.  विष्णुरीश्वर
> इन्द्रः प्राणो  Those with Sanskrit sandhi knowledge will clearly see this:
> VishNuH, IshwaraH, IndraH, PrANa. There is upasaka upasya bhaava with
> regard to these four entities. That is what is being stated here.  On the
> other hand, in Mundaka it is  एष देवो विष्णुरनन्तः it is only one entity
> for whom the adjective anantaH is given. And he is called prathama shariri
> who has the three lokas as his body. There is no context of many entities
> here. In the Kena bhashya, there is. Hence the two cases are different.
>

Yes. The two cases are verily different. There are multiple dieties being
inferred in this context. But it's not "4". Even if we take vishnorisvara
as 1, it will still be 3 dieties. And plural form of the the bhasya isn't
affected. Hence it can verily be taken as vishnorisvara.

>
>>
>>>
> The tika gives it because of the context: As I had explained: 'with veerya
> you (Prana) are Rudra. Shankara gives the meaning: samhartaa, the
> destroyer.  The mantra then says: parirakshitaa: sustainer. Shankara says:
> in opposition to veerya of the mantra, adds sowmyena, benign, paalayitaa.
> Now everyone knows that the paalana, sustaining function is that of Vishnu.
> So, seeing the commentary, the gloss says it is Vishnu, etc
> .
>
Yes the commentary isn't wrong in saying so, while again the sudhasattva
upadhi given to Vishnu in tikkas is present as well.  So no problem arises
here.

>
>
>> But in either case here "prana" is identified with isvara and the supreme
>> being. Just as we see such superimposition in surya worship we find that
>> here as well.
>>
>
>
> Yes, that is fine. But Shankara says here that he is  Prathamaja, the
> epithet in synonym, he uses for Vishnu in Mundaka: prathamashariri.
>

As i had explained before taking the gudartha Deepika ( shri ms)in context
as well as other translations in mind. The vishnoranantha is an adjective
for virat. Because he is all pervading and without beginning and end.


>  व्रात्यस्त्वं प्राणैकर्षिरत्ता विश्वस्य सत्पतिः ।
>
> वयमाद्यस्य दातारः पिता त्वं मातरिश्व नः ॥ ११ ॥
> किञ्च, *प्रथमजत्वा*दन्यस्य संस्कर्तुरभावादसंस्कृतो व्रात्यः त्वम् ,
> स्वभावत एव शुद्ध इत्यभिप्रायः । Says Shankara: Since you, Prana, are
> prathamaja, you have nobody else to give you samskara, you are pure by
> nature.
>
How does this contradict any of my statments?

In either case i had presented many problems with Vishnu being a jeeva from
the shankara BSB bhasya, gita bhasya. And various other quotes can be given
from the works of sridhar swamin, madhusudana Saraswati, abhinava
vidyatirtha swamin, chandrashekhara Bharathi etc.

In all due respect i had raised many objections for which there have been
no response. At this point i understand you have decided that Vishnu is a
jeeva. And i cant convince you otherwise irrespective of various logical
problems. Hence at this point I'll agree to disagree because no one in our
sampradaya considers Vishnu/Shiva as jeevatmas. Acharya abhinava
vidyatirtha swamin has made it clear that bhagavan is pure, free from
karma. That's enough for me


Namo narayana




>>> regards
>>
>> subbu
>