MᾹṆḌŪKYA UPANIṢAD Translation by Dr. Radhakrishnan Prepared by Veeraswamy Krishnaraj |
MĀṆḌŪKYA UPANIṢAD The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad
belongs to the Atharva Veda and contains twelve verses. It is an exposition
of the principle of aum as consisting of three elements, a, u, m, which refer
to the three states of waking, dream and dreamless sleep. The Supreme Self is
manifested in the universe in its gross, subtle and causal aspects. Answering
to the four states of consciousness, wake fulness, dream, dreamless sleep, transcendental consciousness1 there
are aspects of the Godhead, the last alone being all inclusive and
ultimately real. The Absolute of mystic consciousness is the reality of the
God of religion. The Upaniṣad by itself, it is said, is enough to lead one to liberation.2 Gauḍapāda, Saṁkara’s
teacher's teacher wrote his famous Kārikā on the Upaniṣad,
which is the first systematic exposition of Advaita Vedanta which has come
down to us. Saṁkara has commented on both the Upaniṣad and the Kārikā. 1See Nṛasiṁha-Pūrva-tāpanīya U. IV. I. 2māṇḍūkyam ekaṁ evālam mumukṣūṇāṁ
vimuktaye Muktikā U 1.27· |
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AUM |
I. Aum, this syllable is all this. An
explanation of that (is the following). All that is the past, the present and
the future, all this is only the syllable aum. And whatever else there
is beyond the threefold time, that too is only the syllable aum. The syllable aum, which is
the symbol of Brahman, stands for the manifested world, the past, the
present and the future, as well as the unmanifested
Absolute. |
2. All this is, verily, Brahman. This self
is Brahman. This same self has four quarters. four quarters = Which are Viśva, the waking state, Taijasa,
the dream state, Prājña, the state of dreamless sleep and turīya which is the state of spiritual
consciousness. 'The knowledge of the fourth is attained by merging the
(previous) three such as Viśva, etc. In the order of the previous
one in the succeeding one.' |
3. The first quarter is Vaiśvānara,
whose sphere (of activity) is the waking state, who cognizes external
objects, who has seven limbs and nineteen mouths and who enjoys (experiences)
gross (material) objects. who has seven limbs: refers to the list mentioned in C U V 18 2. Nineteen
mouths: are the five organs of sense (hearing, touch, sight, taste and
smell), the five organs of action (speech, handling, loco motion, generation
and excretion], the five Vital breaths, the mind (manas). and the
Intellect (buddhi), the self-sense (ahaṁ-kāra) and thought (citta). Vaiśvānara = He is called Vaiśvānara because he
leads all creatures of the universe In diverse ways
to the enjoyment of various objects, or because he comprises all beings. The
waking state is the normal condition of the natural man, who without reflection
accepts the universe as he finds it. The same physical universe bound by uniform
laws presents itself to all such men. |
4. The second quarter is taijasa, whose
sphere (of activity) is the dream state, who cognizes internal objects, who
has seven limbs and nineteen mouths, and who enjoys
(experiences) the subtle objects. The taijasa is conscious of
the internal, i.e mental states. While the viśva,
which is the subject of the waking state, cognizes material objects in the waking experience,
the taijasa expenerices
mental states dependent on the predispositions left by the waking experiences.
In this state the soul fashions its own world in the imagining of the dreams.
'The spirit serves as light for Itself.' B U IV 3 9. Here also the basis of duality
operates, the one that knows and the object that is known. Though from the
standpoint of the dream, the dream objects are experienced as external, they
are said to be subtle because they are different from the objects of the waking
state which are external. The Upaniṣad makes a clear distinction
between waking and dream experiences. |
5. Where one, being fast asleep, does not desire
any desire whatsoever and does not see any dream whatsoever, that is deep sleep. The third quarter is Prājña, whose
sphere (of activity) is the state of deep sleep, who has become one, who is
verily, a mass of cognition, who is full of bliss and who enjoys
(experiences) bliss, whose face is thought. While the first condition is the
waking life of outward-moving consciousness, and the second is the dream life
of inward-moving consciousness, the third is the state of deep sleep where
the consciousness enjoys peace and has no perception of either external or
internal objects. Cp the Psalmist who says: 'God
gives truth to his beloved in sleep' (CxxVII 2) The
transitory character of sleep shows that it is not the ultimate
state. The name given to this state is Prājña. It is a state of
knowledge, though the external and internal states are held in abeyance It is
the conceptual self while the two previous selves are the imaginative and the
perceptual ones. ekī-bhūtaḥ = the manifold object series, external and internal,
lapses even 'as at night, owing to the indiscrimination produced by darkness,
all percepts become a mass of darkness, as it were, so also in the state of
deep sleep, all (objects) of consciousness, verily become a mass (of
consciousness)' ―Śaṁkara. In deep sleep no desire, no
thought is left, all impressions have become one, only knowledge and bliss
remain. The apparent absence of duality has
led to the view that it is the final state of union with Brahman See
BU. IV 3; CU. VIII.II.I. ceto-mukhaḥ = because it is
the doorway to the cognition of the two other states of consciousness known
as dream and waking. Prājñaḥ = It is called Prājña
consciousness or knower as it is not aware of any variety as in the two
other states ānanda-mayaḥ = full of bliss. ānanda-bhuk = who enjoys
bliss. It is not bliss but the enjoyer of bliss. In the waking state we are
bound by the fetters of sense-perception and desire, in the dream state we
have a greater freedom as the self makes a world of its own, out of the
materials of the waking world. Though, in the dream state, we take the dream
Images of delight and oppression as real, we produce them out of ourselves.
In dreamless sleep the self is liberated from the empirical world, indeed
from the person as a self-contained unit. |
6. This is the lord of all, this is the knower of
all, this is the inner controller; this is the source of all; this is the
beginning and the end of beings. Gauḍapāda says that 'It is
the one alone who is known in the three states,' eka
eva tridhā smṛtaḥ. Śaṁkara urges that
'that which is designated as Prājña (when it is viewed as the cause
of the world) will be described as turīya separately when It is not
viewed as the cause, and when it is free from all phenomenal relationship,
i.e. in its absolute real aspect. It is the first time in the history of
thought that the distinction between Absolute and God, Brahman and Īśvara,
turīya and Prājña is elaborated. Cp
with this the Christian view of the Son as 'the image of the invisible God,
the first born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven
and on earth, visible and invisible …all things were created through him and
for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.'
Colossians I.15. The son is the Demiurge, the heavenly architect, not the God
but the image of the God For
Philo 'the Sun itself unaffected and undiminished by its radiance, yet
all the earth is dependent on it; so God although in His being He is
completely self-contained and Self-sufficient shoots forth a great stream of
radiation, immaterial yet on that account all the more real. This stream is
God in extension, God in relation, the son of God, not God.' By Light, Light,
p 243, Goudenough’s E.T. |
7· (Turīya is) not that which cognizes the internal (objects), not that which
cognizes the external (objects), not what cognizes both of them, not a
mass of cognition not cognitive not non-cognitive (It is) unseen,
incapable of being spoken of, ungraspable, without any distinctive marks,
unthinkable, unnameable, the essence of the knowledge of the one self,
that into which the world is resolved, the peaceful, the benign, the non-dual,
such, they think, is the fourth quarter. He is the self. He is to be known. l Here we get to a reality which is beyond the
distinction of subject and object and yet it is above and not below this
distinction. It is super-theism and not atheism or anti-theism. We cannot use
here terms like all-knowing; all-powerful Brahman cannot be treated as
having objects of knowledge or powers. It is pure being. In many passages, the
Upaniṣads make out that Brahman is pure being beyond all word
and thought. He becomes Īśvara or personal God with the
quality of Prajña or pure wisdom. He is
all-knowing, the lord of the principle of mūla-prakṛti the
unmanifested, the inner guide of all souls. From him proceeds Hiraṇya-garbha
who, as Demiurge, fashions the world. From the last develops Virāt
or the totality of all existents. The last two are sometimes mixed up. lGauḍapāda says that this Brahman is 'birthless,
free from sleep and dream, without name and form, ever effulgent, all
thought, no form is necessary for it.' lThough objective consciousness is absent in both the Prājña
and turīya consciousness, the seed of it is present m the
state of deep sleep while it is absent in the transcendent consciousness. Empirica1
consciousness is present though in an unmanifested
condition in the state of deep sleep while the transcendent state is the non empirical beyond the three states and free from
their interruptions and alternations. It is present, even when we are
immersed in the activities of the waking world or lost in the unconsciousness
of sleep. Man's highest good consists in entering into this, the self, making
it the center of one's life, instead of dwelling on the surface. lDeep sleep terminates and the self returns
to the dream and the waking states. In turīya there is a
permanent union with Brahman. The metaphysical reality is cognized in turīya,
if such an expression can be used for the transcendent state. lPlotinus portrays a gradual ascent from the world-soul
to the spirit (nous) and finally from spirit to the One. The goal of
spiritual ascent is a mystical ecstatic union with the Absolute
.He writes 'Let us suppose the same rest in the body that surrounds
the soul, that its movement is stilled, and that the entire surroundings are
also at rest, the earth, the sea, the heaven itself above the other elements.'
In words that are echoes of Plotinus, Augustine in his Confessions describes
the ascent from the changeable apprehensions and objects of sense through the
intelligible world of conceptual truth to the Absolute Truth.' If the tumult
of the flesh were hushed, hushed the Images of earth, and the waters and air,
hushed also the poles of heaven' man turns his spiritual vision godward to
receive the light, then he attains the absolute object of mystical union 'the
light unchangeable above the mind' with the flash of one trembling glance. |
8. This is the self, which is of the nature of the syllable aum, in regard
to its elements. The quarters are the elements, the elements are the
quarters, namely the letter, a, the
letter u and the letter m. This is the self: It is the deepest essence of the soul, the Image of
Godhead. The world and the world-soul are both producers and produced. The
Supreme God is only the producer, Brahman is above the distinction of producer
and produced. Visva and taijasa are conditioned by cause and effect. But Prājña is conditioned by cause alone. These two (cause and effect) do not exist in turīya. Primal being unfolds itself as a subject-object relation. The unmeasured and undefined becomes the measured and the defined, a Universe of logical discourse. Prājña or wisdom and the element 'm' both indicate that the function of measuring is that of logical mind. All distinctions are within the Supreme Brahman. God is the logical being the defined reality. It is not we that define Brahman but Brahman defines itself. The Supreme logical idea is God who is the true, the good and the beautiful. Defined reality is not divided reality. The real in itself is Brahman; the real as logically defined is Īśvara who rests in Brahman who does not cease to be Brahman in becoming Īśvara. |
9.
Vaiśvānara, whose sphere (of activity) is the waking state, is the letter a, the first element, either from the root ap to obtain or from being the first. He who knows this, obtains, verily, all desires, also, he becomes
first. Vaiśvānara is he who has the universe for his body. |
10. Taijasa, whose sphere (of activity) is the dream state, is the letter u, the second element, from exaltation or intermediateness. He who knows this exalts, verily, the continuity of knowledge and he becomes equal; in his family is born no one who does not know Brahman. |
11. Prājña, whose
sphere (of activity) is the state of deep sleep is the letter m, the third element, either from the root mi,to measure or because of merging. He who knows
this measures (knows) all this
and merges also (all this in himself). In deep
sleep, all waking and dream experiences disappear Īśvara is the cause of the universe as well as
that of Its dissolution. As the
name Prājña implies, the condition is one of intellection. In it
we have a thinker and a thought. If this difference did not exist, it would be a silent
oneness. This
verse affirms what Parmenides, Plato and Hegel assumed that the opposition of being and
not-being is the original duality the ontological standpoint. Being is a priori to non-being. The negation presupposes what it
negates. Though being
is a Priori to non-being being itself cannot be conceived without an opposite. Being could never be being without being opposed to
not-being. But there is something which is a priori to the opposition of being and non-being and
that is the unity which
transcends both.
Thought cannot grasp and determine this spirit beyond the opposition. There is no
concept or substance that could be thought of as being the unity without any opposition whatsoever. We cannot even call it unity for it
suggests the opposite
category of diversity.
But we are in the
sphere of oppositions,
dualities and yet the positive side of the opposition brings out the content of the spirit. We have to seek the ultimate truth, goodness and beauty in its direction. Plotinus
says, 'Before the two there is the one and the unit must precede the Dyad coming later
than the one, the Dyad has the One as the standard of its differentiation
that without which it Could not be the separate differentiated thing It is. ' Enneads V 1 5 'As long as we have duality, we must go still higher until we reach what transcends the Dyad.' Ibid III 8. 8 |
12.The fourth is that
which has no elements, which cannot be spoken of, into which the world is
resolved, benign, non-dual Thus the syllable aum
is the very self. He who knows it thus enters the self with his self. ●In
turīya, the mind is not simply
withdrawn from the objects but becomes one with Brahman who is free
from fear, who is all round
illumination, according to Gauḍapāda ●In
both deep sleep and transcendental consciousness there is no consciousness of
objects but this objective consciousness is present in an
unmanifested 'seed' form In deep sleep, while it is completely
transcended in the turīya consciousness. Gauḍapāda
says: The non-cognition
of duality is common to both Prājña and turīya but Prājña
is associated
with the seed (consciousness) in sleep while this does not
exist in turīya. ●Śaṁkara opens his commentary on the B G., with
the verse that 'Nārāyaṇa is beyond the unmanifested principle
and from this unmanifested
arises the mundane egg or Hiraṇya-garbha.' 'nārāyaṇaḥ
paro'vyaktād aṇḍam
avyakta-sambhavam. There is first the pure Brahman
beyond subject and
object and then Nārāyaṇa or God confronted by the object but
superior to it and then the world-soul. ●Lao
Tze looks upon the Tao as the ultimate Reality
which can be defined only in negative terms as 'colorless,' 'soundless,' 'non material
' His conception of creation was that out of Tao, the eternal ultimate
principle came the one, the great monad or the material cause of
the universe. The one produced the two primary essences, the Yang and the
Yin, positive and negative, male and female, light ad
shade, which gave birth to the three powers of nature, heaven, earth and man,
which in their combination
produced all creatures. Lao Tze's follower Chuang-tze
regarded T'ien or God as the first great cause. ●Plotinus
says: 'Standing
transcendent above all things that follow It, existing In
Itself, not mixing or to be mixed with any emanation from Itself,
veritably the one, not merely possessing Oneness as an attribute of Its essence-for
that would be a false oneness―a Principle
overpassing all reasoning, all knowing-a principle standing over all Essence
and Existence… only when It is simplex and
First, apart from all, can it be perfectly self-sufficing 'Enneads,V.4.1. ●This
soundless, partless, supreme Reality JS the very
self in the state of deep sleep, It becomes the
subject confronting the object
which is yet unmanifested, We infer the presence of
the object, as its developments take place on getting out of sleep.
In the dream state, the object is manifested in the form of mental states, in
the waking state, the object is manifested in material states The
subject- object duality is present in different forms in the states of
waking, dream and dreamless sleep. It is transcended altogether In the state of turīya, while we have a pure
consciousness of Self or Absolute. No object
can be set in opposition to the Spirit and so the question of validity or
otherwise does not arise. It is self-validating, self- authenticating
experience. The question of validity arises when the object appears as alien
and impenetrable but in spiritual experience there is no alien object. There
is knowledge of identity, by possession, by the absorption of the object at
the deepest levels In the ex perience of turīya,
there is neither subject nor object. neither the perception nor
the idea of God. It does not reflect or explain any other reality than Itself . It is reality, spirit In
Its inner life. Those who know the truth become the truth. It is not a state
in which objects are extrinsically opposed to one another. It is the
immersion of the self in reality, Its participation In
primary being. It is illumined life. It is pure consciousness. without any
trace of duality, it is unfailing light. When the real is known there is
no world of duality. ●When
analogically we transfer this idea from the microcosm t0 the
macrocosm, from the individual to the world, since there is a co-relation
between intelligibility and being, we have answering in waking state, Virāt ,to
the dream state, Hiraṇya-garbha, to the
dreamless sleep state, Īśvara. All these three are on the
plane of duality, Īśvara has facing him mūla-prakṛti,
though in an unmani fested (avyākṛta) condition, as the self has the
object in an unmanifested condition in the state of dreamless sleep. ●Plotinus
who adopts a similar view puts the case thus: 'If, then, the Divine
thought-forms (The Ideas) are many, there must of necessity
be something common to all and something peculiar to each to differentiate
them this particn1arity or specific difference is the
individual shape, but if there is shape there must be something that has
taken the shape, that is to say there is a foundation, substratum,
a matter. Further, if there is an Intellectual kosmos of which our kosmos is an
image, and if ours is compound and includes matter, there must be a matter in
the Intellectual kosmos as well.' Enneads II 4· 4. ●The
interaction of the universal subject and object develops the rest of the
universe. Hiraṇya-garbha is the sūtrātman and
plays with
Ideas, mental states as taijasa does in the dream world. In Ṛg
Veda, it is said that Hiraṇya-garbha arose in the beginning,
the lord of
all created beings X. 121.I.1. This whole world is in him in an embryo form.― Vidyāraṇya.
When these are projected into space and time, we have Virāt. This
answers to the waking state, which is Vaiśvānara's sphere of
activity. ●The
waking and the dream states answer to the exteriorized existence and
interiorized life of the world-spirit. When the world-spirit externalizes
Its attention, we have the manifestation of the cosmos. When it turns its attention
inward, the cosmos retreats into latency. When the world-spirit withdraws
altogether into undisturbed still ness, the object, though present, becomes
a mere abstraction. When even that ceases, Īśvara is Brahman. ●Aum
thus represents
both the unmanifested Absolute and the personal Īśvara. Gauḍapāda
writes, 'The sacred syllable aum is verily
the lower Brahman and it is also said to be the higher Brahman. Aum
is without beginning, unique, without anything external to it, unrelated
to any effect and imperishable. ' ●If
we worship Aum as Īśvara, we pass beyond grief: 'Know
Aum to be Īśvara, ever present in the hearts of all. The
wise man, realizing aum as all-pervading, does not
grieve.' ●While
Īśvara, the personal God, is the lord of the world of
manifestation, of becoming, the Supreme Brahman is beyond all becoming in pure
being 'One who has known Aum which is (at the same time) devoid of
elements and of infinite elements in which all duality is resolved,
the benign, he is the (real) sage and none other.' ●In
this Upaniṣad we find the fundamental approach to the attain ment of reality by the road of introversion and ascent
from the sensible
and changing, through the mind which dreams through the soul which thinks, to
the divine within but above the soul. The truth of
our intellectual knowledge presupposes a light, the Light of the Real above logical
truth, the Light which is not itself but that by which it
has been created and by whose illumination it shines. In the Apocryphal wisdom
of Solomon, the immanent reason is described thus: 'For she is
a breath of the power of God, And a
clear effluence of the glory of the Almighty.' VII 25. ●Wisdom
becomes a personality (XVIII I4-16) akin to the word in the Prologue of the
Fourth Gospel. Though Wisdom is a potency outside
God it is yet
wholly in God. Philo makes a sharp distinction between God In
Himself and God revealed, between God who is pure being, unknowable, outside
the material universe and God who is immanent in man and the universe, who is
all-penetrating all filling. The gap between the Infinite God and the finite
man was bridged In the Old Testament by God's angels
who were regarded as emanations of the divine, offshoots of deity, parts of
his very being.' Philo held that the universe was filled with divine potencies
while In one sense these are attributes and
self-reve1ations of God, in another sense they are personal beings,
incorporeal souls who mediate between God and men, who report the injunctions
of the father to his children and the necessities of the children to the
father.' De Somniis I.22.
The unity of all these potencies is constituted by the Logos. Heaven and
earth subsisted In the Logos before their material
creation. The potencies
which are the creators of matter emanate from the Logos God who is the
ultimate creator never works directly but through the Logos who again works
through the potencies called logi. Prājña,
Wisdom, Logos, Intellectual Principle, have a family likeness. ●Plotinus
has the transcendent triad
of the Absolute One, the Intellectual Principle or God and the WorId-soul 'The one is not a Being
but the source of Being which is its first offspring. The One is perfect that
is it has nothing, seeks nothing, needs nothing, but, as we may
say, it overflows and this overflowing is creative, the engendered entity
looks towards the One and becomes the Intel lectual
Principle, resting within itself, this offspring of One is Being' Enneads V
2.1. This Intellectual Principle Nous is the image of the One. It is
engendered because the One in its self-quest has vision. This seeing is Nous.
The third is the soul, the author of all living things. It made the sun,
the moon, the stars, and the whole visible world. It is the offspring of the Divine
intellect. It is, in Plotinus, of a twofold nature. There is an inner soul intent
on Nous and another which faces outward. The latter is associated with
a downward movement in which the soul generates its image" which is nature
and the world of sense. For Plotinus it is the lowest sphere, something
emanating from the soul when it forgets to look upward towards the Nous. We have the
One, Nous, Soul and the world answering to the fourfold nature of
reality in the Māṇḍūkya U. The last two the
world-soul and the world are the subtle and the gross conditions of the same being. virāt trailokya-śarīraḥ brahmā samaṣṭi-Vyaṣṭi-rūpaḥ~saṁsāra-maṇḍala-vyāpī Śaṁkara on T U II 8. |
End MᾹṆḌŪKYA UPANIṢAD December 12, 2013 |