Mandukya Upanishad : 3. T.N.Sethumadhavan
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Wednesday, May 18, 2022. 20:00.
An inquiry into what is Real And Unreal
AGAMA PRAKARANA
Post-3.
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1.AGAMA PRAKARANA :
The twelve mantras of the Mandukya Upanishad come under Agama Prakarana with
Karika verses interspersed at convenient places for clarification. As the Sanskrit mantras
of the Upanishad make a delightful lyrical reading they are reproduced in this essay (in a
transliterated form with all its shortcomings) for the benefit of those who are inclined to
snatch a look into the original source of light. It may be of interest to note that this entire
Upanishad has been rendered into a soulful musical treat by the famous Hindustani
Classical Music Vocalist Pandit Jasraj ji which is pleasing to the ears and soothing to the
heart. In this dissertation the Upanishadic mantras and the Karika verses of the Acharya
have been referred to distinctly. According to the scholars the mere Upanishad portion
without Karika does not present a full view of the philosophy and hence a study of both is
advocated.
This chapter explains the real nature of Atman and focuses on elucidating the meaning of
AUM.
MANTRA – 1
bhavad.h bhavishyad iti sarvam onkara eva, yach chanyat.h trikalatitam
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Translation :
Harih om. AUM, the syllable (word), is all this. To be clearer, all that it is past,
present, and future is verily AUM. That which is beyond the three periods of
time is also truly AUM.
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Commentary :
The Mandukya Upanishad starts with the above mentioned declaration which is sudden
and straight just as the firing of a bullet. There are no stories, no descriptions, no poetical
ramblings, and not even any mention about a teacher and the taught. It is just a big-bang.
Despite this, we can visualize a master expounding the revolutionary ideas to an equally
devoted, inquisitive student in sylvan ambience because Guru-Sishya parampara is the
fundamental creed of our ancient educational system.
We can also presume that the following question would have been posed by the sincere
student to the learned teacher to kindle him to expound the great doctrine about Reality.
The query could be “Is there not a better purpose of life than eating, drinking, breeding,
growing and dying? Is life a mere journey from the womb to the tomb through the road
full of the pot-holes of sorrows and smiles, hopes and disappointments, pleasure and pain,
love and hate etc.,? Is there no way possible to come out of this swamp and quandary?
Can there be at all a destination of unbroken peace and joy?” It is to that intelligent
student the Master addresses this famous Upanishadic teaching.
In this first mantra the idea put forward is that understanding the meaning of AUM helps
the realization of the essential nature of Atman. This is because all the srutis say so and
hence it is the final dictum.
AUM can be looked at three angles viz., 1.as a sound 2.as a symbol and 3.as a word or
syllable. For the present the teacher says the word or the name AUM is all this, meaning
thereby, that all the plurality and pairs of opposites recognized by us in the outer world is
the word AUM which is a Divine Factor, an Over-riding Principle, and a Spiritual
Common Denominator. Just as different varieties of mud-pots are in a sense nothing but
mud, just as all diversified objects that we see around us indicated by various names are
not different from their corresponding names, so too there is a Divine Eternal Factor
behind the pluralistic world and therefore all this is verily AUM and not different from it.
The pots have come out of mud, sustained by mud and go back to mud when they are
destroyed. Similarly, the visual world phenomena come out of the Divine Truth, exist in
that Truth, and return to that Truth when they are withdrawn from their manifestation.
That fundamental Truth, the Eternal, All-pervading principle of Consciousness is
indicated here as AUM.
To clarify the issue involved, the Master explains that “all that is past, present and future
is, indeed, AUM meaning thereby that the entire world of objects cognized by the
humans in the past, being cognized in the present, and that may be cognized in the future
has one substratum which is unchanging in all three periods of time and that factor is
represented by the symbol, the sound and the word AUM. It is further elucidated that if
anything can be conceived to exist beyond these three periods of time, that is also AUM.
Thus AUM represents not only the manifested world of plurality (the matter) but also its
substratum, the unmanifest, non-dual Reality, the spirit behind the matter.
*****
Next - Mantram-2.
To be continued ....
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