॥ ॐ श्री गुरुभ्यॊ नमः हरिः ॐ ॥
|| ōm̐ śrī gurubhyo namaḥ hariḥ ōm̐ ||
Mantra #20
(Conclusion part)
In the previous posting we went through each word of the upanishat, and in this we will put it all together.
उपनिषत् upaniṣat
अग्ने नय सुपथा राये अस्मान् विश्वानि देव वयुनानि विद्वान् ।
युयोध्यस्मज्जुहुराणमेनो भूयिष्ठां ते नम उक्तिं विधेम ॥ २० ॥
agnē naya supathā rāyē asmān viśvāni dēva vayunāni vidvān |
yuyōdhyasmajjuhurāṇamēnō bhūyiṣṭhāṁ tē nama uktiṁ vidhēma || 20 ||
Oh! Parabrahman who is the preraka for shareera and the World, hence called ‘agni’ (अग्ने agnē) take us (नय naya) through that path which has no return to the cycle of samsāra (सुपथा supathā) for getting the wealth called mōksha (राये rāyē). Oh! Parabrahman, (देव deva) only You know (विद्वान् vidvān) knowledge in its entirity (वयुनानि vayunāni) only you know if our (अस्मान् asmān) sādhanā is complete (विश्वानि vishāwni). Oh! Parabrahman, liberate us (युयोधि yuyōdhi) from all our (अस्मान् asmat) undesirable karma (एनो enō) which make us ‘alpa’ (जुहुराणमेनो juhurāṇam). All we can give you (ते tē) is our sādhanā, in the form of jñāna-bhakti (भूयिष्टां bhūyiṣṭāṁ) and with this jñāna-bhakti we will say (विधेम vidhēma) the utterance (उक्तिम् uktim) ‘namah’ (नम nama).
NOTES:
1) By ‘anga’ meaning preraka for shareera, as also jagat-preraka, the Parabrahman who gets the name “agni” for this reason we need understand Brahman of the Veda to be both bandha-kartr and also mōksha-kartr.
2) svāyambhuva manu “prayed” to Parabrahman viṣṇuḥ who has the name “yajña”. Please refer to the very first posting on this series. With shāstra one understands that, the word “yajña” that appears in
vēda, is a word that indicates Parabrahman. Therefore, the entire vēda must be understood as
revealing Parabrahman (paramātma-para) and not karma-para. The ‘prayer’ of manu is not mere praising the Lord.
3) jñāna-bhakti should not be thought of as two different things bhakti and jñāna. The upanishat establishes that sādhana is jñāna and Vedanta calls it bhakti. The intent is that, there is no bhakti without jñāna. There is no jñāna without bhakti because bhakti is the preparation of the mind to receive the knowledge of Parabrahman. Thus, the same sādhana is addressed by the two words bhakti and jñāna. There is an entire section called bhakti-paada in the brahma-sootras.
śri kriṣṇārpaṇamastu,
Jayakrishna Nelamangala
Acknowledgements:
I thank the publishers of this magazine for giving me an opportunity to introduce this upanishat through these articles. In particular, I thank Smt Pratibha Gattadahalli for her efforts in making this series happen. If these articles evince an interest in the reader to learn upanishats under a proper teacher, then the series has served its purpose. I would like to inform the readers that this and three other upanishats viz., Isha, Kena, Katha and MunDaka have been published in book form. The fifth one is in the works.
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