॥ॐ श्री गुरुभ्यो नमः हरिः ॐ॥
|| Om Shree gurubhyO namaha harihi Om ||
Brief introduction:
Upanishat is the ‘conclusion’ portion of the Veda. Parabrahman is eternal, The Veda which reveals Him, is also eternal.
The Veda which is always present, is reinstalled the same way as it was before. This information again has to come from Veda and Veda says, “dhAtA yathA poorvam akalpayat”.
The hierarchy among “beings” is the hierarchy of this vEda-jnAna. The level of clarity, the order, etc is their hierarchy.
TalavakAra expresses it clearly as, “tE hyEnat prathamO vidAmchakAra brahmEti” . Indra is higher than other devatAs because he got it first among the other dEvatAs such as Agni, Daksha, etc. PArvati is higher than Indra because of this order. The concepts of Indra, Rudra, Chaturumukha, etc are not mere sectarian concepts.
Conversations are found in the upanishats between two “beings”, in this hierarchy. Vedic knowledge flows from the higher being to the lower being, or from a Teacher to the taught. For example, for Kena Upanishat, Chaturmukha is the teacher and Rudra is the taught. The human level clarity and comprehension of this knowledge is at the bottom portions of this ladder. Even among human beings, this hierarchy decides who the teacher is and who the taught is. Since knowledge from Agama comes only in the form of listening-contemplation-leading-the-life-of-it (shravaNa-manana-nidhidhyAsanA) in short known as inquiry or brahma-jignyAsA, this jignyAsA-hierarchy is hierarchy among beings. This is what makes the teacher-student relationship possible, which is very necessary for this kind of study.
IshAvAsya is a Yajur veda Upanishat. Every Upanishat has a shAnti mantra which is chanted both at the beginning and also at the end of the Upanishat. Following this Vedic tradition, let us study the shanti mantra for IshAvAsya which goes like this:
||Om poorNamadaH poorNamidam poorNAt poorNamudacyate |
poorNasya poorNamAdAya poorNamevAvashishyate || Om shAntiH shAntiH shAntiH harihi Om ||
Vedic Brahman is Complete (poorNa). He is complete in every one of His Forms. He is Complete in That Original Form (poorNam adaH). He is Complete in this incarnation-Form (poorNamidam). From the Complete Original Form (poorNAt) emanates the incarnation Form which is also Complete (poorNamudacyate).
When the Complete Incarnation Form emanates from The Original Complete Form (poorNasya poorNamAdAya) what remains is also The Complete Form (poorNameva avashishyate).
While we are studying this Upanishat, let there not be any trouble due to external physical causes (adhi-bhoota), let there not be any trouble due to internal causes (adhyAtma), and let there not be any trouble due to unknown causes (adhi-daiva). For this reason, the word ‘shAntiH’ is repeated three times.
Every Upanishat is in the form of a conversation. Veda ordains that Upanishats must be studied only after knowing the rishi, devatA and chandas for the particular Upanishat that is being studied. For this IshAvAsya Upanishat, svAyambhuva-manu is the rishi. Vedic Parabrahman with the name ‘yajnya’ is the devatA or diety. The meter anushTup etc., format will be known by counting letters of each mantra.
With this background, we will continue our study of this great Upanishad in the next posting.
Shree krishNArpaNamastu,
JayakrishNa Nelamangala
Leave a Reply