Upadesha Sahasri (Verse Section 4)

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Namaste all,

Back from the hills again and time to move on to the

next section which poses the question of what trace,

if any, of ignorance remains after knowledge.

As there are only 5 verses I have included the three

translations that I have as each has a different

phrasing of the central theme.

The verses go to the centre of the old question as to

the origins of error.

 

I hope that this is of use to you,

 

ken Knight

 

Chapter 4. The Nature of Right Knowledge

 

Swami Jagadananda

 

1. How can those actions of which the root is egoism,

and which are accumulated in the mind, produce results

when they are burnt by the fire of non-egoism? (i.e.

the right Knowledge that the Self is neither the doer

of actions nor the experiencer of their results).

 

2. (The objector). Actions burnt by the fire of

Knowledge may produce results like the seen ones (of

the actions of a man of Knowledge). (Reply). No. They

are due to another cause. (The objector). I ask you

how there can be actions when egoism is destroyed?

Please answer.

 

3. (Reply). Such actions produce their results by

overpowering the Knowledge of Brahman in you, because

they have the power of producing the body etc.

Knowledge, however, becomes manifest when the results

of these actions come to an end.

 

4. As Knowledge and the experiencing (of pain and

pleasure) are both results of actions that have given

rise to the present body and have begun to produce

results it is reasonable that they are not

incompatible with each other. But other kinds of

actions are different in nature.

 

5. The Knowledge of one’s identity with the pure Self,

that negates the (wrong) notion of the identity of the

body and the Self, sets a man free even against his

will when it becomes as firm as the belief of the man

that he is a human being.

All this, therefore, is established. And reasons have

been already given by us.

 

 

 

 

Alston

 

1. When action associated with ego-feeling, which

pertains to that which has ego-feeling (namely the

mind), is once burnt up by the fire of the conviction

‘I am not the ego’, how can it ever spring forth

again?

 

2. If you say that it can spring up just like the

visible (results that flow from the begging and other

minimal activities of the enlightened person), we

reply that it is not so, as such results spring (not

from the actions themselves but) from (the merit of)

other actions (in other lives, which brought about the

present birth). Perhaps you will ask how (even) that

(amount of action) can take place when ego-feeling has

been contradicted and cancelled.

 

3. We reply that that portion of the merit and demerit

from previous lives that had power to bring about your

present life will overpower the knowledge of the real

that you have and produce its results. Totally

unobstructed metaphysical knowledge will finally

supervene when the merit and demerit that produced the

body comes to an end’.

 

(This is, at first sight, a surprisingly emphatic

affirmation of the power of prärabdha karma’, that

minute fraction of the total of a person’s merit and

demerit from his deeds in past lives that has brought

about his present life. But it has to be seen as

tempered by the remarks in the following verses.

Elsewhere Shankara lays it down that all merit and

demerit are ‘burnt up’ when there is metaphysical

knowledge, and for this one does not have to wait for

‘the expiry of the prarabdha karma’. However, the

prärabdha karma that brought into existence the body

in which enlightenment was attained had to run its

full course ‘like an arrow that had already been

loosed from the bow’. Gitä. Comm. 13.2.)

 

4. The empirical experience and metaphysical knowledge

(of the enlightened one) are both results of the merit

and demerit that brought about his present life (his

prärabdha karma). Empirical experience and

metaphysical knowledge of the Self must therefore be

mutually compatible’. But there is a contradiction

between metaphysical knowledge and other forms of

merit and demerit.

 

‘Cp. Shankara’s famous remark in his B.S. Comm. 4.1.15

‘For if a person, even though he he only one single

person, yet has the conviction in his own heart that

lie has direct knowledge of the Absolute and is also

supporting a physical body at the same time, how can

anyone else cause him to deviate from that

conviction?’

 

5.Whoever has a knowledge of his true Self that

contradicts his (previous) conviction that he was

identical with the body and is as firm as that

previous conviction will be liberated even against his

own will. Hence all this (the compatibility of

metaphysical knowledge with empirical experience and

its incompatibility with all past merit and demerit

leading to future activity except that small fraction

of it that initiated the life in which enlightenment

was gained) stands proved, and we have declared the

manner of the proof.

 

 

Mayeda

 

I. When action, which has the “I”-notion as its seed

and is in the bearer of the “I”notion (= the

intellect),’ has been burnt up by the fire of the

notion that “I am not [an agent or an experiencer],”

how can it produce a result?

2. If [you say:] “[Even after the action has been

burnt up,] production of a result [of action] will

take place as previously experienced,” [we reply:] No;

it (= production of a result) is based upon other

action. [if you say,] “When the “I”-notion [as the

seed of action] has been destroyed, we ask you, How

can there be that [action beyond that which has been

burnt up]? Answer that,”

3. [we reply:] As [action] can fashion the body and so

on, it can overpower knowledge in you concerning the

Existent and produce a result. When action comes to an

end, knowledge will arise.

4. As experience [of the result of action] and

knowledge are both results of action which has already

begun to produce a result, it is reasonable that they

(= knowledge and action) are not contradictory to each

other. But other [action, namely that which has not

yet begun to produce a result,] is different in

nature.

5. A man who has knowledge of Atman, which negates the

notion that the body is Atman and is as [firm] as

[ordinary people’s] notion that the body is Atman, is

released even without wishing.

[5’. Therefore, all this is established. The reasoning

is as stated by us.]

Mayeda says that this last part is an interpolation by

some later scribe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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