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VIVEKACŪDAMANI
Brahmavidopadeśa, i.e., competent, comprehensive upadeśa. Upadeśa by a Brahmavit is referred to as Brahmavidopadeśa, i.e., it is Brahmavidaḥ opadeśa. Here the word Brahmavidopadeśa is a compound. The addition of ā to u in upadeśa makes it Brahmavidopadeśa. ā signifies samantāt: completely. Or, it may be taken to be in the instrumental case as vyastapada when, it will become Brahmavidā upadesa i.e., Brahmavidopadeśaḥ i.e., instruction by a Brahmavit. The distinction is only in compounding of words either as Brahmavid opadeśa or Brahmavidā upadeśa. There is no difference in meaning
Here, mananam, meditation means thinking about a thing again and again with appropriate reasons (yuktibhir anucintanam). Dhyāna is nididhyāsana. The word ādi (etc.) is to include nirvikalpa-samadhi, i.e., being firmly established in the contemplation of the nirguna Brahman.
Brahmalābhaḥ here means direct realisational perception of one's ātman; for, there is nothing other than itself, as there is no obtaining of anything external to it. When lābha, obtaining, is spoken of as in the examples of the ornament round the neck etc., it has to be similarly understood.
na duryuktibhir labhyate: it is not to be obtained by specious reasonings; for the śruti says naisā tarkeņa matirāpaneyā (Katha). "This (mokşa) is not to be obtained by mere reasoning”. Reasoning in accord with śruti must be resorted to. In the Chandogyopanişad illustration of the man who has lost his way in the forest away from the Gāndhāradeśa to which he belonged, the śruti says: pandito medhāvī gāndhārānevopasampadyate indicating the necessity of sattarka (reasoning in accord with śruti) as opposed to dustarka. Śruti declares the unattached character of the ātman by the examples of mahāmatsya etc., by the abandoning (non-consciousness) of the world in dreamless sleep the pure ātman being free of (the taint of the world, by the illustration of the lump of clay etc., the nondifference between the cause and the effect, the possibility of knowing everything through the knowledge of one and the non-distinctness of the universe (prapañca) from Brahman by the illustration of the spider's web etc., that Brahman is both the instrumental and material cause of the world, by the example of the thief, liberation of him who is attached to the Real and the bondage of him who is attached to what is mithyā and such other series of reasonings. These are examples of Sat-tarka, proper reasoning. This is the reason for the expression duryuktibhiḥ in the sloka.
