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VIVEKACUDAMANI
the nature of the seer. By this the unconnectedness of the atman (with anything) is declared.
157
By saying that ahaṁkāra etc., upto the body which are the five sheaths are things known, it is affirmed again what was told earlier in aphoristic form that the atman is different from these sheaths. This is made clear in the śloka 156 infra.
133
एषोऽन्तरात्मा पुरुषः पुराणो निरन्तराखण्डसुखानुभूतिः । सदैकरूपः प्रतिबोधमात्रो येनेषिता वागसवश्चरन्ति ।। १३३ ।।
eşo'ntarātmā puruṣaḥ purano nirantarakhandasukhānubhūtiḥ | sadaikarupaḥ pratibodhamātro yeneṣitā vāgasavaścaranti ||
This is the innermost ātman, the primordial Puruşa ever abiding in the body, the ancient eternal, of the nature of integral experience of bliss, ever the same, accompanying every mental modification and by whom speech, the prāņas, etc. perform their respective functions.
yena iṣitaḥ: iṣitāḥ: impelled by mere proximate presence.
vāk asavaśca: speech and the vital airs (i.e., prāņas). These include the entire assemblage of causes and effects.
The function of vāk is making sounds. Those of praņa are inhaling and exhaling of breath.
By common consent, by the authority of śruti and by reason of understanding the nature of Brahman, this atman accompanies the several sheaths beginning with the annamaya and ending with the ananda-maya-kośa which are all imagined in it as the basis of the imagination, even as the rope shines as the basis of the cleft in the ground, the serpent, the stick and the streak of water which are superimposed on it.
puruşaḥ: the perfect or the All; or puri sete: abides in the body; hence puruşa.
purāṇaḥ: purāpi navaḥ: though ancient, yet new, i.e., eternal.
nirantarakhandasukhānubhutiḥ: nirantara: unending: akhanda: not broken up by division; the experience of a bliss which is eternal and undivided. Vide the śruti: yatsākṣād-aparokṣād brahma (Brh.): "That which is the object of immediate supersensuous experience," i.e., it is always the same and unchanging.
