Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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exhaustively discusses the point and establishes that all the major utterances of the Upanisads suggest this unity.
At times it is maintained that by simply hearing these sentences, if one's case is ripe, one gets rid of ignorance and attains salvation. Sankara and Sureśvara (cf., latter's Naiskarmya-siddhi, II, 9) hold this view. The example of the 'tenth man' (daśamastvamasi; Vidyaranya, Pañcadaśī 7, 58-77) is given in the context. Sarvajñātman, in his Pañca-prakriya (2), tells us that the very knowledge of the Mahāvākyas gives salvation (mokṣa) to those desirous of it: 'mahāvākyārtha-jñānādeva mumūrṣūņām mokso bhavati. But the other view is that one requires manana (reflection) and nididhyāsana (meditation) after their listening in order to be liberated. Manḍana Miśra and Vacaspati Miśra belong to the second group.
Sarvajñātman tells us that he who knows the meaning of the sentence tattvamasi, through a knowledge which is nothing short of direct experience, just as with the perception of the amalaka fruit in his hand, such a one is indeed liberated as according to the Śruti passage: He who possesses a teacher knows that, so long will he remain (ācāryavan puruso veda, Chand. Up., VI, xiv, 2). In the Jābāla Upanisad (4), in his reply to a question from Janaka of Videha Yajnavalkya tells that After completing the life of a student, let one become a householder; after completing the life of a householder let one become a forest dweller; after completing the life of a forest dweller, let one renounce, otherwise (if a suitable occasion arises) let one renounce even from the state of a student or from the state of a householder or from that of a forest dweller... on whatever day he has the spirit of renunciation, that very day let him renounce (and become a recluse).one can go for sannyasa the moment one feels strong sense of renunsiations: yadahareva virajettadahareva pravrajet.
There is a theory that Indian philosophy begins with the idea of death and the secret of overcoming it. The Katha and Bṛhadaranyaka upaniṣads directly deal with the question of death. In the former Naciketas confronts the Lord of Death (Yama) and asks, for his third boon, about the state of the individual soul after death. He also refuses to be allured by gifts and satirically tells Yama to retain them for himself the chariots, the dance and song: tavaiva vähäḥ tava nṛitya-gīte (1,1.26). Yama, forced by the inquisitiveness of the boy tells about the two ways of the good (śreya) and the pleasant (preya). He narrates (I, 2. 18) the immortal nature of the Atman as inborn, eternal, smaller than the small, greater than the great and the like (found in the Bhagavadgītā, II, 20 also). This Self cannot be visualized by instruction or intellectual power. It is attained only by the one whom It chooses and to such a one It reveals Its own nature (1, 2, 23). The latter Upanisad presents the essential nature of the Atman in the dialogue between Yajnavalkya and
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