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SANATSUGATIYA
CHAPTER III
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Dhritarashtra said :
Who possesses this taciturnity 1, and which of the two 2 is taciturnity? Describe, O learned person! the condition of taciturnity here. Does a learned man reach taciturnity 3 by taciturnity? And how, O sage! do they practise taciturnity in this world gata said :
Since the Vedas, together with the mind 4, fail to attain to him, hence (is he) taciturnity 5 -- he about whom the words of the Vedas were uttered 6, and who, O king! shines forth as consubstantial 7 with them.
Dhritarashtra said :
Does 8 the twice-born person who studies the Rik and the Yagus texts, and the Sama-veda, committing sinful (acts), become tainted, or does he not become tainted?
Sanatsugata said :
Not the Saman texts, nor yet the Rik Texts, nor the Yagus texts 9 save him, O acute sir! from sinful action. I do not tell you an untruth. The Khandas do not save a sinful deceitful 10 man who behaves deceitfully 11.
Footnotes :
1. I. e. that spoken of in the last chapter.
2. Viz. mere silence, or the contemplation of the self after restraining all the senses. In the Brihadaranyaka-upanishad, Sankara renders the original word, mauna, to mean, 'The fruit of the destruction of the consciousness of anything other than the self.' And his commentator makes it clearer thus: 'The conviction in the mind that one is the self--the supreme Brahman--and that there is nothing close existing but oneself.'
3. I. e. the highest seat--the Brahman; for mind, sense, &c. are all non-existent there. Cf. Katha, and Maitri.
4. Cf. Kenopanishad; Katha; Taittiriya.
5. 'Taciturnity is his name,' says Nilakantha.
6. Or, says Sankara, 'who is the author of the Vedas.'
7. I. e. 'with the Vedas,' says Nilakantha, Om, the quintessence of the Vedas, being a name of the Brahman (as to which cf. Gita, and Maitri). Sankara takes the whole expression to mean gyotirmaya, consisting of light. Nilakantha says this stanza answers the five following questions put in the stanza preceding, viz. of what use is taciturnity? which of the two is taciturnity? &c., as above. The first four questions are answered by the first two lines of this stanza--the substance of the answer being, that the use of taciturnity is to attain the seat which is not to be grasped even by the mind, that taciturnity includes both restraint of mind and of the external senses. By means of such restraint, the external and internal worlds cease to be perceived as existing, and the highest goal is attained.
8. This question arises naturally enough on Nilakantha's interpretation of the preceding stanza, the meaning of which is in substance that the Vedas cannot grasp the Brahman fully, but they are of use towards a rudimentary comprehension of it, as is said further on, see infra.
9. Cf. Svetasvatara-upanishad; see, too, Nrisimha Tapini.
10. I. e. one who parades his piety.
11. I. e. hypocritically.
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