सर्ववेदान्तसिद्धान्तगोचरं तमगोचरम् ।
गोविन्दं परमानन्दं सद्गुरुं प्रणतोऽस्म्यहम् ॥ १ ॥
तम् सर्व-वेदान्त-सिद्धान्त-गोचरम् अगोचरम् गो-विन्दम् परम-अानन्दम् सद्-गुरुम् अहम् प्रणतः अस्मि ।
Every grantha in our culture, and especially in the vedānta-sampradāya, begins with two things: a maṅgalācaraṇa to pray for the success of the book; and an anubandha-catuṣṭaya to explain the audience, purpose, and subject matter of the book. The first verse of Vivekacuḍāmaṇi serves as both.
Parama-ānanda, as the basic pursuit of every individual, is the final purpose of this and all other vedānta-grantha's. The audience is a person who has owned up this pursuit and understood that it is go-vinda, achieved by śabda - the words of the veda. The subject matter is that which is sarva-vedānta-siddhānta-gocara: the knowledge contained in mahā-vākya's like 'tat tvam asi'. This knowledge alone is the sādhana for parama-ānanda, to which Śrī Śaṅkarācārya expresses his praṇāma, in the form of sad-guru.
A very crucial point to appreciate here is that Śrī Śaṅkarācārya has declared right from the beginning that the subject he is going to discuss in this grantha is only sarva-vedānta-siddhānta-gocara - it falls in the purview of an ascertained conclusion of all the upaniṣad sentences alone; with respect to anything else it is agocara. If one approaches the grantha with the expectation that after studying it completely they have to do something to achieve parama-ānanda, they will not benefit at all from the teaching. The very śravaṇa, or listening to the teaching is to be approached as the means to ātma-jñāna. The logic behind this (and the illogicality of other arguments, like independent self-enquiry, 'theory and practice', and 'knowledge versus experience', to name a few) will be dealt with later on. For now, it is important to go approach the teaching in this way.
Parama-ānanda, as the basic pursuit of every individual, is the final purpose of this and all other vedānta-grantha's. The audience is a person who has owned up this pursuit and understood that it is go-vinda, achieved by śabda - the words of the veda. The subject matter is that which is sarva-vedānta-siddhānta-gocara: the knowledge contained in mahā-vākya's like 'tat tvam asi'. This knowledge alone is the sādhana for parama-ānanda, to which Śrī Śaṅkarācārya expresses his praṇāma, in the form of sad-guru.
A very crucial point to appreciate here is that Śrī Śaṅkarācārya has declared right from the beginning that the subject he is going to discuss in this grantha is only sarva-vedānta-siddhānta-gocara - it falls in the purview of an ascertained conclusion of all the upaniṣad sentences alone; with respect to anything else it is agocara. If one approaches the grantha with the expectation that after studying it completely they have to do something to achieve parama-ānanda, they will not benefit at all from the teaching. The very śravaṇa, or listening to the teaching is to be approached as the means to ātma-jñāna. The logic behind this (and the illogicality of other arguments, like independent self-enquiry, 'theory and practice', and 'knowledge versus experience', to name a few) will be dealt with later on. For now, it is important to go approach the teaching in this way.
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