TRANSLATION

OF THE

ISHOPANISHAD,

One of the chapters of the

YAJUR VED:

ACCORDING TO THE COMMENTARY OF THE CELEBRATED

SHANKAR-ACHARYA:

ESTABLISHING THE UNITY AND INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF

THE SUPREME BEING;

AND THAT

HIS WORSHIP ALONE

CAN LEAD TO ETERNAL BEATITUDE.

CALCUTTA:

1816.

PREFACE.

73

THE most learned Vyasa shows, in his work of the Vedant, that all the texts of the Ved, with one consent, prove but the Divinity of that Being, who is out of the reach of comprehension and beyond all description. For the use of the public, I have made a concise translation of that celebrated work into Bengalee, and the present is an endeavour to translate the principal Chapters of the Ved, in conformity to the Comments of the great Shankar-Acharya. The translation of the Ishopanishad belonging to the Yajur, the second division of the Veds, being already completed, I have put it into the press ;† and the others will successively be printed, as soon as their translation is completed. It is evident, from those authorities, that the sole regulator of the Universe is but one, who is omnipresent, far surpassing our powers of comprehension; above external sense; and whose worship is the chief duty of mankind and the sole cause of eternal beatitude; and that all that bear figure and appellation are inventions. Should it be asked, whether the assertions found in the Puranas and Tantras, &c. respecting the worship of the several gods and goddesses, are false, or whether Puranas and Tantras are not included in the Shastra, the answer is this:-The Purana and Tantra,§ &c. are of course to be considered as Shastra, for they repeatedly declare God to be one and above the apprehension of external and internal senses; they indeed expressly de

I must confess how much I feel indebted to Doctor H. H. Wilson, in my translations from Sunskrit into English, for the use of his Sunskrit and English Dictionary.

Wherever any comment, upon which the sense of the original depends, is added to the original, it will be found written in Italics.

Said to have been written by Vyas.

§ Supposed to have been composed by Shiva.

clare the divinity of many gods and goddesses, and the modes of their worship; but they reconcile those contradictory assertions by affirming frequently, that the directions to worship any figured beings are only applicable to those, who are incapable of elevating their minds to the idea of an invisible Supreme Being, in order that such persons, by fixing their attention on those invented figures, may be able to restrain themselves from vicious temptations, and that those that are competent for the worship of the invisible God, should disregard the worship of Idols. I repeat a few of these declarations as follows. The authority of Jamadagni is thus quoted by the great Raghunandan: "For the benefit "of those who are inclined to worship, figures are invented to serve as representations of God, who is merely understanding, "and has no second, no parts nor figure; consequently, to these "representatives, either male or female forms and other circums66 tances are fictitiously assigned." In the second Chapter of the first part of the Vishnu Purana it is said; "God is without "figure, epithet, definition or description. He is without defect not liable to annihilation, change, pain or birth; we can "only say, That he, who is the eternal being, is God." "The "vulgar look for their gods in water; men of more extended "knowledge in celestial bodies; the ignorant in wood, bricks, "and stones; but learned men in the universal soul." In the 84th Chapter of the tenth division of the Sri Bhagavat, Crishna says to Vyas and others: "It is impossible for those who con"sider pilgrimage as devotion, and believe that the divine nature "exists in the image, to look up to, communicate with, to peti"tion and to revere true believers in God. He who views as "the soul this body formed of phlegm, wind and bile, or regards

only wife, children, and relations as himself (that is, he who "neglects to contemplate the nature of the soul), he who attri"butes a divine nature to earthen images, and believes in the "holiness of water, yet pays not such respect to those who are "endowed with a kkowledge of God, is as an ass amongst cows." In the 9th Chapter of the Cularnava it is written: "A know