The Mundaka Upanishad : Post-9. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, June 20, 2022. 19:00

Chapter-1. Section-1. Mantram-9

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Mantram-9.

Yaḥ sarvajñaḥ sarva-vid yasya jñānamayaṁ tapaḥ; tasmād etad brahma nāma-rūpam annaṁ ca jāyate (1.1.9). 

That Great Being is sarvajñaḥ and sarva-vid. 

According to the commentator, sarvajñaḥ and sarva-vid mean two different things. Though the literal meaning of both words is ‘all- knowing', the connotative meaning is that Being which knows everything in general and also in particular. This is Acharya Sankara's interpretation. God knows everything in general and also in particular. Somebody asked me a question: “Does God know that a cat is moving in the kitchen?” I said, “God not only knows the movement of the cat, but He also knows how many hairs the cat has.” This is the direct knowledge of the minutest details of even an atom.

But God does not just dissipate Himself in the knowledge of particulars. There is a general control over the whole of creation, and there He has a cosmic generality of knowledge. The great cosmic order is in His mind. This is the sarvajñaḥ, or the generality of the knowledge of God. But the particularity is every little detail, even to counting the number of hairs of a person or the breaths that he breathes. That also is known to Him. Can we imagine what kind of knowledge God must have? How many creatures are there in this creation: gods, demons, human beings, subhuman creatures, insects, and so on? How many leaves on the tree? He will count them. Unimaginable power of comprehension! So God knows everything in general as well as in particular. That is the meaning of being sarvajñaḥ and sarva-vid.

Yasya jñānamayaṁ tapaḥ. We are told that God concentrated Himself. He was doing tapas. What kind of tapas did He do? Did He perform austerity by starving? God's knowledge is His tapas. His wisdom, His knowledge, His consciousness, His intention, His purpose, His awareness—that is tapas. The knowledge of God is also the action of God. The awareness of God is also the concentration of God. The existence of God is the same as His work. So God's tapas is knowledge. The greatest tapas is the concentration of knowledge, and every other tapas is secondary—yasya jñānamayaṁ tapaḥ.

Tasmād etad brahma nāma-rūpam annaṁ ca jāyate. From this Great Being, Brahman, the Absolute, emanates the secondary Brahman. In the language of scholastic philosophers, it is prakriti. 

Mama yonir mahad brahma (B.G. 14.3) is mentioned in the Bhagavadgita. Here Brahma does not mean Supreme Brahman but prakriti, the matrix of things. Then name and form manifest themselves—nāma-rūpam. The inward characteristic of an object is called nama, and its outward characteristic is called rupa. The indication—the determining factor of a particular shape that an individual has to take—is called linga sharira in our case, and the subtle body is called the sukshma sharira. Here, nama does not simply mean a name such as Rama, Krishna and Govinda; it is the indicative linga, or the specific character, of the would-be individual in the form of a body. Rupa is the actual physical form. Thus, the subtle and the physical shapes emanate as nama and rupa from this original Brahma, Mula Prakriti.

Annaṁ ca jāyate: The field of action is created. Here, anna means actual matter is the field of particular individual action for the jivas to reap their fruits according to their deeds. This is also a great verse. In one verse so many things are there.

These nine verses constitute one section of the Upanishad. Very concentrated is the teaching. The verses are only nine, but so much has been said in these nine verses that we may say that these nine verses themselves are a kind of Upanishad. You can commit the whole thing to memory and meditate on the implication, the suggestive meanings of these verses, and it will form a complete meditation for you.

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Now we go to the Second Section.

Next-Chapter-1, Section-2, Mantram-1.

"Tad etat satyam: mantreṣu karmāṇi kavayo yāny apaśyaṁs tāni tretāyāṁ bahudhā santatāni, tāny ācaratha niyatam, satyakāmā, eṣa vaḥ panthāḥ sukṛtasya loke." (1.2.1.).

To be continued ....

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