[INDOLOGY] Bṛhadārṇayaka 2.3.4

Sat Mar 1 12:52:32 UTC 2025

Dear Evgeniya

I would like to add a few more words of commentary. I am currently working
on the *Maitrāya**ṇ**īya Upani**ṣ**ad* (MaiU), which will be published by
Bloomsbury Publishers under the provisional title *Philosophy and
Embodiment: A Cognitive Analysis of the Maitrāya**ṇ**īya Upani**ṣ**ad*. A
cognitive analysis reveals that this text is a brilliantly structured
treatise on liberating practice, both in terms of its internal logic and
its use of terminology and imagery. I refer to this practice as the
threefold practice (*vidyā, tapas, cintā*; MaiU 4.4: *tasmād vidyayā tapasā
cintayā copalabhyate brahma*).

Thus, I fully agree with Lyne that this description—similarly to BU 2.3 (I
discuss this fragment in its full context in Jurewicz 2016/18: 519-228)—is
composed from the perspective of liberating knowledge and the practice that
actualizes it. From this point of view, one could say that in the
perceptible world (*mūrta brahman*), which is described as false and
non-existent (*asatya*), the manifestation of what is true and existent (
*satya*) is active—namely, the sun and the syllable OM (MaiU 6.3:* yad
amūrta**ṃ** tat satya**ṃ** tad brahma tad jyoti**ḥ** | yaj jyoti**ḥ** sa
āditya**ḥ** | sa vā e**ṣ**a OM iti* |).

In my analysis of MaiU, I refer to these as *material anchors*, a term
proposed by Edwin Hutchins (1995; see also Sweetser, Stec 2013). According
to Hutchins, material anchors are physical objects (such as clocks in the
cockpit of an airplane or a ship) that function as metonymic carriers for
abstract concepts, whose meaning is shared by a community of varying scope
(ranging from pilots in a cockpit to religious practitioners visiting a
temple). The sun and the syllable OM, as material anchors, guide the
practitioner’s mental and physical activity toward the conceptual target
domain of non-perceptible (*amūrta*) brahman, making them aware that
”below” this perceptible world lies an unmanifest, unknowable reality.

At the same time, the simultaneous designation of these elements as both
*asatya* and *satya* aims— as Lyne suggests— to express the paradox of the
world’s existence as the manifestation of what is unmanifest. This paradox
is also reflected, for example, in the meanings of the word *aksara*, which
denotes both ”syllable” (something temporal and perceptible, i.e.,
manifest) and ”the imperishable” (something beyond time, imperceptible,
i.e., unmanifest). These meanings should be activated in the mind
simultaneously—a cognitive operation that, at least for my mind, trained in
bivalent logic, is impossible to perform spontaneously and requires
conscious effort. However, I am convinced that the original audience of
Sanskrit texts, for whom these works were composed, activated these
contradictory meanings effortlessly, intuitively and in one mental
perception.

>From the perspective of practice, it is precisely this paradoxical nature
of the existence of the sun and the syllable OM (the fact that they are
"asatya satya/satya asatya") that allows them to be regarded as material
anchors—perceptible (*mūrta*) signs that already contain within themselves
their imperceptible (*amūrta*) referent. This is why observing the sun, its
movement across the sky, and reciting the syllable OM hold real
significance.

With best wishes,

Joanna

PS. Being aware that it is difficult to buy my previous books, I am
attaching the pdfs with a request not to share them.

---

Prof. dr hab. Joanna Jurewicz

Katedra Azji Południowej /Chair of South Asia Studies

Wydział Orientalistyczny / Faculty of Oriental Studies

Uniwersytet Warszawski /University of Warsaw

ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28

00-927 Warszawa , Poland

Członek Academia Europaea

Przewodnicząca Rady Programowej Festiwalu Nauki

Department of Linguistidcs and Modern Languages

College of Human Sciences,UNISA, Pretoria, RSA

Member of Academia Europaea

Chairperson of the Science Festival Programme Council

https://uw.academia.edu/JoannaJurewicz

pt., 28 lut 2025 o 15:38 Evgeniya Desnitskaya via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> napisał(a):

> Dear Christophe,
>
> Thank you for your response.
>
> >>>it is like if some correlative* tasm**ād *(usually skipped)
>
> Yes, it makes sense to suggest a skipped pronoun in this phrase.
> May be you know some studies on this kind of ellipsis in similar texts?
>
> Best,
> Evgeniya
> --
> Evgeniya Desnitskaya
> Institute of Oriental Manuscripts
> Russian Academy of Sciences
>
>
>
> ----------------
> Кому: Evgeniya Desnitskaya (khecari at yandex.ru);
> Копия: indology at list.indology.info;
> Тема: [INDOLOGY] Bṛhadārṇayaka 2.3.4;
> 28.02.2025, 17:04, "Christophe Vielle" <christophe.vielle at uclouvain.be>:
>
> Dear Evgeniya,
> I do not think that there is an inconsistency in the text. In
>
> *idam eva mūrtaṃ yad anyat prāṇāc ca yaś cāyam antarātmannākāśaḥ* (2.3.4)
> |
>
> it is like if some correlative* tasm**ād *(usually skipped) was implied
> between the first *ca *and *yaś ca*
> following the usual translations:
> this *mūrta *is what is different from the *prāṇa *and [from] what
> (masc.) is this space within the self
>
> It may be also  possible to understand:
> this *mūrta *is what is different from the *prāṇa *which is also this
> space within the self
>
> therefore differently from
>
> *athāmūrtaṃ prāṇaś ca yaś cāyam antarātmannākāśaḥ* (2.3.5) |
>
> the *amūrta *is the *prāṇa *and what is this space within the self
> (again, *prāṇa = *what is the space within the self)
>
> Bw
> Christophe
>
>
> Le 28 févr. 2025 à 13:00, Evgeniya Desnitskaya via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> a écrit :
>
> Dear all,
>
> BAU 2.3 describes two Brahmans, namely *mūrta *and * amūrta*. From 2.3.2
> and 2.3.3, we learn that *mūrta *Brahman is different from *vāyu *and
> *antarikṣa*, while *amūrta *Brahman is identical with them.
> Further, BAU 2.3.4 and 2.3.5 provide a similar description on the *
> adhyātma *level:
> *idam eva mūrtaṃ yad anyat prāṇāc ca yaś cāyam antar ātmann ākāśaḥ*
> (2.3.4) |...
> *athāmūrtaṃ prāṇaś ca yaś cāyam antar ātmann ākāśaḥ* (2.3.5) |
> Similarly to the previous passage, *mūrta *Brahman differs from *prāṇa *and
> *amūrta *is identical with it. Still, both Brahmans are identified with
> the space within the body, which is indeed inconsistent.
> Olivelle translates BAU 2.3.4 as *"distinct from breath and the space
> within the body"* and does not comment on this point.
>
> I wonder, if this inconsistency in the text can be explained? Is it simply
> a result of the oral transmission of the text, a kind of *lapsus linguae*
> that became fixed in the normative form of BAU?
> --
> Evgeniya Desnitskaya
> Institute of Oriental Manuscripts
> Russian Academy of Sciences
>
>
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>
> –––––––––––––––––––
> Christophe Vielle <https://www.uclouvain.be/en/people/christophe.vielle>
> Louvain-la-Neuve
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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