[INDOLOGY] Bṛhadārṇayaka 2.3.4

Sat Mar 1 12:56:08 UTC 2025

A small correction of one sentence: the unmanifest, unknowable reality does
not lie "below" its manifest aspekt. This sentence should be:

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  this
perceptible world *IS* the unmanifest, unknowable reality.

---

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

sob., 1 mar 2025 o 13:52 Joanna Jurewicz <j.jurewicz at uw.edu.pl> napisał(a):

> 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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>
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