THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 08
AKSHARA BRAHMA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE IMPERISHABLE BRAHMAN:
VERSE NUMBER 04
Text in Transliteration:
adhibhootam ksharo bhaavah purushas chaa ‘dhidaivatam
adhiyajno ‘ham evaa ‘tra dehe dehabhrtaam vara
Text in English:
Adhibuta pertains to the perishable Nature and Purusha is the Adhidaivata; I alone am the Adhiyajna here in this body, O best of the embodied.
THE SUMMARY OF THE COMMENTARY BY SHANKARA:
Adhibutam pertains to all beings, man and the beast. It is perishable. They take a birth. That which pervades all is Purushan. Or the Hiranyagarba which inheres in the middle of the sun, who is behind the action of all beings; this is Adhidaivam. The goal of all sacrifices is Adhiyagnan. He is Vishnu. Taitiriya Upanishad says all sacrifices is Vishnu. I am that Vishnu. Since all sacrifices are performed by the help of the body, sacrifice cannot be separated from the body. It can be said it inheres in the body.
THE SUMMARY OF THE COMMENTARY OF RAMANUJA:
Those who are after wealth must know Adhibutam. They inhere in the five elements like the sky. Change and destruction is their nature. Adhidaivam is Purushan. Indiran is such a Purushan. He is above persons like Prajapati. Those who are after wealth should have a goal to attain to this Purushahood. I am Adhiyajnam. Indiran and others are worshiped through sacrifices. But they all are my body. I am worshiped through sacrifices made in favour of them.
THE SUMMARY OF THE COMMENTARY OF MADHVA:
Adhibutam is perishable and useful to Jivan or Persons. In the term Ksharabhava, bhava is perishable. Prakriti or Nature is Avyaktam. It is like Ahibutam and perishable. Adhidaivam is the Purushan. Purushan is in the body. This indicates Jivan or essence of life. He is Brahman. He leads all the Devas or the Celestial Beings. In this body, I am Adhyajnan. I enjoy all through the body. The term athra indicates God separately from all bodies. Brahman indicates the Lord alone.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The five elements—ether, air, fire, water and earth—are designated as Adhibhuta. In contrast with Brahman which is aksharam (imperishable) the elements are ksharam or perishable. The physical structure of the Reality is made up of the elements. Though insentient by themselves, they get their distinctiveness by their clinging to the sentient. This fact may be clarified through two examples. In articulation, the part that the consonant plays clinging to the vowel, is analogous to the function of the elements. Again the origin and function of the skin of a fruit are analogous to the part that the elements play in the phenomenon. It is with the aid of the elements the sentient is revealing itself. Beings require the elements for their embodiment.
Purusha is a word pregnant with etymological meaning. Literally it means ‘that by which everything is filled.’ It comes from the root pri, to fill. Again, Pura or Puri means a city or fortress. He who resides in a Puri is Purusha. He is designated as Adhidaivata. He is Hiranyagarbha or the Cosmic Soul whose rays are the individual souls. All the beings in the universe are controlled by Hiranyagarba.
Vishnu is identified with Yajna (sacrifice). His designation as Adhiyajna is therefore appropriate. Divinity is present wherever an act of self-sacrifice takes place. A sacrifice is at its zenith when the Jivatman dissolves himself completely in the Paramatman. With the surrender of his individuality, his individual consciousness gives place to Cosmic Consciousness which is the Paramatman. Therefore, wherever Adhiyagna takes place, the presence of the Lord is patent there. Further, Divinity is also patent in perfected beings. This is due to their having made oblation of themselves in the sacrificial fire of Iswara. This is the sublimest act that a human can ever do.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
He is a truly holy man whose body and mind are entirely dedicated to the Lord. He has no occupation other than being absorbed all the while in God. Knowing that the Lord is residing in the hearts of all, he devotedly serves them to the best of his ability. And these are the sure indications of a true man of God.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Here again the author wishes us to possess an integral knowledge of the Divine in all the aspects. There is the immutable Divine. Brahman; there is the Personal God Isvara, the object of all devotion; there is the Cosmic Self, Hiranyagarbha the presiding deity of the cosmos; and the jiva (being) the individual soul which partakes of the higher nature of the Divine and prakrity the mutable nature. See VII, 4 ff.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Adhibhutam (knowledge of the elements); is the perishable nature; the changing universe of the five elements with all its objects; all the material objects, everything that has birth; the changing world of names and forms.
Adhidaivam; purusha literally means ‘that by which everything is filled’ (pur ‘to fill’). It may also mean ‘that which lies in this body’ It is Hiranyagarbha or the universal soul or the sustainer from whom all living beings derive their sense-power. It is the witnessing consciousness.
Adhiyajna: Consciousness; the presiding deity of sacrifice. The Lord of all works and sacrifice is Vishnu. Lord Vishnu identifies Himself with all sacrificial acts. “Yajna is verily Vishnu,” says the Taittiria Samhita of the Veda. Lord Krishna says, “I am the presiding deity in all acts of sacrifice in the body.” All sacrifices are done by the body and so it may be said that they rest in the body.
Comments of the blogger:
Five elements are called Adhibuta. There could not be any doubt in this regard. The air, ether (sky), water, earth, and fire are the five elements. This universe as also our bodies are constituted of these five elements. Andam and Pindam are two Tamil words. Andam means the elemental universe. Pindam is the body of Man. So the saying in Tamil goes, what is in the Andam(the universe) is in this pindam (human and animal bodies). We are the conglomeration of these five elements. The Universe also is constituted of these five elements. And the very nature of the Adhibuta or Nature or the Universe and our bodies are essentially perishable in nature.
Next, the Lord says Purusha is the Adhidaivata; Purusha is what fills this body and all. literally, it is said to be ‘that by which everything is filled’ according to Swami Sidbhavandar. Shakara says Hiranyagarbha resides in the centre of the sun. It is the Cosmic Soul. Swami Sivananda says Hiranyagarbh is the witnessing consciousness. Prachna Upanishad says that when God wanted to create the Universe, he went in to meditation. And out of this meditation came the Sky and Prana or (power that gives motion to the universe and Man and the Beast. Having created the Sky and Prana the Lord thought these two would create the world for Him. If we take an atom, which is the irreducible matter, and magnify the atom into the size of a circus tent, then all the proton, neutron and everything including the particles, will assume a small mustard seed and the rest of the circus tent is vacuum or the sky! So from this analogy, we can assume God created, according to ‘Prachna Upanishad’ everything here is filled with the Sky and Power or Shakti or Prana. And this Prana, says the Prachna Upanishad, has an external body and that body is the Sun. Shankara says the Hiranyagarbha or the Universal Soul is there in the centre of the Sun! How true! And the individual rays are human beings who derive their Prana or Shakti or Power from the Sun! Swami Sivananda says Hiranyagarbha is the universal soul from which the living beings derive their sustenance. Swami Sidbhavananda says Adhidaivata is the Hiranyagarbha or the Cosmic Soul whose rays are the individual souls! Once again, Shankara says Hiranyagarbha is in the centre of the Sun. According to Prachna Upanishad, the God created the Sky and Prana or Shakti or Power and the external form of Prana is the Sun! And in the centre of the sun is the Hiranyagarbha!
So all mean one and the same thing. But for prana coming from the sun beings cannot have their sustenance. I think this is why God is said to be indulging in three ineffable acts of Creation, Sustinance, and Destruction. Destruction need not necessarily mean the Kalki avatar and the ultimate and wholesale destruction or withdrawal of the Universe. The act of destruction, like the acts of creation and sustaining, happens constantly. In our body, millions of cells are destroyed every microsecond and millions of new cells are created. This is called the growth of the body. Only in the case of the baby and the youths, a greater number of cells are born while a fewer number of cells die. And when we get old, a greater number of cells are destroyed and fewer number of cells are created. This process is called aging.
Then Sri Krishna says in this verse, “I alone am the Adhiyajna here in this body. Swami Sidbhavananda says “Vishnu is identified with ‘Yajna’. His designation as Adhiyajna is therefore appropriate.” Swami Sivananda says Adhiyajna is consciousness; the presiding deity of sacrifice.”
Lord Vishnu says, “I am the eater of sacrifices!” He, Lord Vishnu, is the presiding deity of all sacrifices. Our dedication of our daily meal to the Lord and then partake of it as Prasada or the remainder of the sacrifice is itself is a sacrifice. Giving alms is a sacrifice. Giving your household maid a hefty Divali bonus is an act of sacrifice. Giving your time for your spouse and children is an act of sacrifice. Desisting from firecrackers on the Day and afterward Divali is an act of sacrifice. For it pollutes the air causes asthmatic patients breathlessness. Besides the high decibel noise put the fear of God in our domestic animal as well as the free-ranging animals like stray dogs. giving education for a poor child is an ultimate act of sacrifice. And Lord Vishnu is an eater of sacrifice. In the Vedic Sacrifices, Agni is the principal deity. And when the external sacrifices got internalized Vishnu becomes the eater and Lord of all our small and big acts of sacrifices. Now read this part of the present verse: “I alone am he Adhiyajna here in this body” becomes crystal clear, no?
Arjuna is called the best of the embodied. He is a kshathriya or belonging to the warrior class. He opted to eat beggar’s bread even instead of having to kill his own kith and kin and Acharyas or Teachers. But when the Lord opened his eyes as to the swadharma or one’s ordained duty and encouraged him to give battle to the Kauravas, he has accepted. That in itself is a sacrifice.
My good readers, performing our ordained duty in a scintillating manner is an offer of sacrifice to the eater of all internal sacrifices, Lord Vishnu.
So Adhiyagna lies here in this body only. Not in sacrifices done outside the body. Only internalized sacrifices are taken into account. External sacrifices, for example, for a son, still has its value. But it is not sacrifice in the strict Upanishadic sense of the word.
{Dear readers, a death in the extended family prevented me from postings in my six blogs yesterday. The own sister of my mother died. And I had to leave my beloved laptop for a day. Only My Resourceful Aunt got posted, because I have already written the novel in full. I write seven blogs; they are as follows:
kaviriyinselvan.blogspot.com
karikalanandthetimemachin.blogspot.com
raguramramayanaforchildren.blogspot
myreourcefulaunt.blogspot.com
theholygitaintamil.blogspot.com
panjakini.blogspot.com
Please visit these blogs to strengthen my hands}
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