Posted:
i would like to discuss about the sentence mentioned by dadhichi in today's episode
" TATH THVAM ASI"
this on of the four mahavakyas as classified by Shankara bhagavadpada.
each of this mahavakyas come from four upanishads which in turn are from four vedas respectively.
It is the third one from the list and it comes from Chandogya Upanishad which is itself part of Samaveda.
this line appears as a part of dialogue between uddalaka and his son svetaketu. if i have time
will post the whole conversation and the commentary on it.
as expected various acharyas have written different interpretation of this mahavakya and their interpretations are organized according to their philosophical disposition.
that is the beauty of upanishads you can spend whole life researching them but still you cannot exhaust the interpretations from them,
so lets see the interpretations according to the philosphy:
Advaitha Vedantha: when you take the literal meaning of the verse it means
Tath: that
Tvam: you
asi: are
when we we make sense of it, it comes out " you are that"
here that represents which is not you, which is nothing but "Brahman" so it comes out Brahman
which is the ultimate reality is you,.
you represents jiva or jivatma.
meaning of this is there is no dual existence of atma and paramatma they are one and the same
which is the advaitic thought.
from this point advaitha proceeds to describe the nature of the self, this world its perception etc etc
i like this version the most as it is literal translation of mahavakya with no additional add ins of course this is my opinion.
depending of the response and interest of the other forum members i will add other interpretations.
hopefully you all will like it. if there are any mistakes please mention them.
regards
Krishna
Debate Mansion
