Brahma Sutras - Swami Krishnananda

1 Brahma SUTRASBRAHMA SUTRASTEXT, WORD-TO-WORD MEANING, TRASLATIONAND COMMENTARY BYSri Swami SivanandaPublished byTHE DIVINE LIFE SHIVANANDANAGAR 249 192 Tehri-Garhwal, Uttarakhand, Himalayas, IndiaPrice ] 2008 [ Rs. 230/-Published by Swami Vimalananda for The Divine Life Society,Shivanandanagar, and printed by him at the Yoga Vedanta ForestAcademy Press, Shivanandanagar, Distt. Tehri-Garhwal,Uttarakhand, Himalayas, IndiaFirst Edition:1949 Second Edition:1977 Third Edition:1999 Fourth Edition.

2 2008[ 1,000 Copies ] The Divine Life Trust SocietyISBN 81-7052-151-3ES22 TOSri Vyasa BhagavanSri Jagadguru SankaracharyaandSrimad Appayya DikshitarSRI Swami SIVANANDABorn on the 8th Sep tem ber, 1887, in the il lus tri ous fam ilyof Sage Appayya Dikshitar and sev eral other re nowned saintsand sa vants, Sri Swami Sivananda had a nat u ral flair for a lifede voted to the study and prac tice of Vedanta. Added to thiswas an in born ea ger ness to serve all and an in nate feel ing ofunity with all pas sion for ser vice drew him to the med i cal ca reer;and soon he grav i tated to where he thought that his ser vicewas most needed.

3 Ma laya claimed him. He had ear lier beened it ing a health jour nal and wrote ex ten sively on health prob -lems. He dis cov ered that peo ple needed right knowl edge mostof all; dis sem i na tion of that knowl edge he es poused as his own was di vine dis pen sa tion and the bless ing of God uponman kind that the doc tor of body and mind re nounced his ca reer and took to a life of re nun ci a tion to qual ify for min is ter ing to thesoul of man. He set tled down at Rishikesh in 1924, prac tisedin tense aus teri ties and shone as a great Yogi, saint, sage 1932 Swami Sivananda started the 1936 was born The Di vine Life So ci ety.

4 In 1948 theYoga-Vedanta For est Acad emy was or gan ised. Dis sem i na tionof spir i tual knowl edge and train ing of peo ple in Yoga andVedanta were their aim and ob ject. In 1950 Swamiji un der tooka light ning tour of In dia and Cey lon. In 1953 Swamiji con veneda World Par lia ment of Re li gions . Swamiji is the au thor of over300 vol umes and has dis ci ples all over the world, be long ing toall na tion al i ties, re li gions and creeds. To read Swamiji s worksis to drink at the Foun tain of Wis dom Su preme.

5 On 14th July,1963 Swamiji entered Mahasamadhi.(7)PREFACEIt need not be over-emphasised that the Bhrahma Sutras , or theNyaya-Prasthana of the triad of In dian Philo soph i cal trea tises holdsu preme sway over the later ra tio nal is tic and scho las tic de vel op -ments. Right from the mighty brain of Sankara down to the mas ter-in -tel lects like Sriharsha, Chitsukha and Madhusudana, the mainpo lem ics have been oc cu pied with the task of es tab lish ing the doc -trine of ab so lute Mo nism and re fut ing the views con trary to it, by ap -peal to logic as well as au thor ity alike, which find their seeds al readysown in the Brahma Sutras .

6 The founder of a new re li gious and philo -soph i cal school had sim ply to write a new com men tary on the Brahma Sutras so that his view may be ac cepted by the mass of peo ple. Suchis the au thor ity of the Brahma Sutras , the work of men tar ies there have been many on the Brahma Sutras ,but ei ther they are too short and in suf fi cient to be use ful for a com pre -hen sive study of the Sutras , or are ex tremely tough and ab struse tobe uti lized by men of or di nary un der stand ing. This work of SwamiSivananda is of a unique type in it self, un ri valled by any other.

7 Thiscom men tary is nei ther too short to be use less, nor too ver bose to beun in tel li gi ble, but fol lows a via me dia course, use ful to one and all,mainly the spir i tual as pi rants, who want thought, not mere has got his own in im i ta ble way of writ ing, which is aboon to the in quis i tive stu dent on the spir i tual path. All real as pi rantsaf ter Truth should pos sess this book, for it is a guide-light that is ca pa -ble of steer ing them across the sea of ig no rance and has left noth ing un said that may be use ful to the stu dent of the Brahma Sutras , and in ad di tion has given use ful in for ma tionwhich will not be found in other notes and com men tar ies.

8 The di vi sion of each Pada into the rel e vant Adhikaranas mark ing at the same timethe num ber of Sutras they con tain, the sub ject mat ter they treat of,and the ac com pa ni ment of each Su tra by the se rial num ber from thevery be gin ning is for the use and guid ance of the stu dent. An elab o -rate in tro duc tion pre cedes the work in ad di tion to a short in tro duc tionand a sum mary of the dif fer ent Adhikaranas pre ced ing each are all a boon to the stu dent of the Brahma Sutras for which the in com pa ra ble Swamiji has to be eulo gised.

9 Each Su tra also con tainsa word-by-word mean ing and a run ning trans la need not be said than that the pro duc tion is a mar vel ousone. Swamiji has com pleted his an no ta tions on the Prasthanatrayawith his Brahma Sutras . His writ ings are too fa mous to ne ces si tatefur ther in tro duc text of the Brahma Sutras has been in cluded herein to en -able the read ers to do Svadhyaya and get them by heart for pur poseof med i ta tion. THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY(8)lr Jw `mZ_ ~ mZ X na_gwIX Ho$db kmZ_y{V mVrV JJZg e V d_ `m{Xb `_ &EH $ {Z ` {d_b_Mb gd Yrgm{j^yV ^mdmVrV { JwUa{hV gX Jw V Z_m{_ &&1 &&I pros trate my self be fore that Guru, the Ex is tence, de void of thethree Gunas, be yond com pre hen sion, the wit ness of all men tal func -tions, change less and pure, one and eter nal, tran scend ing the pairsof op po sites, ex pan sive like the sky, reach able through the sen tences like Thou art That.}}}}}}}}

10 The Mass of Ab so lute Wis h[a `mZ_ ` e g_wnmgVo {ed B{V ~ o{V doXmp VZmo~m m ~w B{V _mUnQ> H$V}{V Z `m{`H$ &Ah { `W O H$_}{V _r_m gH$ @` dmo {dXYmVw dmp N>V\$b bmo `ZmWmo h[ &&2 &&He whom the Saivas wor ship as Siva; the Vedantins as the Ab -so lute (Brah man); the Buddhists as Lord Bud dha; the lo gi cians, theex perts in the the ory of knowl edge, as the Cre ator; those fol low ing the teach ings of Jaina as the Ar hat and the rit u al ists as the Sac ri fice; maythat Hari, the Lord of the three worlds, give you the de sired ob ject.]]}}}}}}}