Mandukya Upanishad - Sri ‘M’

Part III

Shloka 3

Jaagrat sthaano baahish pragnya saptaanga ekona vimshati mukha sthoola bhukh vaishwanara prathama paada.

The first quarter of the four parts of that ‘Supreme Reality’, the Brahman, is the jaagrat sthaan. Its sphere of activity is the ‘waking state’ – jaagrata. That means all of us who are awake are functioning because of the first quarter of that ‘Supreme Being’. Without that, we will not be conscious of our waking-state. The very consciousness and recognition that ‘we are awake’ is the first quarter of that ‘Supreme Reality’, Brahman. The jaagrata is its sphere of activity. And what is the sphere of activity in the waking state? How do we recognize that we are awake? We recognize objects, we see things, we hear, we taste, we are in contact with the world. That is the jaagrat avasta – the state of wakefulness. So, the first quarter of That Supreme Brahman, that atman which we have described, is the ‘waking state’.

It functions in the waking-state of all human beings – the actualities of their every day experiences. And its function is ‘to recognize, to understand, to have knowledge of external objects’ – baahish pragnya.

This part of that ‘Supreme Being’ which causes the waking state and whose function is recognition of external objects, that ‘Supreme Being’ has saptaanga - ‘seven limbs’. Now this is a description of the Purusha – the ‘Supreme Being’ – as represented in the Agni Hotra. It is a visualization of that ‘Supreme Being’ as a Super person. It is a symbolic description of the Supreme Being as in the Chandogya Upanishad, ‘That, whose head is the heavens; whose eyes are the sun; whose’ praana or ‘life breath’ is the air; whose middle portion is the mind; whose bladder is the waters of the earth; whose two feet are the earth, whose mouth is the fire of the Agni Hotra.’ This is a symbolic representation and, relating to that symbol, the rishi says that It has ‘seven limbs’ – seven angaas – including fire, which is symbolized as the mouth of that ‘Supreme Being’.

(to be continued in January, 2007 issue)

© "Wisdom of the Rishis" by Sri ‘M’, published by The Satsang Foundation, 151, Jewellers Street, Bangalore 560 001. Part II of this article appeared in Splendour, November 2006 issue. Reprinted with permission.

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