Self Discovery. Sri Sankara Acarya
SELF DISCOVERY
Svātmanirūpaṇam (Part 1)
Śrī Śaṅkara Ācārya
Translated by
WARWICK & ELENA JESSUP
© Warwick and Elena Jessup 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, The School of Philosophy and Economic Science.
This translation first published in 2020 by
The School of Philosophy and Economic Science
11 Mandeville Place, London W1U 3AJ
ISBN: 978-0-9955172-9-5
Printed on FSC accredited paper
The SanskritpadaTM, SCompTM and Flags2TM Sanskrit fonts used in this book are designed and distributed by David Hockley, Oxford (tel. 01844 339944);
© 2003 David Hockley.
Cover painting © Brian Wright
Cover design by ML Design
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Norfolk NR21 8NL
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom
by Short Run Press, Exeter
DEDICATED TO
HIS HOLINESS SHRI SHANTANANDA SARASWATI MAHARAJ JI
The cover painting by Brian Wright illustrates verse 7:
'One who has removed the five veils does not experience difficulties. Therefore, the wise always detach from the five veils.'
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to acknowledge all who helped so generously with the production of this translation. Thanks are especially due to Mrs Annick Hardaker for typing the text and proof reading it, to Dr Stephen Thompson for resolving some questions, to Mrs Helen Harper, Miss Sejal Gir and Messrs Paul Douglas, Howard Schott, Richard Garry and Jeremy Sinclair for their comments, and finally to Mr Donald Lambie for guiding the whole project. Any errors which do appear are the sole responsibility of the translators.
The translations of Sri Swami Jnanananda Bharati and Dr H Ramamoorthy and Nome were also consulted.
INTRODUCTION
Here follows a translation into English of the first of three sections of Svātmanirūpaṇam, one of the longer treatises or ‘prakaraṇagrantha’ attributed to the philosopher Śrī Śaṅkara Ācārya, comprising one hundred and fiſty-four verses. This section deals with six topics, culminating in the realisation ‘Only non-duality is real’:
1.Knowing ‘I am’ (verses 1 to 6)
2.The five veils (verses 7 to 15)
3.Self cannot be experienced as an object (verses 16 to 20)
4.Reflection (verses 21 to 24)
5.Investigation of ‘You are That’ (verses 25 to 38)
6.The Veda and the Teacher (verses 39 to 51)
The title of the work, ‘Svātmanirūpaṇam’, can be interpreted in several ways. For this first section of the text, ‘Self Discovery’ has been chosen as a translation in view of the two most prominent themes, the removing of the five veils to discover the true Self and the revealing of the true Self through the sentence ‘You are That’.
Several versions of the Sanskrit text have been consulted, and the best readings adopted. The Sanskrit verses have been analysed so that those readers who wish to access the original may do so.
NOTE ON PAGE DESIGN
In order to help with the understanding of the Sanskrit text, the page layout for each verse is as follows:
1English translation of the verse.
2Verse in Sanskrit, written in Devanāgarī script.
3Transliteration of the Sanskrit verse retaining the effects of sandhi between words, for ease of pronunciation.
4Word for word translation under the transliteration, to help the understanding of the Sanskrit words in context. These translations include the meaning of the endings of the Sanskrit words.
5List of all the Sanskrit words without their endings, to aid dictionary reference. These words are in the order of the Sanskrit verse, and each half verse stage is marked with a semi-colon.
Word list is presented as follows:
•the stem word is given for nouns
•pronouns are listed fully as they appear in the verse, with the stem word in brackets
•the root (dhātu) is given for verbs
•repeated words are listed in order without repetition of meaning
SELF DISCOVERY
KNOWING ‘I AM’
1
I bow to the feet of the divine teacher, which pulverise the unbearable world of duality1, subduing the demon of false2 perception.
śrī divine, guru teacher, caraṇa foot, dvandva pair, √vand to venerate, bow to, aham (asmad) I, mathita pulverised, duḥsaha unbearable, dvandva duality;
bhrānti false perception, graha demon, upaśānti cessation, pāṃsumaya consisting of dust, yasya (yad) of which, bhasita ashes, ā√tan to spread.
1 The Sanskrit word for ‘duality’ here is ‘dvandva’ oſten referring to pairs of opposites such as pleasure and pain. ‘Dvandva’ is also used in this line in the sense of ‘the two feet’ of the teacher which are venerated. This image indicates the humility needed on the spiritual path.
2 The Sanskrit word here is ‘bhrānti’, literally ‘wandering’, and coming to mean ‘perplexity, confusion, doubt, error, false opinion’, referring to false perception, here the perception of duality, particularly the duality of subject and object.
2
I bow to that best of teachers, who is compassionate and destroys all doubts, whose feet point out the non-dual experience3 known as ‘That’4.