Atma Bodha (The Knowledge of Spirit)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~3,580 words · 17 passages
Cite this work
- APAAdi Shankara. (n.d.). Atma Bodha (The Knowledge of Spirit). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adi-shankara/atma-bodha-the-knowledge-of-spirit
- MLAAdi Shankara. Atma Bodha (The Knowledge of Spirit). Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adi-shankara/atma-bodha-the-knowledge-of-spirit.
- ChicagoAdi Shankara. Atma Bodha (The Knowledge of Spirit). Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adi-shankara/atma-bodha-the-knowledge-of-spirit.
Reference to the reproduced edition. SigPhi is the digital reproduction, not the publisher. Year, publisher and translator are included when recorded; “n.d.” means the year is unknown. Responsibility for an introduction or note depends on the passage cited.
What it is about
Atma Bodha, the knowledge of the self.
Context and history
Sixty-eight verses attributed to Shankara (8th c.), the shortest introduction to Advaita Vedanta: the individual soul and Brahman are one, and the difference is ignorance. For Indian thought Shankara is what Aquinas is for scholasticism — the systematiser who fixes the vocabulary of everyone who follows. English translation by J. Taylor, M.D. (Bombay, 1812) from the Sanskrit, in the 1872 reprint; in the public domain. It is two centuries old and it shows. The original is Sanskrit and citation should follow the original, but of this work only the translation is here.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
25. As spirit is incapable of change, and intellect is not comprehended in understanding, the soul, being conversant with impure principles, ignorantly says, Iam, andis thus deluded?8, 26. Conceiving that he is soul, man becomes afraid, like a person who mistakes a piece of cord fora serpent; but his fear is removed by the perception that he is not soul, but the universal spirit?®. 18. I almost despair of rendering this passage perfectly intelligible but the following appears to be its meaning:—Spirit is incapable of change or mutation, and pure intellect does not, like understanding, display active qualities; accordingly, the vital soul being acquainted with perceptions only which arise from the active principles of things, and not discerning the nature of Spirit inits original, quescent state, ~—conceives that itsclf acts and exists as a separate individual; and from this ignorance proceeds the illusion of oxternal beings. The active principles of nature are called impure, because action is supposed to be the cause of those passions and affections which defile the soul. 19, Com.—Man attributes to himself the nature of soul, and thus believing in‘the existence of another being, he is filled with fear; but when he is instructed in the doctrines of the Shastras by his teacher, and beholds by the eye of reason, that he is not soul, but the indivisible, living, happy, one Spirit, his fear is removed; he is delivered from pain, and enjoys supreme bliss. —It may be proper to remark, that Atma or Spirit, primarily signifies Being, Which, according to this system, is without qualities: Jiva or Soul, is Being in a sentient state; that which feols, acts, and enjoys. Perhaps it would have been more correct to have translated Atma, Being; and Jiva, Sensation. See Appendix, KNOWLEDGE OF SPIRIT. lll 27. Spirit causes the understanding, organs of sense, $c, to appear, as a lamp renders objects visible; but spirit is not made manifest by these gross natures. 28.…