Madhu Kanda. Adhyaya 2, Brahmana 5. The honey: the Self shining in all beings
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Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.
Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.
Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.
The hub and the spokes
This Self is the overlord of all beings, the king of all beings. Just as all the spokes are set fast in the nave and in the felly of a chariot wheel, so in this Self are set fast all beings, all gods, all worlds, all breaths, all these selves.
This Self is the supreme ruler and king of all beings. As every spoke of a chariot wheel is fixed at both ends, in the hub (nabhi) and in the rim (nemi), so all beings, all gods, all worlds, all vital breaths, and all the individual selves are fixed in this one Self. The fourteen honey-pairings are gathered here into a single image of dependence on the Self.
Where the schools meet, and where they part
The whole order of beings, the gods, the worlds, the vital breaths, and the individual selves, does not stand on its own but rests on one Self, as spokes rest in the single hub and felly of a wheel.
That one Self is the ruler and king of all beings, the sovereign center on which everything is fixed and from which nothing falls away.
This Self is immortal, it is the Brahman, the all, and it is the saving knowledge that the madhu-vidya means to give.
The one Self in the hub is the Atman that the knower realizes as his very own: not your self or my self but the Self that is all beings. The spokes do not merely depend on the hub, they have no separate being apart from it; the manifold of gods, worlds, breaths, and selves is name and form resting on the single homogeneous mass of pure intelligence. To know this Self as oneself is to be the lord and king of all, devoid of inside or outside, entire. The center and the rim are not two reals held together; the rim is the center seen as many.
Madhva reads the Self in the hub as the supreme Lord Vishnu, the indweller distinct from every self he sustains. On his reading the wheel figures dominion, not identity: as the spokes are held by the nave within and the felly without, so Vishnu dwells in the jivas and supports them within and without, while remaining other than them. He alone is king and supreme Lord, king because he controls and protects, ruler because he is superior and the indweller of all. By the bimba-pratibimba relation that runs through his system, the jivas are fixed in him as utterly dependent reflections of their original, never his equals; they are real and they are held, but they do not collapse into the hub.
On Ramanuja's settled doctrine the one Self is Brahman as the inner controller (antaryamin), and all beings, gods, worlds, breaths, and selves, are his body (sarira), real and distinct yet never separable from him (aprthak-siddhi). The spokes are held in the hub as modes are held in their substance: they have their whole being from him, are ruled and pervaded by him, and cannot stand apart, yet they are not collapsed into him. He is lord and king as the soul of the cosmic body, the self of all selves, on whom each finite self rests and to whom, in release, it draws near in likeness and communion, not as an equal and not as one identity.
When all beings are fixed in the one Self as spokes in a hub, are the spokes ultimately nothing apart from the hub, or are they a real many, fixed in and ruled by a Lord who is other than them? Advaita reads the rim as the center seen as many, so the dependence is finally non-difference. Dvaita reads a genuine many held as dependent reflections of the Lord who is the hub. Visistadvaita reads a genuine many held as the real body of the inner controller, inseparable yet never identical. The single image carries all three, and the contradiction is kept open.
Why does the mantra call the Self both ruler (adhipati) and king (rajan), on Sankara's reading?
- It is mere poetic repetition with no added sense
- The two words name two different Selves
- King states sovereignty; ruler is added for total dominion, that nothing falls outside it
- Ruler means the body and king means the soul
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How does Madhva read the spokes-in-the-hub image of 2.5.15?
- The hub and spokes are equally unreal
- Each soul becomes the Lord at liberation
- The spokes are the hub, seen as many through ignorance
- Vishnu, the indweller, supports the dependent jivas within and without, distinct from them and never their equal
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Spokes in the hub of a wheel
Look at a chariot wheel. Every spoke runs out to the rim, but every spoke is set, at its other end, into the one nave at the center. Pull the nave and the whole wheel comes with it. This Self, says the Upanisad, is the lord and king of all beings, and all beings, all the gods, all the worlds, all the breaths, all these selves, are fixed in it as the spokes are fixed in the hub and the felly. One center, and the whole manifold turns on it.
All the schools stand at the same wheel and call it sovereign. None of them lets the spokes float free; none of them denies the single hub. The honey doctrine has spent fourteen mantras showing earth and water, sun and moon, body and breath, each made of the other and resting on the other, and now it gathers them all into this one. Where the readings part is not whether the hub rules, but what the spokes finally are.
For Sankara the rim is the hub seen as many. The one Self is the Atman the knower wakes to as his very own, not your self or mine but the Self that is all beings, a single seamless mass of awareness with no inside and no outside. The spokes are name and form on that one center; to know it as oneself is to be lord and king of all, because there is, at the last, no separate spoke to count.
For Madhva the hub is the Lord, Vishnu, who dwells in the spokes and holds them within and without, and the spokes are real and many and never become the hub. On his reading the wheel figures dominion: as the nave and felly support the spokes, so the Lord supports the jivas, sustaining and ruling them while remaining other than them. By the bimba-pratibimba relation that runs through his system, they are fixed in him as dependent reflections of an original they can resemble but never equal. Ramanuja's school reads the spokes as the very body of the inner controller, each finite self a real mode held in him inseparably, ruled and pervaded and yet itself, drawing near in release as a body to its soul, not dissolving into him.
So we keep the one wheel and all of its readings. One Self at the center, that all confess. But whether the spokes are the hub showing itself as many, or dependent reflections of a Lord who is other than them, or the real body of an indweller they cannot be parted from, the single image will not decide for us, and we leave it turning, open.
One hub, and the whole manifold fixed in it: but are the spokes finally the hub seen as many, dependent reflections of a Lord who is other than them, or a real many held in him as his body? The image carries all three, and we leave it open.
When you picture all things resting on the one Self, do you picture them melting into it, or held in it, each still itself?
In the commentaries
This is the crux, and Sankara reads it as the plain statement of the Self already disclosed: it is the ruler (adhipati) and the king (rajan) of all beings. He marks why both words stand. One may be a king merely by living in royal state, yet not be the ruler of all; so king is said for sovereignty and ruler is added for actual, total dominion, that nothing falls outside it. Then the wheel: as all the spokes are set into the nave within and the felly without, so all beings, all gods, all worlds, all the vital breaths, and all these selves are fixed in this one Self, held at the single center on which the whole manifold turns. For the knower who has realized his identity with this Self, the universe rests in him as in its hub, and that Self is without inside or outside, entire, a homogeneous mass of pure intelligence.