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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Yajnavalkya Kanda. Adhyaya 3, Brahmana 1. Yajnavalkya at Janaka's sacrifice: the eight seizers

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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.

॥ 3.1.4 ॥

Beyond day and night

याज्ञवल्क्येति होवाच यदिदं सर्वमहोरात्राभ्यामाप्तं सर्वमहोरात्राभ्यामभिपन्नं केन यजमानोऽहोरात्रयोराप्तिमतिमुच्यत इति । अध्वर्युणर्त्विजा चक्षुषादित्येन । चक्षुर्वै यज्ञस्याध्वर्युः । तद्यदिदं चक्षुः सोऽसावादित्यः । सोऽध्वर्युः सा मुक्तिः सातिमुक्तिः ॥
In transliteration
yājñavalkyeti hovāca yadidaṃ sarvamahorātrābhyāmāptaṃ sarvamahorātrābhyāmabhipannaṃ kena yajamāno'horātrayorāptimatimucyata iti | adhvaryuṇartvijā cakṣuṣādityena | cakṣurvai yajñasyādhvaryuḥ | tadyadidaṃ cakṣuḥ so'sāvādityaḥ | so'dhvaryuḥ sā muktiḥ sātimuktiḥ ||

In English

"Yajnavalkya," he said, "since all this is overtaken by day and night, all of it swayed by day and night, by what means is the sacrificer freed from the reach of day and night?" "By the Adhvaryu priest, by the sun, by the eye. For the eye is the Adhvaryu of the sacrifice. This eye is that sun; it is the Adhvaryu; it is the freeing, it is the full release."

In plain words

Asvala asks: since the cycle of day and night overtakes and rules everything, how does the sacrificer get beyond it? Yajnavalkya answers: through the Adhvaryu priest, who is the sun, who is the eye. The sacrificer's eye is identified with the sun that is the Adhvaryu, and that recognition is the liberation (mukti, atimukti).

In the commentaries

Sri SankaraAdvaita

Sankara explains that time as the alternation of day and night is a further form of bondage pressing on the sacrifice; identifying the eye with the sun, which presides over and transcends those alternations, frees the sacrificer from time's hold, and this is called release and full release.

Sri Sankara, Brhadaranyaka-bhasya 3.1.4 (via Madhavananda)