Kena Upanisad: With the Commentary of Sankaracarya (Shankaracharya)

The present work of Madhusudana Sarasvati, the Gudhartha Dipika (an Annotation revealing the true import of the Gita) is probably the greatest of his many literary works. Though there are many classical commentaries on the Gita, this works stand next only to Sri Shankaracharya's commentary as regards clarity, depth, and originality.

This book is a valuable addition to our publications and is highly recommended to serious students of Indian philosophy and religion.

This new edition of the Kena Upanisad has been thoroughly revised by the author himself In the matter of printing, to facilitate things for the reader, more space is given between the translation of the text and the translation of the bhasya. In the references, where only the figures without the name of any book occur, they refer to the sloka of this particular Upanisad.

It gladdens our heart to publish the Kena Upanisad in the present series, soon after the release of the Isa Upanisad. This is the sixth Upanisad to appear sep- arately in the current series, taking each of them entirely from the author’s earlier two-volume edition, Eight Upanisads. Only two more, the Katha, and the Taittiriya, remain to come out,* the rest having already been published during the last one year and a half Like the Isa Upanisads, the Kena: also derives its name from the very first word (Kena) of the opening verse of this Upanisad. It is also called the Talavakaropanisad, as it forms a part of the Talavakara or Jaimini Brahmana.

Among the principal Upanisads, though it is one of the shorter ones, its spiritual significance is great, because Sri Sankaracarya considered it necessary to write two commentaries on this text, namely pada- bhasya and vakya-bhasya. In this edition, only the former has been translated. In the translation of the commentary, the words quoted from the text by the Acarya are given in italics. These are followed by commas and the English equivalents. Informative explanatory footnotes have been added wherever necessary.

In the Kena: Upanisad, we get the notion of the ultimate Reality as the origin, ground, and goal of all the manifold manifestation. It speaks of the Reality as the inner self behind all our conceptions and perceptions, after freeing It from all touch of relativity and finitude. It reveals the spiritual Reality as a given fact of experience—pratibodha viditam matam. It contains the illuminating story of Uma (Haimavati) imparting spiritual knowledge t0 the gods, who thought in a moment of self-conceit and self—forget— fulness that they were all-powerful. Their eyes were opened by right knowledge.

Finally this Upanisad lays great stress on the unique opportunity given to human birth in the spiritual evolution and unfoldment of the soul. Further, it emphatically declares that Self-realization, is to be had in this very life, and warns that, if we do not attain it here and now, ‘then there is great destruction’. Such is the immense value of this Upanisad. It is our privilege, we consider, to place this book in the hands of all earnest seekers of the Upanisadic thought who wish to benefit by its study.

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