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ISAVASYA UPANISHAD<br />
M. M. NINAN<br />
emphasis is not on Brahman the Absolute, whose complete<br />
perfection does not admit of any change or evolution and cannot<br />
have any character or properties, but on the personal form of God<br />
as Isa, omniscient and omnipotent who is the manifested form of<br />
that indefinable. Svetasvatara <strong>Upanishad</strong> is of much later period<br />
and is essentially a Saivite <strong>Upanishad</strong>.<br />
Svetasvatara <strong>Upanishad</strong> I:8 The Lord, Isa, supports all this<br />
which has been joined together—the perishable and the<br />
imperishable, the manifest, the effect and the unmanifest, the<br />
cause. The same Lord, the Supreme Self, devoid of Lordship,<br />
becomes bound because of assuming the attitude of the enjoyer.<br />
The jiva again realizes the Supreme Self and is freed from all<br />
fetters.<br />
saṃyuktam etat kṣaram akṣaraṃ ca<br />
vyaktāvyaktaṃ bʰarate viśvam īśaḥ /<br />
anīśaś cātmā badʰyate bʰoktr̥bʰāvāj<br />
jñātvā devaṃ mucyate sarvapāśaiḥ //<br />
The interesting aspect of this particular verse is that it speaks of Isa,<br />
laying aside his Lordship and binding himself to the form of a man<br />
and it is this that leads to freedom from bondage. There are other<br />
variations of translations on the basis of Advaita which tries to avoid<br />
this interpretation.<br />
7
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