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precedes it, but rather carries it with itself; the text's right interpretation from among all the interpretations thus far offered, it bears with it the memory of those other interpretations which are only partially wrong and which, in other circumstances, might be shown to apply more aptly than does the siddhanta of this context.
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By working one's way through these several positions one learns not only the right reading of the particular text, but also the manner of skillful reading and thinking, and one is thus enabled to make better judgments about the meaning of other upanisadic texts too. When the reader undertakes the reading of a series of adhikaranas, she or he first masters each by itself, one at a time, worked through as a distinct problem. The reader is thereby enabled to engage in two further projects: a "vertical" and ever-deeper reading which pursues further elaborations of the problem in its commentarially elaborated formevery solution raises new questionsand a "lateral" reading marked by that progress in understanding that is achieved by reading each adhikarana in light of those before and after it. In sections III.2.c and III.3.a below I will consider these two elaborations respectively. |
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Let us now consider in detail a single adhikarana, UMS I.1.12-19, which focuses on Taittiriya 2.1-6a, already introduced above. This is an important adhikarana, for three reasons. First, it asks an important question about Brahman: is Brahman the fifth sheath, "consisting of bliss," or it is beyond that sheath? Second, it is the first in a long series of adhikaranas implementing the view, expounded in UMS I.1.5-11, that all soteriologically significant upanisadic texts speak of Brahman. Third, it is particularly interesting because in it an apparently fully achieved siddhanta is belatedly judged to be only a provisional position, an uttarapaksa. |
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I proceed by examining the following: first, Badarayana's regularization of the upanisad's exposition of the five sheaths; second, Sankara's adjustments in Badarayana's account; third, several ways in which the later commentators continue and develop the earlier discussions. |
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