Bhashya
तत्र पण्डितंमन्याः केचित् स्वचित्तवशात् सर्वं प्रमाणमितरेतरविरुद्धं मन्यन्ते, तथा प्रत्यक्षादिविरोधमपि चोदयन्ति ब्रह्मैकत्वे— शब्दादयः किल श्रोत्रादिविषया भिन्नाः प्रत्यक्षत उपलभ्यन्ते ; ब्रह्मैकत्वं ब्रुवतां प्रत्यक्षविरोधः स्यात् ; तथा श्रोत्रादिभिः शब्दाद्युपलब्धारः कर्तारश्च धर्माधर्मयोः प्रतिशरीरं भिन्ना अनुमीयन्ते संसारिणः ; तत्र ब्रह्मैकत्वं ब्रुवतामनुमानविरोधश्च ; तथा च आगमविरोधं वदन्ति— ‘ग्रामकामो यजेत’ ‘पशुकामो यजेत’ ‘स्वर्ग-कामो यजेत ' इत्येवमादिवाक्येभ्यः ग्रामपशुस्वर्गादिकामाःतत्साधनाद्यनुष्ठातारश्च भिन्ना अवगम्यन्ते ।अत्रोच्यते-ते तु कुतर्कदूषितान्तःकरणाः ब्राह्मणादिवर्णापशदाः अ-नुकम्पनीयाः आगमार्थविच्छिन्नसंप्रदायबुद्धय इति ।क-थम् ? श्रोत्रादिद्वारैः शब्दादिभिः प्रत्यक्षत उपलभ्यमानैःब्रह्मण एकत्वं विरुध्यत इति वदन्तो वक्तव्याः-किं श-ब्दादीनां भेदेन आकाशैकत्वं विरुध्यत इति ; अथ नविरुध्यते, न तर्हि प्रत्यक्षविरोधः ।यच्चोक्तम्- प्रतिशरीरंशब्दाद्युपलब्धारः धर्माधर्मयोश्च कर्तारः भिन्ना अनुमीयन्ते,तथा च ब्रह्मैकत्वेऽनुमानविरोध इति ; भिन्नाः कैरनुमीयन्तइति प्रष्टव्याः ; अथ यदि ब्रूयुः- सर्वैरस्माभिरनुमानकुशलै-रिति-के यूयम् अनुमानकुशला इत्येवं पृष्टानां किमुत्तरम्;शरीरेन्द्रियमनआत्मसु च प्रत्येकमनुमानकौशलप्रत्याख्याने,शरीरेन्द्रियमनःसाधना आत्मानो वयमनुमानकुशलाः, अने-ककारकसाध्यत्वात्क्रियाणामिति चेत्-एवं तर्हि अनुमानकौ-शले भवतामनेकत्वप्रसङ्गः ; अनेककारकसाध्या हि क्रियेतिभवद्भिरैवाभ्युपगतम् ; तत्र अनुमानं च क्रिया ; साशरीरेन्द्रियमनआत्मसाधनैः कारकैः आत्मकर्तृका निर्वर्त्यतइत्येतत्प्रतिज्ञातम् ; तत्र वयमनुमानकुशला इत्येवं वदद्भिः-शरीरेन्द्रियमनःसाधना आत्मानः प्रत्येकं वयमनेके- इत्यभ्युपगतं स्यात् ; अहो अनुमानकौशलं दर्शितम् अपुच्छशृङ्गैः तार्किकबलीवर्दैः ।यो हि आत्मानमेव न जानाति, स कथं मूढः तद्गतं भेदमभेदं वा जानीयात् ; तत्र किमनुमिनोति ? केन वा लिङ्गेन ? न हि आत्मनः स्वतः भेदप्रतिपादकं किंचिल्लिङ्गमस्ति, येन लिङ्गेन आत्मभेदं साधयेत् ; यानि लिङ्गानि आत्मभेदसाधनाय नामरूपवन्ति उपन्यस्यन्ति, तानि नामरूपगतानि उपाधय एव आत्मनः- घटकरकापवरकभूच्छिद्राणीव आकाशस्य ; यदा आकाशस्य भेदलिङ्गं पश्यति, तदा आत्मनोऽपि भेदलिङ्गं लभेत सः ; न ह्यात्मनः परतो विशेषमभ्युपगच्छद्भिस्तार्किकशतैरपि भेदलिङ्गमात्मनो दर्शयितुं शक्यते ; स्वतस्तु दूरादपनीतमेव, अविषयत्वादात्मनः ।यद्यत् परः आत्मधर्मत्वेनाभ्युपगच्छति, तस्य तस्य नामरूपात्मकत्वाभ्युपगमात्, नामरूपाभ्यां च आत्मनोऽन्यत्वाभ्युपगमात्, 'आकाशो वै नाम नामरूपयोर्निर्वहिता ते यदन्तरा तद्ब्रह्म' इति श्रुतेः, 'नामरूपे व्याकरवाणि' इति च-, उत्पत्तिप्रलयात्मके हि नामरूपे, तद्विलक्षणं च ब्रह्म- अतः अनुमानस्यैवाविषयत्वात् कुतोऽनुमानविरोधः ।एतेनआगमविरोधः प्रत्युक्तः ।यदुक्तम्- ब्रह्मैकत्वे यस्मै उप-देशः, यस्य च उपदेशग्रहणफलम्, तदभावात् एकत्वोपदे-शानर्थक्यमिति- तदपि न, अनेककारकसाध्यत्वात्क्रि-याणां कश्चोद्यो भवति ; एकस्मिन्ब्रह्मणि निरुपाधिके नो-पदेशः, नोपदेष्टा, न च उपदेशग्रहणफलम् ; तस्मादुपनिषदांच आनर्थक्यमित्येतत् अभ्युपगतमेव ; अथ अनेककारकवि-षयानर्थक्यं चोद्यते- न, स्वतोऽभ्युपगमविरोधादात्मवादि-नाम् ।तस्मान् तार्किकचाटभटराजाप्रवेश्यम् अभयं दुर्ग-मिदम् अल्पबुद्ध्यगम्यं शास्त्रगुरुप्रसादरहितैश्च- 'कस्तंमदामदं देवं मदन्यो ज्ञातुमर्हति', 'देवैरत्रापि विचिकित्सितंपुरा', 'नैषा तर्केण मतिरापनेया'- वरप्रसादलभ्यत्वश्रु-तिस्मृतिवादेभ्यश्च ; 'तदेजति तन्नैजति तद्दूरे तद्वन्तिके'इत्यादिविरुद्धधर्मसमवायित्वप्रकाशमन्त्रवर्णेभ्यश्च ; गीतासुच 'मत्स्थानि सर्वभूतानि' इत्यादि ।तस्मात् परब्रह्मव्य-तिरेकेण संसारी नाम न अन्यत् वस्त्वन्तरमस्ति ।तस्मात्सुष्ठू-च्यते 'ब्रह्म वा इदमग्र आसीत् तदात्मानमेवावेत् अहंब्रह्मास्मीति'- 'नान्यदतोऽस्ति द्रष्टृ नान्यदतोऽस्ति श्रोतृ'इत्यादिश्रुतिशतेभ्यः ।तस्मात् परस्यैव ब्रह्मणः सत्यस्य सत्यंनाम उपनिषत् परा ॥
In plain words
Now, some people who think rather too well of their own learning, going purely on their own impressions, hold that every means of knowledge contradicts every other, and on that basis they raise a specific charge against the oneness of Brahman: sound and the other sense-objects are plainly perceived, they say, as distinct things, through direct perception itself — so anyone who teaches that Brahman is one must be contradicting the plain evidence of the senses. In the same way, through hearing and the rest, the perceivers of sound and the agents of good and bad action are inferred to be different in every single body — separate transmigrating souls — so the teacher of oneness runs into inference as well. And they press the same charge from scripture: sentences like 'let one who wants a village perform this rite,' 'let one who wants cattle perform this rite,' 'let one who wants heaven perform this rite' clearly presuppose different people wanting different things and performing different rites to get them. Here is the answer. Those objectors have minds corrupted by bad logic — they are the lowest of their class, honestly more to be pitied than blamed, because they have lost the living thread of what scripture actually means. How do we know? Ask them this: does the difference among sounds heard in different rooms actually break the oneness of space itself? If it doesn't — and of course it doesn't — then perception hasn't touched Brahman's oneness either. As for the inference argument: ask them plainly, distinct by what means? If they answer, 'by our own collective skill at inference,' ask who exactly is skilled in this way — body? senses? mind? self? Each one alone fails the test. If they retreat to 'we, the selves, using body, senses, and mind as our tools, are the skilled ones, because any action needs several factors working together,' then watch what follows: since inference is itself an action, and by their own admission needs body, senses, mind, and self all working together with the self as agent, each of these 'skilled selves' turns out, on their own logic, to be internally many. What a display of inferential skill — from tailless, hornless logician-oxen! Someone who doesn't even know the Self cannot possibly know whether it's one or many; what would he even be inferring, and from what evidence? The Self offers no mark of its own that points to difference, nothing anyone could use to prove it. Whatever marks people wave around to prove the Self is divided always turn out to be made of name and form — which makes them nothing but adjuncts, like a pot, a jar, a room, or a hole in the ground appearing to carve up empty space. Show me a real mark of division in space itself — not in the pot, in space — and then I'll grant you one in the Self. No army of logicians has ever managed that, because the Self simply isn't the kind of thing that can be made an object and divided up; that possibility is ruled out from the very start. Every single attribute anyone offers as belonging to the Self turns out, on their own admission, to be built of name and form — and they also admit the Self is different from name and form. Scripture says exactly this: 'Space indeed carries name and form; what lies between the two, that is Brahman,' and 'Let me differentiate name and form.' Name and form arise and pass away; Brahman does not. So Brahman was never a possible object of inference to begin with — which means the charge of contradicting inference never gets off the ground. And that same point answers the scriptural charge too. As for the objection that oneness would make scripture's own teaching pointless, since there'd be no one to teach and no one to benefit — that fails for the same reason actions in general need multiple factors to occur at all. In the one Brahman, free of every limiting condition, there is indeed no teaching, no teacher, no fruit of teaching — we already accept that completely. But if you push the objection down to the ordinary level, where teacher and student do function, it still fails, because it would contradict what believers in a self already grant about how that level works. So this teaching stands as a fortress no clever debater can storm — secure, closed to shallow minds, closed to anyone without the grace of scripture and a teacher. As the old lines say: 'Who but the deity itself could ever know that god who is beyond every opposite,' 'Even the gods once doubted this,' 'No amount of reasoning will get you there' — it comes only through grace. And the mantras themselves hold Brahman's contradictions together without apology: 'It moves; it does not move. It is far; it is near.' The Gītā says the same: 'All beings dwell in me.' So there is, in the end, no separate thing called 'the transmigrating soul' apart from the one Supreme Brahman. Which is exactly why scripture is right to say: 'In the beginning, this was Brahman alone. It knew only itself: I am Brahman' — confirmed by hundreds of passages like 'There is no other seer than this, no other hearer than this.' And that is why the Real of the real is nothing other than the Supreme Brahman — and that, by name, is the highest secret teaching there is.
Close to the Sanskrit
There, some who consider themselves learned, under the sway of their own minds, think that every means of knowledge contradicts every other, and likewise they raise a charge of contradiction with perception and the rest against the oneness of Brahman: sound and the rest, the objects of hearing and the other senses, are indeed perceived as distinct through direct perception; for those who assert the oneness of Brahman, there would be a contradiction with perception. Likewise, by hearing and the other senses, the perceivers of sound and the rest, and the agents of merit and demerit, are inferred as distinct from body to body, as transmigrating souls; there too, for those who assert the oneness of Brahman, there is a contradiction with inference as well. And likewise they state a contradiction with scripture: from sentences such as 'One desirous of a village should sacrifice,' 'One desirous of cattle should sacrifice,' 'One desirous of heaven should sacrifice,' those desiring a village, cattle, heaven and so on, and the performers of the means thereto, are understood to be distinct. Here it is replied: those objectors, whose inner faculties are corrupted by bad reasoning, are the lowest of the classes beginning with the brāhmaṇa, to be pitied, their understanding of the tradition of scriptural meaning severed. How so? Those who say that the oneness of Brahman is contradicted by sound and the rest, directly perceived through the gateways of hearing and the other senses, are to be asked: is the oneness of space contradicted by the difference of sounds and the rest? If it is not contradicted, then there is no contradiction with perception either. As for what was said — that the perceivers of sound and the rest, and the agents of merit and demerit, are inferred as distinct from body to body, and thus there is a contradiction with inference regarding the oneness of Brahman — they are to be asked: by what means are they inferred to be distinct? If they should say, 'by all of us, who are skilled in inference,' then, to those asked, 'who are you that are skilled in inference,' what is the answer? When skill in inference is denied of each, severally, among body, sense-organ, mind, and self, if they say, 'We, the selves, using body, sense-organ, and mind as instruments, are skilled in inference, because actions are accomplishable by multiple factors,' then it would follow that you yourselves are manifold with respect to that very skill in inference; for it is admitted by you yourselves that an action is accomplishable by multiple factors, and inference, there, is itself an action; that action, it was just claimed, is accomplished by the factors body, sense-organ, mind, and self as instruments, with the self as agent. There, by you who say 'we are skilled in inference,' it would be admitted that 'we, the selves, using body, sense-organ, and mind as instruments, are each severally many.' Ah, what skill in inference has been displayed by these tailless, hornless logician-oxen! For he who does not even know the Self itself — how could that fool know difference or non-difference pertaining to it? What, then, does he infer? Or by what mark? For there is, of the Self's own nature, no mark whatsoever indicative of difference, by which one might establish a difference in the Self. Whatever marks, possessing name-and-form, they put forward to establish a difference in the Self, those, belonging to name-and-form, are merely limiting adjuncts of the Self — like a pot, a jar, a chamber, a hole in the ground, in relation to space. When one sees a mark of difference in space itself, then one might also obtain a mark of difference in the Self; for not even by hundreds of logicians who postulate a distinctness apart from adjuncts can a mark of difference in the Self be shown. Of itself, indeed, difference is excluded from afar, because the Self is not an object. Whatever an opponent admits as an attribute of the Self, because of admitting, in each such case, that it has the nature of name-and-form, and because of admitting that the Self is other than name-and-form — from the scriptural statement, 'Space, indeed, is the carrier of name-and-form; that which is between the two, that is Brahman,' and 'May I differentiate name-and-form' — for name-and-form indeed have the nature of origination and dissolution, and Brahman is distinct in character from that — therefore, since it is simply not an object of inference at all, whence a contradiction with inference? By this, the contradiction with scripture has also been refuted. As for what was said — 'in the oneness of Brahman, there is no one to whom the teaching is given, and no one for whom there is the fruit of receiving the teaching; because of the absence of that, the teaching of oneness would be pointless' — that too is not valid: what objection could there be from actions being accomplishable by multiple factors? In the one Brahman, free of limiting adjuncts, there is no teaching, no teacher, and no fruit of receiving the teaching; therefore that the Upanishads too are pointless — this indeed is already admitted. But if pointlessness is urged with respect to the domain of multiple factors, no — because that would contradict what the upholders of the doctrine of the Self admit of themselves. Therefore this is a fortress not to be entered by the flatterer-soldier-kings of logic, secure, unreachable by those of little intelligence, and by those devoid of the grace of scripture and teacher — 'Who other than He is fit to know that god beyond intoxication and non-intoxication,' 'Even the gods, in this matter, were formerly in doubt,' 'This understanding is not to be attained by logic' — and from scriptural and traditional statements of its being attainable through the grace of a boon; and from mantra-passages such as 'That moves, that moves not; that is far, that is near,' revealing an association with contradictory attributes; and in the Gītā, 'All beings abide in Me,' and so on. Therefore, apart from the Supreme Brahman, there is no other separate entity called the transmigrator. Therefore it is rightly said: 'Brahman, indeed, was this in the beginning; it knew only itself: I am Brahman' — from hundreds of scriptural passages such as 'There is no other seer besides this, there is no other hearer besides this.' Therefore, that the Real of the real is the Supreme Brahman itself — this, by name, is the supreme secret teaching.