Bhashya
आरामम् आरमणम् आक्रीडाम् अनेन निर्मितां वासनारूपाम् अस्य आत्मनः, पश्यन्ति सर्वे जनाः- ग्रामं नगरं स्त्रियम् अन्नाद्यमित्यादिवासनानिर्मितम् आक्रीडनरूपम्;न तं पश्यति तं न पश्यति कश्चन ।कष्टं भोः! वर्तते अ-त्यन्तविविक्तं दृष्टिगोचरापन्नमपि- अहो भाग्यहीनता लो-कस्य! यत् शक्यदर्शनमपि आत्मानं न पश्यति- इतिलोकं प्रति अनुक्रोशं दर्शयति श्रुतिः ।अत्यन्तविवि-क्तः स्वयं ज्योतिरात्मा स्वप्ने भवतीत्यभिप्रायः ।तं ना-यतं बोधयेदित्याहुः- प्रसिद्धिरपि लोके विद्यते, स्वप्नेआत्मज्योतिषो व्यतिरिक्तत्वे; का असौ? तम् आत्मानंसुप्तम्, आयतम् सहसा भृशम्, न बोधयेत्- इत्याहुःएवं कथयन्ति चिकित्सकादयो जना लोके; नूनं ते पश्य-न्ति- जाग्रद्देहात् इन्द्रियद्वारतः अपसृत्य केवलो बहिर्वर्ततइति, यत आहुः-तं नायतं बोधयेदिति ।तत्र च दोषंपश्यन्ति-भृशं हि असौ बोध्यमानः तानि इन्द्रियद्वाराणिसहसा प्रतिबोध्यमानः न प्रतिपद्यत इति; तदेतदाह-दुर्भिषज्यं हास्मै भवति यमेष न प्रतिपद्यते; यम् इन्द्रिय-द्वारदेशम्- यस्माद्देशात् शुक्रमादाय अपसृतः तम् इन्द्रि-यदेशम्- एषः आत्मा पुनर्न प्रतिपद्यते, कदाचित् व्यत्यासेनइन्द्रियमात्राः प्रवेशयति, ततः आन्ध्यबाधिर्यादिदोषप्राप्तौदुर्भिषज्यम् दुःखभिषक्कमता ह अस्मै देहाय भवति, दुःखेनचिकित्सनीयोऽसौ देहो भवतीत्यर्थः ।तस्मात् प्रसिद्ध्यापिस्वप्ने स्वयंज्योतिष्ट्वम् अस्य गम्यते ।स्वप्नो भूत्वा अतिक्रान्तोमृत्यो रूपाणीति तस्मात् स्वप्ने स्वयं ज्योतिरात्मा ।अथो अपि खलु अन्ये आहुः— जागरितदेश एवास्य एषः, यः स्वप्नः— न संध्यं स्थानान्तरम् इहलोकपरलोकाभ्यां व्यतिरिक्तम्, किं तर्हि इहलोक एव जागरितदेशः ।यद्येवम्, किंच अतः ? शृणु अतो यद्भवति—यदा जागरितदेश एवायं स्वप्नः, तदा अयमात्मा कार्यकरणेभ्यो न व्यावृत्तः तैर्मिश्रीभूतः, अतो न स्वयं ज्योतिरात्मा— इत्यतः स्वयंज्योतिष्ट्वबाधनाय अन्ये आहुः— जागरितदेश एवास्यैष इति ।तत्र च हेतुमाचक्षते— जागरितदेशत्वे यानि हि यस्मात् हस्त्यादीनि पदार्थजातानि, जाग्रत् जागरितदेशे, पश्यति लौकिकः, तान्येव सुप्तोऽपि पश्यतीति ।तदसत्, इन्द्रियोपरमात् ; उपरतेषु हि इन्द्रियेषु स्वप्नान्पश्यति ; तस्मात् नान्यस्य ज्योतिषः तत्र संभवोऽस्ति ; तदुक्तम् ‘न तत्र रथा न रथयोगाः’ इत्यादि ; तस्मात् अत्रायं पुरुषः स्वयं ज्योतिर्भवत्येव ।स्वयं ज्योतिः आत्मा अस्तीति स्वप्ननिदर्शनेन प्रदर्शितम्, अतिक्रामति मृत्यो रूपाणीति च ; क्रमेण संचरन् इहलोकपरलोकादीन् इहलोकपरलोकादिव्यतिरिक्तः, तथा जाग्रत्स्वप्नकुलायाभ्यां व्यतिरिक्तः, तत्र च क्रमसंचारान्नित्यश्च— इत्येतत् प्रतिपादितं याज्ञवल्क्येन ।अतः विद्यानिष्क्रयार्थं सहस्रं ददामीत्याह जनकः ; सोऽहम् एवं बोधितः त्वया भगवते तुभ्यम् सहस्रंददामि; विमोक्षश्च कामप्रश्नो मया अभिप्रेतः; तदुपयोगी अयं तादर्थ्यात् तदेकदेश एव; अतः त्वां नियोक्ष्यामि समस्तकामप्रश्ननिर्णयश्रवणेन-विमोक्षाय अत ऊर्ध्वं ब्रूहीति, येन संसारात् विप्रमुच्येयं त्वत्प्रसादात् ।विमोक्षपदार्थैक-देशनिर्णयहेतोः सहस्रदानम् ॥
In plain words
'Ārāma,' the garden, means exactly that — a playground built by the self itself, out of nothing but a buried impression. Everyone can see this handiwork: a village, a city, a woman, food, and everything like it, all shaped from that same impression into a playground. But the one who made it, no one sees. No one at all. How distressing — he stands there, utterly distinct, right within sight, and still — ah, what bad luck for the world! — that although he could easily be seen, people simply fail to see him. In saying this, the scripture is showing real compassion for us. The point is this: the self, utterly distinct and shining in its own light, is fully present in the dream. There's a saying that backs this up: 'Don't wake a man from deep sleep.' Everyone knows it. It's evidence, in fact, that in dream the self's light stands apart from everything else. What is this saying, exactly? 'Don't wake this sleeping person suddenly, roughly, when he has gone deep into sleep' — that's what people say, and it's exactly how physicians and ordinary folk talk. And clearly what they've noticed is this: the self has slipped out through the doorways of the senses, away from the waking body, and now stands entirely outside it — which is exactly why they warn against waking him too fast. They see a real danger there too: wake him too abruptly, force those sense-doorways back into service all at once, and he won't settle back into them properly. The scripture says exactly this: 'It becomes hard to cure for him, that passage he cannot find his way back through.' 'Which passage' means the region of the sense-doors — the very place from which he took his vital spark and slipped away. Sometimes, through some mismatch, only the bare sense-organs get switched back on, and from that comes blindness, deafness, and other such defects — meaning the body becomes something that can only be nursed back with great difficulty. So: this common saying, too, points to the same conclusion — this self shines by its own light in dream. And there's this: 'having become a dream, he has moved beyond death's own shapes' — which again shows that in dream the self is its own light. Now, other teachers say something different: this dream state is nothing more than his ordinary waking world — not some in-between twilight zone separate from this life and the next. This very world we live in, they say, simply is the waking domain. Fine — but where does that lead? Listen to what follows: if the dream is just the waking world, then the self was never truly withdrawn from the body and the senses — it stayed mixed up with them the whole time, which means it isn't really self-luminous at all. That's exactly why these other teachers make this claim — to undercut the very idea of a self shining on its own. And here's their reasoning: whatever things — elephants, say — a person sees while genuinely awake, that same person goes on seeing in dream too, so dream must just be an extension of waking. But that doesn't hold up, because the senses have shut down by then; dreams happen precisely when the senses are at rest, so nothing but the self's own light could possibly be at work there. As it's been said elsewhere: 'no chariots there, no harnessing of chariots' — and so on. So in dream, this person really is, without question, a light unto himself. Both claims have now been shown by the dream itself: that the self shines in its own light, and that it moves beyond the shapes death takes. Moving through this world and the next, one after another, and yet never reducible to any of them — just as it stands apart from both its resting-places, waking and dream — and because of that steady movement through them, it is shown to be eternal too. All of this, Yājñavalkya has now laid out. 'And so,' said Janaka, 'I give a thousand cows as the fee for this teaching. Taught this much by you, I give a thousand to you, my teacher. But liberation — that was the real question on my mind all along. This teaching serves that purpose; it points toward liberation, but it is only one part of it. So I will hold you to it: once I have heard the resolution of every question I came with, speak to me, from here on, only of liberation — so that by your grace I might finally be freed from this endless cycle.' The thousand cows, then, were given for settling just one portion of what liberation truly means.
Close to the Sanskrit
'Ārāma' means 'āramaṇa,' a playground — made by this self, in the form of a latent impression; all people see this, of this self: a village, a city, a woman, food and the like — in the form of a playground fashioned out of such impressions. But him no one sees; no one at all sees him. How distressing! He exists, utterly distinct, even having come within the range of sight — ah, the misfortune of the world! that, though he is capable of being seen, people do not see the self — thus the scripture shows compassion toward the world. The intent is: the self, utterly distinct, self-luminous, manifests in dream. 'One should not awaken him when he is deeply asleep' — so they say; this too is a well-known fact in the world, as evidence for the distinctness of the self's own light in dream. What is that saying? 'One should not rouse this sleeping self, suddenly, harshly, when he is deeply asleep' — so they say; physicians and others among people in the world speak this way. Surely they perceive this: that, having withdrawn from the waking body through the doors of the senses, he exists solely outside — for this reason they say, 'one should not awaken him when deeply asleep.' And there they see a danger: for he, being roused, with those doors of the senses forced back into service all at once, does not manage to settle back properly — that is the danger. This very point the scripture states: 'It becomes hard to cure for him, that region which this one does not return to.' 'Which' means: the region of the doors of the senses — the region from which, taking hold of the vital essence, he withdrew — that same region this self does not return to again; sometimes, through a mismatch, he lets only the mere sense-organs re-enter; from that, upon the arising of defects such as blindness, deafness, and the like, it becomes hard to cure — that is, this body becomes one requiring treatment only with great difficulty; that is the meaning. Therefore, by this common recognition too, the self-luminosity of this self in dream is grasped. 'Having become a dream, he has gone beyond the forms of death' — hence, in dream, the self is self-luminous. Now, however, others indeed say: this dream is simply his domain of waking — not a twilight, a separate place distinct from this world and the next; what then? This very world itself is the domain of waking. If this is so, what follows from this? Hear what follows from this — when this dream is simply the domain of waking, then this self is not withdrawn from effects and instruments, being mingled with them; hence it is not self-luminous — for this reason, in order to negate the doctrine of its self-luminosity, others say: 'this dream is simply his domain of waking.' And there they give the reason: because whatever classes of things — elephants and the like — an ordinary person, awake, sees in the domain of waking, those very same things he, though asleep, sees too. That is not sound, because of the cessation of the senses; for it is when the senses are at rest that one sees dreams; therefore no possibility exists there for any light other than the self's own; this has been stated elsewhere: 'there are no chariots there, no chariot-yokings,' and so on; therefore, here in dream, this person is indeed self-luminous. That the self is self-luminous has been shown by way of the illustration of dream, and likewise that claim that 'he transcends the forms of death'; traveling one after another through this world, the next world, and the like, yet distinct from all of them, likewise distinct from the two nests, waking and dream, and, because of that successive movement, shown to be eternal as well — all this has been established by Yājñavalkya. Therefore, 'I give a thousand as the fee for this knowledge,' said Janaka; 'I, thus taught by you, give a thousand to you, the venerable one; and liberation is the very question I intended all along; this teaching is conducive to that liberation, being for its sake, being merely a part of it; therefore I will keep you engaged, through hearing the resolution of all the questions I desire — from here onward speak for the sake of liberation,' thus he said, 'by which, through your grace, I might be set free from the cycle of rebirth.' The gift of a thousand cows was for the sake of the determination of a portion of the meaning of liberation.