Bhashya
तत् तस्मिन्नेवार्थे एष श्लोकः मन्त्रो भवति ।यदायस्मिन्काले सर्वे समस्ताः कामाः तृष्णाप्रभेदाः प्रमुच्यन्ते, आत्मकामस्य ब्रह्मविदः समूलतो विशीर्यन्ते, ये प्रसिद्धा लोके इहामुत्रार्थाः पुत्रवित्तलोकैषणालक्षणाः अस्य प्रसिद्धस्य पुरुषस्य हृदि बुद्धौ श्रिताः आश्रिताः- अथ तदा, मर्त्यः मरणधर्मा सन्, कामवियोगात्समूलतः, अमृतो भवति; अर्थात् अनात्मविषयाः कामा अविद्यालक्षणाः मृत्यवः इत्येतदुक्तं भवति; अतः मृत्युवियोगे विद्वान् जीवन्नेव अमृतो भवति ।अत्र अस्मिन्नेव शरीरे वर्तमानः ब्रह्म समश्नुते, ब्रह्मभावं मोक्षं प्रतिपद्यत इत्यर्थः ।अतः मोक्षः न देशान्तरगमनादि अपेक्षते ।तस्मात् विदुषो नोत्क्रामन्ति प्राणाः, यथावस्थिता एव स्वकारणे पुरुषे समवनीयन्ते; नाममात्रं हि अवशिष्यते- इत्युक्तम् ।कथं पुनः समवनीतेषु प्राणेषु, देहे च स्वकारणे प्रलीने, विद्वान् मुक्तः अत्रैव सर्वात्मा सन् वर्तमानः पुनः पूर्ववत् देहित्वं संसारित्वलक्षणं न प्रतिपद्यते- इत्यत्रोच्यते- तत् तत्र अयं दृष्टान्तः; यथा लोके अहिः सर्पः, तस्य निर्ल्वयनी, निर्मोकः, सा अहिनिर्ल्वयनी, वल्मीके सर्पाश्रये वल्मीकादावित्यर्थः, मृता प्रत्यस्ता प्रक्षिप्ता अनात्मभावेन सर्पेण परित्यक्ता, शयीत वर्तेत- एवमेव, यथा अयं दृष्टान्तः, इदं शरीरं सर्पस्थानीयेन मुक्तेन अनात्मभावेन परित्यक्तं मृतमिव शेते ।अथ इतरः सर्पस्थानीयोमुक्तः सर्वात्मभूतः सर्पवत् तत्रैव वर्तमानोऽपि अशरीर एव, न पूर्ववत् पुनः सशरीरो भवति ।कामकर्मप्रयुक्तशरीरात्मभावेन हि पूर्वं सशरीरः मर्त्यश्च ; तद्वियोगात् अथ इदानीम् अशरीरः, अत एव च अमृतः ; प्राणः, प्राणितीति प्राणः— 'प्राणस्य प्राणम्' इति हि वक्ष्यमाणे श्लोके, 'प्राणबन्धनं हि सोम्य मनः' इति च श्रुत्यन्तरे ; प्रकरणवाक्यसामर्थ्याच्च पर एव आत्मा अत्र प्राणशब्दवाच्यः ; ब्रह्मैव परमात्मैव ।किं पुनस्तत् ? तेज एव विज्ञानम् ज्योतिः, येन आत्मज्योतिषा जगत् अवभास्यमानं प्रज्ञानेत्रं विज्ञानज्योतिष्मत् सत् अविभ्रंशत् वर्तते ।यः कामप्रश्नो विमोक्षार्थः याज्ञवल्क्येन वरो दत्तो जनकाय, सहेतुकः बन्धमोक्षार्थलक्षणः दृष्टान्तदार्ष्टान्तिकभूतः स एष निर्णीतः सविस्तरः जनकायाज्ञवल्क्याख्यायिकारूपधारिण्या श्रुत्या ; संसारविमोक्षोपाय उक्तः प्राणिभ्यः ।इदानीं श्रुतिः स्वयमेवाह— विद्यानिष्क्रयार्थं जनकेनैवमुक्तमिति ; कथम् ? सोऽहम् एवं विमोक्षितस्त्वया भगवते तुभ्यं विद्यानिष्क्रयार्थं सहस्रं ददामि— इति ह एवं किल उवाच उक्तवान् जनको वैदेहः ।अत्र कस्माद्विमोक्षपदार्थे निर्णीते, विदेहराज्यम् आत्मानमेव च न निवेदयति, एकदेशोक्ताविव सहस्रमेव ददाति ? तत्र कोऽभिप्राय इति ।अत्र केचिद्वर्णयन्ति— अध्यात्मविद्यारसिको जनकःब्रह्मविद्याफलं मोक्षं स्वर्गं लोकम् ; स्वर्गलोकशब्दः त्रिविष्ट-पवाच्यपि सन् इह प्रकरणात् मोक्षाभिधायकः ; इतः अ-स्माच्छरीरपातात् ऊर्ध्वं जीवन्त एव विमुक्ताः सन्तः ॥
In plain words
On this same point, a verse is now recited: 'When every desire that lives in a man's heart finally lets go' — for the knower of brahman whose one desire is the Self, every craving there is dissolves down to its root: the familiar longings for a child, for wealth, for a place in this world or the next, that had made their home in his heart, in his mind — 'then the mortal, bound by death as he is, becomes immortal' by letting go of desire completely. In other words: desires aimed at anything other than the Self are themselves nothing but forms of ignorance, and each one is a kind of death. So once a person is free of those deaths, he becomes immortal while he is still alive — not later, right now. 'Here he attains brahman' means exactly this: right here, in this body, he becomes brahman; that is what liberation is. So liberation was never about going somewhere else. That is why a knower's vital breath does not leave him at death — it simply settles back, unchanged, into the source it came from, and only his name is left behind, as we already said. But then a question arises: once the breath has settled back and the body has dissolved into the elements it came from, how does this liberated person, who is now simply the Self of everything, right here, avoid ever again taking on a body and getting caught back up in the cycle? Here is how to picture it. In ordinary speech, a snake sheds its skin. That skin is left behind in the anthill — dead, discarded, no longer part of the snake at all — and it simply lies there. In exactly the same way, this body is left behind, abandoned as no longer 'self' by the one who is free, and it lies there like something dead. But the other one — the one who used to wear that body, the one who has become everything — even while standing right where the body was, he, like the snake that has slipped free, has no body at all. He does not put one on again. Before, desire and action had bound him to the idea that he was his body, and that made him mortal; now that this idea is gone, he has no body, and precisely because of that, he cannot die. He is called 'prāṇa' — the breath of life — simply because he lives; you see this same word again in the verse still to come, 'the breath behind the breath,' and elsewhere in scripture: 'mind itself, dear one, is tethered to breath.' Given everything the passage as a whole is building toward, this word 'breath' can only mean the one supreme Self here — nothing less than brahman, nothing less than the highest Self. And what is meant by 'light'? Simply this: awareness itself, luminous in its own right — the very light by which the whole world becomes visible, giving it the eye of understanding, filling it with the glow of consciousness, so that it goes on functioning without ever once failing. So the whole question about desire that made Yājñavalkya offer Janaka a boon — desire and its cause, bondage and the way out of it, the illustration and what it illustrates — all of it has now been worked out in full, through this very story of Janaka and Yājñavalkya. The way out of the whole cycle has been shown, for the sake of every living being. And now scripture tells us, on its own, exactly what Janaka said as payment for what he had learned. What did he say? 'This is who I am — set free, by you. To you, my teacher, I give a thousand cows, as payment for this knowledge.' That, so the story goes, is what King Janaka of Videha said. One might ask: once he understood what liberation really was, why didn't he hand over his entire kingdom, or even himself, instead of just a thousand cows, as if that were merely a token gift? What was he really doing? Some explain it this way: Janaka, who loved learning about the Self, took the 'fruit of knowing brahman' here to mean heaven — the heavenly world. And even though the word for 'heavenly world' can mean the ordinary paradise, here, given everything around it, it actually means liberation: he and those like him are already free while still alive, and stay free even after this body finally falls away.
Close to the Sanskrit
On that very topic, this verse — a mantra — occurs: 'when' — at whatever time — 'all,' every single one of the 'desires,' the various forms of craving, 'are released' — for the knower of brahman whose only desire is the Self, they dissolve down to the root — which are well known in the world, whose objects are this world and the next, characterized by the longing for offspring, wealth, and the heavenly worlds, and which lie lodged in the heart, that is, the intellect, of this well-known person — then, at that time, the mortal, though by nature subject to death, by being separated from desire down to the root, becomes immortal; that is to say, this amounts to saying that desires directed at objects other than the Self, characterized by ignorance, are themselves so many deaths; therefore, upon separation from death, the knower, while still living, becomes immortal. Here, remaining in this very body, he attains brahman — that is, he attains the state of being brahman, liberation; such is the meaning. Therefore liberation does not require going to another place and the like. Hence the vital breaths of the knower do not depart; remaining just as they are, they are merged into the Puruṣa who is their cause; for only the name is left over — as has been said. But how, once the vital breaths have merged and the body has dissolved into its cause, does the liberated knower, remaining right here as the Self of all, not again take on, as before, embodiment characterized by transmigration? — this is now explained: on this point, here is the illustration. Just as, in common usage, 'ahi' means snake; its 'nirvayanī' is its slough, its cast-off skin; that 'snake's cast-off skin' — in the anthill, meaning in an anthill or similar sheltering place — lifeless, discarded, flung aside, abandoned by the snake as no longer its own — would lie there, would remain; just so, as this illustration shows, this body, abandoned as no longer belonging to the self by the liberated one who occupies the snake's place, lies as though dead. But the other one — the liberated self occupying the snake's own place, who has become the Self of all — even while remaining right there, like the snake, is indeed bodiless; he does not, as before, again become embodied. For formerly, through the notion of the body as the self, brought about by desire and action, he was embodied and mortal; but now, by separation from that notion, he is bodiless, and for that very reason immortal. 'Prāṇa' — he is called prāṇa because he lives; this is confirmed in the verse about to be quoted, 'the prāṇa of prāṇa,' and also in another scriptural text, 'for, my dear, the mind is bound to prāṇa'; and, by the force of the context and the sentence as a whole, it is the supreme Self alone that is denoted here by the word 'prāṇa' — brahman itself, the supreme Self itself. What, then, is that tejas? 'Tejas' is simply cognition, light — that self-luminosity by which the world, being illumined, endowed with the eye of intelligence, possessing the light of cognition, continues to exist without ever faltering. The question about desire, aimed at liberation, for which Yājñavalkya granted a boon to Janaka — together with its cause, characterized by the topics of bondage and liberation, comprising both the illustration and the illustrated case — has now been settled at length by this portion of scripture, in the form of the dialogue between Janaka and Yājñavalkya; the means to release from transmigration has thereby been declared for all living beings. Now scripture itself states, of its own accord, that Janaka spoke as follows, as the fee for that knowledge — how? 'I am he, thus set free by you; to you, revered sir, I give a thousand as the fee for this knowledge' — so, indeed, it is said, Janaka of Videha spoke, declared. Here, one may ask: once the meaning of 'liberation' has been settled, why does he not offer his kingdom of Videha, and even his own self, but gives only a thousand, as though that were merely a partial payment? What could his intention be? Here some explain: Janaka, who relished knowledge of the Self, meant by the fruit of brahman-knowledge, liberation, the heavenly world; the term 'heavenly world,' though it can denote the third heaven, here, from the context, denotes liberation — meaning, they are liberated even while living, and remain so beyond, once this body has fallen away.