Taittiriya Upanishad with Commentary (An Old and Rare Book)

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Shri H. N. Ramaswamy is an Electrical Engineer by training and profession. He is currently serving as Manager (Engi neering) in the Hazira Fertiliser Project of Krishak Bharati Co-operative Limited, at Surat.

From his youth, he was drawn to our ancient scriptures and, in spite of his educational and professional pre-occupation, found time to delve deep into them. Though not a scholar in Sanskrit in the conventional sense, he was struck by the astonishing insights of the Rishis of the Upanishads and the deeper he went, the deeper became his curiosity and awe at the level of intellectual eminence the Rishis had attained as recorded in the Upanishads. With this background as a student of Science and by profession he could correlate the discoveries of our ancients with modern scientific know- ledge.

In reflecting on the Mantras in the Taittiriya Upanishad the author has freely drawn on his knowledge of the significance of the Bija Aksharas and the grandeur and beauty of the Varnamala of Sanskrit which helped him in intuitively deriving the meanings of the Mantras.

The parallels he has drawn between the elemental states of electron, proton etc. and the guidelines shown by the Rishis are intended to whet the curiosity of a modern-day scientist. It is hoped that the scientific community will go deep with what the Upanishads have said about the origin and existence of the universe and cover themselves with glory by newer discoveries following the guide-lines hinted therein. Science can then become an instrument for selfrealisation and fulfilment, instead of an instrument of selfdistruction.

The Vedic Research and Cultural Foundation has been established with the objective of promoting research in Vedic and allied literature, as well as for propagating Indian culture. Among its several activities is a publication programme and this is the first volume of our planned series on various aspects of Hindu Philosophy.

In recent times science and technology have made tremendous progress, and have given us fantastic benefits which are unparallelled in human history. And yet that very science and technology has given us the means of destruction, not only of the human race but perhaps of all life on this planet. There is a crisis in the divergence between knowledge and wisdom, between and . If we are to survive as a race, we must bridge the gap between science and philosophy. I think this can be done, because in the poste insteinian science, with the development of sub-nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and extragalactic cosmology, the old rigidities of Newtonian science have collapsed. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and various new concepts, particularly in astronomy, have brought about a situation where many of the approaches inherent in the mystical tradition are again becoming relevant.

All Upanishads expound secret and invisible laws of operation of life energy in the universe. Each takes a single phenomenon and gives it special emphasis and elaboration. Just as in our own modern science propounding knowledge of physical bodies (physics), physical attractions and combinations (chemistry), etc. take up a particular aspect and devote more attention in elaborating finer aspect of a single phenomenon; suy Chapter on light, another on heat, a third on analytical chemistry, a fourth on physical chemistry, etc., all Upanishads and Vedas are such an elaboration of a particular operation in a given set of circumstances of a Generalised Principle. But there is one Upanishad which packs a lot of principles of operation under one cover and which propounds operations of the universal life energy, its appearance and results, in a very very generalised way, but so ingeniously condensed that all that one has to do is to apply that law for a particular formation to know the effect of the law for a particular form. It is more like the Einstein's general theory of relativity or the Maxwell's equation of Electro-magnetic fields or the theory of Quantum Mechanics, which form the basic touchstone for the validity of all other laws and their derivations. Such a generalised theory of operating principles of life is compiled as Upanishad of a special nature, unmatched in beauty, ingenuity and con- ciseness. This Upanishad is called "Taittiriya Upanishad".