Mandukya Upanishad - Translated By Swami Lokeswarananda

This volume is a simple and lucid translation of the Upanishad with explanation & introduction and follows Shankaras interpretation. It also includes Karika of Gaudapada. This compilation is based on Swami Lokeswaranandas weekly discourses on the Upanishad. The Mandukya Upanishad is found in the Atharva Veda. It is one of the shortest Upanishads having only 12 verses. The Upanishad is so called perhaps because that was the name of the sage who composed it. It expounds the mystic syllable Om and the three psychological states of waking dreaming and sleeping. Gaudapada teacher of Govindapada who was Shankaras teacher wrote a Karika (an auxiliary work) on the Upanishad. It is brief but it is a self-contained and very well argued presentation on non-dualism. The Karika states that there is nothing but the Self and that the Self is one on the same. It totally rejects duality. It does not agree that there is such a thing as creation and as a corollary to this it also does not accept the existence of the cause-and-effect relationship.