Theos-Talk Archives (September 1998 Message tt00134)

>> There is nothing like "supreme, and not supreme
>> (paravara)" in that 28th verse or anywhere near.  However if one goes to
>> the Mundaka Up. II, 2, 8 -- there it is.  Now I suppose one can build up
>> much good merit with this detective work.  What why not just consider it
>> a mistake in editing, proofing, writing etc. of the SD?

Paul:
>Why not consider it as Mandukya Upanishad (2.28).?  "Mandukya" is different
>from "Mundaka".  Should someone correct it?  A scholar/editor/expert could
>easily justify such a correction on the (exoteric) basis that Mandukya and
>Mundaka are the same.  But they'd be missing the point.

You have it backwards.  The words quoted in the SD, "supreme and not
supreme" are not in the Mandukya Up.  One does not have to be scholar to
know the Mundaka & Mandukya are *not* the same upanishad.

>> By the way, Boris de Zirkoff's edition has it correct.
>
>Correct according to who?  What other changes do you feel are "correct"?

Correct according to any criteria you like -- except that of a bibliolater.
BdZ's edition has some flaws, but so does the original.

>Which is "correct": Tibet or Thibet?  The difference is a single, lowercase,
>letter ("h"); maybe a similar magnitude of difference as between 2.28 and
>II, 2, 8 (see Nicholas's example above); a difference which could easily be
>overlooked/ignored/"corrected".

There is no arrangement of the digits that matches the Mandukya Up. There
are only 12 verses. The fact that by correcting 2.28 in to 2, 2, 8 or
II, 2, 8 will only fit the correct verse of the correct Mundaka Up. makes
it clear to most folks (whether esotericists or not) that the Mandukya is
the wrong citation.  Then there is the matter of the words.  HPB once
wrote something like a Theosophist, when faced with an uncomfortable
truth will toss aside their comfortable fiction and embrace the truth.

Best

--
<> Nicholas Weeks <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles
	"Men must learn to love the truth before they thoroughly believe it."
		Blavatsky