SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
SlOkam – Original
mayi sarvam idham prOtham sUthrE maNigaNA iva ||
word-by-word meaning
idham sarvam – all these entities
sUthrE – on a string
maNigaNA: iva – like gemstones strung
mayi prOtham – strung on me
Simple Translation
All these entities are strung on me like gemstones strung on a string.
Rendering based on ALkoNdavilli gOvindhAchArya swAmy’s English translation of gIthA bhAshyam
‘Like unto a row of gems strung on a string, all this is threaded by Me.’
All this= the sum of things, chit (intelligents) and achit (non-intelligentsj, —all that exists as the aggregate of causes and effects, and constituting My body.
All this depends on Me as body depends on soul, i.e., I, am their Soul; and they, are My body, in the manner that number of gems are held together by means of a string.[2. Cp. Sub: Up: X-(Sarva-lokā ātmani brahmaṇi maṇaya iv-autāścha
protaścheti.]
In the Antaryāmi-Brāhmaṇa[3. Brih: Up: V-7-22.] and other Upanishad[4. Sub: Up: Khanda VI.] passages, the (substance-plus-attribute-like) co-existence of the Universe and Brahm, in the relationship of body and Soul, is set forth thus:—
‘To Whom earth is body, of which He is Soul etc; ….; He is the Divine Lord, the one, Nārāyaṇa.’[5. Brih: Up: V-7-22 + Sub: Up°: VI. (Yasya pṛithivī śarīram …… Divyo Deva Eko Nārāyaṇah).]
Hence, all things constitute the body of Paramapurusha[6. Parama-Purusha = Synonym Purushottama(‘The Super-excellent Person’, the 24th name of God, (vide also, Pātañjala Yoga-Sūtra I.24, (which says purusha-viśesḥ) – Purusha is the common term to denote a thinking substance from an unthinking substance. Utpurusha=bound soul; uttara-purusha=liberated soul, uttama-purusha=the ever-free soul; Purushottama=Soul Supreme=God.): Purusha means etymologically He who grants abundance; “puru=bahu, sanoti=dadāti.” Thus Parama-Purusha means the Supreme all-Giver.], Who ensouls them. All things thus are predicative to, or modes of, Paramapurusha; hence Paramapurusha alone exists (the substance), adjectivated by everything else. All terms are thus connotations of Him, by the rule of sāmānādhikaraṇya, or the rule which expresses the inseparable relation existing between substance and attribute, or the invariable co-existence of subject and predicate. (Any term meaning an attribute is, by implication, necessarily connotative [or suggestive] of the substance of which it is attribute).
In this sense of the communal relation of terms substantive and adjective referring to one substance in which both are indissolubly combined, the following (four) verses are addressed (to Arjuna):—
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