Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

VIII ’SAT-DARSHANA’

(How the work was given to the world)

This work was first written by Shri Maharshi in Tamil stanzas, forty-two in number including the first two benedictory verses, to give intellectual satisfaction to the earnest devotee of a metaphysical bent. It was rendered into Sanskrit, verse for verse, by his great disciple, the well-known scholar and genius Vasishtha Ganapati Muni. As the title of the work shows, it is a discourse on the perception or realisation of Truth. Sat-darsana is a compound word formed of Sat and Darshana, Sat meaning primarily existence and secondarily the real and the true, and darsana meaning perception. It is direct perception of Truth that is here meant by the term. Indeed this work is based upon the Maharshi’s perception of Truth, and from this it derives its title “Truth-Perception’. But Darshana’ also means a system of philosophy, such as the Nyaya and other Darshanas of the post-shruti period. Even in this sense, the work is a darshana, a philosophy of the Real. For the epigrammatic verses packed with profound thoughts yield a wealth of philosophic concepts furnishing sufficient material for the metaphysical basis of a philosophy that is involved in an intellectual statement of the Maharshi’s attitude to life and earthly existence. As there is nothing that is really unreal, a fact that is often stressed by Shri Maharshi, this system may be appropriately called a ’True Realism’ or ’Ideal Realism’.

It is needless to say that this Shastra is not intended either to refute or to support the current systems such as the Saivite and the Vaishnavite, the Dvaita and the Advaita. It does not follow the method of metaphysical speculation, such as characterises the Nyaya and other systems of the Sutra period. Nor does it purport, like the two Mimamsas of Jaimini and Badarayana to harmonise and to remove doubts or misconceptions in scriptural texts or other authoritative utterances of great souls. Like the sacred words of the Tamil Veda of Saint Nammalvar or of Manikka Vachaka, and like the texts of the Upanishads, the words of the Maharshi are an original and independent utterance based upon personal experience, and though they support and elucidate authoritative pronouncements both of the scriptures and of exalted souls, they have really an independent origin and validity coming as they do directly from himself.