|| तत्वबोध -- 33,34||
The five koSAs..
पञ्च कोशा: के? अन्नमय प्राणमय मनोमय विग्ज्ञानमय आनन्दमयश्चेथि |TB-33|
panca koSA: kE? annamaya prANa maya manomaya vignAna maya Anandha maya: ca ithi |TB-33|
here the student who has a good memory (unlike most of us) remembers the original definiton given "panca koSa athItha: san"..! So After having explained the 3 body teaching methodolgy, and 3 state prakriyA, the guru moves onto the 5 koSa prakriya. A doubt here may arise in one's mind as to why the 5 koSAs after the 3 bodies? The answer is quite simple.. different people commit different grades of different mistakes either at the bodies level and/or states level and/or koSAs level..!
So when the stuedent asks "waht aret he 5 koSAs?" the guru says "theses are food-koSa, air-koSA, mind-koSA, ego-koSA, and happiness-koSA.." I am purposefully not using hte MOST COMMON TRANSLATION OF koSA as SHEATH..!
Why are they called koSAs? koSavath AcCAdhaniyathvAth" as it hides the true nature of humans just like a sheath covers a sword..! The most important word here is "JUST LIKE" which is often mistaken by mpst teachers as JUST EXACTLY AS..! So SDS is even very careful in preventing us from going on a spiritual trip to remove the 5 koSAs.. Another mistake usually committed is the translation of anadha as Bliss with a capital "B"..! Thus we make sure that no ower case bliss is acceptable to me but ONLY the upper case B....liss..!!
Once we accept the sheath definition EVEN by error, we will immediately think that I HAVE TO TRANSCEND THE food sheath to air sheath.. from air sheath to mind sheath.. from mind sheath to ego sheath.. then from ego sheath to Bliss sheath.
I am translating anadha maya koSA as happiness sheath.. though I am not happy with it (). that is far better than Bliss Sheath.
This sheath definiton makes us feel like "brmhan" who is in Alaska during winter months.. brmhan is first wearing a cotton tee shirt inside; 2nd, a flannel shirt; 3rd, a wool sweater; 4th, a wind breaker; and 5th, a woolen long jacket..!
get it?!!
अन्नमय: क:? अन्नरसेन एव भूत्वा अन्नरसेन एव वृद्धिं प्राप्य अन्नरूप पृथिव्यां यत् विलीयते तत् अन्नमयकोश: स्थूल शरीरम् |TB-34|
annamaya: ka:? anna rasEna Eva BUthvA anna rasEna Eva vRdhDhim prApya anna rUpa pRtivyAm yath vilIyathE thath anna maya koSa: sThUla SarIram |TB-34|
As errors are committed by us uniformly on several fronts.. (the 3 bodies, the 3 avasthAs, the five koSas.. ) the scriptures and the guru are compassionate enough to provide us with some acceptable explanations.. and more often than not it passes.. if it does not, we can always rely on karma theory to the rescue..!
So the student now is asking the guru what he means by the food sheath.. "annamaya: ka:? I mean koSa.. !!
The guru's answer is directly based on thaithrIya panishath Anandha valli and the very first manthram.. I am saying this mere to show that it is SO IMPORTANT to accept SRthi as an absolute pramANam and not keep on questioning its answers..! It will get us nowhere except to NOWHERE LAND..!
BUthvA: BORN anna rasEna Eva JUST BY THE ESSENCE OF FOOD vRdhDhim: GROWTH prApya: BEING OBTAINED anna rasEna Eva JUST BY THE ESSENCE OF FOOD yath: THAT WHICH vilIyathE: PERISHES INTO pRtivyAm: THE EARTH anna rUpa: WHICH ITSELF IS IN THE VERY FORM OF FOOD thath: THAT IS CALLED anna maya koSa: FOOD KOSHA sThUla: (IT IS SIMPLY) THE GROSS SarIram: BODY
If we look at the careful choice of words in decribing the annamaya kOSa, we begin to appreciate the non-negatability of this description.
"maya" itself is a samskRtham suffix that has two meanings.. one is "modification" and the other is "predominance".. As the second meaning is meaningless, and the body itself is a modification of the food we eat, anna maya koSa really means "that aspect of the jIva whose "external" hardware is made up by the food we eat that gets continuously modified to make us look the way we are
Of course the natural Q ought to be "what about the software?" and the "firmware?"
TB and the guru both are ready!
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