Tree times God laughed at Shankara, frst, when he returned to burn the corpse of his mother, again when he commented on the Isha Upanishad and the third time when he stormed about India preaching inaction. — Sri Aurobindo (SABCL 17: 115) 1 Since the work of such pioneers as George Tibaut (1890: ix–cxxviii), Max Müller (1900), Paul Deussen ([1897] 1921), and Robert Ernest Hume (1921), numerous scholars have brought the modern historico-philological method to bear on the three scriptural “pillars” of Vedānta (the prasthānatrayī)—namely, the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad-Gītā, and the Brahmasūtra. Among the three pillars, the Gītā has received by far the most attention. 2 Nonetheless, recent scholars have also begun to examine the Upaniṣads in depth, as Signe Cohen (2018a)’s major new edited volume on the Upaniṣads attests. Te Īśā Upaniṣad, one of the oldest of all the metrical Upaniṣads, has attracted the attention of both traditional commentators and modern scholars. 3 Consisting of a mere eighteen verses, the Īśā Upaniṣad is notable for a variety of reasons, including its paradoxical language, its emphasis on God’s immanence in the world, and its afrmation of life and action. Tis Upaniṣad taxed the interpretive ingenuity of the famed eighth-century Advaitin Śaṅkara, who tried to show that it actually propounds the unreality of the world and enjoins the renunciation of works for advanced spiritual aspirants. Other commentators such as the Dvaitin Madhva (c. 1238–1317) and the Viśiṣṭādvaitin Veṅkaṭanātha (c. 1269–1370; also known as “Vedānta Deśika”) interpreted the Īśā Upaniṣad from their own respective philosophical standpoints. 11 Seeing Oneness Everywhere: Sri Aurobindo’s Mystico-Immanent Interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad Ayon Maharaj I am grateful to Signe Cohen, Peter Heehs, Paolo Magnone, and an anonymous reviewer for their very helpful feedback on earlier drafs of this chapter. 9781350063235_txt_print.indd 309 4/30/2020 12:53:38 PM