Transcreating Upadesa Sahasri Verse Chapter 10 dṛśi-svarūpa paramārtha-darśanam

1. 

The seer itself, sky-like and supreme;

ever-shining, changeless, one and unborn;

stainless, all-pervading, nondual:

I am that alone eternally released, om.

Introductions

In the post-war years, western and western-inspired scholarship, notably that of Paul Hacker and Sengaku Mayeda, has tended to show that the only surviving independent work that can with safety be ascribed to Śaṃkara is the Upadeśa Sāhasrī or Thousand Teachings in both its prose and verse parts—though it would be incautious to suppose that there was finality in this judgement...

The independent works other than the Upadeśa Sāhasrī are not safe guides to the doctrine of the historical Śaṃkara, while the Upadeśa Sāhasrī itself is. Hence its importance today as a relatively compact statement by Śaṃkara of his own view, eminently suitable as an introduction to the inherently more diffuse work of the commentaries...

It is, however, not certain that either the prose or the verse parts of the Upadeśa Sāhasrī originally constituted a unity. The whole work is very possibly a compilation of short pieces that originally stood on their own...

Of the verse part, Chapters I, XVII, XVIII and XIX appear from their dedicatory verses to have been separate works originally. Chapters II to XVI, also, are most probably a compilation of works that were originally separate, as it is hard to explain the fact that they stand in ascending order of length as being due to mere chance...

~Alston

The Upadesasahasri consists of two parts, one in verse and the other in prose. The verse or Metrical Part (Padyabandha) comprises nineteen chapters (prakarana). Manuscripts indicate that the two parts were regarded as independent works, as it were, and studied or commented upon separately. They also suggest the possibility that any single chapter could be selected, copied, and studied apart from the rest. This means that reading of the text may begin anywhere. 

~Mayeda