Creation in the Śruti

Gauḍapāda in kārikā 26 gives an additional argument to reject the doctrine of causality. He says: ‘As the Śruti passage, ‘It is not this, not this’, on account of the incomprehensibility of ātman, negates all (dualistic) ideas described; (as the means for the attainment of ātman), therefore the birthless (ātman alone) exists (and not any duality)’.

In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad the passage, “this ātman is not this, not this” denies everything that had been previously stated by the same Upaniṣad. The text proceeds in this way because the Self is not an object (viṣaya), and by teaching in this manner the unborn Self (aja) is revealed.

Śaṅkara in his commentary on this kārikā says that the important dictum ‘neti, neti’, which is central to the teachings of Yājñavalkya, indicate that no positive characterization of the nature of ātman is possible. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (II.3.1) Brahman was described “as having two forms, the formed and the formless, the mortal and the immortal, the unmoving and the moving, the actual (existent) and the true (being)”^[1].

Denying all the dualistic description of the reality, the Upaniṣad points to the central advatic idea that ātman is incomprehensible by means of empirical pramāṇas namely perception, inference etc. The Śruti text reiterates the final instruction through the statement neti-neti.

By negating all this earlier description which is intended only as a means (upāya) to help the seeker ultimately realize the incomprehensible nature of Brahman, The Śruti again and again gives the final instruction about ātman in this passage as: “This ātman is not this, not this”. The intention of the statement is to negate all the corporeal (mūrta) and incorporeal (amūrta) dualistic creation which are only superimposed on ātman by ignorance (avidyā). Ātman has no specific or general characteristics or attributes (nirviśeṣa). It cannot be available to our sense-perception. The unchanging (kūṭastha) ātman is not an object of knowledge. According to Śaṅkara, all that is perceptible, has origination, and is the object of mental comprehension. Whatever is perceptible (dṛśya), the effect (kārya) or can be grasped by any thought or speech are all negated by the above statement of the Śruti text. The absolute reality, the ātman is stated as imperceptible (adṛśya), by stating this final conclusion, “all that is perceptible (dṛśya) is established as unreal”. The method of attribution (adhyāropa) and subsequent retraction (apavāda) is given by the Śruti text.

According to Śaṅkara the earlier description of the dualistic creation in the Śruti was only the means (upāya) to ultimately lead to the end (upeya) which is the realization of ātman. The Śruti denies (nihunte) the idea of the reality of the means, by taking the help of the imperceptibility of the ātman as a reason (agrāhyabhāvena hetunā). The ignorant people should not erroneously understand what is stated as the means (saṃbhuti and karma) have the same reality as the end (Brahmātmaeikatva). The ultimate truth (i.e. the end) is sat (existence), one and changeless. The means (upāya) are superimposed on ātman by the ignorant student. Śaṅkara says that, all that is superimposed on the ātman is unreal and like the snake superimposed on a rope is not different from the substratum on which it is superimposed.

Therefore, one who knows that the means (upāya) is intended only to lead to the end (upeya), to such a person the Self/ ātman reveals itself as one and changeless. When the ātman is realised the distinction of means and end disappears. Gauḍapāda in an earlier kārikā (1:18) has already said that, “on knowing the Truth, there remains no duality”. The means (upāya) is intended only to remove all superimposed attributes on Brahman.

Gauḍapāda in kārikās 27-28 points out that the meaning of the Śruti must also adhere to reason. He says in kārikā 27 ‘that which is ever-existent appears to pass into birth through illusion (māyā) and not from the standpoint of Reality. He who thinks that this passing into birth is real asserts, as a matter of fact, that which is born is born again (and so on without end)’.

Śaṅkara in his commentary on this kārikā states that: ‘Thus hundreds of Śruti passages teach the un-originated (ajam) nature of the ātman/ Self which is the cause of appearance of the world, because there exist nothing other than it. The ātman is unborn (aja) and non-dual (advayaṃ). It has no internal distinctions i.e. the ātman exists within and without. There is nothing exists outside the ātman. According to Śaṅkara this very fact can be established by reason also.

It may be argued that if ātman is ever incomprehensible then it must be nonexistent/unreal like the horns of hare. According to Śaṅkara this would be a wrong supposition. For we comprehend the effect of that inconceivable cause. The cause is known by its effects.

And this effect is in the form of the origination of the universe, the effect that everyone can perceive and comprehend. Nothing can be born of a non-existent cause. Even an illusory effect has an existent cause. There is a real magician behind the illusory magical effects. The meaning is that these magical effects prove the existence of a real magician. Similar is the case with the appearance called the creation of the world. This appearance too makes one aware of its substratum, its basis, the ātman that is the highest Being, as the creation of the world can originate from a real cause, not from an unreal cause. The illusory effects of elephants and the like do not originate from a non-existent cause/source but from a real magician. The same is true of the world appearance.

Again, the second interpretation^[2] of the first line of the kārikā is that the real can only appear to be born into something else, not in reality. A rope does not get ‘born’ into a snake. The rope is the reality, but the snake that appears on it is not real. Similarly, the incomprehensible ātman seems to have become this world in appearance only, not in reality. This is only an illusion, like a rope becoming a snake. The unborn ātman (aja) can never come to be born in reality.

But the disputant (dualist) who holds that the non-dual ātman, the Supreme Reality, is really born in the form of universe cannot contend that the unborn is born. The statement ‘the unborn is born’ is self-contradictory. When a thing is born it ceases to be unborn. The disputants must admit that a thing once born may be born again. But if they argue that ‘what is born is born as something else’, that means the endless process of seeking causes will go on ad infinitum. There will then be no hope for liberation/freedom from the cycle of birth and death. Therefore it is established that the ātmatattva is unborn (aja) and non–dual. The birth of ātman is only illusory and not real.

Gauḍapāda in kārikā 28 continues that: ‘The unreal cannot be born either really or through māyā. For the son of a barren woman is neither in reality nor in illusion’. It is not even possible to postulate the birth of the non-existent either in appearance or in reality. The son of a barren woman (vandhyāpūtra) is never born, neither in appearance nor in reality.

According to Śaṅkara there are some who postulate non-existent as the source of everything. The Nihilist (asad-vādins) maintains that the world which appears is originated out of the non-existent (asat); that the non-existent is born. It is, however, impossible for them to show that anything can come out of nothing, either in reality (tattvataḥ) or in illusion (māyayā). Nihilism thus is nothing but an absurdity.

Kārikās 27 and 28 are correlatives, teaching dialectically that neither the real (sataḥ) not the unreal (asataḥ) can be rationally said to come into being. In kārikā 27 Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkara use the notion of the absurdity of an infinite regress to argue that the birth of the real is not a coherent concept from the absolute standpoint (tattvataḥ), although apparently acceptable from the standpoint of relative truth. Gauḍapāda in kārikā 28, the birth of the unreal is said to be impossible from either standpoint (māyayāor tattvataḥ), like the son of a barren woman.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ibid., 192-3.

[2]:

The word ‘sataḥ’ in this (3:27) kārikā when interpreted as in the ablative case would make Brahman/ ātman the (illusory) instrumental cause (nimitta kāraṇa) and when the word ‘sataḥ’ in this kārikā is interpreted as in the genitive case, it would make Brahman/ ātman as the (illusory) material cause (upādāna kāraṇa).