Mandukya Karika, verse 3.2

Sanskrit text, IAST transliteration and English translation

अतो वक्ष्याम्यकार्पण्यमजाति समतां गतम् ।
यथा न जायते किंचित् जायमानं समन्ततः ॥ २ ॥

ato vakṣyāmyakārpaṇyamajāti samatāṃ gatam |
yathā na jāyate kiṃcit jāyamānaṃ samantataḥ || 2 ||

2. Therefore I shall now describe that (Brahman) which is free from limitations, unborn and which is the same throughout; and from this, one understands that it is not (in reality) born though it appears to be manifested everywhere.

Shankara Bhashya (commentary)

One unable to realise Ātman, which is both within and without and birthless, and therefore believing oneself to be helpless through Avidya, thinks, “I am born, I subsist in the Brahman with attributes (saguṇa) and through devotion to It I shall become Brahman,” and thus becomes Kripaṇa (narrow-minded). Therefore, I shall describe Brahman which has never been subject to any limitation and which is birthless (changeless). The narrowness of mind has been described in such Śruti passages as, “When one sees another, hears another, knows another, then there is limitedness (littleness), mortality and unreality,” “Modification is only a name arising from speech, but the truth is that all is clay,” etc. But contrary to it is Brahman known as Bhumā (great) which is both within and without and which is free from all limitations. I shall now describe that Brahman, free from all limitations, by realising which one gets rid of all narrowness superimposed by ignorance. It (Brahman) is called Ajāti, birthless, inasmuch as none knows its birth or cause. It is the same always and everywhere. How is it so? It is so because there does not exist in it (Brahman) any inequality caused by the presence of parts or limbs. For, only that which is with parts may be said to be born (or to have taken new form) by a change of its parts. But as Ātman is without parts, it is always the same and even, that is to say, it does not manifest itself in any new form through a change of the parts. Therefore it is without birth and free from limitation. Now listen as to how¹ Brahman is not born, how it does not undergo change by so much as a jot, but ever remains unborn, though it appears, through ignorance, to be born and to give birth to others, like the rope² and the snake.

Anandagiri Tika (glossary)

¹ How, etc.—Brahman (Ātman) is always non-dual even during the perception of duality by the ignorant. Non-duality is the Reality and duality is illusion.

² Rope—The truth is that the rope does not become or produce the snake. It is only through ignorance that one sees the snake in the rope. Similarly Brahman which is birthless, causeless, changeless and attributeless is imagined by the ignorant as producing or becoming the universe.