MANDUKYA UPANISHAD with GAUDAPADA’S KARIKA: 32 - Swami Advayananda.

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Saturday 24, Aug 2024, 06:50.
MANDUKYA UPANISHAD 
GAUDAPADA’S KARIKA
Agama Prakarana – “The Scriptural Treatise”

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GAUDAPADA’S KARIKA:  PART 4/4:   ALAATA-SHANTI PRAKARANA (100 mantras): Quenching the Firebrand:
The SANKHYANS Refuted:
Karika Section 4.3:   
Mantras - 14-23 (10 No.) 
Mantram - 4.16: Cause & Effect – Sequential or Simultaneous 
Post-32.

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Mantram - 4.16: Cause & Effect – Sequential or Simultaneous 

1 

Sambhave hetu phalayoh, =  In the matter of origin of cause and effect, 

2  

eshitavyah kramah tvayaa; =  a sequence has to be found out by you. 

3

yugapat sambhave yasmaat, = For, if their origin is simultaneous then, 

4 

asambandhah vishaanavat. = like two horns of an animal, they are unrelated. 

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Having summarily dismissed the impossibility of the First and Second Statements, 

the Vedantin turns his attention to the Third Statement, which says both cause and effect 

are Anaadi or beginningless. 

Actually, the Meemamsakas are forced into this Third Statement due to the 

illogicality of their first two statements. They are forced to accept the infinite regression 

implied by the first two statements. Thus both their cause as well as effect has to be Anaadi. 

1-2

 The Vedantin, knowing the above false logic to be the root of Statement Three, 

goes back to the earlier two statements and asks the Meemamsaki to then at least tell him 

which of the two items – the cause or the effect – is the major determinant. He wants to 

know the Kramah or sequence of which factor is the more dominant one. 

There is no reply to this – only an embarrassed silence! 

3-4

 The Vedantin now pushes the stunned Meemamsaki further into the corner: He 

poses another option for the Meemamsaki to consider: “Could your cause and effect 

perhaps arise Yugapat, i.e. simultaneously, like the two horns of a cow, one on the right and 

one on the left, each growing simultaneously but unrelated to each other?” 

The Meemamsaki remains silent. He has literally been placed on “the horns of a 

dilemma”, amazed at the piercing clarity of intellect displayed by the Vedantin. Perhaps, he 

thinks that the Vedantin is making fun of him. Sharp logic does appear to be like that to 

those who are unprepared for it. But the Vedantin has no bitterness on his mind.

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Next

Mantram - 4.17: The Chain of Illogic  

Continued

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