Commentary on the Panchadasi: 20. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday 30, November 2025, 19:30.
BOOKS
UPANISHAD 
Discourse - 5.
Chapter 1: Tattva Viveka – Discrimination of Reality.
Mantras 44-55
Mantram - 44.
SWAMI KRISHNANANDA
Post-20.

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Mantram-44.

"Jagato yadu pādānaṁ māyā mādāya tāmasīm, nimittaṁ śuddha sasattvāṁ tāmucyate brahma tadgirā." (44).

This is the introduction to a system of analysis known as jahad ajaha lakshana. When we make statements, sometimes they are involved in certain associations which are not part of the conclusion that we have to arrive at. In Sanskrit, this method of elimination of unnecessary factors in a sentence and only taking the essentials is called jahad ajaha lakshana. Lakshana is a definition of a sentence, or a proposition that is made. Where the literal connotation is abandoned for the spirit of the sentence, jahad ajaha lakshana is employed. The literal meaning is abandoned, and that is called jahad; jahad means 'abandoned'. Ajahad means 'not abandoned', 'taken'. We take the spirit of the statement made, and not only the letter.

The general illustration in Vedanta philosophy is this. Suppose there is a person called Devadatta, and he has a friend called Yajnadatta. Devadatta is living in Bombay, and Yajnadatta saw him in Bombay. After some years, Yajnadatta sees Devadatta in another place. The place has changed; the time has also changed. Firstly, instead of being in Bombay, he is now seen in Rishikesh. And instead of having seen him ten years back, he sees him now, after ten years. When Yajnadatta sees Devadatta in an audience, he makes a statement: “This is that Devadatta whom I saw in Bombay ten years back.”

Now, two places cannot be identical, and two times also cannot be identical. Bombay is not Rishikesh, and ten years back is not now, after ten years. The identity of the person is what is connoted here. The aspect of space and time are abandoned. The distance of space between Bombay and Rishikesh is ignored, and also the distance of duration, a gap of ten years, is abandoned. Therefore, the epithets that are used in the sentence “This is the same Devadatta whom I saw ten years back” are unnecessary because 'ten years back' is unnecessary to define a person, and 'this' and 'that' are also unnecessary. It is the same identical person who is before us whether he was there in some other place or whether he is here, and whether he was at that time or whether he is here at this time.

In a similar manner, the doctrine says that we have to eliminate certain unnecessary descriptive factors associated with God as Creator and the individual as an isolated part. How can an isolated part become one with the Universal Being? It is possible only in the same sense as a person seen in some other place is the same as the person seen in this place, if only we eliminate unnecessary factors. Now, what are these factors that condition God and make us feel that He is totally different from the individual? These factors are described here in the verses following.

Ishvara is the name of the creative principle. God is not only the instrumental cause of the world, but also the material cause. We must know the difference between an instrumental cause—an efficient cause, as it is called—and a material cause. The carpenter is the instrumental cause, or the efficient cause, of a piece of furniture because he causes the furniture to manifest by his effort. In a similar manner, God causes the world to manifest by the force of His will, as the carpenter creates the shape or the structure of the furniture by the force of his will. But there is a difference between the carpenter and God in the sense that the wood that is the material of the furniture does not come from the body of the carpenter. He is not the material cause of the product—namely, the furniture. He is only the efficient cause, and not the material cause.

Here in the case of the carpenter and the table, the material comes from somewhere else, outside the location or the personality of the carpenter. But in the case of God, there is no external material. There is no furniture, wood, steel, brick and cement, etc., that God can have outside Himself. He cannot have an exterior or totally outside material for the creation of the world. God is also the substance out of which the world is made. The Mundakopanishad gives the illustration of a spider spinning its web. The web is made out of the very substance that comes out of its own being.

Therefore, God is not only the instrumental cause, He is also the material cause. He becomes the material of the universe when He associates Himself as consciousness with the tamasic aspect of prakriti, which becomes the five tanmatras—sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa, gandha—and by the process of quintuplication becomes the five gross elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether.

God is the creator of the material of the universe in the form of the five tanmatras and the five gross elements, by associating Himself with tamasic prakriti. By associating Himself with sattvic prakriti, which is the sattva guna manifest in a universal way, He becomes the instrumental cause. That is, the intelligence of Brahman is reflected through the universal sattva of prakriti, and that universally manifest intelligence is the causative factor, the instrumental or efficient cause, the intelligent cause of the universe. But the material is the very same Brahman associating itself with tamasic prakriti. This is the meaning of this particular verse: jagato yadu pādānaṁ māyā mādāya tāmasīm, nimittaṁ śuddha sasattvāṁ tāmucyate brahma tadgirā. God becomes the upadana, or the material cause, by associating Himself with tamasic prakriti. But He becomes nimitta, or the instrumental cause, by associating with shuddha sattva pradhan prakriti.

So, the manner of the reflection of Brahman in the properties of prakriti, sattva and tamas differently, becomes the cause of God Himself appearing as the instrumental cause and the material cause together. Therefore, God is called abhina nimitta upadana karana. Abhina means non-differentiated, nimitta is instrumental, upadana is material, and karana is cause. God is the undifferentiated material and instrumental cause of the universe. This is how God appears as the creative principle of the cosmos, but He may appear as an individual by associating Himself with another thing.

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Next
Mantram - 45.
Yadā malina sattvāṁ tāṁ kāma karmādi dūṣitām, ādatte tatparaṁ brahma tvaṁ padena tadocyate (45). 
Continues

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