MANDUKYA UPANISHAD with GAUDAPADA’S KARIKA: 35 - Swami Advayananda.

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Friday 04, October 2024, 06:10.
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 -4.20: The ‘Unproved’ Used as Proof! 
Post-35.

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Mantram -4.20: The ‘Unproved’ Used as Proof! 

1 Beeja ankura aakhyah drishtaantah, = The illustration of a seed-sprout itself 

2 sadaa saadhyasamah hi sah; = has, indeed, yet to be proven; 

3 na hi saadhyasamah hetuh, = Surely, the ‘unproved’ cannot be used as ‘proof’ 

4 siddhau saadhyasya yujyate. = to establish a proposition that is to be proved! 

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1-2 Everyone knows that a seed comes from the sprout, and a sprout comes from 

the seed. The existence of both the seed and sprout is finite. There is no doubt about this. 

However, the stringing of these events together to stretch them to infinity is the problem. 

The Vedantin, viewing the string purely mathematically, says: “Any number of finite 

items put together cannot add up to infinity. The very attempt is fallacious and shows a lack 

of understanding of what Infinity really is. Finite things will only add up to a finite sum, 

never to infinity.” 

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3-4 In this way, the Vedantin does not accept that the cause and effect of the 

Meemamsakas are both Anaadi or ‘beginningless’. The string of events may tend towards 

infinity but can never BE Infinity. Furthermore, the string of events is not relevant. However 

far back one goes with the regression, each cause and each effect is finite. That is what 

matters – they are established to be finite. 

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In this way, Sri Gaudapadacharyaji adheres to the Truth, in the face of a rather 

emotionally charged outcry from the Poorvapakshi. Truth is uncompromising, and Sri 

Gaudapadacharyaji, in adhering to it, teaches us the power of being intellectually honest. 

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 Next

Mantram - 4.21: A Pointer to “Birthlessness” 

Continued

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