MANDUKYA UPANISHAD with GAUDAPADA’S KARIKA: 36 - Swami Advayananda.

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Thursday 17, October 2024, 06:20.
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 - 4.21: A Pointer to “Birthlessness” 
Post-36.

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Mantram - 4.21: A Pointer to “Birthlessness”: 

1 Poorva aparaa pari-jnaanam, = The uncertainty of precedence or succession 

2 ajaateh pari-deepakam; = is a pointer to “birthlessness” itself. 

3 jaayamaanaat hi vai dharmaat, = For, if it be a fact that a thing does take birth, 

4 katham poorvam na grihyate. = why is its cause not apprehended? 

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1-4

 The above discussion (verses 14-20) on cause and effect ended with no certainty 

as to what the cause of creation is. Yet, the discussion is intended to teach us something: 

The uncertainty of the cause serves to prove the truth of the Advaitic standpoint. Creation is 

unreal; therefore, how can there be any certainty in its cause?  

The Real Purpose of the Above Discussion:

The inability to know the true cause of the ‘birth’ of an effect, and thereafter what 

happens upon the ‘death’ of the effect, is an indication of the correctness of the Advaitic 

view that in truth there is no cause and effect, that they are just appearances, and nothing is 

really born. The “Birthlessness” of all things is being indicated by this. 

The Vedantin’s beginningless-ness (or “Birthlessness”) is not the same as that of the 

mathematician’s. To the mathematician, a so-called infinite series may be established by 

stringing together an ‘infinite’ number of finite things. We have seen that adding up any 

number of finite things does not give us infinity, but only a semblance of infinity. 

True Vedantic beginningless-ness is totally different. It points to that single positive 

entity in the universe which exists at all times, uniformly, without change, everywhere, and 

is indestructible. Infinity is a thing which cannot be imagined by the human mind. The 

difficulty in grasping the nature of true Infinity is seen in the numerous debates and 

disagreements about Creation.

 

To the TIME and SPACE limitations, we can now add a third limitation called 

CAUSALITY. These three limitations are the “Tripod” upon which all creation rests. The 

fruitfulness of this discussion has been to bring out this third factor in addition to the Time 

and Space factors, which are already well known to us. Reality is in a realm beyond all these 

three limiting factors. 

*****

Next

Mantram - 4.22: The Summary Statement 

Continued

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