MANDUKYA UPANISHAD with GAUDAPADA’S KARIKA: 38 - Swami Advayananda.

Swami Chinmayananda:

Parents advise their children to be good! But how to be good? Has someone told them? Swipe to read and share this with your children!

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Friday 015, November 2024, 06:45.
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 - 4.23: Cause & Effect are Birthless  
Post-38.

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Mantram - 4.23: Cause & Effect are Birthless  

1 

Hetuh na jaayate anaadeh, =  A cause is not born out of a beginningless effect; 

2 

phalam cha api swabhaavatah; =  nor can an effect be born out of itself. 

Conclusion : Thus, “Cause and effect are birthless”. 

3

aadih na vidyate yasya, = That which is beginningless

 4 

tasya hi aadih na vidyate. = has necessarily to be birthless. 

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The previous Mantram summarised the investigation into cause and effect with the 

conclusion that, from the Vedantic point of view, there can be no cause and effect. This 

classifies Creation as something that is illusory. What else, then, remains to be said on the 

topic? Another two possibilities of birth are raised by opposing viewpoints, and are dealt 

within this verse. They were not included in the above discussion because they do not arise 

from pure logic, in fact, we may say that they arise from ‘pure ill-logic’! 

The two possibilities (or to be more correct, impossibilities) are: 

1

 i)  Hetuh Anaadeh: A cause cannot be born of a beginningless effect; and 

2

 ii) Phalam Swabhaavatah: An effect cannot be born of itself. 

Both these have been dealt with in verse 15 in the previous topic, namely, the 

discussion on the Meemamsakas’ philosophy. The absurdity of this proposition has been 

shown already. Briefly, it is like a father being born to a son. 

Pujya Gurudev gives an example of his own in this matter: “To say that the cause is 

coming out of an effect that is beginningless is like saying that fire is being produced from 

ice!” 

Thus ends the discussion on this topic which may once again be summarised as: 

By showing the absurdity or impossibility of all eight possibilities 

in which birth can take place, the conclusive deduction we come to is 

the firm establishment of the Theory of Absolute Non-creation, called AJATI VADA. 

This is the Vedantic standpoint. 

The implication of this standpoint is that the Reality is firmly established as being non-dual.

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Next

REALISTS vs. IDEALISTS  

Karika Section 4.4:   Verses 24-29   (6 No.) 

Continued

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