सः ह उवाच एतद् वै तद् अक्षरं गार्गि ब्राह्मणाः अभिवदन्ति अस्थूलम् अनणु अह्रस्वम् अदीर्घम् अलोहितम् अस्नेहम् अच्छायम् अतमः अवायु अनाकाशम् असङ्गम् अरसम् अगन्धम् अचक्षुष्कम् अश्रोत्रम् अवाक् अमनो अतेजस्कम् अप्राणम् अमुखम् अगात्रम् अनन्तरम् अबाह्यम् न तत् अश्नाति किं चन न तत् अश्नाति कश् चन
saḥ ha uvāca etad vai tad akṣaraṃ gārgi brāhmaṇāḥ abhivadanti asthūlam anaṇu ahrasvam adīrgham alohitam asneham acchāyam atamaḥ avāyu anākāśam asaṅgam arasam agandham acakṣuṣkam aśrotram avāk amano atejaskam aprāṇam amukham agātram anantaram abāhyam na tat aśnāti kiṃ cana na tat aśnāti kaś cana
He said: "This, Gārgī, is what the brāhmaṇas call the Akṣara, the Imperishable: not coarse, not fine, not short, not long, not red, not fluid, without shadow, without darkness, without wind, without space, without adhesion; without taste, without smell, without eyes, without ears, without speech, without mind, without heat, without breath, without mouth, without measure, without inside, without outside. It eats nothing, and nothing eats it."
6de9ca9f9527 · published Jul 27, 2026, 1:04:09 AM UTC
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The answer that became the mainstay of Vedānta: beyond space is the akṣara, "the Imperishable" (literally "the unfalling, the inexhaustible"). And the description of it is a cataract of negations: not coarse, not fine… without space (itself outside the fabric it holds!), without measure, without inside or outside. Twenty and more "nots" in a row: everything by which things are defined is taken away — for the question was about That by which the definitions themselves are defined.
The closing line is among the deepest in all the Veda: "it eats nothing, and nothing eats it". We remember the first cosmogony: the world is hunger, everyone is eater and food (1.2). The Akṣara is the one thing outside the meal of devouring: neither predator nor prey, the cause of no one's destruction and no one's booty. Here is the negation dearer than all the rest: the Imperishable takes no part in the universal mutual devouring — the world hangs upon it, but it neither feeds on the world nor will be eaten by it.
Note too the grammar of the revelation: "the brāhmaṇas call" — Yājñavalkya speaks not on his own authority but from the tradition: of the Last one does not testify alone. The apophasis here is not an emptiness but a railing round a throne: presently (3.8.9) it will appear that this "not-not" is a Commander, at whose order the sun and the moon stand fast.