Upanishads · Subāla 1.1
॥
Devanāgarī
ओं तदाहुः किं तदासीत्तस्मै स होवाच न सन्नासन्न सदसदिति
Transliteration (IAST)
oṃ tadāhuḥ kiṃ tadāsīttasmai sa hovāca na sannāsanna sadasaditi
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
ओं तत् आहुःoṃ tat āhuḥOṁ. Of this they ask; Oṁ. Here they inquire
किम् तत् आसीत्kim tat āsīt“what then was there?”; “what was there at that time?”
तस्मै सः ह उवाचtasmai saḥ ha uvācato him he said; to that one he answered
न सत् न असत्na sat na asat“neither the existent nor the non-existent”; “not being and not non-being”
न सत् असत् इतिna sat asat iti“nor the existent-and-non-existent”; “nor both of them together”
Translation
Oṁ. Of this they ask: “What then was there?” And he answered him: “Neither the existent, nor the non-existent, nor the existent-and-non-existent.”
Version
f91c8f514515 · published Jul 29, 2026, 4:12:03 AM UTC
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The Upaniṣad begins with the question of the beginning of beginnings — and with an answer that refuses to be an answer.
The question is ancient: “what was there then?” It is asked by the famous hymn of the Ṛg-veda on creation, and there too the first hint is given: “there was neither the non-existent nor the existent”. The Subāla repeats this move, but carries the negation to the end, adding a third possibility: “nor the existent-and-non-existent”.
Why the third negation? Because the mind, hearing “neither the one nor the other”, at once proposes to join them: both at once, then. The Upaniṣad closes this loophole too. All possible positions of the mind — is, is not, both is and is not — are rejected at a stroke.
This is no game of negations. The point is what precedes the very distinction of being and non-being — and that distinction is ours; it arises together with the world. To ask whether that which is prior to every “was” itself “was”, is to lay a ruler against that from which the ruler is made.
Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa cites this line in the Govinda-bhāṣya when examining the order of creation: it testifies that the world has a source of which nothing can be said in the world's own concepts — and thereby that this source is not a thing among things.
Note too what is absent here. It is not said “there was nothing”: that would be a fourth position, and rejected as well. Exactly as much is said as can be said — and the very next mantra will begin to unfold the whole world from there.