नान्तःप्रज्ञं न बहिःप्रज्ञं नोभयतःप्रज्ञं न प्रज्ञं नाप्रज्ञं न प्रज्ञानघनमदृष्टमव्यवहार्यमग्राह्यमलक्षणमचिन्त्यमव्यपदेश्यमैकात्म्यप्रत्ययसारं प्रपञ्चोपशमं शान्तं शिवमद्वैतं चतुर्थं मन्यन्ते स आत्मा स विज्ञेयः
nāntaḥprajñaṃ na bahiḥprajñaṃ nobhayataḥprajñaṃ na prajñaṃ nāprajñaṃ na prajñānaghanamadṛṣṭamavyavahāryamagrāhyamalakṣaṇamacintyamavyapadeśyamaikātmyapratyayasāraṃ prapañcopaśamaṃ śāntaṃ śivamadvaitaṃ caturthaṃ manyante sa ātmā sa vijñeyaḥ
Neither cognising the inner, nor cognising the outer, nor cognising both, neither cognising nor uncognising, not a mass of cognition; unseen, unusable, ungraspable, without marks, unthinkable, unindicable, whose essence is the certainty of the one Ātman, the quieting of the world, tranquil, benign, non-dual — him they hold to be the fourth. He is the Ātman; he is to be known.
a4fcd43e97d9 · published Jul 29, 2026, 4:39:50 AM UTC
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The fourth foot, turīya, and it is described by negations alone.
First all three preceding are rejected: not waking, not dream, not oblivion; and even “not a mass of cognition”, that is, not the blissful forgetting just described.
Then — unseen, ungraspable, unthinkable, unnameable.
This is the strongest place of the Māṇḍūkya and the hardest. It seems that after such a list nothing remains.
But look how it ends: śāntaṁ śivam advaitam — “tranquil, benign, non-dual”. Three positive words after twelve negations, and the chief of them is śiva, “benign”.
The negations, then, take away not being but the ways of grasping. The unthinkable does not mean the empty: it is good, and good is never no one's.
We spoke of the same in reading the fourteenth paragraph of the second chapter of the uttara-tāpanī of the Rāma-tāpanī, where the same verse stands. And there I noted: in the place where the Māṇḍūkya sets the unsayable, the Vaiṣṇava book sets a name.
Here it will do the same — but later, in the litany: thirty-two mantras will name Nṛsiṃha everything there is.