एष सर्वेश्वर एष सर्वज्ञ एषोऽन्तर्याम्येष योनिः सर्वस्य प्रभवाप्ययौ हि भूतानां त्रयमप्येतत्सुषुप्तं स्वप्नं मायामात्रं चिदेकरसो ह्ययमात्माथ तुरीयश्चतुरात्मा तुरीयावसितत्वादेकैकस्योतानुज्ञात्रनुज्ञाविकल्पैस्त्रयमप्यत्रापिसुषुप्तं स्वप्नं मायामात्रं चिदेकरसो ह्ययमात्माथायमादेशो न स्थूलप्रज्ञं न सूक्ष्मप्रज्ञं नोभयतःप्रज्ञं न प्रज्ञं नाप्रज्ञं न प्रज्ञानघनम् अदृष्टमव्यवहार्यमग्राह्यमलक्षणम् अचिन्त्यमचिन्त्यमव्यपदेश्यमैकात्म्यप्रत्ययसारं प्रपञ्चोपशमं शिवं शान्तमद्वैतं चतुर्थं मन्यन्ते स आत्मा स विज्ञेय ईश्वरग्रासस्तुरीयस्तुरीयः
eṣa sarveśvara eṣa sarvajña eṣo'ntaryāmyeṣa yoniḥ sarvasya prabhavāpyayau hi bhūtānāṃ trayamapyetatsuṣuptaṃ svapnaṃ māyāmātraṃ cidekaraso hyayamātmātha turīyaścaturātmā turīyāvasitatvādekaikasyotānujñātranujñāvikalpaistrayamapyatrāpisuṣuptaṃ svapnaṃ māyāmātraṃ cidekaraso hyayamātmāthāyamādeśo na sthūlaprajñaṃ na sūkṣmaprajñaṃ nobhayataḥprajñaṃ na prajñaṃ nāprajñaṃ na prajñānaghanam adṛṣṭamavyavahāryamagrāhyamalakṣaṇam acintyamacintyamavyapadeśyamaikātmyapratyayasāraṃ prapañcopaśamaṃ śivaṃ śāntamadvaitaṃ caturthaṃ manyante sa ātmā sa vijñeya īśvaragrāsasturīyasturīyaḥ
He is the Lord of all, he is all-knowing, he is the inner ruler, he is the womb of all; for from him is the arising and in him the passing of beings. And all these three — deep sleep and dream — are nothing but māyā, for this Ātman is the one savour of consciousness. Then the fourth, fourfold — by the completion of each in the fourth, by the weft, the permitter, the permission and the discrimination. And this is the instruction: neither cognising the gross, nor cognising the subtle, 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, benign, tranquil, non-dual — him they hold to be the fourth. He is the Ātman, he is to be known: the swallowing by the Lord — the fourth, the fourth.
05cf8efd142f · published Jul 29, 2026, 4:39:50 AM UTC
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The first khaṇḍa of the uttara ends with a word that will be the key to the whole second half of the book: īśvara-grāsa, “the swallowing by the Lord”.
Grāsa means “gulp, morsel, swallowing”; from the root gras, “to swallow”.
Here is what is said. The three states — waking, dream, oblivion — are declared māyā-mātra, “nothing but māyā”; and the fourth is named not a state, but that which swallows them.
This is what distinguishes our book from the Māṇḍūkya. There the fourth was described by negations and left. Here it has an action: it swallows the first three.
Note too the enigmatic four which will repeat to the end of the book: ota, anujñātṛ, anujñā, vikalpa — “the weft, the permitter, the permission, the discrimination”.
These words the book nowhere explains directly, and I will not pass a guess off as interpretation. From the way they are used the approximate sense is visible: ota — that by which everything is threaded; anujñātṛ — the one who consents, permits; anujñā — that consent itself; vikalpa — the dividing into this and that.
That is, the fourth is present in everything fourfoldly: as the weft, as the consenter, as the consent, and as that by which one thing differs from another.
And the last: turīyas turīyaḥ, “the fourth, the fourth” — and in the second khaṇḍa will appear turīya-turīya, “the fourth of the fourth”.