निर्विकल्पमनन्तं च हेतुदृष्टान्तवर्जितम् । अप्रमेयमनाद्यन्तं यज्ज्ञात्वा मुच्यते बुधः ॥ 9॥ न निरोधो न चोत्पत्तिर्न बद्धो न च साधकः । न मुमुक्षुर्न वै मुक्त इत्येषा परमार्थता ॥ 10
nirvikalpamanantaṃ ca hetudṛṣṭāntavarjitam | aprameyamanādyantaṃ yajjñātvā mucyate budhaḥ || 9|| na nirodho na cotpattirna baddho na ca sādhakaḥ | na mumukṣurna vai mukta ityeṣā paramārthatā || 10
«Indifferent, infinite, devoid of argument and example, immeasurable, beginningless and endless — having known which, the wise one is liberated. There is neither cessation nor arising; there is neither the bound nor the doer; there is neither the seeker of liberation nor the liberated — such is the highest truth».
c7ef0e84e86b · प्रकाशित 12 अग॰ 2026, 5:00:00 am UTC
उपलब्ध भाषाएँRUENश्लोक बदलें इन कुंजियों से
Here is the chief verse of the opposing side, and it is cited here word for word. This is the Māṇḍūkya-kārikā of Gauḍapāda (2.32), a composition by the teacher of Śaṅkara's teacher, and in it is stated the most extreme thing ever said in this literature: no one has ever been bound, and no one has ever been liberated. This teaching is called ajāta-vāda, «the doctrine of the unborn»: nothing has happened, nothing is happening, and the very question of liberation is a misunderstanding.
Let us give it its due, for it is consistent. If the highest is one and without a second, then indeed there are neither bound nor free, and everything we have discussed for a hundred and five lines is talk about nothing. The Vaishnava objection to this verse is single and simple, and Rāmānuja stated it best. This verse is spoken to someone. It is spoken by a teacher to a pupil, so that the pupil will stop being deluded; that is, it presupposes both a teacher and a pupil, and delusion, and a change. One who says «there is no doer» is himself, at that very moment, doing something — teaching; and if he is right, then there was no one to speak and no one to listen.
The answer given to this is a division into two levels: on the lower there is a teacher and a pupil, on the higher there is nothing. But this very division is what we dispute. It declares a person's whole life — with his labor, his love, and his death — conditionally real; and at the higher level no one lives, including those who write about it.
Worth noting too that this very book said, nineteen lines earlier: «by attachment, he becomes released» (86). There, attachment was the foundation of freedom; here it does not exist at all. The compendium has brought both assertions under one cover — and thereby, unwittingly, has done the reader a service, who may now compare them himself.