Karanam Aravinda Rao, Friday, September 4, 2015 8:33 am

Satyam j~nAnam anantam Brahma, an Exposition by Shankara

What is the nature of the Ultimate Reality, or most Supreme  or Highest?  This question has been engaging the  minds of all thinkers throughout the ages. Taittiriya Upanishad attempts to give a definition of such Ultimate by stating Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma. Brahma  is Truth, Knowledge and the Infinitude. The sentence is split into three statements, i.e, Satyam Brahma, Jnanam Brahma and Anantam Brahma. Each is a complete sentence and a statement.  Syntactically Satyam Brahma is similar to the sentence ‘red flower’ and like the word ‘red’ the word Satyam is an adjective to describe or qualify the flower.  An adjective distinguishes an object from objects of the same class. When we say ‘short’ man the word ‘short’ distinguishes  the person   from a ‘tall’ man but not from a cow.  Thus the adjective delimits an object from objects of the same class.  So when we say Satyam Brahma the word Satyam  tends to behave like a normal adjective with delimiting function and tries to distinguish Brahma from other Brahmas, if any, but there cannot be any other Brahma. It follows that we cannot take Satyam as pure adjective.  Sankara explains that the adjectives used in the Upanishadic sentence  do not merely have describing function but also have a defining function.

All the three adjectives in the sentence are having the same case ending, i.e, the nominative case and they stand in apposition with the subject Brahman.  It means that Satyam=Brahma, Jnanam=Brahma, and Anantam=Brahma.
What then, are the implications? Satyam is something whose existence cannot be negated in past, present or future, i.e, trikaalalbaadhyam.  It is beyond time. It is also something whose nature does not change.  Whatever changes is untruth, anrita.  A clod of earth or clay takes many shapes, jar, pot, lid and so on. All these changes are unreal or apparent, but the real nature i.e, clayness does not change. Clay is true and all the changed forms are untrue.  Gold is true but the variegated shapes it takes are untrue with respect the real nature of gold. In philosophy one has to have the approach of a gold smith or a potter, but not that of the consumer.  Shankara cites a famous line from the Chandogya Upanishad: Vaacharambhanam vikaro namadheyam, mrittiketyeva satyam. All mutations or transformations are but names, only the clay is real.
From this argument it gets established that Brahma alone is changeless or immutable.  But then a question arises: if Brahma is immutable, what is the substratum for all the things or appearances in creation? If It is a cause, then like all other causes it becomes a substance and like all substances it should be jada or insentient. This cannot be accepted for Brahma. To avoid this flaw, the Upanishad says Jnanam Brahma i.e, knowledge or consciousness is Brahma.  While being the cause, it is also pure consciousness.
A question follows whether Brahma is a knower or agent of knowledge, somebody who knows or sees everything, like a supreme master sitting in the heavenly skies and monitoring everyone below.  Any such knower, by definition, becomes one of changing nature because  his knowledge keeps on changing.  He sees one thing today, sees something tomorrow and so on.  This contradicts the earlier statement, Satyam Brahma. However knowledgeable he is , he becomes a delimited personality.  So he cannot be a knower or agent of knowing, but should be the very essence of knowing or cognition. The word Jnana is to be taken as an abstract noun.  Brahma is pure knowledge or consciousness. Shankara quotes another Upanishadic statement:  ‘yatra naanyad vijanati sa bhooma’ ,‘ athayatra anyadvijanati tad alpam’.  The Infinite is a state where one does not know anything else, finite is that which knows or understands something else other than itself.  We cannot ascribe or hypothesize the act of knowing in Brahma itself.  (This is the argument of Bhatta Mimamsakas who hypothesize that through the chidamsa  or component of knowledge It can cognize the jadamsa i.e, the component of inertness).  Such an argument would be inappropriate in case of Brahma who is niravayava  or partless.
Vedantins classify ‘difference’ i.e, bheda into three types: (i)sajatiya bheda or difference within the same class as a mango tree with a Palmyra tree, (ii)vijatiya bheda i.e, difference with objects of a different category or class, as a tree with a human being, and (iii) svagata bheda i.e, difference within oneself , like leaves, branches, fruits within the same tree. Brahma cannot be said to have parts because Its infinitude is challenged or contradicted.  Moreover, Brahma having two parts i.e., the knower and the knowable makes It a changing entity, which contradicts the first adjective satyam.  So we have to conclude that Brahma is knowledge itself.
If we merely stop with jnanam brahma it may again presuppose a beginning and an end because all human knowledge is finite or limited. Dividing Brahma into jnata, jneya and jnana i.e., knower, knowable and knowledge shows Brahma as a limited being.  Hence the third adjective, anantam to qualify and define Brahma.  It is not the limited knowledge of a person who knows the knowable but it is the very essence of knowledge, bodha svarupam and eternal entity simultaneously.
We have to remember that while propounding the eternally valid truths of the Upanishads, Shankara was also addressing his contemporary rival dialecticians, the Buddhists, Sankhyas etc.  In the present context also he poses for himself the argument of Buddhists and answers it.
One school of Buddhists who are Sunyavadins contend that the three adjectives Satyam etc, are merely meant to negate the qualities-untruth, insentience and impermanence and that they do not positively propose any qualities. Moreover the subject for current discussion, i.e. Brahma is something totally unfamiliar. It is not known by any pramana, such as perception, inference and so on. Hence these adjectives are merely referring to Sunya or nothingness and what you say as Brrahma is nothingness.
Shankara answers: it is possible that adjectives can be mere verbal expressions denoting nothing, such as in phrases (which are commonly quoted in Vedanta texts), ‘flowers of the sky’, ‘son of a barren woman’, which are verbal possibilities but impossible in reality. But in the present Upanishadic sentence the adjectives are not merely to negate something, but also to positively to assert something.  It has earlier been said that these words are not merely qualifying or distinguishing in nature but also defining or indicative in nature. Lakshanartha viseshana is the word used by Shankara where the root laksha means ‘to indicate’. These words affirm the real nature of Brahma. Shankara clarifies that while imparting their own meaningin the distinguishing mode, these words assert the nature of Brahma.

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