īkṣater nāśabdam - Brahman is knowable
« Vedānta-sūtra: The Govinda-bhāṣya of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa
Sūtra 1.1.5 - Brahman is knowable
īkṣater nāśabdam
iksateh: because it is seen (that the scriptures describe Him as possessing positive attributes); na: not; asabdam: indescribable by words.
Brahman is not indescribable by words, for it is seen that He is vividly described in the scriptures.
Commentary: The Advaita school holds the opinion that Brahman cannot be expressed in words. In other words, in their understanding, Brahman is indescribable and can be understood only by spiritual realization. Any attempt to describe Brahman in words results in a description covered by the material modes. According to them, the scriptures describe Brahman as self-revealing (He can be understood only by His own accord), and if He could be described by words, this principle would be contradicted.
This idea appears to be supported by several passages of the scriptures:
yato vāco nivartante aprāpya manasā saha
“[Brahman] is He whom the mind fails to find and words fail to describe.” (Taittriya Upanisad 2.9.1)
This line is part of a larger verse that describes the realization of the ānanda-māyā, the ultimate stage of transcendental realization:
yato vāco nivartante, aprāpya manasā saha, ānandam brahmaṇo vidvān, na bibheti kutaścaneti , etam ha vāva na tapati, kim aham sādhu nākaravam, kim aham pāpam akaravam iti, sa ya evam vidvān ete ātmānam spṛṇute, ubhe hy evaiṣa ete ātmānam spṛṇute, ya evam veda, ityupaniṣat
“He who knows the bliss of that Supreme Lord, the ānanda-māyā, whom the mind fails to find and words fail to describe, fears nothing. Material thoughts don’t affect him. He doesn’t rejoice with the good or lament for the evil. He finds equanimity in both. He becomes free from both good and bad karma and attains the supreme destination. This is the secret teaching.”
Another passage is found in the Kena Upaniṣad (1.5)
yad vacanābhyuditam yena vāg abhyudyīyate
tad eva brahma tvam viddhi, nedam yad idam upāsate
“No one has the power to describe Brahman with words, even though everyone’s speech occurs by the power granted by Him. Know this Brahman as transcendental, and worship Him.”
Even the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam could be quoted:
yato ’prāpya nyavartanta, vācaś ca manasā saha
aham cānya ime devās, tasmai bhagavate namaḥ
“Words, mind and ego, with their respective controlling demigods, have failed to achieve success in knowing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore, we simply have to offer our respectful obeisances unto Him as a matter of sanity.” (SB 3.6.40).
To this, Vyasadeva answers: īkṣater nāśabdam. Brahman is not indescribable by words, because it is seen that He is vividly described in the scriptures.
Two negatives make a positive. In this sūtra, we have the word “asabdam”, which means “that which cannot be described by words“, but it is preceded by the word “na” (not), which results in the opposite idea. In this way, nāśabdam means “not indescribable”, or in other words, it means that Brahman can indeed be described by words. Brahman is not asabdam.
This contradicts the idea that Brahman can’t be understood. This sūtra makes it clear that it is possible to understand the transcendental nature of Brahman, but there is a process for it.
The word “iksateh” indicates that the nature of Brahman is explained in detail in the scriptures, especially in the Upaniṣads. The Bhagavad-gītā, in particular, contains a great deal of information about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, explained by the Lord Himself:
“I am the father of this universe, the mother, the support and the grandsire. I am the object of knowledge, the purifier and the syllable om. I am also the Ṛg, the Sāma and the Yajur Vedas. I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge and the most dear friend. I am the creation and the annihilation, the basis of everything, the resting place and the eternal seed.
O Arjuna, I give heat, and I withhold and send forth the rain. I am immortality, and I am also death personified. Both spirit and matter are in Me.” (Bg 9.17-19)
“I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts. The thoughts of My pure devotees dwell in Me, their lives are fully devoted to My service, and they derive great satisfaction and bliss from always enlightening one another and conversing about Me.
To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me. To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance.” (Bg 10.8-11)
This is also corroborated in other passages. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (3.9.26), for example, Yājñavalkya declares:
tam tv aupaniṣadam puruṣam pṛcchāmi
“I inquire about that Supreme Person who is known through the Upaniṣads.”
The Katha Upanisad (1.2.15) mentions:
sarve vedā yat-padam amananti
“All the Vedas describe the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
In the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa Himself declares:
vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
vedānta-kṛd veda-vid eva cāham
“By all the Vedas, I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedānta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.” (Bg 15.15)
In this verse, the word “vedyo” clearly indicates that the Lord is knowable. vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyo: By the Vedas, I am certainly knowable.
These and other passages clearly indicate that the Lord is described in the scriptures. However, to understand Him, we need to follow the appropriate process by receiving the correct conclusions from a self-realized soul. By merely reading books and trying to understand the meaning using our limited intellect, the conclusion escapes us.
Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa notes that the word aupanisada, mentioned in the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka, means “that glorious person who is described in the Upaniṣads”, which gives further weight to the conclusions that the Vedas indeed describe the Supreme Lord. He also notes that the word iksateh used in this sūtra is in a passive form. The word īkṣateḥ comes from īkṣati (instead of īkṣa), used with a passive meaning (being seen). The unusual usage here is called arsa (a certain degree of grammatical liberty allowed to an exalted author). In other words, it is a type of poetic license that fits a great author like Śrīla Vyāsadeva, who can use words in unusual ways to express the exact meaning he desires.
When passages from the scriptures say that Brahman can’t be described in words, the meaning is simply that the Lord can’t be completely described, being unlimited. It’s said that Lord Ananta is trying to describe the glories of the Lord for an unlimited span of time, using all of his unlimited mouths, yet the glories of the Lord remain unlimited, and He therefore never finishes. Words can describe the glories of the Lord only so far, but this doesn’t mean they can’t describe the Lord at all.
One example is that it is sometimes said that no one can see Mount Meru. This doesn’t mean that no one sees the mountain (it’s visible to most of the inhabitants of Jambūdvīpa, being situated right in the middle of the island), but no one can see the entire mountain at a time. Each one sees just one side of it, according to his location, and part of the mountain is under the ground and thus not visible at all.
Without accepting the understanding that Brahman is not completely expressible by words or understandable by the mind, we can’t properly understand scriptural statements such as “yato vāco nivartate” (words cannot describe Brahman), “aprāpya manasā saha” (the mind cannot understand Brahman), and “yad vacanābhyuditam” (no one has the power to describe Brahman with words). These statements explain that the Supreme Lord can’t be completely described in words, but still, words can glorify and describe Him to a certain extent.
Because the Lord is absolute, His name, form, pastimes, etc., are all in the absolute plane. Therefore, words used to describe the Lord also become spiritualized and cease to be just ordinary material words, becoming fit to describe the Absolute Truth. All verses from the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam are thus considered to be spiritual, as good as Vedic mantras. Through these words, one may understand the Lord as far as his level of realization allows. Different persons may get different levels of understanding from hearing the same verses, and it is rare to find someone who completely knows the Lord in truth, as indicated in the Bhagavad-gītā: “Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.” (Bg 7.3). This is, however, not a defect in the scriptures, but the fruit of our own limitations.
The idea that Brahman can, to some extent, be described with words also does not contradict the fact that Brahman reveals Himself by His own wish. The Vedas are the incarnation of the Lord, and therefore non-different from Him. The Lord can thus reveal Himself to a sincere soul through the words of the scripture.
Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa counters Śankarācārya
Many of the arguments raised by Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa in his Govinda-bhāṣya are offered to counter conclusions given by Śankarācārya in the Śārīraka-bhāṣya, and thus offer the correct conclusions of the Vedānta-sūtra, as envisioned by Vyāsadeva. We can understand that these conclusions are correct because they are confirmed in the text of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which was composed by Vyāsadeva himself as the authorized commentary of the Vedānta-sūtra. Śankarācārya, on the other hand, often contradicts the conclusions of Vyāsadeva to promote monism.
In the first sūtra, athāto brahma-jijñāsā, both interpret the words atha and ataḥ as meaning that after achieving certain qualifications, one starts the process of inquiring about Brahman. However, Śankarācārya conditions the start of transcendental inquiry on the attainment of material qualifications such as discrimination, renunciation, etc., while Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa points to coming to the association of devotees as the crucial point. Another difference is the object to be inquired about. Śankara defines Brahman as nirguṇa (qualityless) and points to jñana as the process of realization, while Baladeva defines Brahman as the Supreme Person, the abode of all spiritual qualities, who can be approached through bhakti practiced in the association of devotees, under the guidance of the sastras.
In the second sūtra, janmādy asya yataḥ, both accept the basic meaning that everything emanates from the Supreme Brahman, but there is a crucial divergence. Śankara negates the transcendental potencies of the Lord, promoting instead his vivarta-vāda, the theory of illusion. In this way, he contradicts Vyāsadeva, whom he politely accuses of being mistaken. Baladeva, on the other hand, follows the conclusion given by Vyāsadeva in the first verse of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, explaining it according to Pariṇāma-vāda (the Lord is full of transcendental potencies and creates the universe through them). According to Śankara, the material creation is false, while Baladeva concludes it is not false, but illusory, confirming the conclusion given by Kṛṣṇa in the catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavatam (SB 2.9.34)
In the third sūtra, śāstra-yonitvāt, Śankara emphasizes that Brahman is the source of the sastras and that the sastras point us to Brahman. However, he again insists that the goal of this sastric study is to realize the nirguna (qualityless) Brahman. Baladeva, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Supreme Lord can’t be understood by dry logic; He can be known only through the proper understanding of the scriptures, which leads one to the process of devotional service. In other words, Śankara uses the sūtra to emphasize the impersonal aspect, while Baladeva brings us to the proper personal and theistic interpretation, where Sri Kṛṣṇa personally reveals the sastras, and bhakti is accepted as the highest goal.
In the 4th sūtra, tat tu samanvayāt, both agree on the basic meaning of rejecting fruitive activities and establishing the Supreme Brahman as the goal of the scriptures, but Śankara tries to establish his idea of a qualityless Brahman as the goal of the scriptures, going through a series of logical arguments to try to prove that all sastras agree on a formless and qualityless Brahman as the ultimate conclusion. Baladeva, on the other hand, establishes the proper conclusion of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, with qualities, form, pastimes, etc., as the ultimate conclusion of the scriptures, refuting the logical fallacy of Śankara in the process.
This process of systematic philosophical objection continues on the 5th sūtra, īkṣater nāśabdam. Śankarācārya interprets this sūtra as a refutation of the idea that pradhāna is the origin of the universe from the atheistic Sānkhya, establishing instead that Brahman is the ultimate cause. He does that through the argument that pradhāna is unconscious and inert, while the Vedas describe a conscious creator in verses such as:
tad aikṣata bahu syām prajāyeyeti, tat tejaḥ asṛjata
Sat deliberated, “Let me become many. Let me manifest in a remarkable way.” He then created fire. (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1–3)
He then tries to reconcile the idea of Brahman being conscious and intelligent with the idea of being formless and qualityless. These ideas are contradictory, but he tries to establish them using intellectual arguments, hiding these points under the fallacy that Brahman is ultimately indescribable by words. In this way, he takes the points of the scriptures that support his theory, while tactfully ignoring the rest. Baladeva, however, breaks this interpretation by countering the idea that Brahman is indescribable by words. By breaking this central point in Śankara’s argumentation, the whole construction cracks, because once the Vedas are accepted as the authoritative scriptures that describe the Supreme Brahman, it’s very difficult to escape the conclusion that the conscious creator described in the scriptures is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and not a qualityless Brahman.
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