 | “Anādi” in the Upaniṣads
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| The Upaniṣads and other śruti scriptures do not employ the word anādi to describe the jīva’s bondage. They do utilize the word to describe the beginningless nature of the Supreme Lord.
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| 1. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad (3.15) declares:
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| “By honoring Him, who has no beginning or end, who is beyond the mahat and eternally fixed, one is liberated from the mouth of death.”(41)
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| 2. The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (5.13) states:
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| “One is freed from all bonds by knowing God, who is without beginning or end, who in the midst of chaos is the creator of the cosmos, who has many forms, who is the One encompassing the universe.”(42)
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| 3. The Maitrāyanī Upaniṣad (5.1) worships the Lord with these words:
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| “Obeisances to You, the inconceivable and the immeasurable, to You, who are without beginning and end.”(43)
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| 4. Similarly, the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (4.4) declares:
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| “You are beginningless, You exist with majesty, You from whom all worlds are born.”(44)
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| In the first two śruti-mantras quoted above, we find the word anādi, “beginningless,” compounded with ananta, “endless,” the sense of which is, “The Lord who has no beginning or end.” Similarly, the third mantra offers obeisances to the Lord, who is anādi-nidhana, “without beginning or destruction.”
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| The fourth mantra simply addresses the Lord as anādimat, “one who has no beginning.”
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| “Anādi” in the Mahābhārata
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| The Mahābhārata, in its almost two thousand chapters (about six times more than the 335 chapters of the Bhāgavatam), also never uses the word anādi to describe the bondage of the conditioned soul. But, like the Upaniṣads, the Mahābhārata frequently employs the term anādi to describe entities (usually Kŗṣņa) or processes that are eternal, that is they neither begin nor end. To demonstrate this we will briefly review the forty-four occurrences of the word anādi in the Critical Edition of the Sanskrit text of the Mahābhārata.
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| In seven cases, the Mahābhārata describes something that has “no beginning, middle or end,” usually the Lord Himself.(45)
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| In seven other cases, the Mahābhārata describes either the Lord, or His eternal creative functions and parts and parcels, as beginningless and endless.
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| In twenty-seven verses, the Mahābhārata describes things that are anādi-nidhana, “having neither beginning nor annihilation.”sup>(47)
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| In all these occurrences of the word anādi, there is no mention of a condition or entity that has no beginning yet somehow ends.
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| There are, however, three instances in which the word anādi appears by itself, without a corresponding word meaning”endless,” etc. However, as in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 4.4, in which the word anādimat appears by itself, all these verses refer directly to the Supreme Lord.(48)
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| “Anādi” in the Bhagavad-gītā
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| In the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Kŗṣņa tells Arjuna that He is explaining all that is to be known, and that there shall remain nothing further to be known.(49) Often Śrīla Prabhupāda stated that the Bhagavad-gītā is merely the “ABC” of spiritual knowledge. Yet in the Gītā Lord Kŗṣņa presents all the basic categories of real, existing things, which are called, in Sanskrit, tattvas. In Western terminology, a philosophical presentation of the realities of existence is called ontology. Now, when we survey the occurrences of the word anādi in the Bhagavad-gītā, taking note as we do of the Gītā’s ontology, we find that there are but two fundamental states: temporary and eternal. To demonstrate this, we shall first survey the uses of anādi in the Gītā and then examine the basic ontology that Lord Kŗṣņa presents to us.
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| 1. In verse 10.3, Lord Kŗṣņa describes Himself as anādi.(50)
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| 2. In verse 11.19, Arjuna sees the Lord’s universal form as anādi-madhyāntam, “having no beginning, middle or end.”(51)
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| 3. In verse 13.13, Lord Kŗṣņa describes Brahman as anādi-mat, “having no beginning.”(52)
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| 4. In verse 13.20, Lord Kŗṣņa states that both His external energy (prakŗti), the material nature, and His internal energy (puruṣa), the living being, are beginningless. Lord Kŗṣņa contrasts these eternal potencies with the particular transformations (vikārān) and temporary qualities (guņān) of matter, which do indeed begin, arising from the eternal prakŗti.(53)
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| 5. In verse 13.32, Lord Kŗṣņa says that because of being beginningless (anāditvāt) and without material qualities (nirguņatvāt), the soul is transcendental and unperishing. Thus although situated in the body, the soul does not act and is not contaminated.(54)
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| We may inquire as to how the soul is “not contaminated although situated in the body,” and how this state of affairs can be attributed to the soul’s being beginningless and without material qualities. The answer to this question will naturally lead us into the second part of our survey of the Gītā, namely the fundamental ontology of the work.
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| Clearly the conditioned consciousness of the soul does mix with the body. This mixture is called ahaṅkāra, false ego. It is the consciousness of accepting the body to be the self and the source of consciousness.
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| When Lord Kŗṣņa says that the soul, even when situated within the body, is not tainted, He speaks of the soul’s ontology, or the essential characteristic of its own being. This tattva, the jīva, is a spiritual substance. As such, it is ontologically distinct from prakŗti-tattva. Thus Lord Kŗṣņa makes a sharp distinction between two elements: the spiritual element and the material element.
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| Lord Kŗṣņa had already established this distinction at the beginning of His teaching:
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| “Of the asat there is no existence (bhāva), and of the sat, there is no nonexistence (abhāva). Indeed, the seers of the truth have seen the conclusion of the both of these.”(55)
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| At the start of the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Kŗṣņa introduces two keyterms: sat, the spiritual, and asat, the material. We can easily ascertain the meaning of these terms if we review the verses that immediately preceed this conclusive statement.
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| In verse 2.12, Lord Kŗṣņa states that both He and Arjuna, as well as all the assembled kings, have always existed in the past, and they will always exist in the future.(56)
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| In verse 2.14, Lord Kŗṣņa explains that in contrast to the eternal existence of souls, the bodily sensations come and go.(57)
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| Thus sat, the spiritual, the soul, clearly means that which has always existed in the past, exists now and will always exist in the future. In contrast to this, asat refers to that which did not exist in the past, exists now for some time and will not exist in the future.
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| It is well known that of the five topics in the Bhagavad-gītā (the Lord, the living being, time, nature and karma), only karma is asat, or temporary. For that reason, the Bhāgavatam often describes karma as asat, having a beginning and an end.
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| Let us return to Bhagavad-gītā 13.32. Because the soul is beginningless and free of material qualities, the soul is unperishing and transcendental. Lord Kŗṣņa’s statement at 13.32 is intelligible if we take the term anādi to be synonymous with eternal. Surely to perish is to exhibit a material quality. Thus if karma were literally anādi,”beginningless,” and yet ended at a certain point, it would then have the spiritual quality of beginninglessness but the material quality of ending in time, and would thus be a new type of entity for which there is no explicit reference in the śruti literature. There is certainly no explicit reference to such an entity in Vedānta-sūtra 2.1.35, which simply states that the Lord is not partial “because of beginninglessness.” As we have seen, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaņa interprets this to mean “because of the beginninglessness of activity,” and his prime example of such activity is devotional service!
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| The crucial point here is that the soul is beginningless, therefore it does not perish. In other words, to have no beginning is to be free of the modes of nature and therefore to have no end and to be transcendental.
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| If we understand that there are only two states of being, temporary and eternal, then to be anādi is to be ananta, and to be ananta is to be anādi. That is why Lord Kŗṣņa Himself is frequently called Ananta. Although the authors state that the word ananta means that which begins but does not end, no ācārya thinks that this name, Ananta, indicates that the Lord has a beginning but no end. Similarly, when the Mahābhārata or the Upaniṣads address the Lord as anādi, no ācārya thinks that the Lord has no beginning but He does have an end. This simple ontological fact, that things either begin and end or that they neither begin nor end is the factual teaching of the Bhagavad-gītā, as we clearly see at 2.16, in which Lord Kŗṣņa states that of the sat there is no nonexistence, and of the asat, there is no true existence.
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| One might argue that fundamental entities or substances (tattvas) are eternal, whereas karma is a condition, a false state of consciousness, rather than a substance. But it is precisely this false, material state of consciousness that Lord Kŗṣņa refers to at 2.14 when He says:
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| “O Kaunteya, the contacts with the sense objects, which give happiness and distress, cold and heat, are impermanent; they come and go. Tolerate them, O Bhārata.”
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| It is these temporary sensations that Lord Kŗṣņa contrasts with eternal substances in His discussion of sat and asat at 2.16.
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| In his commentary on Bhagavad-gītā 15.3, Śrīpāda Rāmānujācārya indicates that the living entity’s material existence does indeed have a beginning, but that this beginning is, literally, immemorial; that is, the living being cannot recall or understand it.
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| While speaking of the banyan tree of material existence, at the beginning of the Fifteenth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Kŗṣņa states in verse 15.3:
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| “And so the form of this [tree] is not perceived in this world—not its end, nor its beginning, nor its foundation.”(58)
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| In his Viśiṣṭādvaita-bhāṣya commentary on this portion of verse 15.3, Rāmānuja states:
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| “The form [of this tree], as indicated here [by the Lord], is not perceived by conditioned souls (saṁsāribhiḥ). And so this tree’s end, its destruction, effected by detachment toward pleasures based on the modes of nature, is also not perceived. ‘Its [the tree’s] beginning (ādir), which is simply attachment to the modes, is not perceived. Its [the tree’s] foundation, which is ignorance in the form of identifying the soul with that which is not the soul, is also not perceived.’”(59)
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| Thus the Bhagavad-gītā and Rāmānujācārya clearly state that the tree of material existence has a beginning, but that this beginning is not perceived by the conditioned souls.
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| 41 | | anādi-anantaṁ mahataḥ paraṁ dhruvaṁ
nicāyya taṁ mṛtyu-mukhāt pramucyate
Significantly, this verse comes immediately after the famous Vedic call to self-realization: uttiṣṭha jāgrata prāpya varān nibodhata. “Arise! Awaken! Having achieved boons, realize it!” (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 3.14). |
| 42 | | anādy-anantaṁ kalilasya madhye viśvasya sraṣṭāram aneka-rūpam
viśvasyaikaṁ pariveṣṭitāraṁ jñatvā devaṁ mucyate sarva-pāśaiḥ |
| 43 | | namaḥ... acintyāyāprameyāya ca eti anādi-nidhanāya |
| 44 | | anādimat tvaṁ vibhutvena vartase yato jātāni bhuvanāni viśvā |
| 45 | | 5.69.6 sahasra-śīrṣam puruṣam purāṇam anādi-madhyāntam ananta-kīrtim
6.61.7 anādi-madhyāntam apāra-yogaṁ lokasya setum pravadanti viprāḥ
12.64.11 anādi-madhya-nidhanam devam narayanam prati
12.199.13 anāditvād amadhyatvād anantatvāc ca so ‘vyayaḥ
12.290.97 anādi-madhya-nidhanaṁ nirdvandvaṁ kartṛ śāśvatam
12.296.37 yathāvad uktam paramam pavitraṁ niḥśokam atyantam anādi-madhyam
12.330.25 anādyo hy amadhyas tathā cāpy anantaḥ pragīto ‘ham īśo vibhur loka-sākṣī |
| 46 | | 1.1.38 evam etad anādy-antaṁ bhūta-saṁhāra-kārakam anādi-nidhanaṁ loke cakraṁ samparivartate
3.2.36 anādy-antā tu sā tṛṣṇā antar-deha-gatā nṛṇām vināśayati sambhūtā ayoni-ja ivānalaḥ
12.199.19 anāditvād anantatvāt tad anantam athāvyayam
12.203.11 kāla-cakram anādy-antam bhāvābhāva-sva-lakṣanam
12.210.7 anādy-antāv ubhāv etāv aliṅgau cāpy ubhāv api
12.210.33 tṛṣṇā-tantur anādy-antas tathā deha-gataḥ sadā
12.224.11 anādy-antam ajaṁ divyam ajaraṁ dhruvam avyayam |
| 47 | | 1.1.38 evam etad anādy-antaṁ bhūta-saṁhāra-kārakam
anādi-nidhanaṁ loke cakraṁ samparivartate
1.57.84 anādi-nidhano devaḥ sa kartā jagataḥ prabhuḥ
avyaktam akṣaraṁ brahma pradhānaṁ nirguṇātmakam
3.160.17 yam āhuḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ prakṛteḥ prakṛtiṁ dhruvam
anādi-nidhanaṁ devaṁ prabhuṁ nārāyaṇaṁ param
3.186.15 anādi-nidhanaṁ bhūtaṁ viśvam akṣayam avyayam
3.202.16 anādi-nidhanaṁ jantum ātma-yoniṁ sadāvyayam
5.108.17 anādi-nidhanasyātra viṣṇoḥ sthānam anuttamam
7.124.15 anādi-nidhanaṁ devaṁ loka-kartāram avyayam
12.46.8 anādi-nidhanaś cādyas tvam eva puruṣottama
12.175.11 anādi-nidhano devas tathābhedyo ‘jarāmaraḥ
12.204.7 yenaitad vartate cakram anādi-nidhanam mahat
12.217.48 anādi-nidhanaṁ cāhur akṣaram param eva ca
12.224.55 anādi-nidhanā nitvā vāg utsṛṣtā svayambhuvā
12.224.71 vihitaṁ kāla-nānātvam anādi-nidhanaṁ thatā
12.230.19 visṛtaṁ kāla nānātvam anādi-nidhanaṁ ca yat
12.241.5 anādi-nidhanaṁ nityam āsādya vicaren naraḥ
12.271.19 anādi-nidhanaḥ śrīmān harir nārāyanaḥ prabhuḥ
12.293.39 anādi-nidhano ‘nantaḥ sarva-darśī nirāmayaḥ
12.295.12 anādi-nidhanāv etāv ubhāv eveśvarau matau
12.300.2 anādi-nidhano brahmā nityaś cākṣara eva ca
12.302.13 anādi-nidhanāv etāv ubhāv eva mahā-mune
12.316.53 anādi-nidhanaṁ jantum ātmani sthitam avyayam
12.335.22 tāv apaśyat sa bhagavān anādi-nidhano ‘cyutaḥ
12.337.51 anādi-nidhanaṁ loke cakra-hastaṁ ca mām mune
12.350.7 anādi-nidhano vipra kim āścaryam ataḥ param
13.17.11 anādi-nidhanasyāhaṁ sarva-yoner mahātmanaḥ
13.135.6 anādi-nidhanaṁ viṣṇuṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram
13.135.18 anādi-nidhano-dhātā vidhātā dhātur uttamaḥ |
| 48 | | 12.47.47 anādir adir viśvasya tasmai viśvatmane namaḥ
12.203.21 anādyaṁ yat param brahma na devā narṣayo viduḥ
(here we have taken anādya to be a direct synonym of anādi)
13.135.114 anādir bhūr bhuvo lakṣmīḥ suvīro rucirāṅgadaḥ
(this verse spoken by Bhīṣma is from the famous Viṣṇu-sahasra-nāma). |
| 49 | | jñānaṁ te ‘haṁ sa-vijñānam idaṁ vakṣyāmy aśeṣataḥ
yaj jñātvā neha bhūyo ‘nyaj jñātavyam avaśiṣyate(Bhagavad-gītā 7.2) |
| 50 | | o mām ajam anādiṁ ca
vetti loka-maheśvaram
asammūdhaḥ sa martyeṣu
sarva-pāpaiḥ pramucyate |
| 51 | | anādi-madhyāntam ananta-vīryam
ananta-bāhuṁ śaśi-sūrya-netram
paśyāmi tvāṁ dīpta-hutāśa-vaktraṁ
sva-tejasā viśvam idaṁ tapantam |
| 52 | | jñeyaṁ yat tat pravakṣyāmi
yaj jñātvāmṛtam aśnute
anādi mat-paraṁ brahma
na sat tan nāsad ucyate |
| 53 | | prakṛtiṁ puruṣaṁ caiva
viddhy anādī ubhāv api
vikārāṁś ca guṇāṁś caiva
viddhi prakṛti-sambhavān |
| 54 | | anāditvān nirguṇatvāt
paramātmāyam avyayaḥ
śarīra-stho ‘pi kaunteya
na karoti na lipyate |
| 55 | | nāsato vidyate bhāvo
nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ
ubhayor api dṛṣṭo ‘ntas
tv anayos tattva-darśibhiḥ(Bhagavad-gītā 2.16) |
| 56 | | na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ
na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ
na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ
sarve vayam ataḥ param |
| 57 | | mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya
śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
āgamāpāyino ‘nityās
tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata |
| 58 | | na rūpam asyeha tathopalabhyate
nānto na cādir na ca sampratiṣṭhā |
| 59 | | yathedaṁ rūpaṁ nirdiṣṭaṁ, na tathā saṁsāribhir upalabhyate. tathāsya vṛkṣasya anto vināśo ‘pi guṇa-maya-bhogeṣv asaṅga-kṛta iti nopalabhyate. tathāsya guṇa-saṅga evādir iti nopalabhyate; tasya pratiṣṭhā cānātmany ātmā-bhimāna-rūpam ajñānam iti nopalabhyate |
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