 | We have seen that Sanskrit words denoting absolute time are commonly used in a figurative sense when applied to events and entities within the material world. We have found this to be especially so in discussions of the so-called eternally bound and eternally liberated jīva soul. Thus within the Bhāgavatam we would expect to find some form of figurative language associated with the word anādi, a term denoting an absolute time span, but describing events and entities within the material world. Both in the Bhāgavatam itself as well as in standard Vaiṣṇava commentaries, the word anādi does show a figurative sense when describing the material condition of the soul. We shall give some examples.
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| Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.26.3
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| In this verse there is a reference to persons whose material desires are caused by beginningless ignorance (anādy-avidyayā).(120), In his Sārārtha-darśinī commentary on this verse, Śrī Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura states:
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| "[It is said that] the jīva has a relationship with beginningless ignorance because it is impossible to state when or how [this relationship began]."(121)
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| In general, we can analytically separate the following two claims:
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| A. Because a thing is beginningless, we cannot say when it began.
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| B. Because we cannot say when a thing began, we call it beginningless.
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| In claim A, the term beginningless has a literal force.
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| In claim B, the same term has a figurative force.
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| Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī makes claim B in his commentary.
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| Śrī Vaṁśīdhara, who explains Śrīdhara Svāmī’s Bhāvārtha-dīpikā commentary in his own Bhāvārtha-dīpikā-prakāśa, also often quotes from Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī and Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura. In this case, he closely paraphrases Viśvanātha’s statement as follows:
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| "It is impossible to say when or how the jīva has [established] a relationship with beginningless ignorance."(122)
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| Again we must note that Śrī Vaṁśīdhara does not say that there is no when or how, simply that it is not possible to trace or describe it.
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| Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.5.11
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| The Haryaśvas understood an enigmatic statement of Nārada Muni as follows:
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| "The word bhūḥ means kṣetra and refers to the jīva, whose bondage is anādi."(123)
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| Śrīla Prabhupāda translates the word anādi as “existing since time immemorial” in his synonyms, and as “since time immemorial” in the verse. Is Śrīla Prabhupāda alone among Bhāgavatam commentators in seeing a figurative meaning here?
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| Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha states in his Pada-ratnāvalī commentary on this verse:
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| "It cannot be settled that ‘in this [specific] time [the bondage] was begun,’ thus it is called anādi."(124)
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| According to the rules of Sanskrit grammar, Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha does not say that “because the jīva’s bondage is beginningless, the time when it began is not settled.” Rather, he says that “because the time when the jīva’s bondage began is not settled, it is said to be anādi.”
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| According to the rules of Sanskrit grammar, Vijayadhvaja Tīrtha does not say that “because the jīva’s bondage is beginningless, the time when it began is not settled.” Rather, he says that “because the time when the jīva’s bondage began is not settled, it is said to be anādi.”
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| Gosvāmī Giridhara Lāla in his commentary on this verse states:
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| "The jīva’s personal bondage is anādi, that is, existing since ancient times (cirantanam)."(125)
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| The very same statement is found in another Vaiṣṇava commentary known as Anvitārtha-prakāśikā:
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| "The jīva’s personal bondage is anādi, that is, existing since ancient times (cirantanam)."(126)
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| The Sanskrit word ciran-tanam, according to the Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary, means “existing since ancient times.” In his Sanskrit dictionary, Apte defines ciran-tana as “of long standing, old, ancient.” These definitions clearly indicate a finite, if expansive, time frame, and thus the word ciran-tana as a synonym for anādi indicates a figurative understanding of “beginninglessness.”
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| Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.11.4
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| Commenting on a reference in this verse to the beginningless bondage of the jīva, Gosvāmī Śrī Giridhara Lāla states in his commentary:
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| "For this jīva, because of ignorance, there is beginningless bondage. Beginningless means lasting for a long time."(127)
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| In the commentary entitled Anvitārtha-prakāśikā, we find the same statement about verse 11.11.4:
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| "For this jīva, because of ignorance, there is beginningless bondage. Beginningless means lasting for a long time."(128)
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| The word bahu-kālikaḥ, “lasting for a long time,” is a combination of the simple Sanskrit word bahu, “”much,” and kālika, derived from the word kāla, “time.” Thus the word bahu-kālika means “for much time.”
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| This is yet another figurative reading of “beginningless” bondage. The two commentaries quoted above are taken from the most standard edition of Vaiṣṇava Bhāgavatam commentaries, the very edition Śrīla Prabhupāda used for his own translations. We have not heard of any heated controversies within Vaiṣṇava circles over these figurative interpretations, and as we have seen, various ācāryas have suggested such figurative readings of the word anādi.
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| Moreover, were the term anādi not interpreted in this figurative way in reference to the material affairs of the soul, the word would virtually stand alone as a linguistic anomaly. For as we have seen, Sanskrit terms denoting absolute times and quantities are generally used figuratively in relation to material events, entities and states of being. Such figurative use preserves intact the simple, powerful ontology of the Bhagavad-gītā, which speaks of two great Vedic categories of being: sat and asat, the “eternal” and the “temporary.”
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| Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.14.1
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| We have already discussed Rāmānujācārya’s commentary on Bhagavad-gītā 15.3, in which he says about the upside-down banyan tree, which symbolizes the material world:
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| "And so its beginning (ādiḥ), which is simply attachment to the modes, is not perceived."(129)
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| In other words, there is a beginning to the tree of material existence, but one who is entangled in that tree cannot perceive the beginning. Thus the beginning is, literally, immemorial—one has no memory of it.
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| We have also discussed Lord Kṛṣṇa’s statement to Uddhava, in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.11.1, that descriptions of the jīva’s bondage within an absolute time frame are not substantial, but rather proceed from the modes of nature. We also saw that the commentaries of Śrīdhara Svāmī, Jīva Gosvāmī and others attribute the perception of eternal bondage to pratīti, which in this context means mere faith or belief, as opposed to ontological substance.
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| In the Bhāgavatam (5.14.1) we have yet another statement to the effect that the jīva’s beginningless material existence is a “perception.” Describing the forest of enjoyment, Śukadeva Gosvāmī mentions “the perception of beginningless material existence.”(130).
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| Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.30.51
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| As a final example of the figurative use of the term anādi, in verse 4.30.51, the Bhāgavatam calls Lord Brahmā anādi,”the beginningless one.”(131)
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| This verse does not give a general description of Brahmā as one of the numberless beginningless souls. Rather, in a straightforward narrative, it is said that Lord Brahmā, in his capacity as the chief demigod in the universe, engaged Dakṣa in a particular task. And in that context, the long-lived Brahmā is called anādi, “the beginningless one.” It is well known that Lord Brahmā takes birth and dies. However, he lives for such a fabulous length of time that he is called anādi, of course in a figurative sense.
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| In other words, there is a beginning to the tree of material existence, but one who is entangled in that tree cannot perceive the beginning. Thus the beginning is, literally, immemorial—one has no memory of it.
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