Book 3 - Pada-kāṇḍa (2): Dravya-samuddeśa (On Substance)

3.2.1 unformalized

आत्मा वस्तु स्वभावश्च शरीरं तत्त्वमिप्यपि ।
द्रव्यमित्यस्य पर्यायास्तच्च नित्यमिति स्मृतम् ॥ १ ॥

ātmā vastu svabhāvaśca śarīraṃ tattvamipyapi |
dravyamityasya paryāyāstacca nityamiti smṛtam || 1 ||

Self, thing, own-nature, body, reality, and 'ipsita' as well — these are synonyms of 'substance'; and that is remembered as eternal.

The samuddesa opens with a list of synonyms, and the list is its whole argument in miniature. Dravya — *substance*, the second candidate for what words mean (3.1.2's jatir va dravyam eva va) — is named by: atma, *self*; vastu, *thing*; svabhava, *own-nature*; sarira, *body*; tattva, *reality*; ipsita, *what is desired* (the grammarians' term for the karman, the object aimed at: Panini 1.4.49's kartur ipsitatamam karma). The list runs from the most metaphysical (atman, tattva) to the most grammatical (ipsita), and its span is the point: what the Vedantin calls the Self and what the grammarian calls the object of a verb are, on this account, one category. And: tac ca nityam iti smrtam — and that is *remembered as eternal*: dravya, whatever else it is, does not come and go. The reader who expects the Vaisesika's substance — one of six categories, some eternal and some not, the pot as real as the atom — is being warned in the first verse that this is not that. Bhartrhari's dravya is the abiding reality itself, and 3.2.11 will identify it outright with sabda-tattva.

3.2.2 unformalized

सत्यं वस्तु तदाकरैरसत्यैरवधार्यते ।
असत्योपाधिभिः शब्दैः सत्यमेवाभिधीयते ॥ २ ॥

satyaṃ vastu tadākarairasatyairavadhāryate |
asatyopādhibhiḥ śabdaiḥ satyamevābhidhīyate || 2 ||

The real thing is ascertained by those unreal configurations; by words with unreal adjuncts, it is the real alone that is expressed.

The samuddesa's central mechanism, and it is 2.127's doctrine given its home. Satyam vastu — the *real* thing — tad-akaraih asatyaih avadharyate: is *ascertained* by *unreal configurations*: the shapes, the forms, the determinations under which anything is met are not themselves real, and they are how the real gets ascertained. Then the semantic consequence: asatya-upadhibhih sabdaih satyam eva abhidhiyate — by words with *unreal adjuncts*, it is *the real alone* that is expressed. The word 'pot' carries an unreal adjunct (pot-shape) and what it expresses is the real (clay, ultimately Being). This is exactly 2.127's entry in the catalogue — asatyopadhi yat satyam tad va sabda-nibandhanam, 'the real with unreal adjunct is the word's fastening' — there reported as one option among many, here asserted as doctrine. And note what it rescues: words are not falsified by their unreal adjuncts. They reach the real *through* them, which is why speech works while being everywhere constructed (2.238's asatya vartman).

3.2.3 unformalized

अध्रुवेण निमित्तेन देवदत्तगृहं यथा ।
गृहीतं गृहशब्देन शुद्धमेवाभिधीयते ॥ ३ ॥

adhruveṇa nimittena devadattagṛhaṃ yathā |
gṛhītaṃ gṛhaśabdena śuddhamevābhidhīyate || 3 ||

As 'Devadatta's house', grasped by the word 'house' through an unstable occasioning ground, is nonetheless expressed as pure —

The first of two similes for 3.2.2. Adhruvena nimittena — by an *unstable occasioning ground*: Devadatta owns the house today and will not tomorrow; the ownership is a passing relation, and it is what the phrase 'Devadatta's house' hangs on. Grhitam grha-sabdena suddham eva abhidhiyate: grasped by the word 'house', the *pure* thing alone is *expressed*. The house itself — not the ownership, not Devadatta — is what the phrase delivers; the unstable relation was the route, not the cargo. So a word may reach its object through a ground that will not last and still deliver the object cleanly. This is 2.172's landmark-simile (the road named by the tree, the ant-hill, the mountain — the landmark picking out the road without being it) transposed into ontology: the adjunct locates, the real is what is had.

3.2.4 unformalized

सुवर्णादि यथा भिन्नं स्वैराकारैरपायिभिः ।
रूचकाद्यभिधानानां शुद्धमेवैति वाच्यताम् ॥ ४ ॥

suvarṇādi yathā bhinnaṃ svairākārairapāyibhiḥ |
rūcakādyabhidhānānāṃ śuddhamevaiti vācyatām || 4 ||

— and as gold, though differentiated by its own perishing configurations, comes to be what is expressed as pure, from the namings 'bracelet' and the like.

The second simile, and it is the tradition's great one. Suvarnadi — *gold* and the like — bhinnam svaih akaraih apayibhih: *differentiated* by its *own* configurations, which are *perishing*: the bracelet, the ring, the coin, each a shape gold takes and loses. Rucakady-abhidhananam suddham eva eti vacyatam: from the *namings* 'bracelet' and the rest, the *pure* thing alone comes to be what is *expressed*. Say 'bracelet' and what you have named is gold. The simile is chosen because everyone already thinks this way about gold — the goldsmith weighs the bracelet and quotes you for gold; nobody imagines the bracelet is a substance in its own right — and because it is the Upanisads' own figure for the one and its modifications. What 3.2.2 asserted abstractly (words with unreal adjuncts express the real) is here made obvious: the shapes are real enough to be worn and unreal enough that no one confuses them with what they are shapes *of*.

3.2.5 unformalized

आकारैश्च व्यवच्छेदात् सार्वार्थ्यामवरुध्यते ।
यथैव चक्षुरादीनां सामर्थ्यं नाडिकादिभिः ॥ ५ ॥

ākāraiśca vyavacchedāt sārvārthyāmavarudhyate |
yathaiva cakṣurādīnāṃ sāmarthyaṃ nāḍikādibhiḥ || 5 ||

And by exclusion through the configurations, its all-objecthood is restricted — just as the capacity of the eye and the rest is by tubes and the like.

How the adjuncts work, and the simile is a fine piece of observation. Akaraih ca vyavacchedat sarvarthyam avarudhyate: by *exclusion* through the *configurations*, its *all-objecthood* is *restricted*. Sarvarthya — the plenitude, omni-significance: the same word 2.250 used for what a word means before context carves it. So dravya has all-objecthood, and the configurations *restrict* it: the gold is potentially every shape and this bracelet is one. And the simile: yatha eva caksuradinam samarthyam nadikadibhih — just as the *capacity of the eye* and the rest is (restricted) by *tubes* and the like: look through a tube and you see less, not because your eye has weakened but because the tube excludes. The configuration is a tube on Being. This is 2.250-251's semantics — one plenitude, carved by nimittas — now stated as the metaphysics that underwrites it: words carve because reality is carvable, and both carvings are exclusions of a totality rather than additions to a blank.

3.2.6 unformalized

तेष्वाकारेषु यः शब्दस्तथाभूतेषु वर्तते ।
तत्त्वात्मकत्वात्तेनापि नित्यमेवाभिधीयते ॥ ६ ॥

teṣvākāreṣu yaḥ śabdastathābhūteṣu vartate |
tattvātmakatvāttenāpi nityamevābhidhīyate || 6 ||

The word that operates upon those configurations, when they are of that sort — by that too, since they have reality for their self, the eternal alone is expressed.

The consequence for words that name the shapes themselves. One might object: granted 'bracelet' delivers gold — but what of 'bracelet-shape', a word that names the configuration and not the metal? The reply: tesu akaresu yah sabdah tathabhutesu vartate — the word that operates upon *those configurations*, when they are of that sort — tattvatmakatvat tena api nityam eva abhidhiyate: *by that too*, since they have *reality for their self*, the *eternal alone* is expressed. The configurations are not a second stuff standing outside the real; they have tattva for their atman (3.1.33's satta carved by relata: the carvings are Being too). So a word naming a shape still names the real, because there was never anything else for it to name. The escape-route closes: there is no word anywhere in the language that succeeds in meaning something other than Being.

3.2.7 unformalized

न तत्त्वातत्त्वयोर्भेद इति वृद्धेभ्य आगमः ।
अतत्त्वमिति मन्यन्ते तत्त्वमेवाविचारितम् ॥ ७ ॥

na tattvātattvayorbheda iti vṛddhebhya āgamaḥ |
atattvamiti manyante tattvamevāvicāritam || 7 ||

'There is no difference between reality and non-reality' — such is the tradition from the elders; what they consider non-reality is reality itself, unexamined.

The samuddesa's most disarming verse, and it is offered as inherited teaching. Na tattva-atattvayoh bhedah iti vrddhebhya agamah: 'there is *no difference* between reality and non-reality' — such is the *tradition from the elders* (vrddha: the old ones, whom 2.485 said knowledge does not grace those who have not waited upon). And the gloss: atattvam iti manyante tattvam eva avicaritam — what they consider *non-reality* is *reality itself*, *unexamined*. The unreal is not a second kind of thing; it is the real, not looked into. Avicarita — unexamined, un-scrutinized: the bracelet is 'unreal' exactly in the sense that one has not asked what it is made of, and asking dissolves it into gold. So the asatya-akaras of 3.2.2 are not falsehoods but unexamined truths, and the whole apparatus of unreal adjuncts through which words reach the real (3.2.2-6) is an apparatus of not-yet-asking. This is the most economical account of the two truths anyone has given: they differ by a question.

3.2.8 unformalized

विकल्परूपं भजते तत्त्वमेवाविकल्पितम् ।
न चात्र कालभेदोऽस्ति कालभेदश्च गृह्यते ॥ ८ ॥

vikalparūpaṃ bhajate tattvamevāvikalpitam |
na cātra kālabhedo'sti kālabhedaśca gṛhyate || 8 ||

Reality itself, unconstructed, takes on the form of construction; and here there is no difference of time — yet a difference of time is grasped.

The doctrine of 3.2.7 stated as a process, and the process is vivarta. Vikalpa-rupam bhajate tattvam eva avikalpitam: *reality itself*, *unconstructed*, *takes on* the form of *construction* — bhajate, takes on, wears: not becomes (parinama) but appears-as (1.1's vivartate). And the temporal paradox: na ca atra kala-bhedo 'sti — and *here there is no difference of time* (the real is undivided, sequence being no part of it: 3.1.35's sequence-withdrawn Being) — kala-bhedas ca grhyate: *yet a difference of time is grasped*. Both halves stand, and the iva is not even needed: the seeing supplies what the seen lacks (2.25's sequencing power; 3.1.37's time-seeing standing as though divided). The verse states the work's central structure in fourteen syllables: no time in it, time in our grasp of it, and the construction that mediates is reality itself unexamined.

3.2.9 unformalized

यथा विषयधर्माणं ज्ञानेऽत्यन्तमसंभवः ।
तदात्मेव च तत् सिद्धमत्यन्तमतदात्मकम् ॥ ९ ॥

yathā viṣayadharmāṇaṃ jñāne'tyantamasaṃbhavaḥ |
tadātmeva ca tat siddhamatyantamatadātmakam || 9 ||

As there is an utter impossibility of the object's properties in cognition — and yet it is established as though having that for its self, while being utterly not of that self —

The first half of a precise analogy, and it revisits 3.1.103-106. Yatha visaya-dharmanam jnane atyantam asambhavah: as there is an *utter impossibility* of the *object's properties* in *cognition* — the pot's clay is not in my pot-cognition; awareness has no properties of what it knows (a cognition of fire is not hot). And yet: tad-atma iva ca tat siddham — it is established *as though having that for its self*: the cognition presents as though it were the pot, is of it, wears it; atyantam atad-atmakam — *while being utterly not of that self*. Three clauses holding a genuine paradox: the object's properties cannot be in cognition, cognition presents as the object, cognition is utterly not the object. This is the intentionality-structure stated without a theory to soften it, and it is offered as the *known* case — the thing everyone grants — from which 3.2.10 will argue to the contested one.

3.2.10 unformalized

तथा विकाररूपाणां तत्त्वेऽत्यन्तमसंभवः ।
तदात्मेव च तत्तत्त्वमत्यन्तमतदात्मकम् ॥ १० ॥

tathā vikārarūpāṇāṃ tattve'tyantamasaṃbhavaḥ |
tadātmeva ca tattattvamatyantamatadātmakam || 10 ||

— so there is an utter impossibility of the forms of modification in reality; and yet reality is established as though having that for its self, while being utterly not of that self.

The apodosis, and the analogy's force is exact. Tatha vikara-rupanam tattve atyantam asambhavah: so there is an *utter impossibility* of the *forms of modification* in *reality* — the bracelet-shape cannot be *in* the gold-as-such, as the pot cannot be in the cognition. Tad-atma iva ca tat tattvam atyantam atad-atmakam: and yet reality is established *as though having that for its self*, while being *utterly not of that self*. The three clauses repeat 3.2.9's exactly, and that is the argument: the relation of the real to its modifications has the same structure as the relation of cognition to its objects — a structure everyone already accepts without being able to explain. So if one is not scandalized that awareness presents as its object while being nothing like it, one should not be scandalized that Being presents as the world while being nothing like it. The vivarta-doctrine is not a special metaphysical pleading; it is the intentionality-structure, generalized. This is the most powerful defence of vivarta in the work, and it works by pointing at the reader's own mind.

3.2.11 unformalized

सत्यमाकृतिसंहारे यदन्ते व्यवतिष्ठते ।
तन्नित्यं शब्दवाच्यं तच्छब्दतत्त्वं न भिद्यते ॥ ११ ॥

satyamākṛtisaṃhāre yadante vyavatiṣṭhate |
tannityaṃ śabdavācyaṃ tacchabdatattvaṃ na bhidyate || 11 ||

The real, which stands at the end when the configurations are withdrawn — that is eternal, that is what words express, that is the word-essence: it is not different.

The identification, and the samuddesa has been building to it since its first verse. Satyam akrti-samhare yad ante vyavatisthate: the *real* which stands *at the end* when the *configurations are withdrawn* — strip the bracelet, strip the ring, strip every shape, and what remains standing. Three predicates, and the third is the one: tan nityam — that is *eternal* (3.2.1's promise); sabda-vacyam tat — that is what *words express* (3.2.2-6's demonstration: every word, through every adjunct, reaches only this); sabda-tattvam tat na bhidyate — that is the *word-essence*: *it is not different*. Dravya, at the end of analysis, is sabda-tattva — 1.1's anadi-nidhanam brahma sabda-tattvam yad aksaram, the Brahman without beginning or end whose essence is the Word. So the second candidate for word-meaning (3.1.2's dravya) turns out to be what the first turned out to be (3.1.33's satta, in which all words stand established), and both are the Brahmakanda's opening word. The Padakanda's two great alternatives have collapsed into each other and into the work's first verse.

3.2.12 unformalized

न तदस्ति न तन्नास्ति न तदेकं न तत् पृथक् ।
न संसृष्टं विभक्तं वा विकृतं न च नान्यथा ॥ १२ ॥

na tadasti na tannāsti na tadekaṃ na tat pṛthak |
na saṃsṛṣṭaṃ vibhaktaṃ vā vikṛtaṃ na ca nānyathā || 12 ||

It is not, nor is it not; it is not one, nor is it separate; it is not commingled nor divided; it is not modified, nor is it otherwise.

The negative tetralemma, and it is among the most striking verses in Sanskrit philosophical literature. Eight negations in four pairs: na tad asti na tan nasti — it *is not*, nor *is it not*; na tad ekam na tat prthak — not *one*, not *separate*; na samsrstam vibhaktam va — not *commingled* nor *divided*; vikrtam na ca na anyatha — not *modified*, nor *otherwise*. The form is the catuskoti's — the four-cornered negation the Madhyamikas made their instrument — and the first pair is its classical opening. But the target is Bhartrhari's own: what is being denied every predicate is *dravya*, just identified with sabda-tattva (3.2.11). And the denials are earned rather than borrowed: 3.1.20-21 already established that oneness, manifoldness, existence and non-existence are found only among things *commingled*, and that uncommingled reality bears none of them. So the tetralemma here is not a sceptical device but the strict consequence of the samuddesa's own doctrine: the real, taken apart from the adjuncts through which alone anything is ascertained (3.2.2), has nothing left that could be said of it. What is remarkable is what comes next.
contested: the relation of this verse to Madhyamaka is a genuine and unresolved question of intellectual history; the four-cornered form is unmistakable and the direction of influence — if any — cannot be established from the karika. We flag the resonance and decline to date it

3.2.13 unformalized

तन्नास्ति विद्यते तच्च तदेकं तत् पृथक् पृथक् ।
संसृष्टं च विभक्तं च विकृतं तत्तदन्यथा ॥ १३ ॥

tannāsti vidyate tacca tadekaṃ tat pṛthak pṛthak |
saṃsṛṣṭaṃ ca vibhaktaṃ ca vikṛtaṃ tattadanyathā || 13 ||

It is not, and it does exist; it is one, and it is separate, severally; it is both commingled and divided; it is modified, and it is otherwise.

The affirmative tetralemma, and its placement immediately after 3.2.12 is the samuddesa's masterstroke. Every predicate just denied is now asserted, in the same order, with the same vocabulary: tan nasti vidyate ca tat — it *is not*, and it *does exist*; tad ekam tat prthak prthak — it is *one*, it is *separate, severally*; samsrstam ca vibhaktam ca — *commingled* and *divided*; vikrtam tat tad anyatha — *modified*, and *otherwise*. The two verses together do not contradict; they distribute. 3.2.12 speaks of the real as it is — uncommingled, where no category applies (3.1.21). 3.2.13 speaks of the real as ascertained — through the unreal configurations (3.2.2), where every category applies, because the configurations are what categories are. Neither verse is the truth about dravya; the pair is. And the pair is why the work can say that the sciences describe only avidya (2.233) without concluding that they describe nothing: what they describe is 3.2.13, which is 3.2.12 unexamined (3.2.7). Two tetralemmas, and between them the whole architecture of the two truths, stated without either being denied.

3.2.14 unformalized

तस्य शब्दार्थसंबन्धरूपमेकस्य दृश्यते ।
तद् दृश्यं दर्शनं द्रष्टा दर्शने च प्रयोजनम् ॥ १४ ॥

tasya śabdārthasaṃbandharūpamekasya dṛśyate |
tad dṛśyaṃ darśanaṃ draṣṭā darśane ca prayojanam || 14 ||

Of that one, the form of the word-meaning connection is seen; that is the seen, the seeing, the seer — and the purpose in the seeing.

The one differentiating itself into the whole structure of knowledge. Tasya sabdartha-sambandha-rupam ekasya drsyate: of *that one*, the form of the *word-meaning connection* is *seen* — the very relation on which the Brahmakanda founded scripture's authority (1.23's nitya sambandha) is *that one's* form, not a bond between two independent things (2.31: word and meaning as two aspects of one self). And then the fourfold self-differentiation: tad drsyam darsanam drasta — *that* is the *seen*, the *seeing*, the *seer* — the tripuiti of 1.4's bhoktr-bhoktavya-bhoga, subject, object, act — darsane ca prayojanam: and the *purpose* in the seeing, the fourth term, which is what 2.113 made sentence-meaning itself. So the one becomes: what is known, the knowing, the knower, and the point of it. Every term in the epistemology of both preceding kandas is here derived from a single source, and derived as its *forms* rather than as its products (3.2.8's bhajate: it takes them on). The verse is the samuddesa's brief cosmology, and its economy is startling.

3.2.15 unformalized

विकारापगमे सत्यं सुवर्णं कुण्डले यथा ।
विकारापगमे सत्यां तथाहुः प्रकृतिं पराम् ॥ १५ ॥

vikārāpagame satyaṃ suvarṇaṃ kuṇḍale yathā |
vikārāpagame satyāṃ tathāhuḥ prakṛtiṃ parām || 15 ||

As gold is the real when the modification is gone, in the case of an earring — so, when the modification is gone, they call the supreme prakrti the real.

The gold-simile (3.2.4) returned at the samuddesa's close, now to name the terminus. Vikara-apagame satyam suvarnam kundale yatha: as, *when the modification is gone*, *gold* is the real in the case of an *earring* — melt the earring and gold is what you have; the earring was never a second thing. Tatha ahuh prakrtim param: so they call the *supreme prakrti* the real, vikara-apagame, when the modification is gone. Prakrti — the primal matrix, the Samkhya's own word (3.1.43's pralaya, differences dissolving into prakrti) — but here param, *supreme*, and identified with what 3.2.11 called sabda-tattva. The verse performs a careful appropriation: the Samkhya's prakrti-vikara relation is accepted as a *simile* and its metaphysics declined, since for Samkhya the transformation is real (parinama) and here it is not (3.2.8's bhajate, 3.2.10's atyantam atad-atmakam). Gold is the right figure precisely because the goldsmith's transformations are reversible and the gold is never other.

3.2.16 unformalized

वाच्या सा सर्वशब्दानां शब्दाश्च न पृथक् ततः ।
अपृथक्त्वे च संबन्धस्तयोर्नानात्मनोरिव ॥ १६ ॥

vācyā sā sarvaśabdānāṃ śabdāśca na pṛthak tataḥ |
apṛthaktve ca saṃbandhastayornānātmanoriva || 16 ||

She is what all words express, and words are not separate from her; and in the non-separateness, there is a connection of those two, as though they were of distinct selves.

The samuddesa's doctrinal conclusion, and it holds two things that ought to conflict. Vacya sa sarva-sabdanam: *she* — the supreme prakrti of 3.2.15 — is what *all words* express (3.2.6: no word reaches anything else). Sabdas ca na prthak tatah: and *words are not separate* from her — the expressers are not outside what they express; language is not a system standing over against reality and referring to it (2.31's one self with two aspects). And then the clause that saves the whole enterprise: aprthaktve ca sambandhah tayoh nana-atmanoh iva — and in the *non-separateness*, there is a *connection* of those two, *as though* they were of *distinct selves*. The eternal word-meaning bond of 1.23 — on which Vedic authority rests, and which 2.16's objector feared the holism would forfeit — is here preserved *inside* the identity: word and meaning are one, and their oneness presents as a connection between two. The iva does the work it has done since 1.2. Nothing is lost and nothing is really two.

3.2.17-18 unformalized

आत्मा परः प्रियो द्वेष्यो वक्ता वाच्यं प्रयोजनम् ।
विरुद्धानि यथैकस्य स्वप्ने रूपाणि चेतसः ॥ १७ ॥
अजन्मनि तथा नित्ये पौर्वापर्यविवर्जिते ।
तत्त्वे जन्मादिरूपत्वं विरुद्धमुपलभ्यते ॥ १८ ॥

ātmā paraḥ priyo dveṣyo vaktā vācyaṃ prayojanam |
viruddhāni yathaikasya svapne rūpāṇi cetasaḥ || 17 ||
ajanmani tathā nitye paurvāparyavivarjite |
tattve janmādirūpatvaṃ viruddhamupalabhyate || 18 ||

(17) As the contradictory forms — self and other, dear and hateful, speaker, what is spoken, and purpose — belong in a dream to one and the same mind, (18) so, in the reality that is unborn, eternal, devoid of before-and-after, the being of birth and the rest is found, though contradictory.

The samuddesa closes with the dream, and the choice is deliberate: it is the analogy 1.1's Vrtti reached for at the work's very opening. (17): in a *dream*, one mind — ekasya cetasah — produces forms that are viruddhani, *contradictory*: atma parah — *self* and *other*; priyo dvesyah — the *dear* and the *hateful*; vakta vacyam prayojanam — the *speaker*, *what is spoken*, and the *purpose* (3.2.14's fourfold, now dreamt). The dreamer is both parties to his dream's quarrel, speaks and hears his dream's speech, wants what his dream's other withholds — and there is only one mind. (18) applies it: ajanmani tatha nitye paurvaparya-vivarjite tattve — so, in the *reality* that is *unborn*, *eternal*, *devoid of before-and-after* — janmadi-rupatvam viruddham upalabhyate: the being of *birth and the rest* (3.1.36's six modifications) is *found*, *though contradictory*. The dream licenses the contradiction without dissolving it: we do not doubt that one mind holds a dream's warring parties, and we should not doubt that one unborn reality holds a world of births. And the analogy answers the tetralemmas: 3.2.12 and 3.2.13 are both true of dravya as both are true of a dream — nothing in it is real, everything in it happens, and the dreamer is one.
contested: the dream-analogy's force depends on how strongly one reads svapne: as a mere illustration of one-holding-many (weak), or as a claim about the world's ontological status (strong). 1.1's Vrtti uses it in the strong sense, and the parallel supports that here — but the karika itself only asserts the structure, not the unreality