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VIVEKACŪDAMANI
सद्ब्रह्मकार्यं सकलं सदैव सन्मात्रमतन्न ततोऽन्यदस्ति ।
अस्तीति यो वक्ति न तस्य मोहो विनिर्गतो निद्रितवत्प्रजल्पः ॥ २३२ ॥
sadbrahmakaryam sakalam sadaiva
sanmätrametanna tato'nyadasti | astiti yo vakti na tasya moho vinirgato nidritavatprajalpaḥ I
All that is the effect of Sat. Brahman is Sat (Brahman) always. It is pure Existence; there is nothing apart from it. If one says there is (something different), his delusion has not vanished, and he prattles like one in sleep.
Brahman is of the form of pure Existence.
All its effects beginning with the sky are always Brahman. According to a different view, the pot is said to be the effect (of the combination) of potshreds etc. That is, though the pot is an effect and though it is different from the potshreds, it is said to be an independent real refuting the received view that the effect has no reality apart from the cause. It is said that the case is not like that. This is brought out by the use of the word matram in sanmatrametat. The word is used to show that the pot is only clay ultimately whatever might have led to it in the intervening stages. Even as the pot is clay only, so too the sky etc., are Brahman only, not different from it. Nothing which is an effect has reality apart from its material cause and as Brahman is the material of everything, different from it nothing has existence. Hence in the śruti mṛttiketyeva satyam, stress is laid on the word iti; i.e., the pot is real only as clay, not by its form.
Similarly, going further, clay is the effect of its material, the quintuplicated (pañcīkṛta) elements. It is not existent apart from them. It is true only in virtue of them. The śruti says: yadagneḥ rohitam rupam tejasastadrupam, yacchuklam tadapām, yat kṛṣṇam tadannasya, apāgādagneragnitvam vācārambhaṇam vikāro namadheyam trīņi rupāṇītyeva satyam' (Chand.) "In the case of fire, what is red in it is by virtue of the tejas element in it; what is white in it is by virtue of the water element; what is black is by virtue of the earth element. The composite character of fire has disappeared in its constituent elements. The name fire is merely a matter of words; the truth is that it has three forms." So the elements (fire, water, earth ctc.) are so called in the non-quintuplicated (apañcikṛta) state. When they are separated ultimately earth exists as water; water as fire; it (fire) as air; that again (air) as sky; and that again (sky) as sat. Hence, nothing is real apart from Brahman which is of the
