________________
VIVEKACŪDAMAŅI
387
advaita truth. The guru then instructs him in the purport of all Vedānta, namely absolute unreality of duality (dvaita), and he does this by recourse to experience, reasoning, example and śruti-texts.
असत्कल्पो विकल्पोऽयं विश्वमित्येकवस्तुनि ।
निविकारे निराकारे निविशेषे भिदा कुतः ॥४००॥ asatkalpo vikalpo'yam viśvamityekavastuni, nirvikāre nirākāre nirvisese bhidā kutah in
This variegated world imagined in the one Entity (namely Brahman) is asatkalpa.* Where can be any difference in that unitary Reality which is unchanging, unembodied and qualitiless?
A point of grammar is noticed here: viśvam is noun in the neuter gender. It must be referred to as 'idam viśvam'. But the expression 'ayam viśvam' is used. This is due to the rule of the primacy of vidheyam over uddeśyam. (apūrvārthabodhanam vidheyam,' avagatārthānuvādah uddeśyam. That which intimates what is not known previously is vidheya; that which signifies what is known is uddeśya). vikalpaḥ is vidheyam, what is not known so far. It being masculine, it has primacy over viśvam which is known already which is neuter. Hence the use of the masculine ayam.
vikalpah: what is variously imagined: vividham kalpyate. It means it is imagined by ajñāna; there is no real object corresponding to it.
asatkalpa: işadaśamāptau kalap-pratyayah: the particle 'kalpap' (kalpa) is attached to show that it is a little less than the complete (i.e., the world is not absolutely non-existent [atyantāsat] like a sky-flower, but it appears, but is not real). So it is asatkalpa: all but unreal. Yet, to those who are ever concentrating on Brahman in the seventh storey of spiritual heights Sa the world does not even appear and so it is only like the horns of a hare, absolutely unreal. But for others, it is of the nature of drstanaşta, i.e., it is seen in the state of ajñāna and sublated on the dawn of jñāna, and like silver imagined in a shell, it is only prātibhäsika (reflectional). So it is not declared to be 'asat', absolutely unreal, but it is said to be "asatkalpa'. Therefore, as duality is of the nature of mithyā, as there is really no second to Brahman, in that single Reality which is devoid of change, form and quality, of the distinctions of qualification and the qualified, part and whole, of class and individual
To be explained in the commentary.
55a Which is called turyaga. See the account of the saptabhūmikās in Appendix I.
