How the great sayings are read

A related meaning becomes necessary when the direct meaning cannot carry the intended sentence.

Vachyartha, வாச்சியார்த்தம், is the meaning directly expressed. Lakshyartha, இலட்சியார்த்தம், is the meaning indicated through it. The primary operation of a word is called abhidha, அபிதா; its primary meaning is mukhyartha, முக்கியார்த்தம். Lakshana is the operation of indication, not simply another name for the resulting meaning.

Three questions discipline the movement. Does the direct meaning fail in this sentence? What recognisable relation connects it to the proposed meaning? Does that meaning fit the speaker's purpose and the surrounding account? In Sadananda's Vedantasara, chapter 4, sections 159–169, the examples answer these questions by locating the particular obstruction and retaining what can still carry the sentence.

1. 1

   Hear the direct words

   Begin with their ordinary meaning.

2. 2

   Locate the obstruction

   Ask what prevents that meaning from fitting the sentence.

3. 3

   Follow a known relation

   Reach a meaning connected to the expressed one.

4. 4

   Recover the sentence

   Keep what its context permits and relinquish what conflicts.

✦Context restrains the reading

“The red one runs” supplies a running bearer of redness. It does not allow any red object to be inserted without regard to the situation. At a horse race the bearer may be a horse; in a different conversation it may be a person. The relation is intelligible, but context determines the referent.

Modern terms such as ellipsis, metonymy and metaphor can help describe familiar speech; their classifications do not coincide throughout with the three kinds of lakshana. Tamil akup peyar, ஆகுபெயர், transferred naming, likewise does not replace இலக்கணை as the technical name for this threefold analysis. The Tamil commentary on Tirumantiram's Ilakkanat tirayam, at its verse 2524 corresponding to 2566 in the 3047-verse sequence, explicitly distinguishes the three ilakkanais.

Jahat lakshana leaves the direct referent and indicates another through an established relation.

Jahat lakshana, விட்ட இலக்கணை, means indication by giving up. The direct sense of the word being interpreted is relinquished; a connected meaning takes its place. Giving up concerns the word's role in this sentence. It does not mean that the thing named ceases to exist.

✦The settlement on the Ganga

Sadananda's Vedantasara, chapter 4, sections 159–160, gives gangayam ghosah, a settlement on the Ganga. The settlement cannot occupy the flowing water in the ordinary situation envisaged. “Ganga” therefore indicates the bank associated with the river. The river-water sense is left; the river's relation to its bank makes the indicated location intelligible.

The river is indispensable to understanding which bank is meant, even though it is not retained as the settlement's location. Thus “entirely given up” describes the expressed sense that fails, not every association carried by the word.

✦A building that speaks

Ajahat lakshana keeps the expressed meaning while supplying what makes it possible in the sentence.

Ajahat lakshana, விடாத இலக்கணை, means indication without giving up. The expressed meaning remains part of the intended meaning, while a related bearer or associated thing is supplied.

✦The red one runs

Sadananda's Vedantasara, chapter 4, sections 164–165, gives sono dhavati, “the red one runs”. Redness as a quality cannot run apart from something that bears it. The context supplies a red horse. Red is kept; the horse is understood with it. The manual speaks of a horse or another appropriate bearer, so the example is not a rule that red always indicates a horse.

This differs from the Ganga-bank movement. The bank is not the river-water that the word directly denotes. The running horse, however, really is red. The intended sentence keeps the expressed quality within its completed meaning.

✦The colour at the race

Partial indication removes incompatible circumstances while retaining the referent common to both expressions.

Jahat-ajahat lakshana, விட்டும் விடாத இலக்கணை, combines giving up and keeping. It is also called bhaga-tyaga lakshana, பாகத்தியாக இலக்கணை, indication through relinquishing a part. Vedantasara, chapter 4, section 154, calls the operation bhaga-lakshana, partial indication.

✦This is that Devadatta

Sadananda's Vedantasara, chapter 4, sections 151–154 and 169, uses so'yam devadattah, “This is that Devadatta”. “That” recalls the person encountered earlier. “This” points to the person present now. The two encounters belong to different times; the earlier time and present time are not themselves identical. The person recognised across them is the same.

The conflicting temporal qualifications are therefore relinquished for the identity expressed. When the encounters also differ in place, those spatial circumstances are similarly left out of the identity. The recognition retains Devadatta. It does not claim that yesterday has become today or that two places have become one place.

1. 1

   That Devadatta

   The person under the circumstances of the earlier encounter.

2. 2

   This Devadatta

   The person under the circumstances of the present encounter.

3. 3

   Leave the conflicting qualifications

   Earlier and present circumstances are not identified with each other.

4. 4

   Keep the recognised person

   Both expressions refer to Devadatta.

✦Recognition and resemblance

A person who merely resembles Devadatta does not satisfy this sentence. The operation identifies the continuing referent; it does not establish only a shared quality. This matters when the model enters the great-saying discussion: Advaita's intended result is identity of the unconditioned reality, not likeness between two independent consciousnesses.

Vedantasara relinquishes the opposed conditions of Lord and individual to indicate one undivided consciousness.

The saying tat tvam asi, “You are That”, occurs at Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7, within Uddalaka's teaching to Svetaketu. Asi is the second-person singular present form of “to be”: “you are”. Contemplative language about becoming does not change that grammatical meaning. The wider Upanishadic setting is introduced in "I am That".

✦The two direct meanings

In Sadananda's Vedantasara, chapter 4, sections 144–147, tat, “That”, directly includes consciousness associated with the total conditioning of ignorance, qualified by omniscience and other attributes of Isvara. Tvam, “you”, directly includes consciousness associated with individual conditioning, qualified by limited knowledge. Each indicated meaning is the consciousness unconditioned by the corresponding adjunct.

An upadhi, உபாதி, is a conditioning adjunct through which consciousness appears qualified. In this Advaita account, Isvara and the embodied individual are conditioned standpoints; the unconditioned consciousness is not divided into two substances by those conditions. Siddhanta's Pasam is not simply another name for this Advaita account of upadhi.

✦Why the third kind is used

Vedantasara, chapter 4, sections 159–163, rejects complete abandonment for this saying: the contradiction concerns only part of the expressed meaning, and discarding the non-conflicting consciousness would discard what the sentence intends. Sections 164–168 reject mere retention and addition: adding an associated referent does not remove the opposed qualifications. Section 169 applies the Devadatta model, leaving the incompatible qualifications and indicating undivided consciousness.

This is jahat-ajahat lakshana. The result is not a limited person furnished with cosmic powers. Advaita takes the unconditioned self and Brahman to be one reality, already so before the knowledge that reveals it.

✦Three relations, one sentence

The manual's chapter 4, sections 148–154, also distinguishes three relations. Samanadhikaranya, சமானாதிகரணியம், directs the expressions towards one referent. The qualifier–qualified relation, viseshana-viseshya bhava, விசேஷண விசேஷிய பாவம், mutually delimits their intended meaning. The relation of indication, lakshya-lakshana bhava, இலட்சிய இலக்கண பாவம், removes conflicting qualifications. These are three relations in the analysis, not three more kinds of lakshana.

Relinquishing Isvara's conditioned predicates for this sentence's unconditioned import does not deny their place in worship or ordinary experience. Sankara's Brahma Sutra commentary 2.1.14 distinguishes the standing of practical experience before knowledge from the truth disclosed by that knowledge. The named threefold semantic explanation belongs to Sadananda's manual; it is not presented as Sankara's own wording.

Tirumantiram names the three ilakkanais and places Devadatta recognition within a Saiva account of purification, states and grace.

In Tirumantiram, eighth tantra, chapter 35, Ilakkanat tirayam, contains 2566–2567. Chapter 36, Tattuvamasi vakkiyam, follows at 2568–2586. The sequence places indicated meaning immediately beside the great saying, but Tirumular gives it a yogic and contemplative setting rather than only a grammar exercise. The Tamil commentary numbers the opening verse 2524; the 3047-verse sequence numbers it 2566.

✦The triad and its limit: 2566–2567

The Tamil forms name the three operations: விட்ட, விடாத, and விட்டு விடாத. Verse 2566 places them beside vyoma, வியோமம், the expanse; upasanta, உபசாந்தம், stillness; and sound and the rest, while ending with svarupa, சொரூபம், beyond indication. Verse 2567 supplies a bow, an arrow reaching its mark, and five falling elephants.

✦Three words and three turiyas: 2568–2569

Verse 2568 associates tvam-pada, the “you” expression, with jiva-turiya; tat-pada, the “That” expression, with para-turiya; and asi-pada, the “are” expression, with Siva-turiya. Turiya, துரியம், means the fourth state; the verse distinguishes its jiva, para and Siva forms. Verse 2569 speaks of the soul passing beyond six times six, the thirty-six tattvas, and of purification and upasanta. The words function within an account of realised conditions. This is not a lexical argument that asi means “become”.

✦Devadatta enters the teaching: 2570–2571

Verse 2570 explicitly joins the recognition example to விட்டு விடாத இலக்கணை and to the soul's Siva-realisation. Its contracted wording தேவகத் is read as Devadatta. Verse 2571 names Vedanta and Siddhanta-Vedanta alongside the Tamilised forms துவந்தத்தசி and தொந்தத்தசி. Their occurrence does not settle the precise Sanskrit parsing or identify Sankara's account with Meykandar's.

✦Beyond the words: 2572–2577

Verses 2572–2573 carry the attention beyond verbal expression and the three turiyas. Verse 2574 brings pranava instruction into the heart; 2575 speaks of states, impurity and purity. Verse 2576 turns towards a fullness beyond outward speech. In 2577 the addressed “You are That” becomes the first-person language of “I became That”, explicitly joined to Nandi's grace that makes Siva-realisation possible. The force of “became” comes from Tamil ஆனேன், not from translating Sanskrit asi as a future attainment.

✦Knowing and being claimed: 2578–2586

Verse 2578 continues the jiva–Para–Siva attainment language; 2579 names bodily locations including mouth, nose, brow, head and crown. These locators belong to its yogic account, not to a self-contained instruction for practising it. Verses 2580–2581 set knowledge and ignorance beside the knowing enabled by the divine knower; this does not amount to the extinction of all awareness. Verse 2582 relates Nandi and the soul in the transcendent condition; 2583 joins earlier contemplation to sight granted by the Lord.

In 2584 the Lord enters the heart and claims the soul as His servant while removing impurity. Verse 2585 speaks of freedom from death and rebirth. Verse 2586 brings the senses and inner instruments into the vision of divine play. The sequence moves from meaning towards a changed manner of knowing, receiving and seeing.

Tirumular's becoming-language and grace-language belong together; neither the later Advaita identity formula nor a complete later Meykandar formula can be substituted for them without interpretation.

The three linguistic operations do not decide whether non-duality means identity or inseparability.

Sivagnana Bodham, sutra 2, states Siva's inseparability from souls while preserving His own nature and governing action. Its commentary unfolds ondrai, ஒன்றாய், one with; verai, வேறாய், different from; and udanai, உடனாய், together with. These describe a real relation and operation. They are not jahat, ajahat and jahat-ajahat given new Tamil names.

Sivagnana Siddhiyar, Supakkam 318–320, preserves the soul that receives bliss and distinguishes Siva's self-sufficient knowing from the soul's enabled knowing. Supakkam 303 uses fire and iron to express transformative pervasion; 324 names Sivoham contemplation. Strong language of Siva-realisation does not exchange the roles of the Lord and the soul. Irupa Irupathu, verse 20, gives the neither-one-nor-two passage: inseparability without the soul's disappearance. That passage belongs to Irupa Irupathu, not to the wording of Bodham's second sutra.

Advaitam in Siddhanta is inseparability with distinction. Pati, Pasu and Pasam are real and distinct: release ends the bonds' obscuring hold on the soul, rather than establishing that Lord and soul were always a single entity. Tiruvarutpayan, chapter 8, couplets 74–79, develops the soul's enjoyment of Siva without erasing the receiving soul. The fuller doctrinal account belongs beside the overview in "I am That".

✦The operations beside the readings

The last comparison concerns the movement of practice, not literal pieces removed from the words tat and tvam. Bodham's sutra 10 supports relinquishing “I” and “mine” through the Lord's service; Siddhiyar's Supakkam 320 supports the enduring giver–receiver distinction. Read together, they help explain the comparison without making it a quotation or a canonical lakshana mapping.

✦What remains different

For Advaita, what remains is one unconditioned consciousness: the self and Brahman are ultimately identical. For Siddhanta, what remains is a real soul knowing and enjoying Siva through His grace, inseparable from Him and dependent upon Him. Likeness of qualities, identity of one referent, inseparable relation and absence of felt separation are different claims. The shared word “non-duality” does not make them interchangeable.

Follow the numbered arguments and verses with their surrounding teaching.

✦The classical language analysis

• Sadananda, Vedantasara, Sanskrit text: chapter 4, 144–147 for direct and indicated meanings; 148–154 for the three relations; 159–169 for the Ganga, red-horse and Devadatta arguments. Section 158 cites Panchadasi 7.75 on the undivided import of the saying.
• Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7: the Sanskrit saying within Uddalaka's instruction to Svetaketu.
• Sankara's Brahma Sutra commentary 2.1.14: the relation between ordinary experience and the non-difference disclosed through knowledge, in George Thibaut's English translation.

✦Tirumular and the Tamil terminology

• Project Madurai: Tirumantiram, eighth tantra: Ilakkanat tirayam, 2566–2567, followed by Tattuvamasi vakkiyam, 2568–2586, in the 3047-verse sequence.
• Tamil Virtual Academy: Tamil commentary on the ilakkana triad: page 1031, verse 2524 in its numbering; names the three ilakkanais and explains the verse in a Saiva setting.
• Tirumantiram: Tirumular's wider field of love, yoga, worship, the three realities and grace.

✦The distinctions preserved by the Sastras

• Shaivam: Sivagnana Bodham, with J. M. Nallaswami Pillai's English explanation: sutra 2 and its explanations for the relation. Continue with Sivagnana Bodham, sutras 9–11, for knowledge, contemplation and service.
• Shaivam: Sivagnana Siddhiyar, Tamil text: continuous Supakkam numbers 303, 318–320 and 324 for transformation, enduring distinction and Sivoham. Continue with Sivagnana Siddhiyar.
• Project Madurai: Irupa Irupathu: verse 20 for the neither-one-nor-two passage. Continue with Irupa Irupathu.
• "I am That", Tiruvarutpayan and Sankarpa Nirakaranam: the overview, the receiving of bliss, and the Siddhanta debate with accounts of identity.