Prakarana Advaita

Below we can see a very strong scriptural support from the prasthāna traya (bhagavad gītā) supporting anirvacanīya, and also an explanation of what it is. This is a break down of śankara’s bhaṣya:

मूल श्लोकः

नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सतः।उभयोरपि दृष्टोऽन्तस्त्वनयोस्तत्त्वदर्शिभिः।।2.16।।

na asataḥ avidyamānasya śītoṣṇādeḥ sakāraṇasya na vidyate bhāvaḥ*

“There is no being for the unreal — things like heat and cold, though caused, do not have real existence.”*

This establishes that effects which arise from causes are not truly real in themselves.

na hi śītoṣṇādi sakāraṇaṁ pramāṇaiḥ nirūpyamāṇaṁ vastu sambhavati*

“Things like heat and cold, even with a cause, are not real when examined by valid means of knowledge.”*

Śaṅkara is reinforcing that empirical phenomena do not pass the test of ultimate reality.

vikāraḥ hi saḥ vikāraḥ ca vyabhicarati

“They are modifications, and modifications are inconstant.”

Modifications come and go — they are not continuously experienced and therefore are not sat.

yathā ghaṭādi saṁsthānaṁ cakṣuṣā nirūpyamāṇaṁ mṛdvyatirekeṇa anupalabdheḥ asat

“Just like the form of a pot, perceived by the eye, is not found apart from clay and is therefore unreal.”

Here the analogy of the pot and clay shows the dependence of name-form (nāma-rūpa) on its cause.

tathā sarvaḥ vikāraḥ kāraṇavyatirekeṇa anupalabdheḥ asan

“Likewise, all modifications are unreal when not perceived apart from their cause.”

This is an ontological point — what cannot exist independently of its cause is not sat.

janmapradhvaṁsābhyāṁ prāgūrdhvaṁ ca anupalabdheḥ kāryasya ghaṭādeḥ mṛdādikāraṇasya ca tatkāraṇavyatirekeṇa anupalabdheḥ asattvam

“The effect, like the pot, is not perceived before birth or after destruction, and its cause, like clay, is not perceived as having the effect apart from it. Therefore, the effect is unreal.”

Śaṅkara is drawing the conclusion that the pot is not real (sat), because it’s time-bound and dependent.

tadasattve sarvābhāvaprasaṅgaḥ iti cet — na, sarvatra buddhidvaya upalabhyete, sadbuddhiḥ asadbuddhiḥ iti

“Objection: if these are unreal, wouldn’t that imply total non-existence? Reply: No — because both types of cognition are experienced: one of reality and one of unreality.”

The cognitive experience is upheld, appearances exist for the experiencer, but they lack independent being.

yadviṣayā buddhiḥ na vyabhicarati, tat sat. yadviṣayā vyabhicarati, tat asat

“What is the object of invariable cognition is real. What is the object of variable cognition is unreal.”

This is the key logical criterion. If an object is not always cognized the same way, it cannot be real.

sat-asat vibhāge buddhi-tantre sthite sarvatra dve buddhi upalabhyete samānādhikaraṇe — san ghaṭaḥ, san paṭaḥ, san hastī iti

“In the division of real and unreal, based on cognition, both ideas are found everywhere, in the same grammatical construction — ‘existing pot’, ‘existing cloth’, ‘existing elephant’.”

The experience of existence is constant, while the forms (pot, cloth, etc.) vary.

tayoḥ buddhayoḥ ghaṭādi buddhiḥ vyabhicarati. na tu sat buddhiḥ

“Of these two, the cognition of the pot, etc. varies. But the cognition of existence does not.”

This is Śaṅkara’s way of saying existence is real; forms are not.

tasmāt ghaṭādi buddhi viṣayaḥ asan vyabhicārāt. na tu sat buddhi viṣayaḥ avyabhicārāt

“Therefore, the objects like pot are unreal due to variable cognition, while the cognition of existence is real because it does not vary.”

He concludes: pot, cloth, etc., are asat, not sat, due to inconsistency in perception. Yet they appear.

———————————————————-

So while he calls them asat, they are not non-existent like sky-flowers, they appear and function. That means: not sat, not asat — anirvacanīya by implication.

This is precisely the philosophical definition of anirvacanīya: something that appears (so not asat), but cannot withstand inquiry (so not sat), and therefore is indefinable — the very definition of mithyā.

Thus, Śaṅkara does not use the word anirvacanīya in this bhāṣya, but the entire argument rests on its logic. If something is neither sat nor asat, and still appears, what else can it be?

I shared this reasoning with Guru Jaishankar Narayana and also went through other transcripts of Bhaṣyas by Swami P and this is the correct understanding as per vivaraṇa.

This description is anirvacanīya.

This one below is an examination of Nāsadīya Sūkta:

The Common Misreading:
It’s often argued that Ṛg Veda 10.129.1 refers to Brahman, especially by appealing to Gītā 13.13, where Śaṅkara says Brahman is “neither sat nor asat.” But this is a category error.

Gītā 13.13 is a paramārthika verse. It speaks about the transcendental Brahman, untouched by creation, speech, or relational attributes. Ṛg Veda 10.129, on the other hand, is not metaphysical in that sense — it is cosmological. It doesn’t speculate on Brahman’s nature, but rather, on the pre-manifest condition of the jagat — i.e., a vyāvahārika-level inquiry into the origin of perceptible existence.

1. The Verse Establishes a Causal, Pre-Manifest State

nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt tadānīṃ nāsīd rajo no vyomā paro yat
“There was neither non-being nor being then; no space, no sky, nothing beyond.”

2. It Describes the Causal Condition of Name and Form

The hymn lists multiple negations — no space (rajas), no sky (vyoma), no direction, no water — and finally says:

gahanaṃ gabhīram — “a dense, deep unknowable state.”

This is not Brahman. Brahman is not gahana or gabhīra — it is nirvikalpa, beyond attributes. But this verse clearly speaks of a state that is mysterious, veiled, and undefined — just like the avyakta or mūlāvidyā of Advaita Vedānta. This is the seed state, the causal substrate of nāma-rūpa.

3. Verse 3 Uses Classic Ignorance Metaphors

tama āsīt tamasā gūḷham — “Darkness was hidden by darkness.”

This is not physical darkness. In Vedānta, tamas is the metaphor for avidyā — that which hides not only Brahman but also itself. The same logic is used in explaining deep sleep (suṣupti) and kāraṇa śarīra — where ignorance conceals all objects and the knowledge of that concealment.

So what do we have?

This perfectly matches the definition of māyā:

4. Why It Cannot Be Brahman

If this were describing Brahman:

These terms belong to the language of vyāvahāra, not paramārtha.
They are meaningful only when speaking of jagat in seed form — not of Brahman, which is untouched by cause, effect, time, or condition.

Conclusion:
Ṛg Veda 10.129 doesn’t mention the word “māyā” — and it doesn’t need to. The condition it describes is:

That is māyā. That is anirvacanīya.
And that reading aligns fully with classical Advaita Vedānta — especially in the Vivaraṇa tradition — where māyā is not a thing but a status: that which appears, but is neither sat nor asat.