Ananta

The infinite — defined technically in Vedanta as that which is free of three limitations.

Overview

Ananta is the Upanishadic word for brahman as infinite, famous from the Taittiriya formulation satyam jnanam anantam brahma (“Brahman is reality, consciousness, infinity”). In Swami Sarvapriyananda’s exposition, ananta is not a vague gesture at bigness — it has a precise three-part definition. Brahman is ananta because it is free of:

• Desha-pariccheda — spatial limitation. There is nowhere it is not. Hence Brahman is sarvagata, all-pervading.
• Kala-pariccheda — temporal limitation. There is no time when it was not or will not be. Hence eternal.
• Vastu-pariccheda — limitation by another thing (object-limit). There is no second thing to bound it. Hence non-dual.

This definition is what makes the “infinite” of Vedanta different from the mathematical infinite. Cantor’s infinite, for instance, still admits comparison — some infinities are larger than others. The Vedantic ananta does not admit a “second” at all.

Related concepts

• brahman — what ananta describes
• sat-chit-ananda — companion definition
• advaita-vedanta — non-duality is the vastu-pariccheda side of ananta
• taittiriya-upanishad — source of the satyam jnanam anantam formula

In the Gita

• 02-11-12 — the immortality teaching first invokes Brahman’s limitlessness

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 3 [~40:00]: Swami gives the three parichedas — spatial, temporal, and object-limit — as the technical definition of ananta; Brahman is free of all three.
• Ep. 3 [~42:00]: Cantor’s infinite is not the Vedantic infinite — the Vedantic one has no “second” to be larger than.