Upadana-Karana

The material cause — that from which a thing is made, and on which it depends for its entire being.

Overview

In Indian philosophy causes are classified into several kinds; the upadana-karana is the material cause, the stuff something is made of. Clay is the upadana-karana of the pot. Wood is the upadana-karana of the lectern. Gold is the upadana-karana of the ring.

Shankara’s move on 02-16 is to show that every modification borrows existence from its upadana-karana — so tracing the chain of causes, we eventually reach an upadana-karana that is not itself a modification of anything further. That is sat; that is brahman. Brahman is called the upadana-karana of the universe in the qualified sense that the universe is only an appearance of Brahman — not a separate creation that Brahman made alongside itself, but Brahman appearing as names and forms, the way clay is all the pots made of it.

This is the sense in which Vedanta says Brahman is the “cause” of the universe. Not that Brahman produces a second, separate thing. That the universe has no being apart from Brahman in the first place.

Related concepts

• vikara — what depends on an upadana-karana
• sat — the terminal upadana-karana of all vikaras
• brahman — sat understood as the ground of the universe
• maya — the projective power by which Brahman appears as the many
• nama-rupa — the overlay on any upadana-karana

In the Gita

• 02-16 — the verse whose commentary develops upadana-karana as the core of the argument

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 5 [25:05]: The wood is the upadana-karana of the lectern; the entire existence of the lectern is the wood.
• Ep. 5 [66:30]: The question “what did Brahman create?” — Shankara’s answer is that nothing was created as something separate; Brahman alone remains, and the universe is its appearance.