Mandukya Karika

Gaudapada‘s verse commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad — one of the earliest rigorous formulations of Advaita.

Overview

The Mandukya Karika is a short but extraordinarily dense work — four prakaranas (sections) of verse — in which Gaudapada works out the implications of the twelve-verse Mandukya Upanishad. It develops the doctrine of ajativada (no real origination), the four states of consciousness (waking, dream, deep sleep, turiya), and the rejection of causation as ultimately real. Shankara wrote a commentary on it, treating it as authoritative.

Swami Sarvapriyananda cites the Mandukya Karika at the end of Ep 5 for Gaudapada’s final answer to the “why does Brahman appear as the universe?” question. After considering and rejecting standard answers — karma, play, even maya — Gaudapada concludes with deva esha svabhava ayam: “this is the very nature of the shining one.” Nature, not cause, is the last word.

Related

• gaudapada — its author
• advaita-vedanta — the tradition it helped define
• shankaracharya — who commented on it
• upanishads — the Mandukya Upanishad is its subject

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 5 [75:57]: Gaudapada in the Mandukya Karika rejects every proposed “why” for Brahman’s appearance as the universe and lands on deva esha svabhava ayam.