Srimad Bhagavatam — Dashama Skandha, Shloka 24
The Prayers of the Personified Vedas (Śruti-stuti) and the Indescribable Absolute
क इह नु वेद बतावरजन्मलयोऽग्रसरं यत उदगादृषिर्यमनु देवगणा उभये । तर्हि न सन्न चासदुभयं न च कालजव: किमपि न तत्र शास्त्रमवकृष्य शयीत यदा ॥ २४ ॥
ka iha nu veda batāvara-janma-layo ’gra-saraṁ yata udagād ṛṣir yam anu deva-gaṇā ubhaye tarhi na san na cāsad ubhayaṁ na ca kāla-javaḥ kim api na tatra śāstram avakṛṣya śayīta yadā
Everyone in this world has recently been born and will soon die. So how can anyone here know Him who existed prior to everything else and who gave rise to the first learned sage, Brahmā, and all subsequent demigods, both lesser and greater? When He lies down and withdraws everything within Himself, nothing else remains — no gross or subtle matter or bodies composed of these, no force of time or revealed scripture.
Here the śrutis express the difficulty of knowing the Supreme. Devotional service, or bhakti-yoga, as described in these prayers of the personified Vedas, is the surest and easiest path to knowledge of the Lord and to liberation. In comparison, the philosophic search for knowledge, known as jñāna-yoga, is very difficult, favored though it is by those who are disgusted with material life but still unwilling to surrender to the Lord. As long as the finite soul remains envious of the Lord’s supremacy, the Lord does not reveal Himself. As He states in Bhagavad-gītā (7.25) :
FAQs
This verse says that before creation there was neither sat (manifest being) nor asat (non-being), nor even the driving force of time—implying the Supreme Reality transcends all categories by which creation is described.
Because śāstra operates through language and categories like being/non-being and time; the pre-creation condition described here lies beyond those conceptual handles, so scripture cannot “rest” on an object there in the ordinary way.
It encourages humility about intellectual certainty and directs seekers toward devotion and realization of the transcendent Lord, rather than trying to confine the Absolute within limited concepts.