Shloka 53

अध्याय १६ — शङ्कर-उमा-वरदानम् तथा तण्डि-स्तुतिः (Śaṅkara–Umā Boon-Granting and Taṇḍi’s Hymn)

Devanagari script

प्रधानं महदव्यक्तं विशेषान्तं सवैकृतम्‌ । ब्रह्मादिस्तम्बपर्यन्तं भूतादि सदसच्च यत्‌

Transliteration

pradhānaṃ mahad avyaktaṃ viśeṣāntaṃ savaikṛtam | brahmādistambaparyantaṃ bhūtādi sadasacca yat ||

Translation

ဝါယုက မိန့်တော်မူသည်— «ပဓာန (မူလသဘာဝ) နှင့် မဟတ် (ကြီးမားသော သဘောတရား) မှ စ၍၊ မဖော်ပြနိုင်သော အဗျက်တ (Unmanifest) ကိုပါဝင်ကာ၊ ပြောင်းလဲဖြစ်ပေါ်သည့် အဆင့်ဆင့်မှ တိတိကျကျ သီးခြားသဘောတရားများအထိ ဆက်လက်လျှောက်လှမ်းသော အရာ—ဗြဟ္မာမှ မြက်တစ်စေ့အထိ၊ သတ္တဝါအစုအဝေးတစ်လုံးလုံးနှင့် မူလဖွဲ့စည်းပစ္စည်းများ၊ ထို့ပြင် ရှိခြင်းနှင့် မရှိခြင်း (ဖော်ထုတ်/မဖော်ထုတ်) ဟူသမျှ—အားလုံးကို ထိုအတွင်း၌ အနှံ့အပြား ခြုံငုံထားသည်»။

Word by Word

• प्रधानम्: Pradhāna (primordial matter)
• प्रधानम्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: प्रधान
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• महत्: Mahat (cosmic intellect)
• महत्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: महत्
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• अव्यक्तम्: the unmanifest
• अव्यक्तम्: Karma
• Type: Adjective
• Root: अव्यक्त
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• विशेषान्तम्: ending in the particulars (viśeṣas)
• विशेषान्तम्: Karma
• Type: Adjective
• Root: विशेषान्त
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• स: that
• स: Karma
• Type: Pronoun
• Root: तद्
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• वैकृतम्: modified/derivative (from vikṛti)
• वैकृतम्: Karma
• Type: Adjective
• Root: वैकृत
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• ब्रह्मादि: beginning with Brahmā
• ब्रह्मादि: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: ब्रह्मादि
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• स्तम्बपर्यन्तम्: ending with a clump of grass (i.e., down to the lowest)
• स्तम्बपर्यन्तम्: Karma
• Type: Adjective
• Root: स्तम्बपर्यन्त
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• भूतादि: beginning with the elements/creatures
• भूतादि: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: भूतादि
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• सत्: being/existent
• सत्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: सत्
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• असत्: non-being/non-existent
• असत्: Karma
• Type: Noun
• Root: असत्
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

• च: and
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: च

• यत्: whatever/that which
• यत्: Karma
• Type: Pronoun
• Root: यद्
• Form: Neuter, Accusative, Singular

Speaker

वायुदेव उवाच

Characters & Entities

• Vāyu (Wind-god)
• Brahmā
• Pradhāna
• Mahat
• Avyakta
• Bhūtas (elements/beings)
• Stamba (grass/blade of grass)

Educational Q&A

What is the core teaching?

The verse presents a Sāṅkhya-style totality: from the unmanifest root (pradhāna/avyakta) through cosmic intellect (mahat) and subsequent evolutes down to the smallest visible forms. It emphasizes that reality spans both manifest (sat) and unmanifest (asat) domains, encouraging a comprehensive, non-narrow view of existence.

What is happening in the narrative?

Vāyu is speaking in a didactic context, enumerating fundamental categories of existence. The statement functions as a philosophical catalog—mapping the hierarchy from the highest creator figure (Brahmā) to the humblest life-form (grass)—to frame the scope of what is being discussed or contemplated.