!

iva Sutra:Verses 1 and 2

The first two aphorisms of the "!iva Sutras", said to be revealed to Vasugupta by !iva himself, present an excellent
example of the multiple operations presented by a set of words within a sentence, when combined under the linguistic
principles peculiar to Sanskrit.
The first aphorism is,
!"#$%&' ()&* !
Caitanyam "tm"
which states that "Consciousness is the Soul."
The second aphorism is,
+*,&' -. /0 !
J"nam Bandha!
which states that "Knowledge is Bondage"
Now, these two aphorisms can be combined and presented as a single sentence as follows:
!"#$%&' ()&*+*,&' -. /0 !
Caitanyam "tm"j"nam bandha!
According to the rules of unbinding conjoined words i.e. "Sandhi-Viccheda", we get two possible states of the combined
aphorisms:
1. !"#$%&' ()&* +*,&' -. /01
Caitanyam "tm", j"nam bandha#
which states that, "Consciousness is the Soul, Limited Knowledge is Bondage."
2. !"#$%&' ()&* 2+*,&' -. /0 !
Caitanyam "tm", aj"nam bandha!
which states that, "Consciousness is the Soul, Non-Knowledge is Bondage."
These two sentences taken together, present a beautiful operation that simultaneously reveals and denies the reality of the
phenomenal world, represented by "Bondage".
The sentence has a triadic structure, where the words, in accordance with "Shaivite Trika (Triadic) philosophy" can be
described as follows:
1. Caitanyam - Par" (Supreme)
2. Atma,J"nam/Aj"nam - Par"-Apar" (Supreme-Non-Supreme), involving the mediation of Atma (Supreme) with
J"nam/Aj"nam (Non-Supreme).
3. Bandha! - Apar" (Non-Supreme)
From these, we can infer that "Undifferentiated Consciousness" is the source of the Soul or "The Essence of Being",
that operates the manifest as well as the unmanifest states of knowledge, which constitute bondage i.e. the
"Phenomenal World of Differentiation".
An alternative interpretation of the verses is, "Consciousness is the Soul. Knowledge (of !iva) is the Bond (Between
Consciousness and the Soul).". Here "Bandha!" means "bond", instead of "bondage".