Akshara
Akshara · a-kshara, “the imperishable”
Grammar: neuter noun; a (not) with kshara (perishing, passing away): “that which does not perish”.
Meaning: the imperishable: the tattva that does not perish, set against the kshara, the perishable world of beings. In the Brahma Purāṇa’s teaching on moksha it is the twenty-fifth tattva, of the nature of pure knowledge, beyond the twenty-four tattvas of prakṛti; those who reach it do not return to saṃsāra.
In the scriptures: the Brahma Purāṇa teaches the akshara in Vyāsa‘s teaching to the munis on sāṅkhya and yoga, and at length in the dialogue of Vasishṭha and King Karāla Janaka, which Vyāsa tells them.
Kshara and akshara. Vyāsa tells the munis that the tattva is of two kinds. The kshara is what is in all beings and in the form of all beings; it perishes. The akshara is divine and amṛta; it does not perish. Because the tattva exists as the world, it has the kshara form; the changeless kūṭastha form, without these changes, is the akshara. One who knows it becomes it: “this is the essence of tattva.” One who sits in solitude at a fixed time, doing only pure karmas, and practises the tattva again and again becomes one with the akshara (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 236). The kshara is made of karma and the akshara of vidyā: by karmas the purusha made of sixteen tattvas dies and is born again, and by vidyā he becomes of the form of the akshara and attains mukti (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 237).
Vasishṭha’s teaching to Janaka. The munis recall that those who reach the akshara do not return to saṃsāra and those who reach the kshara return, and they ask Vyāsa to tell the two apart. He tells them the ancient itihāsa of Vasishṭha and Janaka. The whole manifest world of twenty-four tattvas, from Mahat down to all beings, is called kshara because it becomes manifest from the akshara and dissolves back into it. Beyond this kshara is the akshara: formless, unmanifest, the root, kūṭastha, beyond the three guṇas, and in worldly speech said to be chiefly of sattva. It presides over the manifest world of twenty-four tattvas. It is the antaryāmī (inner controller) of all embodied beings, dwelling in the space of their hearts and moving them to their tasks. Formless, it appears in form as the world; nirguṇa, it takes a saguṇa form; though it changes as prakṛti, it has no attachment to the change and stays steadfast. It is this akshara that takes avatāras in forms of the three guṇas, so that the ignorant may be able to serve it; being of the nature of knowledge and without the stages of life, in those forms it takes the notions “I am a child”, “I am old”, and though not of the form of “I”, it shows ahaṅkāra. In the akshara, the twenty-fifth tattva, there is no ignorance, no guṇa and no form: it is pure knowledge (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 241).
How the akshara is bound. Vasishṭha goes on. Though of the nature of knowledge, the akshara, joined with ajñāna, becomes apratibuddha (not awakened) and follows beings who are not awakened. It passes from body to body and takes thousands of births among animals and among devatās; by puṇya it goes to svarga and returns to the human world, by pāpa it goes to naraka, and through tapas, good qualities and the wearing away of the guṇas it is born a human. As a silkworm winds itself in the thread it draws from its own body, so the akshara binds itself with the three guṇas that come from itself. Though by nature beyond the pairs of opposites, it comes under happiness and sorrow, and through the abhimāna “the body is I” it takes as its own the afflictions of the body: diseases of the head and the eyes, toothache, seizure of the throat, dropsy, dysentery, gaṇḍamālā, vicarcikā, white patches of the skin, kushṭha, burning by fire, apasmāra and others. So the akshara itself, as kshara, divides itself into many forms and is seen in manifest, embodied form (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 242).
One and many. Janaka thought that kshara and akshara depend on each other as woman and man do in the world. Vasishṭha answered that oneness (ekatva) is the akshara and manyness (nānātva) the kshara, and that the idea of their depending on each other like woman and man has no place here (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 243). Then he taught: both the vyakta (manifest) and the avyakta (unmanifest) are kshara, and both are akshara; only in vyavahāra (worldly usage) are there parā and aparā prakṛti, kshara and akshara. The akshara, changing itself into the kshara form, enters the inert body and becomes doer, enjoyer, happy and sorrowful; fearing these it becomes detached, a seeker of moksha and a knower. When freed, he is neither knower, nor known, nor the knowing, but the jñāna-tattva of the form of cit, beyond them all. “All is kshara, all is akshara, all is vyakta, all is avyakta.” Growing weary of saṃsāra, by the discernment of Sāṅkhya he knows that he is nirguṇa and the parā prakṛti itself, and becomes pure, free of sorrow, of the nature of ānanda. This passage from the kshara state to the akshara state is the passage from apratibuddhatva to pratibuddhatva, from not awakened to awakened (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 244).
In the Gautamī Māhātmya. Brahmā tells Nārada that the supreme Purusha is to be known as Avyakta and Akshara; the inferior one is kshara, and so is joined with prakṛti (Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 91).
Related terms: Kshara · Avyakta · Kūṭastha · Tattva · Apratibuddha · Aparā Prakṛti · Sāṅkhya
Other meanings
Akshara has more than one meaning in the Purāṇas and Itihāsas. Besides the meaning above, it names those listed here, each with where it is told.
- Akshara, the syllable or letter: akshara is also a syllable or letter of speech. The Sanskrit alphabet is counted as fifty-two aksharas, the mātṛkās, with Oṃkāra first; the Skanda Purāṇa teaches them as a map of the devas (see Mātṛkā Teaching). Oṃ is called the first akshara and akshara-brahma, the word meaning both “imperishable” and “syllable” (see Oṃkāra). Skanda Purāṇa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5; Vāyu Purāṇa, Chapter 20
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 236–237, 241–244; Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 91
- Skanda Purāṇa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5
- Vāyu Purāṇa, Chapter 20