Kshara

Kshara · kshara, “the perishable”

Akshara has other meanings too: see all meanings of Akshara.

Grammar: adjective and neuter noun, from the root kshar (to flow away, to wane): “that which perishes”. Its opposite is akshara, the imperishable.

Meaning: the perishable tattva: the manifest world of the twenty-four tattvas, which comes forth from the akshara, the imperishable, and dissolves back into it.

In the scriptures: the Brahma Purāṇa teaches the kshara in Vyāsa‘s answers to the munis and in the dialogue of Vasishṭha Maharshi and King Karāla Janaka.

The two tattvas. Vyāsa teaches the munis that the tattva is of two kinds. The kshara is in all beings and in the form of all beings, and it perishes; the akshara is divine, amṛta, and does not perish. Because the tattva exists as the world, it is of the kshara form; the changeless kūṭastha form, without these changes, is the akshara, and one who knows it becomes it (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 236). When the munis ask what gati comes from karma and what from vidyā, Vyāsa explains the kshara-tattva, made of karma, and the akshara-tattva, made of vidyā: by performing karmas the purusha made of the sixteen tattvas dies and is born again; by vidyā he becomes of the form of the akshara and attains mukti (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 237).

Why it is called kshara. The munis recall Vyāsa’s word that those who reach the akshara do not return into saṃsāra and those who reach the kshara return, and ask him to discern the two. He tells the itihāsa of Vasishṭha and Janaka. Vasishṭha teaches that the Paramātmā Nārāyaṇa, by māyā, creates himself as the world: from the one tattva came Hiraṇyagarbha, the Mahat or Buddhi-tattva, the Ahaṅkāra, the ten tanmātras and bhūtas, the mind and the ten indriyas, and so the twenty-four tattvas came into being, and with them all beings, fixed and moving. This becomes kshara, perishable, because it becomes manifest from the akshara; and because it dissolves again into the akshara it is also called kshara. Its manifesting has five stages: the Paramātmā; Hiraṇyagarbha, whose nature is the buddhi-tattva; the subtle elements from his ahaṅkāra; the modification of the bhūtas; and the physical worlds with their beings. This whole world is of the nature of moha (delusion); from the formless avyakta it became manifest and took form. Beyond this kshara state is the akshara, formless, unmanifest and unchanging, which presides over the manifest world of twenty-four tattvas (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 241).

The akshara as kshara. Like a silkworm winding itself in its own thread, the akshara binds itself with the three guṇas that come out of itself, and through the abhimāna born of māyā, “the body is I”, it suffers and acts. In this way the akshara itself, in the form of kshara, divides itself into many forms and is seen in manifest, embodied form (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 242).

Not like woman and man. Janaka asks whether the kshara and the akshara are related like woman and man, so that without the union of prakṛti, the kshara, and the Purusha, the akshara, there could be no creation. Vasishṭha teaches that the body, the senses and the dhātus are born of prakṛti and are the true form of neither the kshara nor the akshara. The avyakta is prabuddha (awakened) and budhyamāna (awakening); the manifest kshara is aprabuddha (not awakened). Oneness (ekatva) is the akshara and manyness (nānātva) is the kshara; after pralaya there is oneness, at creation manyness. For those who reach the knowledge of the nirguṇa there is no return of birth and death and no kshara-bhāva, the state of perishing. So Janaka’s idea that the kshara and the akshara depend on each other like woman and man has no place here (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 243).

All is kshara, all is akshara. Then Vasishṭha teaches that, on discernment, both the vyakta and the avyakta are kshara, and both are also akshara. Both are without beginning and end, both are tattvas of the all-powerful Īśvara; only in vyavahāra (practical speech) is there the distinction of aparā and parā prakṛti, kshara and akshara. The akshara transforms itself into the kshara form, enters the body, which is its own changed form, and with the abhimāna “I” becomes doer and enjoyer; growing weary of saṃsāra it becomes a seeker of moksha. “What is avyakta? What is vyakta? What is kshara? What is akshara? All is kshara. All is akshara. All is vyakta. All is avyakta.” The passage from the kshara state to the akshara state is the passage from the unawakened to the awakened; becoming awakened, he leaves kshara-hood, vyakta-hood and saguṇa-hood and reaches the state of akshara, avyakta and nirguṇa (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 244).

In the Gautamī Māhātmya. Brahmā tells Nārada, before the account of his own birth from the lotus, that the supreme Purusha is to be known as Avyakta and Akshara; the inferior one, the Apara, is Kshara, and so it is accompanied by Prakṛti (Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 91).

Related terms: Akshara · Avyakta · Prakṛti · Tattva · Kshetra · Kshetrajña

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 236–237, 241–244; Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 91