Kūṭastha
Kūṭastha · kūṭa-stha, “the one who stands unchanging”
Akshara has other meanings too: see all meanings of Akshara.
Grammar: adjective, also used as a noun: kūṭa (the anvil, what stays fixed) and stha (standing): “standing firm like the anvil”, the changeless.
Meaning: the changeless; the tattva that stays the same in every state and undergoes no change while all that comes from it changes. In the Brahma Purāṇa it is the akshara, the imperishable.
In the scriptures: the word belongs to the teaching on sāṅkhya, yoga and moksha in the last chapters of the Brahma Purāṇa.
The akshara form. Vyāsa tells the munis that the tattva is of two kinds, kshara (the perishable) and akshara (the imperishable). Because it exists as the world, it is of the kshara form; the changeless kūṭastha form, without these changes of form, is the akshara. One who knows it becomes it. “This is the essence of tattva” (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 236).
Nārāyaṇa the Paramātmā. The great ṛshis who teach the śāstras and the knowers of the praṇava say that the Nārāyaṇa Paramātma-tattva is akshara, dhruva (firm), before all, the eternal Brahman, free of the pairs, the doer of all, everlasting and kūṭastha, glossed as the undivided tattva that undergoes no change in any state; and from that tattva alone go forth creation, sustaining and dissolution, the vipras and the Vedas. The followers of sāṅkhya and of yoga both seek sāyujya with him (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 240).
Beyond the guṇas. In the itihāsa of Vasishṭha and Janaka that Vyāsa tells, Vasishṭha teaches that beyond the kshara state is the akshara: the formless, unmanifest, root, kūṭastha tattva, beyond the three guṇas, though in worldly speech it is said to be chiefly of sattva. It is the eternal tattva that presides over the manifest world of twenty-four tattvas, and dwells as the antaryāmī in the space of the heart of all embodied beings (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 241).
The one who presides. Vasishṭha tells Janaka that after pralaya there is oneness, and at the time of creation there is manyness; the one who presides over all of it is the avyakta kūṭastha tattva, the unmanifest and changeless (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 243).
Related terms: Akshara · Kshara · Avyakta · Paramātmā · Tattva
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 236, 240–241, 243