The Fourth Has No Address

दक्षिणाक्षिमुखे विश्वो मनस्यन्तस्तु तैजसः ।
आकाशे च हृदि प्राज्ञस्त्रिधा देहे व्यवस्थितः ॥
dakṣiṇākṣimukhe viśvo manasy antas tu taijasaḥ |
ākāśe ca hṛdi prājñas tridhā dehe vyavasthitaḥ ||
"The waking one at the mouth of the right eye, the dreaming one inside the mind, the deep sleeper in the space of the heart. One, set out three ways in the body."
— Gauḍapāda, Māṇḍūkya Kārikā 1.2¹

त्रिषु चतुर्थं तैलवदासेच्यम् ॥
triṣu caturthaṁ tailavad āsecyam
"Into the three, pour the fourth like oil."
— Śiva Sūtra 3.20²

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The waking one is in the right eye. The dreamer is in the mind. The deep sleeper is in the space of the heart.

That is Gauḍapāda, second verse, and it is a strange thing to do. The Māṇḍūkya gives you four: waking, dream, deep sleep, and the fourth. Gauḍapāda takes the first three and gives each one an address. Then he stops. Three addresses.

The fourth has no address.

Sit with how odd that is. You would expect the most important thing in the text to be the one with the best location. And the word is mouth, by the way. Mukha, mouth, opening, the same word as the nineteen mouths of the waking self. The eye is an opening and the waking world goes in through it. He did not invent the addresses. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka already has a person living in the right eye and a meeting place in the space of the heart.³ They are old. What he adds is the empty line where the fourth should go.

Now you would think these are three places you travel to at night. You are in the eye all day, you go to bed, you drop into the mind and dream, you drop into the heart and sleep. That is the obvious reading and Śaṅkara goes straight past it. His first sentence: this verse is here to show you all three in the waking state alone.⁴

All three. Now. In this one body, before practice, sitting on this floor.

Notes

1. Gauḍapāda, Māṇḍūkya Kārikā (Āgama Prakaraṇa) 1.2. The English is mine, after Swami Nikhilananda's: "Viśva is he who cognizes in the right eye, Taijasa is he who cognizes in the mind within and Prājña is he who constitutes the Ākāśa in the heart. Thus the one Ātman is (conceived as) threefold in the (one) body." Mukha is mouth, face, opening. Śaṅkara takes the eye as the means of perception. Gauḍapāda's date is usually given as the sixth or seventh century, and it is approximate. ↩

2. Śiva Sūtra 3.20. Some editions number it 3.21. Āsecyam is a gerundive, "to be poured," and the English is mine. ↩

3. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.2.2: indho ha vai nāmaiṣa yo 'yaṁ dakṣiṇe 'kṣan puruṣaḥ, "This being in the right eye is named Indha." 4.2.3 puts his wife Virāj in the left eye and gives the space within the heart as their meeting place. The Māṇḍūkya itself gives no body locations. Śaṅkara cites the Bṛhadāraṇyaka's right-eye passage in his comment on this verse. ↩

4. Śaṅkara on Kārikā 1.2 (Nikhilananda): "This verse is intended to show that the threefold experience of Viśva, etc. (Taijasa and Prājña) is realised in the waking state alone." Nikhilananda's note adds that dream and deep sleep are known only from the waking standpoint. ↩