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Can the Supreme Have Attributes? (Verse 5)

1. Exercise Title & Verse

Can the Supreme Have Attributes? (Verse 5)

2. Sanskrit (IAST)

parāparāyāḥ sakalam aparāyāś ca vā punaḥ | parāyā yadi tadvat syāt paratvaṃ tad virudhyate || 5 ||

3. English (Literal)

Or again, is it the composed form of Parāparā and also of Aparā? If Parā were like that, her supremacy would be contradicted.

4. Main Commentary (Bhāṣya)

Padārtha. Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā are the three great modes of śakti in Trika. Parā is the supreme power in its undivided transcendence. Parāparā is the middle condition in which unity is still present but differentiation is already emerging. Aparā is the manifest and fully differentiated condition. Sakala literally means "with parts," "composed," or "articulated." In practice it means a form that can be presented with determinate features, qualities, or functions. Paratva means supreme status, transcendence, unsurpassability. Tad virudhyate means "that would be contradicted" or "that would become incoherent."

Anvaya. The verse asks: "If the differentiated or attribute-bearing form belongs to Parāparā and Aparā, and if Parā too were of that same sort, would not her very supremacy be contradicted?"

Tatparya. Devī is no longer merely listing possibilities. She is now pressing a philosophical objection. If the highest reality is treated as one more knowable form, one more divine object with discernible attributes, colors, limbs, or features, then it has already been lowered into the field of the manifest. That may be appropriate for Aparā and even for Parāparā, where articulation and relational knowing are operative. But Parā cannot be rendered that way without losing what makes her supreme. The verse therefore protects the seeker from a subtle but decisive mistake: turning the Absolute into a refined object of meditation. The highest is not denied; it is refused reduction. Form may point toward it. Symbol may reveal it. Deity-visualization may prepare the mind for it. But the Supreme itself cannot be captured as a thing among things, even a divine thing among divine things.

Sādhana. If you use a deity-form in meditation, let it appear clearly. Notice the features, the iconography, the colors, the posture, the felt devotional response. Then ask: what knows this form? Does that knower itself have color, edge, gender, posture, or ornament? Stay with that question until the form remains present but no longer feels final. Or sit without imagery and simply notice every perceived sensation, thought, and inner image as sakala because each has some contour or distinguishable presentation. Then turn toward that in you which knows them but is not itself presented as an object. This is the doorway implied by the verse.

5. Jaideva Singh — The Logical

The logic is exact. Parā is the sovereign power of the Absolute in pure transcendence, the level of undivided consciousness. Parāparā is identity-in-difference, like a city seen in a mirror: not other than the mirror, yet appearing distinct within it. Aparā is the level of manifest differentiation. Because articulation belongs to the latter two, sakala can be meaningfully spoken there. The grammar sharpens the point: parāyā yadi tadvat syāt is a direct conditional, "if Parā were like that too," and tad virudhyate states the result as contradiction, not mere uneasiness. If the same sakala status is assigned to Parā, the contradiction is immediate. The niṣkala, the partless, would have been described as though it were composite. The verse is not devotional hesitation; it is doctrinal coherence.

6. Swami Lakshmanjoo — The Lineage

Where sensation, perceptibility, and the cycle of functioning are present, there is sakala. That belongs to the domains in which consciousness is appearing and being experienced in differentiated ways. But Parā is not reached as an object of sensation. It is your own deepest Self. You can perceive another thing, another person, another state, another image. You cannot stand outside your own essential awareness and perceive it as though it were one more object. That is why making Parā into something graspable destroys the very point. As long as the highest is being sought as an experienced object, the mistake has already happened.

7. Mark Dyczkowski & Christopher Wallis — Context & Philology

In hareesh.org's post on verses 4-6, the issue is made very explicit: if Parā Devī is visualized anthropomorphically, with attributes, like the other two Trika goddesses, her paratva is contradicted. The Dyczkowski PDF translation preserves the same structure of the objection by holding on to the language of parts and supremacy. This is valuable because it shows the verse is not attacking goddess practice in general. It is drawing a line between symbolic or pedagogical forms and the truly unsurpassable.

8. Daniel Odier — The Somatic Grounding

Let inner forms arise if they arise. A goddess-image, a color-field, a subtle pressure in the brow, a current in the chest. Feel how each one has some texture, some place, some contour. Then feel the field in which all of this appears. That field has no edge you can touch. The body may tremble, soften, or brighten, but the deepest awareness does not become an object inside those events. Do not hunt for the shape of the Supreme.

9. Paul Reps — The "Sudden Hit"

N/A — Reps does not address the prologue verses.

10. Upāya Type

N/A as a formal classification for this verse itself. Neither Singh nor Lakshmanjoo explicitly assigns Verse 5 to a discrete upāya. It is still Devī's objection and clarification, not yet an assigned method, though it clearly orients the reader away from objectified supports and toward formless recognition.

11. Resonance Check (Adhikāra)

This verse suits the practitioner who is strong enough to use sacred forms without becoming trapped by them. It especially helps the reader who loves deity, mantra, and subtle imagery but now needs to know what in all of that is truly final and what is preparatory.

12. The "What Else?" — The Pitfall

The trap is staring at an inner light, a goddess-form, or a subtle visionary image and quietly deciding, "This must be the Absolute." The moment the Supreme is treated as a special object you can look at, possess, or wait for, the verse has been ignored.

13. Verse-Specific Glossary

  • Parā: the supreme mode of conscious power, utterly non-objectifiable. In this verse it is the sense in which the highest cannot be treated as one more deity-form among forms.
  • Parāparā: the intermediate mode of power in which unity remains but differentiation has begun to show itself. Here it is one of the levels where articulated form can still meaningfully be spoken of.
  • Aparā: the manifest, differentiated mode of power. Here it is the range in which forms, functions, and perceivable distinctions are fully operative.
  • sakala: with parts, articulated, composed, or attribute-bearing. In this verse it means anything that can be presented in a determinate, distinguishable way.
  • niṣkala: partless, undivided, beyond composition. This is the sense in which Parā cannot be reduced to a formed object.
  • paratva: supremacy or transcendence. Here it means the unsurpassable status of Parā, which would collapse if she were treated as merely one more objectifiable form.