श्रीराम उवाच । महाप्रलयसंपत्तौ यदेतदवशिष्यते । भवत्येतदनाकारं नाम नाऽस्त्यत्र संशयः ॥ १ ॥
śrīrāma uvāca | mahāpralayasaṁpattau yadētadavaśiṣyatē | bhavatyētadanākāraṁ nāma nā’styatra saṁśayaḥ || 1 ||
Translation
Rāma said: What remains when the great dissolution has come is formless indeed; of that there is no doubt.
Word by word
- mahā
- great
- pralaya
- dissolution
- saṁpattau
- when (it) has come about
- yad
- (yat) what
- ētad
- (etat) this
- avaśiṣyatē
- remains
- bhavati
- is
- anākāraṁ
- formless
- nāma
- indeed
- na
- not
- asti
- there is
- atra
- here, about this
- saṁśayaḥ
- doubt
Meaning
The last sarga ended with what remains when the great dissolution (mahāpralaya) has swallowed the world: something nameless, unmanifest, "neither light nor darkness", "not void, nor form, nor the seen, nor seeing", "neither being nor non-being" (3.9.47-49). Rāma accepts the first part of that account without hesitation: what remains has no form. The commentary says why he speaks now: the description was made of denials that seem to contradict one another, and Rāma, eager to know what Vasiṣṭha meant, sets one meaning against the other as the groundwork of his question. Granting "it is formless" is the starting point; the next three verses press on what that formlessness seems to imply.