NAME 42

Aadi is the beginning and Nidhana is the end.

He has neither a beginning nor an end. Because of this, He is beyond modifications. The one who has a beginning and an end alone is subjected to modifications and changes. The One that is without modifications is the eternal and Brahman alone is eternal.

Anaadinidhanah –So this Nama means someone who has neither a beginning nor an end. He is Anaadi and He is Ananta. He is Eternal and beyond Time.  At the end of the MahaBharataYudham, Bhishma says to Yudhishtra,  in the preamble to Vishnu Sahasranamam,  ‘Anaadi Nidhanam Vishnum Sarva Loka Mahesvaram’ describing Lord Vishnu as One without a beginning or an end and as Supreme. He has no birth, decay or death and He is Anadinidhanah i.e. eternal.

BG Chapter 11.19: The Universal Form

anadi-madhyantamananta-viryam

ananta-bahumsasi-surya-netram

pasyamitvamdipta-hutasa-vaktram

sva-tejasavisvamidamtapantam

TRANSLATION

You are the origin without beginning, middle or end. You have numberless arms, and the sun and moon are among Your great unlimited eyes. By Your own radiance You are heating this entire universe.

PURPORT

There is no limit to the extent of the six opulences of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Here and in many other places there is repetition, but according to the scriptures, repetition of the glories of Krsna is not a literary weakness. It is said that at a time of bewilderment or wonder or of great ecstasy, statements are repeated over and over. That is not a flaw. 

४२. ॐ अनादिनिधनाय नमः।

42. Om Anādi-nidhanaḥay Namah

Anaadi-nidhanah –One who has neither (“an”) birth (Aadi) nor death (Nidhanum). Thus One who is changeless is Anaadi-Nidhanam; for, any change should include the death of an old condition and the birth of newer condition. To the Immortal and the Immutable, change is impossible.

INTERPRETATION GUIDED BY SANT VANI (WORDS OF SAINTS)

Anādinidhanaḥ – The one without any birth or death.

The one, who does not have birth, anadī and nidhana, death, is anādinīdhanaḥ. There is neither real birth nor death for anything. It is only a cycle of manifestation and unmanifestation. We have supporting evidence from Science for this – Matter is never destroyed, it is only converted from one form to another. The creation is only a manifestation of the jagat, and again it becomes unmanifest and therefore is anādi.

Any form undergoes six modifications, it is born (jāyate), it grows (vardhate), it is present (asti), it transforms (vipariṇamate), it declines (apaśiyate), it dies (mriyate).

We may try and prolong life with more organic food and a healthy lifestyle. Still these are the changes the body will be subject to, and a full life span is likely to be about 120 years with a few exceptions. Some of us may say, “I am not afraid of death, but old age.” Whatever be the fear, it is related to a sense of loss. The question then is, “Is this loss real or apparent?’ if the loss is real, nothing can take away the fear and sorrow. If it is apparent, it is felt intensely based on the conclusion that the loss is related to I which is the body-mind-sense complex. How real is it?

None of these changes affect I, as the conscious being.

The Lord Himself, when He ta es an avatār is manifest and then becomes unmanifest. But, when there is the manifestation of a form that was not there, it is called birth and the disappearance of a form is death. So, we can and do celebrate Krishna Janmashtami. As the Lord in His essential svarūpa has no form, He has neither ādi nor nidhana, no birth nor death and therefore no modifications. Hence, He is Anādinidhanaḥ.

What is it that is beyond death or birth? It is the soul. When a Jivatma attains this gyan, disspasion arises and one can cast of the body just as one changes clothes without being attached or entangled in Sansara. While this happens in one’s lifetime one becomes a jivanmukta in perpetual union with paramatma’s universal essence of being beyond birth or death.

Please listen from 22.40 min till the end.

ANĀDINIDHANA (अनादिनिधना) is He, who is eternal and unfathomable – with neither beginning nor end, that endless, eternal being who existed even before everything else and will continue to do even after the end of everything – this is Śaṅkara. ParāsaraBattar further adds “His body is beyond the range of the sense organs, for it is stated that it can be cognized only through the eye of the mind”

Anādinidhana is a compound word consisting of the terms anādi (अनादि) and nidhana (निधन) – meaning “birth” and ‘destruction’ respectively and as a corollary “he who is immutable and beyond the vicissitudes of time and its functions of birth, decay, and death“.

The fact is the Supreme being has to necessarily be contemplated as someone who was never born and who will never die, else it would be absurd to think of a supreme who is subjected to birth and deaths like everyone else…

There is a very interesting story I have read about the birthless and deathless supreme being that drives home this point beautifully.

When the birthless one decided to come out of his Yoganidrā (meditative-half-sleep), and thought about initiating the creative cycle,  Brahmā emerged atop the cosmic ocean seated on a lotus that had emerged from the navel of the birthless one. That first-person (Brahmā) charged with the function of ‘secondary-creation’ looked around and saw stretching for all eternity nothing but space and no one but himself and thought what is this that I see (and not see) where am I, and where did I come from? He looked everywhere, turning his head this way and that and searched the four quarters of eternal space but found nothing. All he heard was that eternal sound resonating from everywhere [Refer to the previous name MAHĀSVANAḤ (महास्वनः)].

After searching everywhere that “first-person” closed his eyes and turned his gaze inward and in that deep meditative state he realized that he was looking everywhere when he should be looking within, so he climbed down the stalk of that lotus and found that the source of everything there was, is, and ever will be is that Supreme being who is the birthless and deathless one – ANĀDINIDHANA (अनादिनिधना)

He, who is eternal and unfathomable – with neither beginning nor end, that endless, eternal being who existed even before everything else and will continue to do even after the end of everything – this is Śaṅkara. ParāsaraBattar further adds “His body is beyond the range of the sense organs, for it is stated that it can be cognized only through the eye of the mind”

Please listen to understand how a jivanmukta can go beyond birth and death to be one with the source.