Parātrīṃśikā Vivaraṇa (Part 27): Known by None as Object, Unknown to None in Truth: Svātantrya, Kriyā-Śakti, and the Paradox of Anuttara

 

Known by None as Object, Unknown to None in Truth

“Tāratamya” is conventional — and grammatical precision must know where to stop

tāratamyam iti tu prayogaḥ kramātiśaye ’vyutpanna eva rūḍhaḥ
na tu tarap-tamap-pratyayārthānugamāt tāryaṃ tāmyam ity ādy api hi syāt |
tad alam akāṇḍe śruta-lava-kauśala-prathanena |

“But the usage tāratamya for gradation or ordered superiority is simply established convention, not something properly derived by following the meanings of the suffixes -tara and -tama; otherwise forms like tārya and tāmya and the like would also have to arise. Enough, then, of displaying scraps of grammatical cleverness in a context where it is not the main point.”

This lands better if we keep the previous discussion in view.

Abhinava has just spent considerable effort examining -tara and -tama with real precision. So this is not a man who despises grammatical subtlety or lacks patience for it. Quite the opposite: he has shown that he can follow language down to a very fine level when it actually matters.

And that is exactly why this line has force.

Because after demonstrating that precision, he now says: enough. Not every word needs to be mined indefinitely. Not every conventional usage hides another doctrine. Not every grammatical possibility deserves to be unfolded into a fresh metaphysical revelation.

That is a very healthy warning, especially in tantric exegesis, where there is always a temptation to keep extracting more and more meanings simply because one can. The mind starts enjoying its own ingenuity. A verse becomes a field for endless virtuosity: ten meanings, fifty meanings, one hundred and eight meanings. Sometimes that is fruitful. Sometimes it is just display.

Abhinava is drawing a line here.

He is not rejecting subtle exegesis. He is showing that true subtlety includes knowing where to stop. Otherwise interpretation becomes self-feeding. The commentator no longer serves the text; the text becomes raw material for the commentator’s cleverness.

That is the point of śruta-lava-kauśala-prathana — the showing off of little bits of learned skill. The phrase is almost dry in its irritation. He is saying: enough of that. The real issue lies elsewhere.

So the force of the passage is not anti-grammar.
It is anti-exegetical vanity.

And that makes the line stronger, not weaker. Because it comes from someone who has already proven he can do the subtle work — and therefore has the authority to say when further elaboration stops clarifying and starts performing.

Even “anuttama” still carries the same basic sense

iha tu uttara-kramika-pratiyogy-apekṣāyāṃ anuttamam ity api prayoge ayam eva arthaḥ

“But here too, even in the usage anuttamam, where there is dependence on a sequential series of comparators, the meaning is this very same one.”

Now Abhinava returns to the real issue.

Even if one shifts from the comparative field into the superlative form — anuttamam — nothing fundamentally changes. The word may now stand at the end of a graded series, with multiple comparators behind it, but the basic logic is still the same.

That matters because the mind can easily imagine that once the language becomes more absolute-sounding, something deeper must have happened. Abhinava says: not necessarily. Superlative form alone does not rescue the word from the problem already discussed.

So this line continues the earlier grammatical discipline.
The grammar may become more exalted.
The meaning does not automatically become more profound.

That is why he says: ayam eva arthaḥ — the very same meaning.
He is refusing the temptation to treat anuttama as though it opened a whole new register simply by sounding more final.

So the point is simple and clean:
even when comparison stretches through a whole sequence and culminates in the “highest” term, the same structural issue remains.
The language still leans on comparators.
It still does not, by itself, deliver the true Anuttara.

Known by none as an object, unknown to none in reality

tathāhi āgamāntare

adyāpi yan na viditaṃ siddhānāṃ bodhaśālinām |
na cāpy aviditaṃ kasya kim apy ekam anuttamam ||

“For thus it is said in another āgama:

‘That which even now is not known by the accomplished, the bearers of awakened understanding —
and yet is not unknown to anyone: a certain one unsurpassable reality.’”

The verse is deliberately paradoxical.

It says: even the siddhas, the accomplished ones, do not know it.
And yet no one is without it, no one is truly ignorant of it in the absolute sense.

At first this sounds contradictory. But the contradiction is the teaching.

Why do even siddhas “not know” it?
Not because it is absent, hidden somewhere else, or beyond their reach.
But because it cannot be known as a vedya, an object placed before a knower.

That is the key. If one expects knowledge here to mean objectification, then yes — even siddhas do not know it in that way. There is no distance between knower and known available there.

But why is it not unknown to anyone?

Because without it, no knowing, no siddhi, no experience, no life, no consciousness would be possible at all. It is not something added later. It is the very ground by which anyone knows anything.

So the verse cuts both mistakes:

• it is not known as an object
• but it is also not absent like an unknown thing outside experience

That is why the phrase kim apy ekam anuttamam is so beautiful.
“A certain one unsurpassable reality” — not because it is vague in the weak sense, but because ordinary language fails to grip it without contradiction.

A simple way to say the whole point:

you cannot stand apart from it and know it like a thing,
but you also cannot ever be outside it.

That is why even siddhas do not “know” it in the ordinary sense, and yet no one is truly cut off from it.

Why even the siddhas do not “know” it — and why no one is without it

adyāpīti samyakprakāśasamāpattau
siddhānām iti paraśaktipātavaśonmipitaguruśāstrasaṃpradāyānām ata eva
bodhaśālināṃ svātantryākhyabodhamūlavimarśaśālināṃ yad na viditaṃ svayameva
tathādhārādheyobhayasvarūpatvāt vedyatayā na jñātam tathā kasyāpi
sāmānyajanasya na ca aviditaṃ tena vinā kasyāpi siddhyanupapatteḥ jñātam eva
jñānārham ata eva āpāte virodhirūpatvāt kim apīti — sarvotkṛṣṭam ity arthaḥ |

“‘Even now’ means: even in the state of full illumination. ‘Of the siddhas’ means: of those awakened through the descent of supreme grace and through guru, scripture, and lineage; therefore of those possessed of awakened understanding, whose reflective awareness is rooted in the knowledge called freedom. That is not known by them in the form of an object, because it is itself the very nature of both support and supported. Nor is it unknown to any ordinary person, because without it no accomplishment for anyone would be possible. It is indeed known — and knowable. Precisely because it appears contradictory at first sight, it is called kim api; that means the supremely unsurpassable.”

This gloss is the real key to the verse.

First, Abhinava raises the level of the statement. “Even now” does not mean merely “up to the present time.” It means: even in full illumination. So the point is not that siddhas are still deficient and have failed to reach some hidden object. The point is subtler.

Then he defines who these siddhas are. Not vague holy people, but those opened by paraśaktipāta, and by guru, śāstra, and sampradāya. They are bodhaśālinaḥ — bearers of awakened understanding — and more precisely, their vimarśa is rooted in svātantrya, freedom. So these are not beginners. The verse is speaking about the most mature knowers available within the tradition.

And yet even they do not “know” it — as a vedya, as an object.

That is the decisive point of the gloss. It is not known that way because it is itself the nature of both ādhāra and ādheya — support and supported, container and contained, ground and what appears within it. Since it is both, it cannot be placed opposite the knower as one more knowable item.

That is why even siddhas do not know it in object-form.

But then the other side: it is not unknown even to the ordinary person. Why? Because without it, no siddhi, no cognition, no experience, no accomplishment of any kind could happen at all. So it is not absent from anyone. It is present prior to all distinction between accomplished and unaccomplished.

That is why Abhinava can say: jñātam eva jñānārham — it is indeed known, and knowable. But not in the ordinary objectifying way.

Then comes kim api. The gloss makes this exact: the phrase sounds contradictory on first hearing, and precisely for that reason it is used. The contradiction is not a flaw. It is a sign that ordinary categories are breaking down. The phrase points to what is sarvotkṛṣṭa — utterly unsurpassable.

So the whole point is:

• even the siddhas do not know it as an object,
• no ordinary being is outside it,
• therefore it is neither “known” nor “unknown” in the usual sense,
• and the paradox is deliberate.
• 
  

Anuttara is the body of kriyā-śakti formed from freedom itself

evaṃ svātantrya-sāra-ākalita-kriyā-śakti-śarīram anuttaram

“Thus, Anuttara is the very body of kriyā-śakti, shaped from the essence of svātantrya.

This is the seal on the whole passage.

After the grammatical caution, the paradox of being unknown as object yet not unknown in reality, and the insistence that the highest is not reached through comparative language, Abhinava concludes positively: Anuttara is the body of kriyā-śakti.

That is important because it prevents the whole discussion from ending in abstraction. Anuttara is not just a negation of comparison, not just the failure of grammar, not just a paradox beyond speech. It is living power — kriyā-śakti.

But not power in the ordinary sense of effort, sequence, or production.
This kriyā-śakti is ākalita from svātantrya-sāra — shaped from the very essence of absolute freedom.

That is the decisive point.

Its action is not imposed from outside.
Its movement is not mechanical.
Its knowing is not dependent on an object.
Its power is the natural dynamism of freedom itself.

The paradox was not there to leave us suspended in mystery. It was there to clear away inadequate notions of knowing and comparison so that this could be said rightly: the unsurpassable is the very living body of free conscious power.

A simple way to say it:

Anuttara is not a static highest thing.
It is freedom itself alive as power.