The Three states/types of Reality (sattaa-traividhyam) - Taittiriya Shankara Bhashya

[V Subrahmanian]

This post has the Bhashya, Sureshwarachar's Taittiriya Bh.Vartika, Vanamala and Sayana Bhashya:

https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/paramarthika-vyavaharika-satyam/

In the Bhashya, Shankara specifies three types of 'reality' based on the Taittiriya mantra: सत्यं च अनृतं च सत्यमभवत् . For Vedantins, the Taittiriya Upanishad is the Pramana for the Three types of reality.   

The Bhashya for the above passage is:

 सत्यं च व्यवहारविषयम् , अधिकारात् ; न परमार्थसत्यम् ; एकमेव हि परमार्थसत्यं ब्रह्म । इह पुनः व्यवहारविषयमापेक्षिकं सत्यम् , मृगतृष्णिकाद्यनृतापेक्षया उदकादि सत्यमुच्यते । अनृतं च तद्विपरीतम् । किं पुनः ? एतत्सर्वमभवत् , सत्यं परमार्थसत्यम् ; किं पुनस्तत् ? ब्रह्म, ‘सत्यं ज्ञानमनन्तं ब्रह्म’ इति प्रकृतत्वात् ।

SSS translates the Bhashya thus:


(ಭಾಷ್ಯಾರ್ಥ)
 ಸತ್ಯವು ಎಂದರೆ ವ್ಯವಹಾರವಿಷಯವಾದ ಸತ್ಯವು ; ಏಕೆಂದರೆ (ವ್ಯವಹಾರದ ವಿಷಯದ್ದೇ) ಈ ಪ್ರಕರಣವು. (ಇದು) ಪರಮಾರ್ಥಸತ್ಯವಲ್ಲ ; ಏಕೆಂದರ ಪರಮಾರ್ಥಸತ್ಯವಾದ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮವು ಒಂದೇ, ಇಲ್ಲಿಯೋ ಎಂದರೆ ವ್ಯವಹಾರ ವಿಷಯವಾದ ಬಿಸಿಲುಕುದುರೆಯ (ನೀರ) ಮುಂತಾದ ಅನೃತಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಲಿಸಿದರೆ (ಸತ್ಯ) ವಾಗುವ  ಆಪೇಕ್ಷಿಕವಾಗಿರುವ ನೀರು ಮುಂತಾದದ್ದನ್ನೇ ಸತ್ಯ ಎಂದು ಕರೆದಿರುತ್ತದೆ. ಮತ್ತು ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ವಿರುದ್ಧವಾಗಿರುವದು ಅನೃತವು.

(ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ :-) ಇದೆಲ್ಲವೂ ಆದದ್ದು ಯಾವದು ?
(ಉತ್ತರ :-) ಸತ್ಕವು ; ಪರಮಾರ್ಥಸತ್ಯವು.
(ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ :-) ಆ (ಪರಮಾರ್ಥಸತ್ಯ )ವೆಂಬುದಾದರೂ ಯಾವದು ?

2. ಹೋಲಿಕೆಯ ಸತ್ಯ, ನೀರು ಬಾಯಾರಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಹಿಂಗಿಸುತ್ತದೆ ; ಬಿಸಿಲು ಕುದುರೆಯ ನೀರು ಹಿಂಗಿಸುವದಿಲ್ಲ ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ನೀರು ಆಪೇಕ್ಷಿಕಸತ್ಯ ; ಬಿಸಿಲು ಕುದುರೆಯ ನೀರು ಅನ್ನತ.

Translation of SSS's translation:

(Translation of the Bhāṣyārtha)

By satya (truth) is meant vyavahāra-satya—empirical or transactional truth; because the present context pertains to empirical dealings. This is not pāramārthika-satya (absolute truth); for the absolute truth, Brahman, is one alone. Here, in contrast to the unreal entities of empirical experience such as the mirage-“water,” those things like actual water—which are relatively true (āpekṣika)—are spoken of as satya. That which is opposed to this is anṛta (untruth).

(Question): Then what is that which truly is?
(Answer): Sat—the absolute truth.

(Question): And what indeed is that (absolute truth)?

1. Although inert objects such as stones are also effects of the conscious Brahman, consciousness does not manifest distinctly in them. (Sūtra Bhāṣya 2.1.6)

2. Comparative truth: water quenches thirst, whereas the water of a mirage does not. Therefore, water is relative truth, while mirage-water is unreal.

The point to be noted is:

SSS is not refuting Shankara and the Taittiriya Upanishad stating three types of reality: The pāraarthika reality is Brahman, the vyavaharika reality is given the analogy of water and a third category, the 'unreal' which is also a part of the creation, is given the analogy of mirage water by Shankara. 

Thus, the Upanishad itself gives three types of reality. If SSS was opposed to the three types of reality, he should have disagreed with the Upanishad and Shankara, and by extension, with Sureshwara, who in the Taittirya Vartika has explicitly named two satyas: vyavaharika and paramarthika. 

More details can be seen in the linked article. 

warm regards

subbu  

[Michael Chandra Cohen]

Namaste Subbuji
I've prompted Chatgpt to offer this reply, 

---

Thank you for collecting these references and especially for highlighting Śaṅkara’s gloss on “satyam cānṛtam ca satyam abhavat” in Taittirīya 2.6.1. The distinction you draw between paramārthika and vyāvahārika is certainly helpful pedagogically.

That said, one caution may be worth adding.

The presentation risks suggesting that the three-level scheme (paramārthika–vyāvahārika–prātibhāsika) is explicitly taught by the Śruti itself. Textually, however, this taxonomy does not appear in the Upaniṣads as a formal doctrine, nor does Śaṅkara introduce it as an ontological stratification of reality.

In the Taittirīya bhāṣya, for example, Śaṅkara does not posit “levels of being.” Rather, he restricts the scope of the word satya contextually:

व्यवहारविषयमापेक्षिकं सत्यम् … एकमेव हि परमार्थसत्यं ब्रह्म

Here vyāvahārika satya simply means “empirically valid for transactional purposes,” like water contrasted with a mirage; it does not denote a second grade of reality. Ontologically speaking, he is explicit: Brahman alone is real; everything else has only dependent or borrowed status (mithyā).

So in Śaṅkara the terms function epistemically and pedagogically, not as a three-tier metaphysics. The later “three orders of reality” framework is a convenient explanatory schema developed by the tradition, but it should not be read back into the Śruti or into Śaṅkara as if he were proposing a graded ontology.

Framed this way, the passage reinforces his consistent method: not constructing intermediate realities, but progressively sublating all empirical standpoints into non-dual Brahman.

---

🙏🙏🙏

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[V Subrahmanian]

Chat gpt does not know that neither the shruti nor Shankara posit three types of ontological realities. The absolute reality is only one. That one alone has appeared into the vyavaharika and the error-based events/objects in the world. What is Chat gpt adding to this? Nothing.  

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[Michael Chandra Cohen]

namaste subbuji, It's not Chatgpt that is adding anything, but rather that the traditional presentation of the three levels of reality is a later schema.not found in PTB systematically.

Your one Tait reference is not sufficient to establish the three-level ontology as a systematic doctrine in the Upanishads or Shankara's Bhashya.. That's confirmed by SSS, Hacker, Alston, 

and a host of other objective observers not just CHATGPT

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[V Subrahmanian]

On Wed, 28 Jan, 2026, 11:06 pm Michael Chandra Cohen, <michaelc...@gmail.com> wrote:

namaste subbuji, It's not Chatgpt that is adding anything, but rather that the traditional presentation of the three levels of reality is a later schema.not found in PTB systematically.

Your one Tait reference is not sufficient to establish the three-level ontology as a systematic doctrine in the Upanishads or Shankara's Bhashya.. That's confirmed by SSS, Hacker, Alston, 

and a host of other objective observers not just CHATGPT

Then all of them are the candidates for Shankara's censure in the Gita Bhashyam:

 // Those despite their scholarship in many disciplines, who have not understood this Vedanta in accordance with the tradition, 

are to be rejected like an ignorant one is. //

Regards 

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