अन्यदेवाहुः सम्भवादन्यदाहुरसम्भवात् । इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥
anyad evāhuḥ sambhavād anyad āhur asambhavāt / iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire //
Plain EnglishOne result, they say, comes from becoming — another from non-becoming. So have we heard from the wise who explained this to us.
Layer 2 — What it means
Identical in structure to verse 10 — the Upaniṣad uses the same transitional formula for the second paradox. The wise have said it: different results come from the path of becoming and from the path of non-becoming. The citation of tradition holds the student in the paradox before resolving it. Verse 14 will give the resolution: both together, just as verses 9–10 were resolved by verse 11.
Reading this page will give you the concept clearly. But the Upanishads were not written to be understood the way you understand chemistry or history. They were written to point toward something you can only recognise in yourself. That recognition is not on this page. This page only clears the way.
अन्यदेवाहुः सम्भवादन्यदाहुरसम्भवात् । इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥
anyad evāhuḥ sambhavād anyad āhur asambhavāt / iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire //
Plain EnglishOne result, they say, comes from becoming — another from non-becoming. So have we heard from the wise who explained this to us.
Layer 2 — Philosophical meaning
The structural parallelism between verses 9–11 and verses 12–14 is deliberate. The Upaniṣad is building a template: every apparent opposition in the spiritual life — knowledge/ignorance, becoming/non-becoming, action/renunciation (verses 1–2) — resolves through integration, not through choosing one pole. Śaṅkara acknowledges the parallelism but reads each pair within his own interpretive framework. The significance for Advaita is that neither the manifest (saguna Brahman, the world of names and forms) nor the unmanifest (nirguna Brahman, the attributeless absolute) can be exclusively privileged in practice — the student requires both orientation toward the transcendent and engagement with the manifest for complete preparation.
Reading this page will give you the concept clearly. But the Upanishads were not written to be understood the way you understand chemistry or history. They were written to point toward something you can only recognise in yourself. That recognition is not on this page. This page only clears the way.
Primary sourceĪśāvāsyopaniṣad verse 13. Trans. Swami Gambhirananda, Eight Upaniṣads Vol. 1 (Advaita Ashrama, 2009); S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upaniṣads (Allen & Unwin, 1953).
Layer 1 — The verse
अन्यदेवाहुः सम्भवादन्यदाहुरसम्भवात् । इति शुश्रुम धीराणां ये नस्तद्विचचक्षिरे ॥
anyad evāhuḥ sambhavād anyad āhur asambhavāt / iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire //
Plain EnglishOne result, they say, comes from becoming — another from non-becoming. So have we heard from the wise who explained this to us.
Layer 2 — Scholarly and textual analysis
Reading this page will give you the concept clearly. But the Upanishads were not written to be understood the way you understand chemistry or history. They were written to point toward something you can only recognise in yourself. That recognition is not on this page. This page only clears the way.