Golden Lay Verses

Verse 250 (கடவுள் வைப்பு)

தமிழ் பாடல்

அதனதனு எதுவதுவா யதனுக் குள்ளாய்

அப்பாலா யப்பாலைக் கப்பா லப்பால்

இதுவிதன திதுவிதுவே யிதனுக் குள்ளே

இப்பாலைக் கிப்பாலா யிப்பா லிப்பால்

எதுவெதன தெதுவெதுவாய் என்றா லுந்தான்

எல்லாமாய் யல்லாதாய் எங்கு மாகி

கதிவிதியைக் கடந்துநின்ற கார ணத்தின்

காரணத்தால் கதிவிதியும் கடவுள்தானே

Transliteration

athanathanu ethuvathuvaa yathanuk kuLLaay

appaalaa yappaalaik kappaa lappaal

ithuvithana thithuvithuvE yithanuk kuLLE

ippaalaik kippaalaa yippaa lippaal

ethuethana thethuethuvaay enRaa lunthaan

ellaamaay yallaathaay engu maaki

kathivithiyaik kadanthuninRa kaara Naththin

kaaraNaththaal kathivithiyum kadavuLthaanE.

Literal Translation

“Within that very ‘that’, what is it that is (what)?

Beyond—beyond that beyond—(still) beyond.

This is of that; this very ‘this’ is within that.

On this side—this side of this side—(still) this side.

If you ask, ‘Which is of which? what is what?’—

(That One) becomes everything, (yet) not-everything, being everywhere.

By the Cause that stands having crossed beyond gati–vidhi (course/condition and ordinance/fate),

by the ‘cause of the cause’, gati–vidhi too is indeed God.”

Interpretive Translation

The Siddhar points to an Ultimate Reality that is simultaneously inside every “this” and “that,” yet always exceeds every attempt to fix it as only “here” or only “beyond.” When the mind tries to sort existence into ownership, identity, and categories—“what belongs to what; what exactly is this?”—the Real is recognized as all-pervasive (everything, everywhere) and also ungraspable by any totalizing concept (not-everything). That Reality stands beyond the entire machinery of “gati–vidhi” (the determining course of beings—destiny, law, prescribed order, even spiritual attainments). And because it is the cause behind all causes, even what we call destiny/ordained course is not outside God; it is also God’s own expression.

Philosophical Explanation

1) Repetition as a method (cryptic pedagogy): The piling up of “within,” “beyond,” “this side,” “that side” is not mere ornament. It enacts the failure of binary thinking. Each time the mind settles—‘it must be on the other side’—the verse pushes further: ‘beyond even that beyond.’ Likewise, whenever the mind says ‘it must be here, within,’ it repeats ‘this side of this side,’ denying closure.

2) Immanence and transcendence held together: “This is within that” and the relentless “beyond” together sketch a Siddhar nondual stance: the Absolute is not elsewhere (it is the interior of the apparent), but it is not reducible to the apparent (it surpasses all frames). This parallels the distinction between what can be named/formed and what remains prior to name and form—without splitting them into two substances.

3) ‘Everything and not-everything’: The line “everything, not-everything, everywhere” refuses two extremes: (a) a simple pantheism that collapses God into the sum of things, and (b) a strict transcendence that removes God from the world. “Everything” affirms pervasive presence; “not-everything” denies that any finite totality, concept, or inventory can exhaust the Real.

4) Gati–vidhi transcended—yet divinized: “Gati” can mean movement/course, state/attainment, or destiny’s trajectory; “vidhi” can mean ordinance, rule, fate, or prescribed order. The Siddhar says the Cause stands beyond this whole regime—beyond karmic determinism, beyond the idea that liberation is merely one more “state” within a cosmic schedule. Yet the concluding twist—“gati–vidhi too is God”—means fate/law is not an enemy-substance; it is an appearance/function within the same ultimate causality. The ‘cause of the cause’ (karanathin karanam) indicates a first principle not conditioned by prior factors, while simultaneously being the ground in which all conditional chains arise.

5) Siddhar soteriology implied: Practically, the verse undermines the seeker’s habit of locating the Divine as a distant ‘other shore’ or as a merely interior object. It directs attention to the reality that is prior to the seeker–sought split and prior to karmic narratives—while still acknowledging that the lived world of causality operates as an expression of that same Reality.

Key Concepts

  • Nonduality (not-two) with retained paradox
  • Immanence and transcendence
  • Athan/ithan (that/this) as epistemic and ontological markers
  • Appaal/ippaal (beyond/this side) and the collapse of spatial metaphors
  • Kāraṇam / kāraṇathin kāraṇam (cause / cause-of-the-cause)
  • Gati–vidhi (course/state and ordinance/fate; karmic order)
  • Everything / not-everything (sarvam–na sarvam style paradox)
  • God as both ground and expression of destiny

Ambiguities or Multiple Readings

  • “அதனதனு எதுவதுவா” can be read as (a) ‘within each “that,” what is it?’ or (b) ‘for that-ness itself, what is it?’—a deliberate grammatical destabilization to prevent fixed reference.
  • “அப்பாலா யப்பாலைக் கப்பா லப்பால்” may mean infinite transcendence (‘beyond beyond’) or could hint at successive yogic crossings/thresholds (stages of interiorization) where each ‘beyond’ is still not final.
  • “இப்பால்/அப்பால்” can be taken literally as ‘this shore/that shore’ (saṃsāra vs liberation), or more subtly as the polarity-making function of mind (here/there, inside/outside) that must be exceeded.
  • “எல்லாமாய் யல்லாதாய்” may be read metaphysically (God is all yet not limited to all) or epistemically (the Real appears as all phenomena yet is not capturable as an object of knowledge).
  • “கதிவிதி” can mean karmic fate/order, or the entire ‘pathway of attainments’ (gati as spiritual states) plus religious ordinance (vidhi as rule/ritual). The verse can thus critique both fatalism and attachment to prescribed spiritual ‘progress.’
  • “கடவுள்” can be interpreted as a personal Śiva-like Lord, or as impersonal absolute reality (Para-poruḷ). The verse preserves both readings by speaking in causal and all-pervasive terms without sectarian markers.
  • The final claim that fate itself is God can be read as (a) theological—divinizing cosmic law, or (b) nondual—asserting that even determinism is a mode of appearance within the same ground, without granting it ultimate autonomy.