सृष्टिरिति सृष्टिविदो लय इति च तद्विदः ।
स्थितिरिति स्थितिविदः सर्वे चेह तु सर्वदा ॥ २८ ॥sṛṣṭiriti sṛṣṭivido laya iti ca tadvidaḥ |
sthitiriti sthitividaḥ sarve ceha tu sarvadā || 28 ||28. The Knowers1 of creation call It creation; the Knowers of dissolution describe It as dissolution and the believers in subsistence believe It to be subsistence. Really speaking, all2 these ideas are always imagined3 in Ātman.
Anandagiri Tika (glossary)
1 Knowers, etc.—i.e., the Paurāṇikas (the believers in Mythology) who believe in the reality of creation, preservation and destruction.
2 All these—i.e., those enumerated above and which may be enumerated by others in future.
3 Imagined— So long as men are given to imagining, they have recourse to all such imaginations regarding Ātman. But Ātman, from its own standpoint, does not imagine anything. Tt is because all these ideas, described above, are mere imaginations, that they cannot be the underlying Reality.
Shankara Bhashya (commentary)
20-28. Prāṇa means Prājña (the Jīva associated with deep sleep) and Bījātmā (the causal self). All the entities from Prāṇa to the Sthiti (subsistence) are only various effects of Prāṇa. These and other popular ideas of their kind, imagined by all beings, are like the imaginations of the snake, etc., in the rope, etc. These are through ignorance imagined in Ātman which is free1 from all these distinctions. These fancies are due to the lack of determination of the real nature of the Self. This is the purport of these ślokas. No attempt is made to explain the meaning of each word in the texts beginning with Prāṇa, etc., on account of the futility of such effort and also on account of the clearness of the meaning of the terms.
Anandagiri Tika (glossary)
1 Free from, etc.—Ātman is free from all these imaginations. It is because of the ignorance of the real nature of the Ātman that it is thought to be the substratum (another entity) of all imaginations.
No useful purpose can be served by the discussion of imaginations which are unreal and illusory.