Kaṭha Upaniṣad 157

157

tatkatham atisūkṣmatvaṃ jñeyasyety ucyate / sthūlā tāvad iyaṃ medinī śabdasparśarūparasagandhopacitā sarvendriyaviṣayabhūtā tathā śarīram / tatraikaikaguṇāpakarṣeṇa gandhādīnāṃ sūkṣmatvamahattvaviśuddhatvanityatvāditāratamyaṃ dṛṣṭamabādiṣu yāvad ākāśam iti / te gandhādayaḥ sarva eva sthūlatvād vikārāḥ śabdāntā yatra na santi kim u tasya sūkṣmatvādiniratiśayatvaṃ vaktavyam ity etad darśayati śrutiḥ --

15. Which is soundless, touchless, formless, undecaying, so tasteless, eternal and scentless, beginningless, endless, beyond the Mahat, and constant, knowing that, man escapes from the mouth of Death.

Shankara’s Commentary:
Com.—How the object to be known is very subtle is explained. This earth produced by sound, touch, form, taste and scent, and the object of all the senses, is gross; so is the body. Here, by the elimination one by one, of these gunas, i.e., attributes from earth and the rest, difference in respect of subtlety, greatness, purity and durability, has been found in the element, from water upwards to the akas. Therefore the sruti shows that little need be said of the unsurpassable subtlety, etc., of that in which smell and the rest up to sound inclusive, mere modifications being gross, do not exist; which is soundless, touchless, formless, undecaying, so tasteless eternal and scentless, Brahman thus explained is undecaying; for, what has sound, etc., decays.