Bhashya
तद्दोषद्वयमपि परिजिहीर्षन्नाह— स होवाच याज्ञव-ल्क्यः ; एतद्वै तत्, यत्प्रष्टव्यत्यसि- कस्मिन्नु खल्वाकाशओतश्च प्रोतश्चेति ; किं तत् ? अक्षरम्- यन्न क्षीयते न क्षर-तीति वा अक्षरम्- तदक्षरं हे गार्गि ब्राह्मणा ब्रह्मविदःअभिवदन्ति ; ब्राह्मणाभिवदनकथनेन, नाहमवाच्यं वक्ष्यामिन च न प्रतिपद्येयमित्येवं दोषद्वयं परिहरति ।एवमपाकृतेप्रश्ने, पुनर्गार्ग्याः प्रतिवचनं द्रष्टव्यम्- ब्रूहि किं तदक्षरम् ,यद्ब्राह्मणा अभिवदन्ति- इत्युक्त आह— अस्थूलम् तत्स्थूलादन्यत् ; एवं तर्ह्यणु- अनणु ; अस्तु तर्हि ह्रस्वम्-अह्रस्वम् ; एवं तर्हि दीर्घम्-नापि दीर्घम् अदीर्घम् ; एवमेतै-श्चतुर्भिः परिमाणप्रतिषेधैर्द्रव्यधर्मः प्रतिषिद्धः, न द्रव्यं तद-क्षरमित्यर्थः ।अस्तु तर्हि लोहितो गुणः-ततोऽप्यन्यत् अलोहि-तम् ; आग्नेयो गुणो लोहितः ; भवतु तर्ह्यपां स्नेहनम्-न अस्ने-हम् ; अस्तु तर्हि छाया- सर्वथापि अनिर्देश्यत्वात् छायायाअप्यन्यत् अच्छायम्; अस्तु तर्हि तमः-अतमः ; भवतु वा-युस्तर्हि- अवायुः ; भवेत्तर्ह्याकाशम्- अनाकाशम् ; भवतुतर्हि सङ्गात्मकं जतुवत्-असङ्गम् ; रसोऽस्तु तर्हि-अरसम् ;तथा गन्धोऽस्तु-अगन्धम् ; अस्तु तर्हि चक्षुः-अचक्षुष्कम् ,न हि चक्षुरस्य करणं विद्यते, अतोऽचक्षुष्कम् , 'पश्यत्य-चक्षुः' इति मन्त्रवर्णात् ; तथा अश्रोत्रम् , 'स शृणोत्यकर्णः'इति ; भवतु तर्हि वाक्-अवाक् ; तथा अमनः ; तथा अन्ते-जस्कम् अविद्यमानं तेजोऽस्य तत् अतेजस्कम् ; न हि तेजःअग्न्यादिप्रकाशवत् अस्य विद्यते ; अप्राणम्- आध्यात्मिकोवायुः प्रतिषिध्यतेऽप्राणमिति ; मुखं तर्हि द्वारं तत्- अमु-खम् ; अमात्रम्- मीयते येन तन्मात्रम् , अमात्रम् मात्रा-रूपं तन्न भवति, न तेन किञ्चिन्मीयते ; अस्तु तर्हि च्छि-द्रवत्- अनन्तरम् नास्यान्तरमस्ति ; सम्भवेत्तर्हि बहिस्तस्य-अबाह्यम् ; अस्तु तर्हि भक्षयितृ तत्- न तदश्नाति किं-चन ; भवेत् तर्हि भक्ष्यं कस्यचित्- न तदश्नाति कश्चन ।सर्वविशेषणरहितमित्यर्थः ।एकमेवाद्वितीयं हि तत्- केनकिं विशिष्यते ॥
In plain words
To dodge both traps at once, Yājñavalkya answers: 'This is exactly the question you have to ask -- in what is space itself woven?' And what is that? The Imperishable, the thing that never wastes away, never decays. Or say it this way: the knowers of brahman, Gārgī, are the ones who tell us this. By putting it in their mouths rather than his own, he slips both traps -- he never speaks the unspeakable, and he never leaves her without an answer. Question settled -- so picture Gārgī pressing further: 'Fine, but what is this Imperishable the knowers of brahman actually describe?' And he answers, one quality at a time. Not large -- something other than large entirely. Small, then? No, not small either. Short? No. Long? No, not that either. Four sizes, all ruled out, which means it simply isn't a physical thing at all. Red, maybe? No -- redness belongs to fire, not to this. The slickness of water? No. A shadow? No -- it can't even be pinned down enough to cast one. Darkness? No. Wind? No. Space itself? No, not even that. Something sticky, clinging like resin? No, it holds onto nothing. Taste? None. Smell? None. Does it have eyes? No, and yet, as the old verse says, 'it sees without an eye.' Ears? No -- 'it hears without an ear.' A voice? No. A mind? No. Does it glow the way fire glows? No such light exists in it at all. Does it breathe? No, that word rules out the ordinary breath that living bodies depend on. A mouth? No opening of any kind. A measure? Think of a measure as whatever you use to size something up -- this has no such form, and nothing gets measured by means of it. A gap or hollow inside it? No interior at all. Something outside it? No exterior either. Is it something that consumes? It consumes nothing. Is it something consumed? Nothing consumes it. In short: strip away every single quality you could ever hang on it, and that is what remains. It is one, utterly alone, with nothing else beside it -- and with nothing to compare it to, what could ever mark it off as different from anything else?
Close to the Sanskrit
Wishing to avoid both of those faults, he speaks -- Yājñavalkya said: This, verily, is that Imperishable which you must ask about: 'In what, then, is ether woven, crosswise and lengthwise?' What is that? The Imperishable -- that which neither wastes away nor decays; or, that Imperishable, O Gārgī, the knowers of brahman declare. By attributing it to the brahmins' own declaration, he avoids both faults: 'I will not state the unspeakable, nor will I fail to answer.' The question having thus been disposed of, Gārgī's further reply should be understood: 'Tell me what is that Imperishable which the brahmins declare' -- thus addressed, he says: 'Not gross' -- that is other than the gross. 'So then, is it atomic?' -- not atomic either. 'Let it then be short' -- not short. 'So then, is it long?' -- not long either. Thus, by these four denials of measure, the property of being a substance is denied: that Imperishable is not a substance. 'Let redness then be its quality' -- it is other than even that, not-red; redness is a quality of fire. 'Let it then be the oiliness of water' -- not oily. 'Let it then be shadow' -- because it is in every way undesignable, it is other than shadow too, not-shadowed. 'Let it then be darkness' -- not-dark. 'Let it then be wind' -- not-wind. 'Let it then be ether' -- not-ether. 'Let it then be of the nature of attachment, like resin' -- not-attached. 'Let it have taste' -- tasteless. Similarly, 'let it have smell' -- smell-less. 'Let it then have eyes' -- eye-less, for it possesses no eye as an instrument, hence eye-less, per the Vedic verse: 'It sees without an eye.' Similarly ear-less, per 'It hears without an ear.' 'Let it then have a voice' -- voice-less. Similarly mind-less. Similarly -- its light does not exist, hence radiance-less; for no light like that of fire and the rest exists in it. Breath-less: the individual vital-air is what is denied by 'breathless'. 'Let it then have a mouth, an opening' -- mouth-less. 'Without measure': that by which something is measured is called a measure; 'measureless' means it has no such form, nothing is measured by it. 'Let it then be like something with a gap' -- without-an-interior, it has no interior. 'It might have an exterior' -- without-exterior. 'Let it then be an eater' -- it eats nothing. 'Let it be food for someone' -- no one eats it. This means: it is devoid of every qualifying attribute. For it is one only, without a second -- by what could anything be distinguished from it?