what was merely nominal, just as in the case of a dream (having its own virtuality within consciousness).

The stuff that dreams are made of is admittedly unreal to the extent that they belong to the world of ideas. In thge same manner the world can be said to be unreal to the extent that its stuff is of the same order as His will. Whatever reality there was at this limiting point can be attributed to the Supreme Lord, rather than to his creation. The Taittiriya Upanishad supports this twofold point of view. The world as objectively manifested apart from the Lord was there equated to nothing, tentatively accepting the principle of contradiction between existence and non-existence.

In Vedantic parlance the upper limit set by the term agre (before creation or in the beginning) corresponds to the paramarthika or ultimate reality (i.e. the vertical), while punah (thereafter) refers to the vyavaharika or workaday pracitcal reality (i.e. the horizontal).

It should be noted that according to Sanskrit convention a work of this kind has to indicate the subject-matter, and also imply something by way of adoring the most high value of the Absolute. This requirement is only tacitly fulfilled by virtue of his beginning the very first verse with the letter a, which, according to the Bhagavad Gita (X.33), is equated with the Absolute., "Among syllabic letters I (i.e. the Absolute) am the A.

The first word of the verse, moreover, refers to something existing, because the word asid suggests something existent (in the ontological sense of sat). Because of referring to sat this word, occupying the very first position in the verse, can also be considered as fulfilling the requirements of an auspicious beginning required by the same convention referred to above. Moreover, the verse later on equates existence with the Supreme Lord, and further confirms and complies with this same requirement.