In the supplied Māṇḍūkya (mūla) attestations, akṣara denotes "the imperishable," used in apposition with Oṃ: "oṃ ity etad akṣaram" — Oṃ, this imperishable, is all this. The term carries both a phonic register (akṣara as syllable, the oṃkāra resolvable into its mātrās a, u, m) and a metaphysical register (the imperishable that subsumes the threefold time and what transcends it). Both attestations identify akṣara with the oṃkāra and correlate it with the ātman. No commentary loci (Gauḍapāda or Śaṅkara) are present among the supplied evidence, so the glosses attributed to Śaṅkara in the indexing notes cannot be grounded here.
Senses
The reading surface. A later ingestion attaches a locus to a settled sense, or proposes a new one (dashed) for human triage — it never rewrites settled prose.
1 · The imperishable, equated/in apposition with the syllable Oṃ as encompassing all that is p…settledadded v1
The imperishable, equated/in apposition with the syllable Oṃ as encompassing all that is past, present, and future, and what lies beyond the three times.
upaniṣadic
mandukya.upanisad:1mandukya.sankarabhasya:1
2 · The imperishable as the oṃkāra correlated with the ātman, analyzable by quarters (pāda) an…settledadded v1
The imperishable as the oṃkāra correlated with the ātman, analyzable by quarters (pāda) and constituent measures (mātrā): a, u, m.
3 · The supreme brahman (parabrahman) as that which is free from all speech (vāk) and thought …proposedadded v2
The supreme brahman (parabrahman) as that which is free from all speech (vāk) and thought (cintā), beyond grasping (grahaṇa) and letting go (utsarga), changeless and partless — the imperishable as the wholly transcendent, indeterminate reality.
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
Why a new sense: These passages characterize brahman as devoid of speech, thought, and any modification (grahaṇa/utsarga), an apophatic transcendent sense not captured by the Oṃ-correlated senses s1/s2.
4 · The imperishable as the inherently immortal (svabhāvato 'mṛta) being whose changeless natu…proposedadded v2
The imperishable as the inherently immortal (svabhāvato 'mṛta) being whose changeless nature precludes ever becoming mortal or originated — the imperishable contrasted with what is merely produced (kṛtaka).
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
Why a new sense: This treats imperishability/immortality (amṛta, niścala, svabhāva) as an ontological argument about the changeless, not as the Oṃ-syllable; distinct from s1/s2.
mandukya.agamasastrabhasya:3.22
5 · The seer (draṣṭṛ) ātman manifest in the right eye as Viśva/Vaiśvānara — the imperishable c…proposedadded v2
The seer (draṣṭṛ) ātman manifest in the right eye as Viśva/Vaiśvānara — the imperishable correlated with the experiencing self in the waking, gross domain.
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
Why a new sense: Concerns the ātman as draṣṭṛ in the eye (indha/Vaiśvānara), a psychophysical correlation of the self not framed via the Oṃ syllable or its quarters/measures.
mandukya.agamasastrabhasya:1.2
Attestation concordance — tier 2, every locus
Append-only. Grows by locus as texts arrive; stays one collapsed table so the senses remain the reading surface.
All 9 attestations ▾
Locus
Witness
Tradition
Stratum
Snippet
mandukya.upanisad:1
Māṇḍūkya (mūla)
upaniṣadic
mula
oṃ ity etad akṣaram idaṃ sarvaṃ tasyopavyākhyānaṃ bhūtaṃ bhavad bhaviṣyad iti sarvam oṃkāra eva | yac cānyat trikālātītaṃ tad apy oṃkāra eva
na tatra tasminbrahmaṇi graho grahaṇamupādānam, notsarga utsarjanaṃ hānaṃ vā vidyate / yatra hi vikriyā tadviṣayatvaṃ vā tatra hānopādāne syātāṃ na ta
Editions & provenance
v1Māṇḍūkya mūla + Gauḍapāda kārikā — +2 loci 2 sense(s) drafted from 2 loci.
v2Śaṅkara bhāṣya — +7 loci · 3 routed to existing · 3 new sense(s) proposed sankarabhasya:1 explicitly equates akṣara with Oṃ encompassing all (matches s1, with commentarial parāpara-brahman gloss as added detail). sankarabhasya:8 and :9 analyze the oṃkāra by pādas and mātrās (a, u, m) correlated with the ātman/Vaiśvānara — directly s2. The three āgamaśāstra passages 3.22, 3.37, 3.38 develop philosophical aspects (immutability, apophatic transcendence beyond speech/thought) not reducible to the Oṃ-syllable senses, hence proposed as new. 1.2 correlates the seer-ātman with the eye, a distinct psychophysical sense.
Caveats
The supplied corpus consists solely of Māṇḍūkya (mūla) verses; it is single-tradition and contains no commentary loci. Both attestations are from the same stratum (mūla), so no genuine stratum-relative contrast can be drawn.
The indexing glosses attribute interpretations to Śaṅkara (oṃkāra as that under which the description proceeds) and to a commentary (parāpara-brahmarūpa); no Śaṅkara or Gauḍapāda commentary loci are among the supplied attestations, so these commentary positions cannot be grounded and are omitted.
The two senses distinguished above reflect register (phonic vs. metaphysical) within the same text, not a documented interpretive split.