In the supplied Māṇḍūkya (mūla) attestations, prajñānaghana ("a dense mass of cognition") characterizes the condition in which differentiated cognition is wholly condensed into an undifferentiated unity. At MU 5 it qualifies the third pāda (prājña), the deep-sleep state (suṣupta), where the sleeper desires nothing and sees no dream, becoming "unified" (ekībhūta) and "a dense mass of cognition" alone (prajñānaghana eva). At MU 7 the same term is among the predicates explicitly negated of the fourth (caturtha/turīya), which is described as without differentiated cognition of any kind. The two loci together present prajñānaghana as the defining mark of deep sleep and as something that the fourth transcends and is not.
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 · A dense, undifferentiated mass of cognition: the condition of the deep-sleep state (suṣupt…settledadded v1
A dense, undifferentiated mass of cognition: the condition of the deep-sleep state (suṣupta / the third pāda, prājña), in which the sleeper desires nothing and sees no dream and is 'unified' (ekībhūta); 'eva' marks it as cognition-mass alone, with nothing of a different kind present.
upaniṣadic
mandukya.upanisad:5mandukya.sankarabhasya:5
2 · Used as one of the predicates negated of the fourth (caturtha): the fourth is 'na prajñāna…settledadded v1
Used as one of the predicates negated of the fourth (caturtha): the fourth is 'na prajñānaghanam' — not a dense mass of cognition — i.e. it is not the undifferentiated cognitive condition of deep sleep, being also not inward-cognizing, not outward-cognizing, not both-cognizing, not cognizing, not non-cognizing.
upaniṣadic
mandukya.upanisad:7mandukya.sankarabhasya:7
3 · The vaiśvānara/viśva aspect: the cognizer (draṣṭā) of gross objects experienced predominan…proposedadded v2
The vaiśvānara/viśva aspect: the cognizer (draṣṭā) of gross objects experienced predominantly in the right eye, identified with the indha (luminous) puruṣa and the vairāja ātman within the sun — i.e. cognition associated with the waking, outward-experiencing self.
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
Why a new sense: The snippet concerns viśva/vaiśvānara as experiencer of gross objects in the right eye, not the deep-sleep cognition-mass nor its negation in the fourth; no existing sense covers this waking-cognizer content.
mandukya.agamasastrabhasya:1.2
4 · Praṇava as the highest ātman/brahman: when the mātrā-pādas dissolve, the supreme self alon…proposedadded v2
Praṇava as the highest ātman/brahman: when the mātrā-pādas dissolve, the supreme self alone remains — having no prior cause (apūrva), nothing of a different kind within it (anantara), nothing external (abāhya), no effect — the partless paramārtha reality.
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
Why a new sense: This treats the supreme ātman as apūrva/anantara/abāhya beyond the mātrās; it describes the highest brahman positively rather than the cognition-mass of deep sleep (s1) or its predicative negation of the fourth (s2).
mandukya.agamasastrabhasya:1.26
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 6 attestations ▾
Locus
Witness
Tradition
Stratum
Snippet
mandukya.upanisad:5
Māṇḍūkya (mūla)
upaniṣadic
mula
yatra supto na kañcana kāmaṃ kāmayate na kañcana svapnaṃ paśyati tat suṣuptam | suṣuptasthāna ekībhūtaḥ prajñānaghana evāndamayo hy ānandabhukcetomukh
mandukya.upanisad:7
Māṇḍūkya (mūla)
upaniṣadic
mula
nāntaḥprajñaṃ na bahiḥprajñaṃ nobhayataḥprajñaṃ na prajñānaghanaṃ na prajñaṃ nāprajñam | adṛṣṭam avyavahāryam agrāhyam alakṣaṇam acintyam avyapadeśyam
mandukya.sankarabhasya:5
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
advaita-vedānta
bhasya
yatra yasmin sthāne kāle vā supto na kañcana svapnaṃ paśyati na kañcana kāmaṃ kāmayate / na hi suṣupte pūrvayor ivānyathāgrahaṇalakṣaṇaṃ svapnadarśana
mandukya.agamasastrabhasya:1.2
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
advaita-vedānta
bhasya
dakṣiṇam akṣyeva mukhaṃ tasminprādhānyena draṣṭā sthūlānāṃ viśvo 'nubhūyate"indho ha vai nāmaiṣa yo 'yaṃ dakṣiṇe 'kṣan puruṣaḥ" / iti śruteḥ / indho d
mandukya.sankarabhasya:7
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
advaita-vedānta
bhasya
nanv ātmanaś catuṣpātvaṃ pratijñāya prādatrayakathanena eva caturthasyāntaḥ prajñādibhyo anyatve siddhe nāntaḥ prajña ityādi pratiṣedho 'narthakaḥ / n
mandukya.agamasastrabhasya:1.26
Śaṅkara (bhāṣya)
advaita-vedānta
bhasya
parāpare brahmāṇi praṇavaḥ / paramārthatā kṣīṇeṣu mātrāpādeṣu para evātmā brahmeti na pūrvaṃ kāraṇam asya vidyata ity apūrvaḥ / nāsyāntaraṃ bhinnajātī
Editions & provenance
v1Māṇḍūkya mūla + Gauḍapāda kārikā — +2 loci 2 sense(s) drafted from 2 loci.
v2Śaṅkara bhāṣya — +4 loci · 2 routed to existing · 2 new sense(s) proposed sankarabhasya:5 clearly glosses suṣupta as the dense cognition-mass with 'eva' marking nothing of a different kind — exactly s1. sankarabhasya:7 explicitly negates prajñānaghana of turīya, glossing it as denial of the deep-sleep seed-condition — matches s2. The two agamasastrabhasya loci have no recorded gloss for prajñānaghana and their snippets concern, respectively, the viśva/vaiśvānara waking-cognizer in the right eye (1.2) and praṇava as the supreme partless ātman characterized by apūrva/anantara/abāhya (1.26); neither expresses s1 or s2, so each is placed under a tentative proposed sense. These proposals are offered conservatively given the absence of grounded prajñānaghana glosses in those snippets.
Caveats
The supplied corpus consists solely of the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad mūla text; no commentary loci (Gauḍapāda or Śaṅkara) were supplied, so no commentary positions can be attributed.
The 'grounded glosses' provided as leads (e.g. condensation 'like things massed in night-darkness', the 'eva' analysis, and the reading of the MU 7 negation as denial of the deep-sleep seed-condition / bījabhāva) reflect interpretive expansion not stated verbatim in the two attested mūla loci; they are recorded here only as indexing leads and are not asserted as the text's own statements.
Both attestations are from a single text and tradition (Māṇḍūkya mūla); the senses given are relative to that stratum alone and should not be generalized beyond it without further evidence.