Nāda- Nada

When I first started learning Spanish, the word that I was astonished by the most was Nada. One would wonder how a word that means nothing literally became subject of such interest. It certainly would if you’re a natural pattern seeker and grew up in a country that’s home to the ancient language Sanskrit which happens to house another word that sounds almost similar, but means the opposite. What’s interesting is not the coincidence, but the fact that even though the words are opposite, they ultimately point towards the same concept differing only in the way that two distinct cultures approached it.  

I’m not saying that Nada has some Sanskrit roots linguistically. On the contrary, it actually comes from the Latin phrase ‘Res Nata,’ meaning ‘no thing born.’  It is the complete absence of being. It is the word that names what remains when everything is removed.

Its Sanskrit counterpart Nāda, however means something that weaves the fundamental fabric of reality. Nāda Brahma, is a concept that sits somewhere close to the modern day concept of string theory in physics and proposes that the universe is a sound.

The word Nāda in Sanskrit is the primordial sound or vibration from which the universe and multiple manifestations within it emerge. It proposes existence begins with vibration, that sound comes before form and Nāda comes before everything. 

It’s interesting that the same acoustic event produces two words with opposite meaning, depending on which language is listening to it. Homophones demonstrate where meaning actually lives. It lives not in sound, but in the mind that is receiving it. 

What’s interesting is that if you were to read that sentence again, but take the acoustic event to be not the pronunciation of the word nada, but Nāda itself, the primordial vibration from which the universe emerged, the sentence would still hold true! ‘The same acoustic event produced two words with opposite meanings, depending on which language was listening to it.’

In this particular context, both traditions probably faced the deepest possible question that we all deal with even today. What precedes existence and what remains when existence is removed. The more interesting layer worth exploring would be that in most Indian Philosophical traditions, you would find nothingness is described not as a dead, empty void, but a limitless state of potentiality called Śūnyatā. They imply that Nāda emerged from a state of silence, from nothingness.

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I’ve been sitting with this comparative inquiry in my digital garden. If you want to read the full essay exploring the Rig Veda, Śūnyatā, and string theory, the text is open here: https://conjunctions.space/nada-nada/