---
type: Concept
bundle: upanishadic-core
bundle_version: "0.6.0"
id: sat-chit-ananda
title: "Sat-Cit-Ānanda"
iast: "Sat-Cit-Ānanda"
devanagari: "सत्-चित्-आनन्द"
description: "Being-Consciousness-Bliss — the threefold Svarūpa Lakṣaṇa (own-nature indicator) of Brahman/Ātman; not three properties Brahman 'has' but what Brahman IS; not a compound noun for a state of experience; each term is non-different from Brahman and from each other"
darshana:
  - Advaita Vedānta
  - Vedānta
school_scope: "Common across Vedāntic schools as descriptors of Brahman; the interpretation that these are Svarūpa Lakṣaṇa (own-nature indicators) rather than attributes is specifically Advaita's contribution"
text_source: "Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1 (Satyam Jñānam Anantam Brahma); Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.9.28; Vivekacūḍāmaṇi vv. 238–240"
tags: [sat-chit-ananda, brahman, atman, svarupa-laksana, being, consciousness, bliss, advaita]
not:
  - term: "three attributes or properties that Brahman possesses"
    why: "If Sat, Cit, and Ānanda were attributes Brahman 'has,' Brahman would be a substance that could in principle lack them — and the attributes would be separate from Brahman. Advaita's claim is that these three are not separable from Brahman's nature. Brahman IS Sat (pure being — not a being among beings but being itself). Brahman IS Cit (pure consciousness — not an entity that has consciousness but consciousness itself). Brahman IS Ānanda (pure bliss — not happiness produced by pleasant objects but bliss as the intrinsic nature)."
    instead: "Read Sat-Cit-Ānanda as three angles of approach to a single nature — each term indicating the same Brahman from a different angle: its existential, cognitive, and value-theoretic aspects"
  - term: "a spiritual state, feeling, or experience of bliss"
    why: "Sat-Cit-Ānanda is frequently used in popular spirituality to name a felt state — a blissful, luminous, expansive experience. This usage conflates the Svarūpa Lakṣaṇa with a phenomenal state. Ānanda as Brahman's nature is not produced by experience — it is not caused by meditation, not caused by a quiet mind, not a reward for practice. It is the intrinsic nature of the Ātman, always present, only obscured by Avidyā and its products."
  - term: "synonyms: Truth-Consciousness-Bliss (as separate English categories)"
    why: "The terms are often translated sequentially as 'truth, consciousness, bliss' — suggesting three distinct things. Sat is more precisely 'pure being' (existence that is not contingent on anything else, not caused, not ceasing), not 'truth' (which implies a propositional context). The three terms are not a list; they are a single pointing — Brahman described from the angles of existence, awareness, and intrinsic completeness."
related:
  - /concepts/nirguna-brahman.md
  - /concepts/laksana-brahman.md
  - /concepts/sushupti.md
  - /concepts/prajnanam-brahma.md
  - /concepts/anandamaya-kosha.md
timestamp: "2026-07-01"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Sat-Cit-Ānanda — सत्-चित्-आनन्द

**Not:** three properties Brahman has, a felt blissful state, Truth-Consciousness-Bliss as separate categories

## The Three Terms Individually

**Sat (सत्)** — from the root *as*, to be. Sat is pure being: existence that is not contingent, not produced, not destructible, not modified by time. Brahman is Sat not in the sense of being one existent among others but in the sense of being existence-as-such. The Chāndogya (6.2.1) begins: "Sad eva somya idam agra āsīt ekam evādvitīyam" — "Being alone was this, in the beginning, one only without a second."

**Cit (चित्)** — from the root *cit*, to know, to be aware. Cit is pure consciousness: awareness that is not an instrument of knowing but knowing-as-such. Brahman is Cit not in the sense of being a subject that has awareness but in the sense of being awareness itself. This is what Prajñānam Brahma (Aitareya 3.3) points to: consciousness is Brahman — not "Brahman has consciousness."

**Ānanda (आनन्द)** — from *ā-nand*, to rejoice, to be fulfilled. Ānanda is not happiness caused by pleasant objects; it is the intrinsic completeness of Brahman — Brahman lacks nothing, requires nothing external, is self-sufficient. This Ānanda is why the Suṣupti state (which has no objects) yields bliss — the ego-contraction that normally obscures Ānanda is temporarily absent, and Brahman's intrinsic Ānanda shines without obstruction.

## The Three as One

Vivekacūḍāmaṇi vv. 238–240 specifies:

> *saccidānandarūpasya brahmaṇaḥ paramātmanaḥ* — "Of Brahman, the Supreme Self, whose nature is Sat-Cit-Ānanda..."

The compound Sat-Cit-Ānanda is a Karmadharaya or Bahuvrīhi compound — not "Sat and Cit and Ānanda" as three things, but "Brahman, which is characterized by being, consciousness, and bliss" — all pointing to the same Brahman. The three do not divide Brahman into three parts; each is complete.

## Svarūpa Lakṣaṇa vs. Taṭastha Lakṣaṇa

Vedānta distinguishes two types of Lakṣaṇa (pointers/indicators):
- **Taṭastha Lakṣaṇa** (accidental pointer): describes something by a contingent characteristic — "the house next to the tree" identifies a house by a feature not essential to it
- **Svarūpa Lakṣaṇa** (own-nature indicator): describes something by what it essentially is

Sat-Cit-Ānanda is the Svarūpa Lakṣaṇa of Brahman — not a contingent description, not a pointer by association, but the essential nature itself. The Taṭastha Lakṣaṇa of Brahman (used provisionally to identify it within the conventional framework) would be something like "the cause of the universe."

## Ānanda and the Suṣupti Evidence

The Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2.8-9) constructs a thought-experiment: imagine a young man, fully healthy, with all desires fulfilled — his bliss is one unit (Ānanda). Then scale up through the hierarchy of beings to the gods, to the creator Brahma: each level multiplies the bliss by 100. But even the bliss of Brahma (the creator-deity) is identical with the bliss of a Brahma-knower here and now.

The point is not the math; it is that Ānanda is Brahman's nature, not a quantity to be accumulated. The Suṣupti argument confirms this from experience: in deep sleep, all desired objects are absent, yet the resulting bliss is real. Bliss independent of objects = Brahman's intrinsic nature = Ānanda as Svarūpa.

## Audience Metaphor

A gold ring does not "have" goldness as an attribute it acquired — it is gold. Remove the shape (ring-form) and what remains is still gold. The goldness is not a property sitting alongside the ring; it is what the ring IS from a different angle. Sat-Cit-Ānanda is similarly not three coats of paint on Brahman. Being, consciousness, and bliss are what Brahman IS — seen from the angles of existence, of knowing, and of intrinsic completeness. Take away any one description and you still have Brahman, because each is complete.

## Citations

1. Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1 — "satyam jñānam anantam brahma"; see [references/taittiriya-upanishad.md]
2. Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.8–9 — the Ānanda-Mīmāṃsā (bliss investigation); see [references/taittiriya-upanishad.md]
3. Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1 — "sad eva somya idam agra āsīt"; see [references/chandogya-upanishad.md]
4. Vivekacūḍāmaṇi vv. 238–240 (Śaṅkarācārya) — Sat-Cit-Ānanda as Svarūpa Lakṣaṇa; see [references/vivekachudamani.md]
5. Pañcadaśī 1.6–10 (Vidyāraṇya) — on the self-luminous Cit; see [references/panchadashi.md]
