It's about time to put this wretched verse out of its misery and its strained applications.
1 Kattha āpo ca pathavī,
tejo vāyo na gādhati;
2 Kattha dīghañca rassañca,
aṇuṃ thūlaṃ subhāsubhaṃ;
3 Kattha nāmañca rūpañca,
asesaṃ uparujjhatī’ti.
1‘Viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ,
anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ;
Ettha āpo ca pathavī,
tejo vāyo na gādhati.
2 Ettha dīghañca rassañca,
aṇuṃ thūlaṃ subhāsubhaṃ;
3 Ettha nāmañca rūpañca,
asesaṃ uparujjhati;
Viññāṇassa nirodhena,
etthetaṃ uparujjhatī’”ti.
First, count the syllables in every line of the verse - it's a standard 8 syllable pattern, which is the classical
vatta metre (Warder, p.358). Now, if this verse had been left in the hands of a totally unpoetic monk who recognised the clause structure in the first 4 lines of the answer,
yattha would also have been added to the first line as such -
Yattha viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ . (where consciousness is
anidassana etc)
But in so doing, the
vatta metre would have been disturbed completely (it becomes 10 syllables, instead of 8). So in service of
metri causa (ie preserving the metre), the
yattha/where would need to be dropped.
What we would have in -
Yattha viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ,
anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ;
Ettha āpo ca pathavī,
tejo vāyo na gādhati.
is a typical Pali clause structure, where the
red is the subordinate clause, and the
blue the main clause. The subordinate clause employs the relative adverb "where" (
yattha) and furnishes the opening that leads to the main clause about the 4 elements.
"
Yattha viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ, anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ" would thus be nothing more than a relative clause made up of a plain vanilla appositional proposition, ie Where consciousness is
anidassanaṃ,
anantaṃ sabbatopabhaṃ".
Technically, the main clause should have been constructed as "
tattha āpo ca pathavī tejo vāyo na gādhati" (
there, water, earth, fire, & wind do not stand), but I think the use of
ettha/here was just poetic licence to unify all 3 verses.
The subordinate clause and the main clause are talking about the same thing, namely consciousness of the Formless Attainments. Nothing more.