Śivasaṃhitā 1.88

The two methods of Advaita Vedānta—āropaṇa and apavāda—as the royal road toward the realization of the One. Āropaṇa is the attribution of qualities to the Absolute for contemplation (as in devotion or saguṇa meditation); apavāda is the progressive negation of all those attributions to reach the naked Absolute. Both methods, used in sequence, dissolve the universe into its source.

Āropaṇa (superimposition, attribution) and apavāda (refutation, negation, withdrawal) are the two dialectical movements of non-dual knowledge. First, the entirety of the universe’s reality is attributed to brahman (āropaṇa: the universe is brahman); then multiplicity is negated (apavāda: only brahman exists, not the universe). The result is sarve layaṃ gatāḥ (all have entered into dissolution): the universe returns to the One from which it arose.

Sarasvatī as a manifestation of rajo-guṇa makes sense: rajas is the principle of activity and movement, and Sarasvatī is the potency of speech, music, and intellectual creation. The āropaṇa-apavāda method described in this verse is precisely a process of active intelligence (rajas refined by sattva): the mind working on itself to dissolve its own constructions.