Nammazhvar, in his Tiruvaimozhi, argues that if someone denies the existence of the Supreme One, they are still saying that He exists! If someone says there is no pot, then that could only mean there is no pot here, or that there is no pot here now. There might have been one here sometime ago.

To deny that a pot is not here, you must know what a pot is like, said M.A. Venkatakrishnan, in a discourse.

You must know its shape, you must know that it is made of mud. If you know nothing about a pot, how can you say it does not exist?

If something has never existed, then we cannot think or talk about it, even for the purpose of denying its existence. Nyaya sastras argue that in the case of a pot, we know it is made of mud. Before the pot took shape, there was still plain mud.

If a mud pot is broken, it is then no longer whole. But at some point, it was there as an unbroken pot. So we can say something does not exist, only if it actually exists!

Sometimes phrases like “rabbit’s horns” and “lotus in the sky” are used. Nammazhvar says anyone will readily acknowledge the absurdity of such phrases.

We know rabbits have no horns and there are no lotuses in the sky. We are able to assert so only because we know about rabbits and about lotuses. We can deny something only by linking it to something known.

So, when someone says there is no Supreme One, he isn’t really denying God’s existence. For, argues Nammazhvar, one cannot deny something one knows nothing about.