Chapter 3

            Yajnyawalkya had returned victorious from Janaka's court. In the midst of the jubilation, he kept wondering. Every now and then his mind played strange tricks on him. It would conjure up an image that could not be banished. It would grow dim in the midst of all the voices and sounds surrounding him, but would always be there. At dusk, when he sat down for his evening oblations to the setting sun, he realized that the image was still there.

            He uttered the Gayatri mantra out of habit.   “Bhargo devasya dhi mahir dhiyor yonah prachodayat”. What was he asking for in that prayer?  'Bhargo devasya': the luster of God's mind- let it brighten our own mind!'

An unconnected thought disrupted his chain of associations, and disappeared.  Yajnyawalkya finished his oblations, and the thought came back to him involuntarily. Why is it that this prayer for divine luster is dedicated to a female deity: Gayatri? Why have the seers always seen the source of energy to be in essence, feminine?

           

Yajnyawalkya laughed at the chain of his thoughts, and yet he could not dismiss it altogether from his mind. He recounted the events at Janaka's court and his subsequent victory. He wondered whether he had really won the debate. Yes, true; he was well-versed in the art of argument. He had studied philosophy, not with a speculative interest, but with a desire to acquire a weapon to demolish his adversaries in scholasticism. The recent debate at Janaka's court had presented him with an opportunity to test his weapon. He had vanquished every one of his adversaries with his inexorable logic.

           

But the image that had been haunting him ever since his victory was that of a woman. Stringent, like an arrow ready to be unstrung, Gargi had stood up to challenge him. In one perceptive glance, Yajnyawalkya had measured her up, and in the next moment, with his usual professional acumen, he had returned to the task in hand. No intellectual involvement was necessary for him to be able to answer her questions. They were those of a woman who was intoxicated with her newly acquired awareness of the power of her intellect.

           

Yajnyawalkya was trying to remember what had happened. Once having begun, Gargi did not know where to stop. Most of her questions were repetitions in substance, of the questions already asked and answered.                                                                                                                                                                       

“All known things are made of and pervaded by elementary matter.” “By what,” she had asked, “is that elementary matter made and pervaded?”

            “By ether,” Yajnyawalkya had replied,

            “By what is that ether pervaded?” she had asked.

            “By Brahmaloka: the light of the Absolute,” Yajnyawalkya had replied.

            “And by what is Brahmaloka pervaded?”

            Gargi was committing the fallacy of ‘regressus ad infinitum.' Yajnyawalkya was losing interest as well as patience. The assembly was taken aback as he thundered,

            “Do not ask questions for the sake of asking. Shut up or your head will roll off from your shoulders “. 

           

Now, looking back at that event, Yajnyawalkya wondered at the passion behind his outburst. Was he angry, exasperated, or plainly offended? Why was he indignant? Was it Gargi's impetuosity, impertinence, that enraged him? No! Who was she after all? To say that he was angry with Gargi was to admit her power over him .No! He was angry with himself for having allowed a woman to wield a power over him, albeit for a moment. 

           

Yajnyawalkya was accustomed to vacillations of this kind. But today he began to doubt himself. People used to confront him with questions. He was accustomed to answering them because they originated in another mind. The questions were asked in the parameters of another mind. It was easy to perceive them thus, outside yourself. The answers which he gave them had to be related to their parameters, connecting one known thing to another known one. Only the connection  had to be established. But when one asks questions to oneself, what does one connect? His anger and exasperation with Gargi were not of the kind known to his mind before. He had known anger and exasperation before, and yet, the emotion aroused by Gargi could not be equated with anything he had known before. True, he had vanquished her, and yet in some inscrutable way, she seemed to have won. Yajnyawalkya was bewildered at this discovery. The knowledge of it was so devastatingly simple, and so undeniably true; it seemed to penetrate all his sheaths and invade his self-hood.

           

Yajnyawalkya realized, a sacrifice had been initiated by an unnamed preceptor to propitiate an unnamed deity. The fire was blazing and its flames eagerly waited to devour the offering.

           

When Yajnyawalkya finished his evening oblations and returned to the cottage, darkness had set in. The young disciples were reciting the Sutras, and the hermitage appeared ensconced in a sheath of inviolable sanctity. He heard a familiar voice reprimanding an errant pupil. It was the voice of Katyayani. On his way back, Yajnyawalkya had dropped by in one of the disciple's quarters and reminded them of the next day's tasks. Everything followed an orderly routine. And yet such deep vacuity seemed to lie inside all that was known and familiar, and therefore predictable!

           

'Seekers all!' Some dimly recollected aphorism arose in his mind from the deep recesses where it was stored.Yajnyawalkya paused for a while under a tree, as though abstracted from himself. Was he really seeking anything? Were all these young ascetics in the hermitage seeking anything? What object did Gargi pursue with her inexhaustible questions? We all seem to live on borrowed affirmations.

           

A vast tide of Time seemed to sweep away everything with it except the consciousness that saw all!

Chapter 4

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

            Katyayani saw Maitreyi rapt in silence. Her observation never failed her when it came to interpreting Maitreyi's spells of silence. As always, she could sense Maitreyi's misgivings. The two women had been co-wives long enough to divine the slightest tremor in each others hearts. It was the most unusual kind of kinship.

            Maitreyi tried to evade the question in Katyayani's eye. But Katyayani had a way of finding out everything. Not even Yajnyawalkya with his studied detachment could ever elude her.

            Katyayani thrust her finger under Maitreyi's chin and forced her to confront. Maitreyi smiled wearily and looked away. Katyayani shook her head in exasperation.

            “I know what you are thinking of!” said Katyayani reproachfully.

            “Indeed? You always do!” said Maitreyi with a feigned amusement.

            “Now, don't tell me you are not thinking of Gargi.”

            'There is no deceiving you Katya! Whoever has tried it should ask me!”

            “Then I am right; am I not? Silly!”

            “What?”

            “To have been married to Yajnyawalkya and continue to torment yourself like that!”

            “I admire you Katya! Sometimes I feel you are greater than all those sages at Janaka's court. What do they know of pain?”

            “We are not talking about sages. I am talking about you. What is it that you fear?”

            “Katya, I fear nothing. I don't fear human beings; I fear Time.”

            “Don't talk in riddles. You know how I hate to solve riddles.”

            “Katya, I know Yajnyawalkya....”

            “But you do not know Gargi. Is that what you want to say?”

            “Katya, I know her. I know her the moment I look into Yajnyawalkya's distraught eyes.”

            “What do they tell you?”

            “Katya, she has the power which you and I can never hope to have!”

            “And gods forbid, I don't wish to acquire such power if I understand you right!”

            Both of them faced each other, and faced the knowledge they shared. Then words came forth from Maitreyi after a great effort.

            “Yajnyawalkya had never belonged to us. We had realized and accepted that long ago. But now, he won't belong to himself.”

            At this, Katyayani went up to Maitreyi and hugged her, more like a mother than a friend.

           

YAJNYAWALKYA: A QUEST FOR LIFE

BY SUSHAMA KARNIK

CHAPTER 1

Yajnyawalkya's hermitage bustled with excitement. A month ago Yajnyawalkya had left for Videha with his disciples who were among the chosen few. Yajnyawalkya was going to be present at the great sacrifice to be performed at Videha, the state ruled by king Janaka. It was also an occasion for great sages and scholars of Vedas to assemble and hold conference in Janaka's court. It was the grandest of all occasions so far in the history of philosophy. Great minds were supposed to expound on the mind, matter and things beyond mind and matter.

Janaka's quest for knowledge was endless. He considered himself a humble seeker and was eager to be enlightened on  'Brahma', the ultimate of all knowledge, the Supreme Being named in the Vedas, the Beginning and End of all things: animate and inanimate. 

Yajnyawalkya did not intend to participate in the discourse. He had given his disciples a clear directive that they were not going to utter a word during the tempestuous arguments that were likely  to ensue. They were simply going to watch the mighty scholars as they wrangled over problems of metaphysics.

Maitreyi was wondering what then was on Yajnyawalkya's mind. Somehow, she could look into the heart of her skeptical and somewhat cynical husband. The distrust and disdain he harbored in his mind for the ostentation and vanity of those bookish scholars was known to all. Maitreyi alone knew the vast terrain of the mind that lay hidden behind the facade of her husband's intellectual audacity.

When Suketu, one of his younger disciples, reached her, breathless with excitement of news from Videha, she listened without betraying a sign of trepidation, expecting the unexpected as usual.

Suketu could hardly pause for breath. he wanted Maitreyi to take in every word of his account of what he had witnessed there in Videha.

"Mother, can you imagine what our Master accomplished  at Janaka's court? You won't believe what happened! Something impossible, beyond imagination!"

"Don't try my patience, Suketu; you know, and I know, nothing is impossible for your Master! However, what did your Master do? I am eager to know!"

"Get ready Mother, to welcome our Master. Get ready for celebration and jubilation. Because soon he will arrive, with a thousand cows marching ahead, kicking up columns of dust as they will be led here to our hermitage. They will belong to us Mother! and what wealth they are going to bring with them, do you know?"

"No, I don't! What wealth?"

"Oh, my dear Mother, each of those thousand cows has five gold coins tied to each of her horns! A thousand cows and ten thousand gold coins!"

Suketu was trying to quantify his happiness ecstatically. Oblivious what Maitreyi thought, he went on:

"You know Mother, they were all kept in view of all the scholars as the coveted prize. Janaka's emissary came forward and announced to the assembly: 'Listen O mighty scholars, whoever amongst you professes to know 'Brahma', the Absolute, may come forward and claim these cows, and walk out of this assembly with impunity.'"

"Indeed?" Maitreyi was getting aroused now.

"What happened then?" she asked a little excitedly.

"There was a stunned silence. Everyone was looking at everyone else with bated breath. And before anyone realized what was happening, our Master stood up and hailed Somashrawa. He told Somashrawa to go ahead, unleash those cows and get ready to march home with them." 

"What happened then? Did Somashrawa indeed follow your Master's command?"

"How could he , Mother? He stood transfixed! There was unrest in the assembly. But none had the courage to stand up and protest. Finally, Ashwala, Janaka's High Priest of the ritual of sacrifice, got up and challenged our Master."

"What did he say?" Maitreyi was getting a little curious now. 

'Yajnyawalkya,' he said, 'You have the audacity to walk away with the coveted prize. Do you thereby declare that you know 'Brahma'?"

"What did your Master say then?" asked Maitreyi, fearing something untoward to follow.

"Our Master smiled, and looked around at the assembly; and this is what he said:

'I am a humble scholar. I confess my ignorance. How can I claim to know what I cannot understand? I will salute the one who really knows 'Brahma'. All I understand and know is what I need at this moment for my livelihood. I am in need of these cows, and I will take them home.'

The assembly was all agog with anger. Finally the king got up to control them. He permitted them to interrogate our Master. Ashwala, Kahola, Artabhaga, Bhujyu, Ushasta, Gargi, Aruni and Shakalya: one by one, all of them questioned our Master on abstruse points of metaphysics. He answered them all. Not a soul was there to challenge him any further! You should have been there, Mother, to see how he towered above all his adversaries. In fact, I could see his victory, clear as daylight.And why me, everybody did! And what a victory, Mother! I did not understand half as much of what was being discussed. But I could understand the awe-struck silence that ruled there after each round."

Maitreyi did not know why her heart was sinking instead of rejoicing. What Suketu was recounting, sounded like footfalls of destiny on the sands of Time.

She came to herself. Soon Yajnyawalkya would arrive victorious . They must get ready to welcome him home. Suketu's excitement knew no bounds. He had narrated every small detail with the exuberance of one who was witness to a great episode of life. 

Soon enough, the air would be filled with the dust kicked up by the hooves of a thousand cows, followed by hundreds of disciples and their victorious Master. Maitreyi waited tremulously for the signs to emerge on the horizon.

..................................

The Sanskrit language of these parts of Brihadaranyaka dons a robe of other-worldly metaphors and an occult imagery personification for the abstract, intangible realities of the mind and the spirit in order to negotiate an experience another domain. decoding the meaning of certain mystifying occurrences that took place at Janaka's symposium as reported in the Upanishad was a challenge.At those crucial points, language was used to hide, rather than to reveal the meaning. It was a dense forest of obscurities which sheathed riddles of psychology and parapsychology. While working my way through those riddles, I realized the existence of a tempestuous clash of personalities: Yajnyawalkya and Shakalya. When these two personalities engage in a formal debate, the apparently pedagogic questions and answers suddenly take a turn for an indignant denunciation of Gargi: a female participant in the debate: and a terrible curse pronounced by Yajnyawalkya upon Shakalya: a fellow participant in the debate. To me, this event seemed to loom like a configuration out of the dark and cast its shadow over those portions of Brihadaranyaka wherever Yajnyawalkya made an appearance. The event had too much of reality in it to be dismissed as a mythical, enigmatic phenomenon. 
Certain nodal points began to emerge in my search for the meaning of the enigmatic personality of Yajnyawalkya.
Yajnyawalkya's outrageous entry into the fierce polemics of Janaka's symposium formed one of those nodal points, giving a glimpse of the rivalry between Yajnyawalkya and Shakalya, which seemed to have its roots in the personal history of both. 
The other points were relatively undramatic. One of those was Maitreyi's unexpectedly sharp rebuttal of Yajnyawalkya's proposal of distributing his wealth between his two wives: Katyayani and Maitreyi. Yajnyawalkya's answer to Maitreyi's demand that she be given her share in his knowledge of his Self and not in his wealth, is a terse and taciturn reply: "Look into thy Self; listen to thy Self; and stay attuned to it always. The vision, voice and the counseling of that Self will give you all that is worthy of  knowledge
The experience of the meeting of the Atman: the individual soul and Paramatman: the divine soul: is described by the mystics as an experience of supreme joy, inexpressible in words and inaccessible to the intellect. It is proclaimed as the end of all fear. For most, it is a difficult state to realize, because it ends all awareness of the duality between me and the other at a highly mystical level of consciousness: in fact, it is the end of consciousness on the physical plane. One school of Indian mystics who call themselves ' dualists' 'dvaity', wish to retain the individual consciousness in that moment of the great union to be able to experience that bliss and live in it. Yajnyawalkya who is one with the spirit of the Vedas and the Upanishads endorses the vision of Advaita:the non-dualist vision. He believes that after we attain the great union with Brahma: the Ultimate: we do not retain consciousness on the physical plane. It is the end of our existence on the earthly plane and the end of our consciousness as we know it on the earthly plane. That is the destination tward which we all progress in life. The question wheth er we are mortal or immortal has no relevance and significance for him; and the prospect of our death on the earthly plane holds no fear for him. He discards all impediments one after another in his quest. But not everyone can do it with ease. He knows it. He shields those around him from a premature exposure to the knowledge of Brahma: the Ultimate: which can be terrifying for an unprepared soul. 
It is indeed very difficult to translate the Upanishadic concept of knowledge into a language. That is the reality of oneness with 'Brahma'. So long as we do not reach that knowledge we torment ourselves by the feeling or delusion of being 'alone'. To M.aitreyi, that fear is yet real. She feels, she cannot conquer that fear without Yajnyawalkya, who is more of a spiritual mentor  than a husband to her. However, as yet, she is tormented by the 'angst' of living in a world without the knowledge of god. Yajnyawalkya of the Upanishad knew that Maitreyi was not ready yet for the knowledge he had gained of life , humanity and God. Perhaps that is why, in the Upanishad, he puts an end to her quest for knowledge in an apparently brusque manner, saying, "Enough of this intellectualism now!"
With these words, Yajnyawalkya of the Upanishad closed the portals of knowledge for Maitreyi and walked ahead alone. 
Maitreyi had asked Yajnyawalkya,"Can all this wealth make me immortal?" In the Upanishad, he simply said, "Immortality and wealth are far apart; wealth gives comforts, but it is the destroyer of immortality!"
The story of Yajnyawalkya and Maitreyi lies far beyond these nodal points. It cannot be retrieved fully from the texts of the long -lost past. Upanishads only leave behind for us the signposts on the way.


[The novel 'Yajnyawalkya' will follow this foreword shortly.]            .         

But everyone is aware that it is impossible to expound on it. Yajnaywakya who has been watching in silence all this while, comes forward, and defying all decorum, dares the audience to stop him as he directs his disciple to walk away with the coveted prize of a thousand cows, meant to be won by the scholar who could prove to the assembly that he knew 'Brahma', and was capable of explaining its nature to the assembly.
In all, by his acts, gestures, and language, Yajnyawalkya rose far above his time and sounded a note for a new age. Though a priest by vocation, he detested the vacuity of the shallow intellectualism of his time. It was intellectualism raised to the level of a dignified ritualism in the form of performances of ostentatious rites. Yajnyawalkya knew that those scholars who had gathered at the assembly could not go beyond rituals and dogmas to grasp the inner meaning of 'Brahma'.We see him making a mockery of their empty rhetoric as he cleverly silences them all, beating them on their own ground by his suave and apparently deep exposition of the subject at hand. His disdainful attitude to his fellow academia bears testimony to the rupture that divides his vocation from his deeper understanding of life and humanity.  

Whereas Yajnyawalkya, the proponent of Yajnyawalkya Smruti, is a prudent and pragmatic law-giver of society, the one in Brihadaranyaka appears to be a recalcitrant egoist who challenges the smug pedagogues who are out to devalue him at the symposium held under the auspices of King Janaka. The ostensible purpose of the symposium is to seek enlightenment on 'Brahma': the Absolute and the Ultimate principle of life of the universe.

Ancient Indian Quest for Knowledge:Yajnyawalkya

Yajnyawalkya

Ancient Indian Quest for Knowledge

Foreword

Upanishads,known as Vedanta, are the culmination of the ancient Vedic quest for the knowledge of Atman: the inner self. Yajnyawalkya, Janaka, Gargi, Shakalya, Artabhaga, Maitreyi, Katyayani; the major characters of this novel, belong to an Upanishad called Brihadaranyaka, which is known to be the longest and the oldest of all Upanishads. Though these characters owe their origin to Brihadaranyaka, there is a considerable departure in my treatment of them in this novel. Brihadaranyaka formed the ground from where I gathered the seed and transplanted it to grow in the modern soil, with the sensibility and the idiom which belongs to our time. However, at certain points, I have tried to reproduce the archaic tenor of the Sanskrit language to recreate the atmosphere of formal debates in ancient India.

I met the character of Yajnyawalkya in the pages of a Sanskrit text prescribed for study at the undergraduate level of college. The text contained a few excerpts from Brihadaranyaka. There was one more excerpt from another Sanskrit text called Yajnyawalkya Smruti, the authorship of which is conventionally attributed too Yajnyawalkya himself.