Only when men shall roll up space as if it were a simple skin, only then will there be an end of sorrow without acknowledging God.
SU VI, 2040
This difficult and ambivalent verse, which is found at the very end of a late Upanishad and thus at the end of the whole shruti, sums up Vedic reflection on the problem of sorrow. The text may be understood as saying either that to roll up the sky like a skin 41 is a sheer impossibility and so also is the suppression of sorrow without the realization of God; or, that it is indeed possible to overcome the spatial fallacy, the maya character of space, and that it is certainly possible to transcend time; then you may succeed in putting an end to sorrow, even without having to postulate the existence of God, though not necessarily denying him. In the former instance there is a definite axiom which is more in keeping with the rest of this particular Upanishad, whereas in the latter there is a different and uncompromising attitude which assumes that it is possible without any hypothesis about God to overcome the human condition and thus reach the desired goal of eliminating sorrow. In the one case we have the theological reduction (with God as the clue) and in the other the cosmological one (cosmic reality offering the key). In the one case God--a real God and not an idol capable of manipulation by human hands, mind, or heart--is the ultimate refuge and the solution to the human riddle; God is the end of suffering and Man’s deliverer from distress. In the other case the cosmoanthropological picture is that of a reality with two faces, as it were: an outer visible face, which is that of time-space, body-matter, and, obviously, sorrow and suffering; and an inner invisible face for which we possess no category, though consciousness is the favorite philosophical term and Brahman the religious one. This Brahman is utterly real and is not an idealistic background or an extrapolation of any human structure, mental or spiritual. Brahman or pure consciousness is here total bliss and realization.
We are touching here one of the central problems of Man’s experience, the mystery of human sorrow, of which, indeed, the Vedas make more than one attempt at explanation. These attempts are made in depth and not on a merely sociological plane in which the pair of opposites, pessimism-optimism, might be appropriately employed. There are two clearly distinct periods in the Vedic Revelation, the Vedic and the Upanishadic, and they seem to take two contrasting and extreme positions: the one minimizes sorrow to such an extent that one finds it difficult to select pertinent texts at all, whereas the other radicalizes the nature of sorrow to such a degree that the only resort is total escape into another form of existence.
One common trait, however, connects these two conceptions of the sorrowful: namely, both consider sorrow to be an awakening to the transcendent. Suffering brings Man to the point of “rupturing” his humanness and thus to the threshold of transcendence. Man experiences his own suffering as something foreign to him, something outside himself, as if it came from the unknown, from another world, so to speak. This suffering is either the scorpion sting of some evil power or the very means through which he discovers his true nature beyond all the entanglements of the human condition. The first myth is represented by the Vedic period, and the second is typically Upanishadic and Vedantic, though in fact a too clear-cut distinction would be wrong. In the one case sorrow is that which disturbs the physical as well as the psychic harmony; it is abnormal and external and thus can be overcome only if the causes are properly known and the appropriate remedies applied. In the second case sorrow is the very factor that enables Man to rupture the bonds of his human predicament; it is normal and intrinsic and thus it can be transcended only if the human situation is properly understood and the discipline leading to such a realization is seriously undertaken. It is against this double background that the texts of the next two subsections should be considered.
One type of reflection is conspicuously absent from the whole of the Vedic experience: that is the question, later on so agonizing, of why. The fact of suffering, the reality of human distress, is taken as given, as a real datum, as something that has to be dealt with, whether by regaining the lost poise and happiness or by transcending totally the sorrowful human predicament. Vedic speculation, however, does not take the path of inquiring about the why.
It is certainly true that speculation of a later date quotes scriptural texts to support different philosophical doctrines; the shruti itself, however, does not seem concerned with explaining the essence of sorrow but only with explaining away its existence. Once again we discover the existential character of the Vedic experience. Furthermore, the question of the why seems to be thematically avoided, as if speculation concerning it would result in an utterly false perspective. To ask ultimate questions about the why of evil implies two very grave assumptions: (a) that there is something or somebody responsible for it, and (b) that evil belongs to the realm of intelligibility. The Vedas do not make either of these assumptions.
a) If sorrow, evil, distress, and the like have an independent ultimate cause we cannot avoid dualism, for ultimate evil is then postulated as an irreducible principle. It amounts, in the final analysis, to a tragic conception of reality, because life, survival, goodness, and beauty are possible only by dint of subduing and forever repressing the other half of reality. Even without defining the ultimate consequences of this attitude, to presuppose that evil has an independent and substantial why enables us to transfer onto this moral or ontological scapegoat all the evil we resist acknowledging in ourselves. It implies that we simply repudiate the problem and heap on another that which we eliminate from ourselves. In modern terms we could apply ecological categories: the purification of one part of the environment by polluting another. It would be rewarding to examine more closely the dualistic mentality underlying ecological problems. It is a distinctive feature of the Vedas that responsibility for the existence of human suffering is not transferred to a Prince of Darkness in one form or another; rather, evil is taken to originate in a malfunctioning of the given structures of reality, owing to a clash or conflict of interests. Evil is situational, we may say, and not ontological.
b) Evil, suffering, and sorrow have no why, because if we could really know the why of them--and not only the how--we would explain them away. They are precisely negative “values” because we cannot give any why, any rational explanation. The dark side of reality (the nocturnal aspect of Man) is dark precisely because light (or the diurnal aspect) has not reached it. If light reaches darkness, darkness automatically ceases to be what it is. Is it not a fact of common experience that evil of whatever kind denotes a certain situation that is precisely as it is because there is no reason to account for it, no satisfactory explanation, no justification whatsoever? If a why could be given to the nature of suffering and evil the whole problem would be shifted to the nature of that why; that is, we revert to the question of the preceding paragraph. Here also tradition has extracted the ultimate and logical consequences of this attitude: the denial of reality to evil and suffering. The seeds of this denial are to be observed in many texts of the Upanishads and Gita.
In the hymns of the Rig Veda scarcely any explicit mention is made of suffering as such. The poets, however, frequently beseech the divinity to grant protection against sundry ills, against enemies and evil spirits, and we find them constantly praying for a long and happy life and for freedom from suffering. Suffering is a human invariant that cannot easily be explained away.
Now, the most immediate experience in regard to the origin of suffering is the pain inflicted by wrong functioning of the human organism, which we call illness. Man discovers, further, that illness is generally caused by an external agent encroaching on the human body or affecting the whole person. Sometimes the agent is obvious and visible; at other times it is hidden and invisible. On most occasions Man infers that the cause of the malady is both visible and invisible, both material and spiritual, and this conjecture is followed by first steps for a praxis against ailments; the visible and invisible cause must be discovered and conjured away.
A considerable number of hymns of the Atharva Veda are prayers for the healing of ailments. These hymns are addressed either to the illness personified or to the demons or spirits who are assumed to be at the root of such ills and sicknesses. Other hymns, such as Atharva Veda IV, 17, 42 are addressed to the plant that is the cure for a particular sickness. Others are addressed to Water 43 or to Fire, 44 both of which have the power to chase away demons.
Among the selected texts certain verses are addressed to “Fever” or, to be more precise, to Takman, the evil spirit personifying fever. Yet others are addressed to “Worms,” reckoned to be the cause of many malaises, or to physical ailments and bodily infirmities in general. The last hymn invokes a plant that has the power of freeing from ills. 45
These various passages reveal the mental agony and the fear aroused in Man by bodily ailments; they depict also his longing to be delivered from such ills, both by natural methods and, above all, through the intervention of the divinity, under whatever guise, obscure or less obscure, he may be invoked.
The origin of most evils is external, certainly, but is not always to be sought in either the world above or the world below. It can also come from Man himself, from his neighbors, and, more particularly, from his enemies. Many texts tell us that Man has not only the unknown forces of evil to fear, but also the all too well-known power of his foes. Life on earth is not merely a struggle against superhuman powers. It is, and often much more so, a real combat with one’s fellowmen, not necessarily one’s enemies; sometimes they are only competitors. And so we hear also the prayer of the man who fears “defeat in games of dice and chance.” 46 These texts from the Atharva Veda depict a hardy race of Men, struggling against physical suffering and human rivals with both courage and optimism, refusing to succumb.
A word should be said here regarding so-called magic practices. To say a prayer before eating is not, as such, magic, though it could be if one believed that unless the prayer was said the food would not perform its biochemical function in the organism. To utter a blessing on a medicinal plant or to pray before using a certain herb is not necessarily magic, unless one is prepared to overlook the intermediary order of things and attribute direct and exclusive efficacy to what is only a concomitant factor. A certain confidence in medical treatment, which includes both the physician and the medicines, is an indispensable factor in its efficacy.
The texts that follow are all taken from the same source, the Atharva Veda, which has all too often been considered a book of mere incantations and charms. We need to understand that any ritual seen only from the outside is bound to appear strange, weird, and often magical. In making this statement we neither deny the existence of magic and magical practices nor enter into a discussion regarding the nature of magic and its connection with religion. 47
Vedic Man has a holistic idea of fever and not a specialized theory of quickened molecular movement caused by the extra work imposed on the cellular region concerned. Knowing that fever is, rather, a symptom with alarming effects, he wants to do away with it, though he is often puzzled by its recurrent character and its tenacity. He both prays and applies medicines, as two moments of one and the same human act of fighting disease. He knows that the medicine by itself will not work and that mere words will not suffice. Each human act has the theandric nature of a sacrament.
The prayers that follow are more than simple aspirations; they are more than impotent cries or mere wishes. They are action as well as utterances; they are expressions of the human fight against disease. These prayers are not speculative hymns or theoretical treatises. They are totally involved in the suffering condition and make one feel that one is facing the suffering Man speaking and acting. Human malady is not a trifling matter and here there is no room for lofty considerations nor is there a way of escape. Man is totally engaged in his existential struggle for well-being and he is facing the dire reality of a power that seems to rob him of his health and even of his life. Yet he is determined to face the menace, to struggle, and in the end to win. He has in his hand a medicinal herb, on his lips a sacred mantra, in his heart a burning hope, and in his mind an unflinching faith. He is well aware of the complex web of relations which crisscrosses the whole of reality and he intends to intervene in order to restore the lost harmony and balance.
Acute or chronic diseases, however, are not the only ailments that undermine Man’s health and constitution; some persons are hardly affected by such illnesses. Nevertheless there is one kind of physical condition that every one has to face: jara, decrease and old age.
Length of days is something to which Vedic Man aspires as the completion and fulfillment of his own life and as part of a natural process in which life, when it starts diminishing in the father, nevertheless goes on in the children and the children’s children with unbroken continuity. Although few texts specifically describe the process of decay in old age, the fear of it lurks beneath many passages. 48 Old age as a diminishment of all the powers in Man, both physical and mental, is regarded as unavoidable and, unlike sickness, as incurable. Therefore the desire to be free from old age accompanies the desire to be free from death, 49 and Man prays for ajara (agelessness), nijara (freedom from old age), and amrta (deathlessness) almost as synonyms. 50 Precisely because it is unavoidable, old age is also a constant reminder to Man that he cannot maintain indefinitely a healthy and unimpaired physique.
On this subject also the Upanishadic experience opens up different perspectives, discovering that evil does not in reality consist so much in this or that sickness or danger as in the very fact that Man is destined to become old and decrepit and ultimately to die. There is none of the optimism of the Samhitas, but an acute awareness of decay as the unavoidable factor in man’s expectations which cannot be cured or prayed away. Even if an old Man happens to be restored to health, he knows only too well that it is a temporary reprieve and not a definitive return to life.
The first two texts describe the process of diminution: a Man when old is burdened under the atman, as if he were bent under a heavy load. He is gradually reduced to skin and bones, and all his organs, which were so prompt to serve him when he was young, now quit his service, as the simile of the arrival and departure of a king in a village colorfully suggests. The organs merge into one another and the Man, bereft of both speech and mind, is no longer able to recognize his dear ones. There is no way back, no escape, for even prana, the life breath, his last attendant, is getting heavy and is about to abandon the body.
That the decay of the body is one of the main reasons for total disillusionment is shown in the beautiful story of Indra and Prajapati, from which we quote only the pertinent passage. Prajapati declares that the only thing worthy to be sought is the unaging, deathless atman. 51 The devas and the asuras, both desiring to receive instruction about the atman, send their representative to learn from Prajapati. Indra among the devas and Virocana among the asuras approach the Father of beings in the humble manner of disciples in search of truth. They are requested to live thirty-two years of apprenticeship with their master, who thereby tests the sincerity and constancy of their search. He then imparts to them his first instruction, telling them that the atman is nothing else but the person, our self as we see it in another’s eyes or as we perceive it if we look into a pan of water as if into a mirror. Virocana is satisfied with this theory and he goes away to inform the asuras that the bodily self, and it alone, needs to be made happy. 52 Not so Indra. On his way back to the Gods he is overcome by doubts as to whether the body that can be affected by injury and decay can conceivably be the permanent atman. He returns to Prajapati and humbly dwells with him for another thirty-two years, after which Prajapati imparts to him the next instruction, in which the atman is identified with the soul in the dream state. Twice more Indra returns to his master, each time discovering defects in these various theories regarding the atman. Only when he is thus prepared for the highest teaching does Prajapati declare that the body is not the atman, because the body is mortal whereas the atman is immortal. 53 Disillusionment had led Indra to the ultimate truth. The desire for the unaging state, free from decay, is nothing other than the search for the atman, the unaging and deathless in Man. 54
1
1. May Fever flee hence,
exorcised by Agni,
exorcised by Soma
and the Pressing Stone,
by Varuna, sheer Mind,
the altar, the grass
of sacrifice,
and the blazing logs!
May all harmful things scatter!
2. How yellow the victims
you consume as with fire
and devour with your heat,
O Fever; but now
your power will all vanish!
Take yourself off
to the regions infernal,
the regions below!
4. To the depths I dispatch,
though with cautious politeness,
this promoter of dysentery!
Let her now return
to the place where she belongs!
6. O Fever all gray
with an arsenic tinge,
accompanied by pains
and covered with blotches,
go seek a new victim
to strike with your plague!
10. Now cold, now burning,
you rack with a cough.
Terrible are your features,
O Fever. Pray spare us
the sight of your face!
11. Do not bring in your train
either languor or cough
or rasping of breath.
Return never more
to the place you have quit.
12. Go away, Fever,
and take along with you
your brother Consumption,
your sister Cough,
and your cousin Herpes.
Into strangers depart!
13. I adjure you, O Fevers
of every sort,
whether rife in the autumn
or monsoon or summer,
intermittent or continuous,
shivering or burning,
depart and vanish!
1. Grass of sacrifice: barhis, the kusha-grass.
2. How yellow: probably a reference to jaundice.
4. Cautious politeness: namah krtva, having paid homage.
Place where she belongs: lit. to the Mahavrsha, probably a people of northwest India.
6. Various words in this stanza have a double meaning.
12. Consumption: balasa.
Cough: kasika.
Herpes: paman.
13. Intermittent: i.e., the fever that returns every third day or two days out of three (e.g., malarial).
Vv 3, 5, 7-9 & 14 Describe the (geographical) places from where fever comes and where it is to be returned by the spell.
2
1. With Indra’s great millstone,
of all worms the crusher,
I mince up these worms
like grains on a grinder!
2. Visible and invisible--
both have I crushed,
not sparing Kururu,
Algandus or Shalunas!
We destroy all these worms with our spell!
3. With a powerful weapon
I destroy the AIgandus;
charred or uncharred,
they are drained of life sap!
Present or absent,
with my spell I subdue them!
Let no single worm stay alive!
4. The worm in the entrails,
the worm in the head,
the worm in the ribs,
we crush with this spell!
5. Whether worms in the hills,
or worms in the woods,
whether worms in the plants or the waters,
whether worms that reside
within cattle or men--
this whole breed of worms I exterminate!
Both this hymn and the following one (AV II, 32) are directed against all types of worms and parasites.
2. Kururu, Algandu, and Shaluna are different kinds of worms.
Spell: vacas, powerful word.
3. Drained of life sap: arasa.
3
1. Headache, head pain, earache, inflammations,
all that now afflicts the head
expel we by our prayer.
2. From your ears, each part thereof,
the earache and the throbbing pain,
all that now afflicts the head,
expel we by our prayer.
3. So that consumption may recede
from your ears and from your mouth,
all that now afflicts the head,
expel we by our prayer.
4. Whatever makes man dumb or blind,
all that now afflicts the head,
expel we by our prayer.
5. Limb-splitting, limb-destroying pain,
the ache that throbs in every part,
all that now afflicts the head,
expel we by our prayer.
6. The fever that assails man each autumn,
whose fearful aspect makes man tremble,
expel we by our prayer.
7. The deadly disease that invades the thighs
and reaches also to the groin,
disease that spreads from the inner parts,
expel we by our prayer.
8. If the disease was caused by love
or hatred, by the heart’s affections,
this too from the heart and limbs
expel we by our prayer.
9. The yellow jaundice from your limbs,
the colic lodged in your intestines,
the disease that plagues your inner self,
expel we by our prayer.
10. May this throbbing turn to ashes!
May it become infected urine!
The poison of every wasting disease
from you I exorcise!
11. Forth from the orifice let it come,
the rumbling sound from your intestines!
The poison of every wasting disease
from you I exorcise!
12. From your stomach and your lungs,
from the navel and the heart,
the poison of every wasting disease
from you I exorcise!
13. Those piercing pains that cleave asunder
the crown and skull and penetrate further,
let them go forth at the orifice,
without ill effect, harmless!
14. The pangs that stab the heart and pass
along the spine from top to bottom,
let them go forth at the orifice,
without ill effect, harmless!
15. The stabbing pains that pierce the sides
and penetrate along the ribs,
let them go forth at the orifice,
without ill effect, harmless!
16. The shooting pains that dart crosswise
and penetrate within the stomach,
let them go forth at the orifice,
without ill effect, harmless!
17. The pains that creep along the intestines,
confounding all within the entrails,
let them go forth at the orifice,
without ill effect, harmless!
18. The pains that suck the marrow out
and cleave and rend the bones asunder,
let them go forth at the orifice,
without ill effect, harmless!
19. The wasting diseases that numb the limbs,
racking the frame with colic pains,
the poison of every wasting disease
from you I exorcise!
20. Erupting spots and abscesses,
rheumatic pains and eye disease,
the poison of every wasting disease
from you I exorcise!
21. From your feet, your knees, your hips,
from your buttocks and your spine,
from your neck and from your head,
I have expelled all sickness!
22. Sound are the bones of your skull. Your heart
once more beats soundly. Arising, O Sun,
you have chased far away with your rays the headache
and stilled the racking pain!
1. Inflammations: vilohita, an inflammatory disease, perhaps erysipelas. Lohita is a particular disease of the eyelids.
Expel we by our prayer: nir-mantrayamahe, a compound word composed of mantra (prayer) with prefix nir-, lit. “we pray it away,” we exorcise.
2. Part thereof: conjectural for kankusha, an obscure word.
Throbbing pain: visalyaka, the name of a disease causing throbbing pains (another reading has visalpaka).
3. Consumption: yakshma.
4. Dumb: or perhaps deaf and dumb.
6. Fever: takman, probably malaria.
7. Deadly disease: yakshma.
8. Love: kama, desire.
Hatred: apakama, aversion.
9. That plagues your inner self: lit. from your inner self (antaratmanah), which may refer to mental disease, through atman may also be translated “body.”
10. I exorcise: niravocam aham, from nir-vac-, to drive away, expel, by word.
13. Harmless: ahimsantih, not injuring.
19. Numb: madayanti, intoxicate, make senseless.
20. Erupting spots: visalpa.
Abscesses: vidradha.
Rheumatic pains: vatikara.
Eye disease: alaji.
21. Expelled all sickness: rogam aninasham.
22. Sun: Aditya.
4
1. I take you, Plant, of cures the Queen,
conqueror of ills. For all our needs
I impart to you energizing force,
for every man a thousandfold.
2. O truly conquering, curse-averting
powerful Plant, backward turned,
you and all plants have I invoked:
“Save us from this!” I prayed.
3. She who has cursed us with a curse,
she who is wholly rooted in sin,
who has seized a child to take his blood--
let her devour her own offspring!
4. Whatever ill they intend for you
in a dish unbaked or of blue-red hue,
whatever prepared in uncooked flesh,
with that same subdue the sorcerers!
5. Evil dreaming, evil living,
demons, monsters, hags, and witches,
all of ill-repute or fame,
these we now destroy.
6. Death by hunger, death by thirst,
lack of cattle, lack of children,
by your aid, Plant that expels,
we now expel these maladies.
7. Death by thirst, death by hunger,
defeat in games of dice and chance,
by your aid, Plant that expels,
we now expel these maladies.
8. The Plant that expels is sole controller
of all the herbs. By its aid we now expel
all harm that has befallen you.
Depart, free from disease!
1. I impart to you: I am endowing you with--so as to emphasize the power of the human spell.
2. Truly conquering, etc.: names of plants (oshadhih) that have the power to prevent evil.
3. This v. is found also in AV I, 28, 3, and refers to sorceresses.
Wholl y rooted in sin: agham muram adadhe has taken evil as her root.
4. Dish unbaked, etc.: all objects for witchcraft, which are here used by reversion against the sorcerers themselves. Cf. AV V, 31, 1.
5. Destroy: efface, expel, remove, always in the causative form, vashayati (from vash-), cause to disappear.
6. Plant that expels: apamarga, a medicinal plant, commonly considered “magical,” the achyranthes aspera, still used against stings of scorpions, etc. Etymologically its name means “cleansing,” “expelling” (disease).
5
i) 35. Just as an overloaded cart lumbers along creaking, in the same way the self in this body, loaded by the Self of wisdom, lumbers along creaking when its breath is getting heavy.
36. When he becomes reduced, whether by old age or by disease, then, just as a mango fruit or a fig or a pipal fruit [detaches itself from its stem], so this person, being released from his limbs, returns to Life, to the place whence he has come.
37. Just as, when a king is arriving, the guards, the officers, the drivers, and the village elders await him with food, drink, and a place for his dwelling, saying, “Here he comes, here he comes!” even so all beings await him who knows this [saying]: “Here comes Brahman, here he comes!”
38. Just as the guards, the officers, the drivers, and the village elders gather around the king at his departure, even so all the powers of life gather around this self at the end of his time, when his breath is getting heavy.
U VI 15, 1-2
ii) 1. When a man, my dear, is stricken with disease, his relatives come near to him, asking: “Do you recognize me? Do you recognize me?” As long as his speech has not merged in his mind, his mind in his breath, his breath in light, and the light in the supreme Godhead, so long does he recognize them.
2. But when his speech has merged in his mind, his mind in his breath, his breath in light, and the light in the supreme Godhead, then he does not recognize them any longer.
CU VIII, 9
iii) 1. Now, Indra, before reaching the Gods, became aware of this fear: “[if the Self is the body] then when the body is decorated, the self too is decorated, when the body is well dressed, the self is well dressed, when the body is adorned, the self is adorned; in the same way, if the body is becoming blind, the self also will be blind, if the body is maimed, the self also will be maimed, if the body is mutilated, the self also will be mutilated, if the body is destroyed, the self also will be destroyed along with it. In this I do not find any consolation.”
2. With fuel in his hand he came back again, and Prajapati said to him: “O Maghavan, with your heart at peace, you left together with Virocana. Desiring what have you returned?” He said “When the body is decorated, the self too is decorated, when the body is well dressed, the self is well dressed, when the body is adorned, the self is adorned; in the same way, if the body is becoming blind, the self also will be blind, if the body is maimed, the self also will be maimed, if the body is mutilated, the self also will be mutilated, if the body is destroyed, the self also will be destroyed along with it. In this I do not find any consolation.”
3. “Even so is it, O Maghavan,” he said. “However, this I will further explain to you. Live with me for a further thirty-two years!” Then he lived with him for a further thirty-two years. Then he [Prajapati] said to him [Indra]:½
i) 35. Loaded by the Self of Wisdom: prajnenatmananvarudhah, implying that when the great, intelligent Self takes possession of a man, he cannot bear its weight for a long time; his body is weighed down by the spirit like a cart under a heavy load.
When its breath is getting heavy: urdhva ucchvasi bhavati, i.e., when he is about to expire.
36. Reduced: animan, thinness.
Life: prana.
Place whence he has come: yoni, womb.
37. Referring to the birth of a person.
38. At the end of his time: antakale, at the time of death. Vv. 37 and 38 are similes referring to the behavior of the pranas in relation to the person when he is born or dies.
ii) 8-14. Cf. § VI 10.
15, 1. Stricken with disease: approaching death.
Speech: vac, voice, word.
Light: tejas, also heat, the energy that remains when the breath leaves the body.
Supreme Godhead: para devata
The order of “return to the source” is: vac, manas, prana, tejas, para devata. This series implies a whole Upanishadic anthropology. Cf. BU IV, 4, 2 (§ V 12).
There follows in v. 3 the famous instruction to Shvetaketu, in which it is explained that what “remains” at the end of the whole process, the most subtle thing, is the atman. Cf. CU VI, 14, 3 (§ VI 10).
16. Cf. § VI 10.
iii) Consolation: bhogya, something useful or enjoyable. Indra finds “no fun” in the understanding that the atman is identical with the perishable body (sharira).
For the continuation of the dialogue, see the rest of CU VIII and the references in § VI 6 (v) notes.
Wherever there are Men there is also a cry of suffering and pain accompanying the human condition. This is true not only at times of big calamities or during onslaughts of personal sickness. It is equally true of human reality as such in its most normal condition. The setting of one of the Upanishadic texts we have given puts it very clearly:
There was a king called Brhadratha who, when he had enthroned his eldest son, turned to the forest in search of the eternal. After a thousand days of most severe penance he was approached by the sage Shakayanya, an atma-vid, knower of the Self, who offered him a boon. The king asked to know the nature of atman, but the sage refused to elaborate upon it, saying that it was too difficult a question. The king then burst forth into the litany of our text in which the talk is not about unusual catastrophies but about ordinary human miseries. The text finishes with the sincere cry:
I am like a frog in a dry well.
Lord, you alone are our refuge,
you alone are our refuge. 55
If “all is suffering,” as has been proclaimed by Buddhism 56 and by Yoga, 57 there is little use in tackling minor ailments here and there and in applying mere palliatives. One has to transcend sorrow totally and the only medicament is to realize fully the human predicament and by this very fact to transcend it, “rolling up the skies,” 58 going to the other shore of sorrow, as another Upanishad tells us. 59 There is hardly any other moment in human history in which so gigantic an effort has been made to explain suffering by explaining it away, as in the period of post-Upanishadic spirituality.
Thus suffering and pain are not seen here as biological or psychological facts. Medicine and psychiatry would not suffice for Upanishadic culture, nor would common sense and insistence on joy in the little things of everyday life. There is no point in soft-pedaling the situation or in ignoring the fact of ontological distress, which now begins to be called by a neologism: duhkha.
The first period of the Vedas describes the human condition in terms of a well-oiled axle hole of a cart which proceeds smoothly toward its destination through the protection of the Gods and the collaboration of human industry. Sukha 60 is the word for this, which in the Rig Veda is still used in a literal sense. 61 No doubt there is suffering and there are obstructions, but the sundry obstacles that Man encounters on his pilgrimage are all external and nearly always surmountable. No doubt Man is fearful of the unknown and dreads his enemies, he is afraid of disease and death is lurking everywhere; yet nothing seems to be irreparable and even death is not so dreadful, for life continues on the several planes of a multi-story universe.
With the Jaina and Buddhist upheaval, both paralleled and confirmed by the Upanishads, the picture radically changes. The human condition is no longer sukha and the pain is no longer accidental. The human condition is not said to be asukha, a word that does not appear until much later, but duhkha: the cart axle now functions badly; there is an intrinsic defect which does not allow the smooth functioning of Man. There is not only physical pain and psychological suffering, but there is also a constitutive distress comprising a stricture and an anguish which convince Man that his present predicament is neither right nor definitive. The defect must be radically overcome, not merely markedly improved. Duhkha is more than just sorrow or pain, more than simple suffering or grief, more than mild stiffness in all our joints so that we cannot run our course unhampered. It is an internal blockage in our own movement, an injury that affects our deepest nerves, so that we can no longer regard our performance here on earth as the real way in which we are intended to run in order to reach the Real itself, the authentic goal of human existence. Thus the very distress of our existence is at the same time the starting point for transcending our human condition altogether.
One can easily detect, however, an element of continuity between the first and second periods, the already mentioned process of interiorization. Evil is external, but the interiorization of evil is due not only to a deepening within the consciousness but also to the ritual itself. Many texts emphasize that the rituals carry with them the risk of a rebound against the very performers who should be their beneficiaries. Errors may creep in, interferences from other rituals may occur, wrong use of the ritual may cause effects diametrically opposed to those intended, and so on. In all these instances the evil result comes from the ritual itself; that is, it becomes endogenous and is interiorized. There is only one way out, and that is the way in, that is, into the experience of all the potentialities of Man and of the cosmic repercussions of his actions. In order to achieve liberation Man has to freely acknowledge his own situation and respond fully to the exigencies of such knowledge. The notion that freedom is not only freedom for, but freedom from, begins to take shape.
It is against this background that the texts that follow can be properly evaluated. One may agree or disagree, but first of all one has to understand what they intend to convey: the uncompromising attitude of the sage who has discovered that human distress must be overcome by transcending completely the human predicament:
There a father is no longer a father,. . .
nor are the Gods any longer Gods,. . .
[only then] will man pass beyond
all the sorrows of the heart. 62
No longer is reform of one’s life indicated, a betterment of the human condition or a continuation of it on a heavenly plane, but a total rupture and absolute change. Only then is Man “untainted by the distress of the outside world.” 63 So the Bhagavad Gita proclaims in the most unambiguous way: “You should not be distressed” 64 in spite of all the miseries you see in the world. All are pangs of a new birth, which is the more joyful as you realize that, properly speaking, it is not another birth because the real being was already there.
The Gita, as usual, adds its own touch of practicality. The distress of the human predicament can be overcome and sorrow can be eliminated. The process is, precisely, the true yoga. It consists not only in adjusting to the inevitable or in acquiring a sense of proportion, as one is tempted to say; it is more than an ascetic detachment. It is the positive and disciplined act of cutting the knot that connects our existence with all that is perishable. Sukha and duhkha are not primordially ethical and much less eudaemonistic categories, as if everything were on the level of pleasure and pain. It is rather a question of being or not being, of salvation, of realization.
Later traditions, like all scholasticisms intent on analysis, have distinguished several states of liberated souls. Significantly, the criteria are usually the reaction to pain and the attitude toward suffering. There are, for instance, three degrees of enlightened persons, according to one classical division: first, those liberated souls who, in spite of having realized the Self, continue to feel the pain and suffering of life like ordinary Men; second, those who still go through the human distresses of life, but do so as if in a dream and thus remain unconcerned; and, third, those who are unperturbed and untouched by the sufferings themselves, remaining in perfect bliss.
Another idea also must be kept in mind in order to understand the radical utterances of these and similar texts. We could call it the concentric, or rather the pyramidal, conception of reality. The sage who overcomes sorrow and pain is not, when he is loyal to his vicarious and representative vocation, an escapist or a selfish individual insensitive to the Weltschmerz, as the Katha Upanishad puts it. 65 Nor are the sufferings of the world denied, as some schools claim from their interpretation of the texts. The sufferings are said, rather, not to “smear” the atman, 66 not to reach the depth of the soul, not to have an ultimate ontological consistency, so that the enlightened person transcends the mental and physical planes and thus does not suffer. But there is still more. It seems as if the underlying assumption is that each great soul, mahatman, by eliminating sorrow in himself, helps to eliminate the sorrow of the world. Such elimination is possible because a great soul is not just an individual who has overcome his own troubles, but a condensed part of the whole of reality, an image of the whole, containing in a mysterious way the totality of the world. A state of total and unvarying unselfishness is imperative, therefore, for such an enterprise, and it is no wonder that there is almost unanimous agreement that this state is reached by only very few.
6
i) “Yajnavalkya,” said he, “explain to me the Brahman that is perceptible clearly and not obscurely, the atman that dwells within all things.”
“The atman in you is that which indwells all things.”
“Tell me, Yajnavalkya, about this atman that indwells all things.”
“It is that which transcends hunger and thirst, sorrow and delusion, old age and death.”
BU IV, 3, 22
ii) There a father is no longer a father and a mother no longer a mother; the worlds are no longer worlds, the Gods are no longer Gods, and the Vedas are no longer Vedas. There a thief is no longer a thief, a murderer is no longer a murderer, and an outcaste is no longer an outcaste; a lowly born man is no longer lowly born, a monk is no longer a monk, an ascetic is no longer an ascetic; [for there] he is untouched by merit and untouched by sin; then he will have passed beyond all the sorrows of the heart.
BU IV, 4, 13-14
iii) 13. He who has found and awakened to the atman
which has entered the otherwise impenetrable body,
he is the maker of the universe, of all things.
The world is his! The world itself is he!
14. This we may know, indeed, while here on earth.
If we do not know it, great is the destruction.
But those who know it become immortal.
The others attain only distress.
CU VII 1, 3A
iv) “I am one, sir, who knows, to be sure, the sacred prayers but not the atman. I have heard from masters like you that he who knows the atman transcends sorrow. And I am suffering, sir. Help me, sir, to cross over to the other shore of sorrow.
MAIT U I, 3
v) “Sir, how is it possible to enjoy one’s desires in this body [of ours], which, is ill-smelling, unsubstantial, a heap of bone, skin, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen, blood, mucus, tears, rheum, feces, urine, wind, bile, and phlegm? How is it possible to enjoy one’s desires in this body, afflicted as it is with desire, anger, greed, delusion, fear, frustration, envy, separation from what one longs for and association with what one abhors, hunger, thirst, old age, death, disease, sorrow, and similar things?”
i) Perceptible clearly and not obscurely: sakshad aparokshad, i.e., that which stands before the eyes and that which is not hidden, sometimes translated as “immanent and nontranscendent.”
Dwells within all things; (atma) sarvantarah, repeated three times.
Sorrow: shoka.
5b. Cf. III 31.
ii) 19-21. Cf. § Vl.
There: a description of the state of the Self in the state of deep sleep.
Worlds: lokah.
Note the conciseness of the language throughout: pita ‘pita, mata ‘mata, deva ‘devah, and veda ‘vedah, etc.
Murderer: lit. one who produces an abortion or kills an embryo.
Outcaste: candala the son of a Shudra from a Brahmin woman.
Lowly born: paulkasa, the son of a Shudra from a Kshatriya woman.
Monk: shramanna.
Ascetic: tapasa.
Merit . . . sin: punya . . . . papa, which can also have the meaning here of good and evil.
Sorrows: shoka.
Cf. the same idea in KathU I, 12 (§ V 27) and also in MundU III, 2, 9 (§ VI 11).
iii) 13. Awakened pratibuddha.
The otherwise impenetrable body: asmin samdehye gahane, i.e., the body as a place that is difficult to penetrate, like an inaccessible and perilous cavern.
14. Distress: duhkha. It is said to be the first time that this word appears (Hauer). Cf. YS II, 15.
15-21. Cf. § VI 11.
22-25. Cf. § VI 6.
iv) 1, 1-2. Cf. § VI 3.
One. . . who knows. . .: sacred prayers mantra-vid, as against atma-vid.
ranscends: lit. to cross (to the other side of the ocean of) sorrow. The Buddhist flavor is very noticeable in this test.
Sorrow: shoka.
1, 3b. Cf. § VI 3. For the rest of CU VII and all the ref. cf. § VI 3(v) and notes.
v) Again note the Buddhist flavor of this passage.
How is it possible to enjoy one’s desires: kim kamopabhogaih: what is the use of the enjoyment of desires.
Sorrow: shoka.
4. Cf. § V 18.
7
i) 24. Invulnerable is he to the sword and to fire,
to water and wind,
eternal, all-pervading, fixed, immovable,
the same forever.
25. Unmanifest, unthinkable and never changing
is he averred to be.
Therefore, recognizing him as such,
you should not be distressed.
26. Even if you think he is constantly born
and constantly dying,
even then, O Arjuna, mighty in war,
you should not be distressed.
28. Invisible in its beginning is every being,
at its end invisible.
It is visible only in the middle state.
What cause for lament?
30. The Dweller in the body of each is eternal
and cannot be slain.
Therefore for no being whatever
should you be distressed.
BG V, 22
ii) For the pleasures that come from external contacts
are mere sources of distress.
They come and they go; it is not upon these
that the wise man sets store.
BG VI, 17; 23
iii) 17. He who is moderate in eating and resting,
in sleeping and waking,
who is always controlled--that man’s yoga
eliminates distress.
23. The disconnection of the connection with distress
he should know as right connection.
This yoga should be practiced with firm resolve
and a courageous heart.
BG XIII, 8
[True Knowledge]
iv) Aversion to the objects of the senses,
absence of the ego,
perception of the evils of birth and death,
age, sickness, and pain.
BG XIV, 16
v) Of work well done the fruit, so they say,
is goodness unalloyed,
while the fruit of passion is pain, and ignorance
is the fruit of dullness.
i) 25. You should not be distressed: na shocitum arhasi, you should not grieve, mourn, pain, feel sorrow.
27. Cf. § V 6.
30. Dweller in the body: dehin, the atman.
ii) Sources of distress: duhkha-yoni, womb (origin) of pain, suffering.
24-25. Cf. § V 28.
iii) 1-16. Cf. § III 32.
17. Is moderate: yukta (past passive participle of the root yuj-, to join, unite, integrate), suggesting discipline, moderation, the mature Man. The thrice-mentioned yukta leads to the yoga of the elimination of distress: duhkha-han.
18-22. Cf. § III 32.
23. Disconnection of the connection with distress: duhkha-samyoga-viyoga, the unlinking of the link with pain. This is the “right connection,” yoga. Cf. § III 32 for the context.
iv) Aversion: vairagya, renunciation, indifference. Cf. § III 31.
Absence of the ego: an-ahamkara.
Evils: dosha, defect, worthlessness.
Pain: duhkha.
v) The theory of the three gunas or fundamental human attributes is the background of this verse.
The fruit of passion is pain: rajasas tu phalam duhkham.