I am currently working on a Parmenides and the Upanishads paper focusing on the notion of being, but while I was reading the Brhadaranyake Upanisad, I noticed something: Yajnavalkya just straight up exploded some guy's head. Ah, the sinister yogis!
Ramaswami a few months ago posted on facebook an excerpt of the Brhadaranyake Upanisad. In this Upanisad, Yajnavalkya claims to be the most intelligent man (a very inverted Socrates) and a few people question him. After answering a few question he made all of them (or most of them) dumbfounded. Except for one, Vidaghda Sakalya (I am going to call him Vid, for short). Vid ask Yajnavalkya (let's call him Yaj for short), how many gods there are and Yaj answered "three and three hundred, and three and three thousand." Vid was not happy with this answer and harassed Yaj some more asking, 'but really, how many gods are there.' Yaj went down to 33. Still Vid was not happy! Yaj went down to six. This keeps going on and Yaj goes from six to three, three to two, two to one and a half, and, finally, one and a half to one. This prompted Vid to ask for Yaj's justification for each answer. Yaj answers all of these successfully, but Vid asks Yaj (after a few other questions) "who is the god of the zentih?"
Yaj: "fire"
Vid: "On what is fire founded?"
Yaj: "on speech"
Vid: "On what is speech founded?"
Yaj; "on the heart"
Vid: "On what is the heart founded?"
Yaj (in the full wraith of a yogi): "What an imbecile you are to think that it could be founded anywhere other than ourselves! If it were anywhere other than ourselves, doges would eat it, or birds would tear it up!!"
Yaj is very annoyed with Vid at this point.
Vid asks another question, "where is atman founded?"
Yaj: on the out breath.
Vid: where is this founded?
Yaj: the in-breath
Vid: where is this founded?
Y: the inter-breath
V: what is this founded?
Y: the up-breath
V: were is this founded
Yajnavalkya: "On the link-breath. About this self, one can only say, 'not x, not y'. He is Atman is ungraspable, for it cannot be grasp. It is undecay-able, for it cannot decay. Has nothing sticking to it, for it does not stick. Nothing bound, for it neither tremble in fear nor suffers injury. Now, those are the eight abodes, the eight worlds, the eight gods, and the eight persons. I ask you about that person providing the hidden connection-the one who carries off these other persons, brings them back, and rises above them? If you will not tell me that, YOUR HEAD WILL SHATTER APART."
Vid: [silence]
[Vid's head shattered apart and robbers stole his bones mistaking them for something else.]
---end---
I am not really sure what to say. Yogi's with their superpowers tend to ignore ahimsa. What did the robbers think V's piece of skull where? Why does this feel like a struggle between east and west? I cannot help but think that Y is the perfect manifestation of Vedanta, while V is Socrates (asking away all of his questions). Just like in Athens, the questioner apparently has to die. Who is this person Y is discussing? Is it him? I guess my head would explode too. I guess the moral of the story is not to got a yogi angry.
Yaj: "fire"
Vid: "On what is fire founded?"
Yaj: "on speech"
Vid: "On what is speech founded?"
Yaj; "on the heart"
Vid: "On what is the heart founded?"
Yaj (in the full wraith of a yogi): "What an imbecile you are to think that it could be founded anywhere other than ourselves! If it were anywhere other than ourselves, doges would eat it, or birds would tear it up!!"
Yaj is very annoyed with Vid at this point.
Vid asks another question, "where is atman founded?"
Yaj: on the out breath.
Vid: where is this founded?
Yaj: the in-breath
Vid: where is this founded?
Y: the inter-breath
V: what is this founded?
Y: the up-breath
V: were is this founded
Yajnavalkya: "On the link-breath. About this self, one can only say, 'not x, not y'. He is Atman is ungraspable, for it cannot be grasp. It is undecay-able, for it cannot decay. Has nothing sticking to it, for it does not stick. Nothing bound, for it neither tremble in fear nor suffers injury. Now, those are the eight abodes, the eight worlds, the eight gods, and the eight persons. I ask you about that person providing the hidden connection-the one who carries off these other persons, brings them back, and rises above them? If you will not tell me that, YOUR HEAD WILL SHATTER APART."Vid: [silence]
[Vid's head shattered apart and robbers stole his bones mistaking them for something else.]
---end---
I am not really sure what to say. Yogi's with their superpowers tend to ignore ahimsa. What did the robbers think V's piece of skull where? Why does this feel like a struggle between east and west? I cannot help but think that Y is the perfect manifestation of Vedanta, while V is Socrates (asking away all of his questions). Just like in Athens, the questioner apparently has to die. Who is this person Y is discussing? Is it him? I guess my head would explode too. I guess the moral of the story is not to got a yogi angry.
Namaste Chris.
ReplyDeleteMy view on this issue is that the falling off of Sakalya's head actually represents the falling off of the ego, and the destruction of Sakalya's pride at the hands of Sri Yajnavalkya. Indeed in images of the goddess Kali and the god Bhairava, the deities are shown holding a severed human head, representing the ego. This is done to show that Bhagwan is able to destory or cut off our ego (the head).
Sakalya’s bones which are stolen by robbers are symbolic of ignorance, for it is ignorance that supports and gives structure to the ego, just as Sakalya’s bones support and give structure to his head. These thieves then, are spiritual thieves, Eg: False teachers, and gurus interested not in giving their students salvation, but in manipulating them for power and monetary gain. Though Sakalya might be freed from pride and ignorance, many other false teachers harbor the same ignorance (mistaking it for authentic spirituality) and preach to others under its influence.
Furthermore according to Brahma Purana Sakalya was a great devotee of Vishnu, and when the Raskha Parasu was about to eat him, Sakalya explained to Parasu that his attempts to devour the sage would be fuitle, as each individual part of his body was protected by a form of Lord Vishnu. It then seems quiet odd that when he was protected from the Raksha Parasu by Lord Vishnu, that his head should literally explode after losing a debate to Yagnavalkya.
Generally speaking I don’t think my view is one that is accepted amongst the orthodox, but to me it seems absurd that a great Sage and Brahmajnani like Sri Yagnavalkya would have been overcome with anger and killed Sakalya. The Upanishads are full of metaphorical stories and phrases, so to me this symbolic meaning doesn’t seem like a farfetched idea at all, but this is just one humble man’s opinion
As a side note I’ve found a few sources on the internet that identify Sakalya with Yajnavalkya’s guru Vaisampayana. This site - http://www.shuklayajurveda.org/home.html makes this identification and says that after Yagnavalkya makes Sankalya’s head fall off, he chants the appropriate mantras and restores him to life. Whether or not this is found in some sort of Purana, or other Shastric text I could not tell you.
Also the person Yagnavalkya is refering to when he questions Sakalya is none other then Brahman or the Atman.
ReplyDeleteAtman, Thank you. The Upanishads are definitely fully of these metaphors and these metaphors are hard to understand, especially when you come at it with a western approach.
ReplyDeleteYour view sounds correct to me and thank you for the link.