The Mahabharata - Supatha Articles

The Mahabharatha – Its Meaning and Relevance Today

Part VI - Encounters with Yama, God of Death

 

1.  Introduction

Asatoma Sadgamaya

Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya

Mrutyorma Amrutamgamaya

“Lead us from unreality to reality, from darkness to light and from death to immortality” – is the well-known prayer from Upanishads. Every human being is aware of death, its inevitability and is afraid of it. He is afraid of thinking about his own death and is distressed by the death of his near and dear ones. The sacred literature of Sanatana Dharma has provided us with enormous literature dealing with the nature of death and the concept of immortality in the name of Atma Vidya.

We have observed that the Mahabharatha dealt broadly with the issues of Dharma and Karma affecting human lives. God of Dharma, who is also God of death, Dharmaraja-Yama, is an important player in the drama. King Yudhistira’s standing epithet is Dharmaraja and he is uniformly described as the son of Dharma (as Dharmasuta). Vidura is also an incarnation of God of Dhrama born in human form due to the curse of sage Mandavya. God of Dharma appears before Yudhistira as a Yaksha in the Yaksha Prasna episode in Aranya Parva and again as the faithful dog accompanying Yudhistira in the last great journey of the Pandavas after renouncing the world in the Swargarohana Parva.

            The notion of conquering death is an important and recurring theme in the sacred literature of India and is echoed in the Mahabharatha. Lord Siva, is called Maha Kala which denotes the TIME, which dissolves every thing that is created. He is called Mrutyunjaya and is invoked in the Maha-Mrutyunjaya Mantra, (Tryambakam yaja mahe …), where the prayer is to release the jiva from the bondage of death. There are several stories in Vedic literature about conquest of death. Markandeya conquers his imminent death, with the grace of Siva. In Aranya Parva, Sage Markandeya narrates the legend of Rama and his sojourn in the forests for fourteen long years with his wife Sita and his younger brother, Lakshmana to Yudhistira. He also recounts the story of Savitri, who brought back her dead husband Satyavan to life by following Yama and impressing him with her devotion to her husband. Bhishma received a boon from his father, Santanu that he can choose the moment of his death. This has to be interpreted as a Yoga Vidya, known to Santanu passed on to his son Bhishma. Krishna brought back to life the child in the womb of Uttara, wife of Abhimanyu, when Aswatthama sent a divine weapon (astra) for destroying the Pandava race. This child is Parikshit, who became the king of Hastinapura when Pandavas started on their final journey (mahaprasthana). It is noted in the Bhagavata Purana, Krishna has got back the dead son of his Guru, Sandipani from another world. All these incidents show that while death is natural, it is possible to conquer it in some sense. 

2. Questions and Answers on Death

            God of Dharma, confronts Yudhistira as a Yaksha guarding a lake in Dvaitavana, a forest where Pandavas were staying after they lost the game of dice. The other Pandavas, while searching for the arni (an implement for making sacrificial fire) of a brahmin, had drunk waters of the lake and died instantly. They could not answer the questions of the Yaksha. One of the questions of the Yaksha is as follows: “Kim Ascharyam?” (What is a great surprise?) The answer of Yudhistira deals with the nature of death and the common human attitude towards the same: “Every day several people die and go to the abode of Yama. Even after seeing this, those living desire to stay here forever. What is more surprising than this?” In reply to another question, Yudhistira says, that Time (as Kala) is cooking jivas in a vessel, called attachment (Maha Moha), stirring them with tools such as months and seasons, with days and nights as fuel and the mighty sun as fire. This is the great news of earth.

            In Udyoga Parva there is another episode dealing with Atma Vidya or Brahma Vidya. Here Vidura was instrumental in bringing Sanatsujata, who was a divine sage, to Dhritarashtra to clarify some of the blind king’s doubts. The king was worried about the outcome of the inevitable war and the possibility of the death of his sons at the hands of Pandavas. Vidura said that the sage Sanatsujata holds the view that there was no death in reality. When Vidura was asked to clarify his statement, he invoked the presence of the great sage. The great sage materialized in their presence and Dhritarashtra asked the following question: “You are said to hold the view that there is no death. I also heard that Devas and Danavas adopt Brahmacharya as a means of attaining the state of immortality. Please teach me the underlying secret.” Sanatsujata then expounds his teaching on Atma Vidya. Knowledge regarding death is an essential component of this education. Let us briefly reproduce his discourse:

            Some people seem to hold the view “Lack of true knowledge (ignorance, ajnana) is death. The question of bondage and annihilation of Karma arise because of this ignorance. Another name for this ignorance is Moha. If the true nature of Atma is known, then there is no death.  This death is personified by the divine being Yama. Yama is also part of the ultimate reality. Yama, therefore, is truth and death is an illusion caused by the ignorance of the true knowledge. Yama is part of Atma. For jivas who have true knowledge, Yama is Guru, part of the Almighty, and the custodian of the true knowledge regarding death. Jivas steeped in ignorance are afraid of him. They are obliged to pass through his loka to be judged by Yama and to return to this earth periodically in the eternal cycle of births and deaths depending on their good and bad Karma.

           

In a story of Anusasanika Parva of the Mahabharata regarding the death of Gautami’s son, who died because of snakebite, God of Death argued that the boy had untimely death because of his bad Karma and he was instructed by Kala (TIME) to take away the life of the boy. Gautami accepted the law of Karma and its consequence.

In Kathopanishad, living beings are compared with the crop that grows. After it grows, it is harvested and consumed by the growers. Some seeds are planted again to grow the crop in the next season. Similarly, Yama is said to consume the beings and they are reborn. Thus most of the people remain in the cycle of birth and death. Nachiketas goes to Yama, by the power of his father’s words and learns from him the science dealing with the mystery of death and the vidya of conquering death from Yama. This knowledge is brought back to earth by Nachiketas as a great service to mankind. This is the Yogic interpretation of this Upanishad. In this essay, we explore the legend of Savitri in a similar light.

            Among modern saints, Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) of Tiruvannamalai, experienced the feeling of death in his childhood and in that state, he was able to see his own SELF (soul or atman) separate from his body. He used to say that the soul carries the body and that the body is not carrying the soul. Ramana was only practically experiencing the teaching of the Mahabharatha and earlier scriptural statements on Atma Vidya.  In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says “Never is this (self) born, nor it dies. It never came into being and again ceases to be. It is unborn, eternal, non-decaying and ever lasting. As a man casting off old worn-out garments takes new ones, so the embodied self having cast off an old body takes a new one.”  The Mahabharatha emphasizes the reality of the cycle of birth and deaths and the liberation from this cycle to perceive the truth of one’s atma being part and parcel of the ultimate reality (Paramatma), through several discussions and narration of legends.

3. Savitri’s Encounter with Yama

            Sage Markandeya narrates the story of Savitri to Yudhistira in Aranya Parva. There was once a king by name Aswapati. He had no issues. He went to forest and performed penance for eighteen long years, at the end of which the Divine Mother Gayatri appeared before him and gave him a boon that he would be blessed with a daughter, who would be her incarnation. Aswapati was blessed with a daughter soon and he gratefully named her Savitri (another name of the Divine Mother). The girl came to marriageable age in due course. She had chosen Satyavan, a prince in exile, son of a blind king Dyumatsena, who was driven out of his kingdom by some enemies as her prospective groom. And when she reports her choice to her father, Sage Narada who was present there advised her not to choose Satyavan, as he was fated to die in twelve months. She refused to follow Narada’s advice and married Satyavan. She was staying with her in-laws and husband in the forest and was practising religious activities such as fasting, prayers etc. The fated day arrived and that day Savitri accompanied her husband to the forest.

            Satyavan complained of severe headache and lied down. Savitri could see Yama, the God of Death coming and taking the jiva of Satyavan. Savitri followed Yama, after preserving the dead body of Satyavan nearby. Savitri engaged Yama in conversation and obtained several boons from Yama, one of which was bringing back Satyavan to life. Traditionally, this story has often been narrated in India in the context of great ladies of India of the yore, who were well known for their chastity and power derived from that virtue such as Sita and Anasuya.

            Several questions arise for a critical reader in this legend, as in the story of Nachiketas. How did she see Yama? How did she follow Yama? When Yama took only the jiva of Satyavan leaving the dead body behind, how could Savitri follow Yama in her physical body? Why did Yama oblige Savitri’s request and not state the law of Karma as in Gautami’s case? Why was Yama reluctant to admit Savitri in his loka? How Nachiketas of Kathopanishad could go to Yamaloka and returned alive?  These are all extremely pertinent questions and an answer can only be given in terms of Yoga-Vidya associated with the process of conquering death. Savitri has to be interpreted as a great Yogini. The powers a Yogi can acquire are documented in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. It has to be imagined that Savitri could follow Yama as a Yogi’s jiva, while her physical body remained in the forest as in the well-known vidya of para kaya pravesa.  Yama had to say that only the souls after they leave the body due to death could enter his loka. The result achieved by Savitri is the power of her Tapas through the path of Yoga.

4. Savitri – Epic of Sri Aurobindo

            Savitri, the epic poem of Sri Aurobindo may truly be described as his Magnum Opus. He worked on it for over fifty years from different levels of Yogic consciousness, which he scaled in his long Tapas, his spiritual odyssey. When Aurobindo was reflecting over the story of Savitri from the Mahabharatha and Puranas, he was struck by some truth looming behind this simple story. He saw Satyavan, as one who carries the truth. (satyam vahati iti.) Satyavan, the man carrying the divine soul has descended into the kingdom of death. Savitri, his saviour, is the daughter of Savitr, the Creator Himself. She is the divine grace (anugraha) in human form. Her father Aswapati represents the lord of spiritual power. Blind king, Dyumatsena represents the light of jnana, masked by the cover of ignorance. Aurobindo calls the story a legend and a symbol: a legend about some event that had taken place in remote past and a symbol of what is going on and going to be.

            How did Savitri come to be born? In Aurobindo’s words,

                        A world’s desire compelled her mortal birth

Her father Aswapati was not born by his past Karma. He is:

                        A colonist from immortality

                        Affiliated to cosmic Space and Time

                        And paying here God’s debt to earth and man.

After Yama takes over the soul of Satyavan from his mortal body, a unique procession commences: the soul of Satyavan, the God of Death followed by Savitri, in a path way beyond the earth. The debate between Yama and Savitri is one of the highlights of the epic. Yama tries to convince her that all is transient and there is no truth in life and all ends in death. Savitri exposes the fallacies in his arguments. Yama asks her to show her real power:

                        Reveal thy power, lay bare thy spirit’s force

                        Then will I give back to thee Satyavan

                        Or if the Mighty Mother is with thee

                        Show me her face that I worship her.

Then Yama sees Goddess Gayatri in her. Savitri gets back Satyavan’s life. She returns charged with the task of the transformation of earth-life.

                        The frontiers of the ignorance shall recede

                        This earthly life becomes the life divine.

5. The Mahabharatha: The Metaphysical plane

As Aurobindo observes in his Essays on the Gita, that every classic such as the Mahabharatha has two elements. One is purely temporal and local reflecting the customs, beliefs and practices of a bygone era. The other component relates to something perennial, something fundamental and something of eternal relevance to mankind. Of late, it has become a fashion of some critics who call themselves social scientists to criticize these ancient texts such as the Mahabharatha and the Ramayana by misinterpreting certain episodes of first kind with the situation of today with ulterior motives. Their aim, basically, is to attack and destroy the foundations of Indian culture and the eternal values embodied in these epics. The episode of Ekalavya, which probably happened five thousand years ago is interpreted as an act of exploitation of an archer belonging to a Scheduled Tribe (as defined by today’s Indian Constitution), by Drona, a Brahmana, who was the Guru of Kaurava and Pandava princes. They do not realize that their argument is analogous to comparing the episode of Monica Lewinsky, a junior employee of White House as an exploitation of Bill Clinton, a White Protestant Christian and a member of the Southern Baptist Church, then holding the office of the President of USA.  The mention of the epithets does not automatically transfer the responsibility of the act to an organization or a religious cult under consideration. Of course, the incident might partly reflect the value systems of societies at different points of time. The understanding of death is of eternal relevance to mankind.

            The story of the Mahabharatha centres round the great war between cousins, which ended in destroying the kings and armies of most of the kingdoms of Bharatha Varsha, who participated in the war. Behind the mind boggling drama spanning over several generations lies an ever-relevant scenario and the epic poets do not let us watch the performance merely as spectators from the front rows of the auditorium. They lead us behind the scenes, so to say, introducing the actors who don the roles. The war is a re-enactment of the war between Devas, the forces of light and goodness and Asuras, the forces of darkness and evil. It is also important to realise that Indian philosophy does not admit a Satan or Devil standing as an ultimate irreconcilable enemy of God. Good and Evil are transient complementary forces acting on the jiva in his continuous journey through the cycle of births and deaths.

            Both in the Bhagavad Gita and the rest of the Mahabharatha, the Atma Vidya and the path of Yoga are emphasized. Krishna is Yogiswara. He advises Arjuna to be a Yogi. To understand this Yoga, we must go back to the Upanishads. To visualize the heavens and the worlds of light, on the one hand and the nether worlds such as Patala, we must understand Vedic Cosmology together with the concept of Brahmanda.  The ancient seers of India had performed the miracle of translating the heavens and gods into the Seeker’s own body and the ultimate reality into the cave of his heart as seen from this verse of Kathopanishad:

           

            Tam durdarsam gudham anupravistam

            Guhahitam gahvareshtam puranam

            Adhyatmayogadhigamena devam

            Matva dhiro harshasokau jahati.

The atma is invisible to the eye. It is in a place, which is inaccessible. It is hidden in the cave of the heart. It is eternal being in existence long before the birth of your body, even before the birth of the earth and the moon. The people who can acquire the truth through Yoga practice can conquer pleasure and pain. We expand on this theme in the subsequent sections.

References

1.      M. P. Pandit, Introducing Savitri, 1982, Dipti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 605 002

2.      Sri Aurobindo, Savitri – A Legend and a Symbol, 1970, Third Edition,  Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 605 002

3.      K. Sivananda Murti, Katha Yoga – Lectures on Kathopanishad, (To appear)