The Disciple in the Field

The sages told the Pandavas of Aruni of Panchala, the disciple who lay all night in the breach of a field to hold back the water for his teacher's sake, and so won his teacher's highest blessing - a tale of the devotion a student owes his guru, and of how that devotion is the door to all knowledge.

There was a great sage and teacher named Ayoda-Dhaumya, who had a hermitage and a number of disciples whom he taught and tested in the old way, by hard service as much as by instruction. Among his disciples were three in particular whom he tried with difficult tasks, that their devotion and obedience might be proved. For in those days the bond between teacher and disciple was sacred above almost all things, and a student showed his worth not only by learning his lessons but by serving his teacher with perfect obedience and self-forgetful devotion, holding the teacher's word and the teacher's good above his own comfort and even his own safety. And the first of these disciples to be tried was a young man named Aruni, who came from the land of Panchala.

One day the teacher Dhaumya sent his disciple Aruni out to the fields on an errand. The hermitage had fields that were watered by channels, and the rains had swollen the water, and at one place the water was breaking through the embankment of a field and pouring out through a breach, so that the field would be flooded and the water lost. The teacher said to Aruni, 'Go, my son, to the field, and stop up the breach in the embankment, and hold back the water.'

Aruni went at once to the field, obedient to his teacher's command, and found the place where the water was breaking through the bank. He set about stopping the breach, trying to dam it up and hold back the water as his teacher had bidden. But try as he might, he could not close it: the water was too strong, and washed away whatever he piled into the gap; the soil and the stones he heaped up were swept aside by the current, and the breach would not hold. Again and again he tried, and again and again the water broke through, until it seemed that by no ordinary means could the breach be stopped. Yet his teacher had commanded him to stop it, and he was resolved, whatever it cost, not to fail in his task.

When Aruni found that he could not stop the breach by any of the ordinary means - that no heaping of earth or stones would hold against the water - he hit upon a desperate remedy, born of his resolve not to fail his teacher's command. He lay down himself in the breach, stretching his own body across the gap in the embankment, so that his body became the dam, holding back the water where earth and stone had failed. With his own self he stopped the breach, and the water was held.

And there Aruni lay, all through the night, stretched in the cold and the wet across the breach in the field, his body soaked and chilled by the water he was holding back, enduring the long cold hours without moving, that the field might be saved and his teacher's command fulfilled. He did not abandon his post to seek comfort or warmth; he did not give up the task as impossible; he simply lay there, hour after hour through the dark night, his own body the only dam that would hold, suffering the cold and the wet for his teacher's sake, faithful to the charge laid upon him whatever it cost his own comfort and safety.

When evening came and Aruni did not return to the hermitage, his teacher Dhaumya grew concerned, for the young man had been gone a long time. As the night wore on and still he did not come, the teacher, troubled, set out with his other disciples to search for him, going toward the fields where he had sent him, calling his name through the dark. 'Aruni! Where are you, my son?' they called, as they came to the fields, but for a while there was no answer.

At last they came to the field with the broken embankment, and the teacher called again, 'Aruni! Where are you?' And then, from the breach in the bank, came the disciple's voice, answering at last: 'Here I am, master, lying in the breach of the field, holding back the water with my body; for I could stop it no other way, and I would not fail your command.' The teacher and the disciples, hearing this, came to the place and found Aruni stretched across the gap, soaked and chilled and exhausted, his own body the dam that had held back the water all the long night, faithful to his task even at such a cost to himself.

The teacher bade Aruni rise up out of the breach, and the disciple, getting up, let the water break through again where he had held it. And as Aruni rose, soaked and chilled and weary, from the place where he had lain all night for his teacher's sake, the teacher Dhaumya was filled with joy and pride and tenderness at the devotion his disciple had shown. For here was a student who would lie all night in the cold water, making a dam of his own body, rather than fail in the smallest command of his teacher - such devotion as a teacher could only marvel at and bless.

And because Aruni had risen up from the breach, the teacher gave him a new name in honor of the deed: he called him Uddalaka, the one who rose up, or the one who broke forth from the breach. And the teacher blessed him with all his heart, declaring that because of his perfect devotion and obedience, his self-forgetful service to his teacher, he would be blessed above measure: that all the scriptures and all knowledge would shine forth in him unbidden, and that he would become a great sage, master of all the sacred lore. So the disciple's devotion, proved in the cold breach of a field, won him not only his teacher's love but the gift of all wisdom.

And the teacher's blessing came to pass. Because of his perfect devotion to his guru, Aruni - now called Uddalaka - found that all knowledge shone forth in him as the teacher had foretold: the scriptures and the sacred lore revealed themselves to him, his understanding opened, and he grew into a great sage, learned in all wisdom, honored among the knowers of truth. The devotion he had shown in the field was repaid with the gift of all knowledge, which came to him not by long and weary study alone, but as the fruit and the flower of his self-forgetful service to his teacher.

For this, the tale says, is the deep truth of the bond between teacher and disciple: that the knowledge a teacher has to give passes most fully to the disciple who serves him with perfect devotion and obedience; that such devotion is itself the door through which wisdom enters; and that the student who gives himself wholly to his teacher, holding the teacher's word above his own comfort, receives in return not only learning but the very illumination of the spirit. Aruni had made a dam of his own body for his teacher's sake; and his teacher had opened to him, in return, the whole treasury of wisdom. So the disciple who served became the sage who knew.

There was in the tale a teaching about the devotion that a student owes to his teacher, and about service as the path to knowledge. For Aruni had shown a devotion that held nothing back: he had endured cold and wet and a whole night's suffering, had made a dam of his own body, rather than fail in the smallest command of his guru; and this devotion, far from being a mere hardship, was the very thing that won him all wisdom. The tale teaches that the bond between teacher and disciple is sacred, and that the disciple's part is to serve his teacher with perfect devotion and obedience, holding the teacher's word and good above his own comfort and even his own safety.

And it teaches that such devotion is not blind servility but the door to the highest knowledge: that the student who gives himself wholly to a worthy teacher, in trust and humility and self-forgetful service, opens himself to receive what the teacher has to give, not only in learning but in the deeper illumination that learning alone cannot bestow. The knowledge passes through the channel of devotion; the humble and devoted heart is the vessel that wisdom fills. So the tale holds up Aruni as the model of the true disciple, whose service in the cold breach of a field became the foundation of his greatness as a sage, and whose devotion to his teacher was the beginning of all his wisdom.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

'See, first, the devotion that a student owes his teacher. Aruni, commanded to stop the breach in a field, could not do it by any ordinary means, and so lay down with his own body in the gap and held back the water all the cold night long, rather than fail in his teacher's command. The tale teaches that the bond between teacher and disciple is sacred, and that the true disciple serves his teacher with a perfect devotion and obedience that holds the teacher's word above his own comfort and even his own safety. Such devotion is the mark of the worthy student, and the foundation of all he will become.

'And see how such devotion is itself the door to knowledge. For his self-forgetful service, Aruni was blessed by his teacher with the gift of all wisdom, so that the scriptures shone forth in him unbidden and he became a great sage. The tale teaches that the highest knowledge passes most fully to the disciple who serves with devotion; that humble and self-forgetful service is the channel through which wisdom flows; and that the devoted heart is the vessel that learning fills. Serve, then, what is worthy with a whole heart - your teachers, your duty, the truth itself - holding it above your own comfort; for in such devoted service is not only virtue but the very door of wisdom, as the cold breach of a field became, for Aruni, the threshold of his greatness.'

And the Pandavas, who had been disciples themselves and knew the worth of a devoted heart, took to heart the tale of the disciple who made a dam of his own body for his teacher's sake.