The King Who Had One Hour

The sages told the Pandavas of King Khatvanga, who learned that he had but a single hour left to live, and in that hour won the liberation that others seek through whole lifetimes - a tale of urgency, detachment, and the wisdom of one who wastes not a moment of the little time he is given.

Khatvanga was a great and righteous king of the solar line, a mighty warrior and a ruler of justice, renowned through the worlds. So great was his valor that the gods themselves, hard pressed in their wars against the demons, sought his aid; and the king went up to the heavens and fought on the side of the gods, and by his prowess helped them to win their battles. For his great service the gods were exceedingly pleased with him, and wished to reward him; and so they offered the king a boon, that he might ask of them whatever his heart desired.

When the gods offered King Khatvanga any boon he wished, the king did not ask for wealth, or long life, or power, or any of the things that men commonly crave. Instead, with the detachment of a truly wise ruler, he asked only one thing: to know how much of his life yet remained to him. 'Tell me, O gods,' he said, 'how long I still have to live; for that is what I most wish to know.' It was a strange boon, and it revealed the king's mind: that he cared not to extend his life or to fill it with pleasures, but only to know its measure, that he might use whatever remained of it well.

The gods answered him truthfully, and their answer was startling: that of all his life, only a single muhurta remained to him - only the briefest span, a matter of moments, the time it takes to draw a few breaths. The king who had fought for the gods and might have asked for ages of life or boundless reward had asked instead to know his time; and the time he had left was almost none at all. His whole remaining life was now to be measured not in years but in the space of a single hour.

Learning that he had but a single brief hour left to live, King Khatvanga did not fall into despair, nor lament the shortness of his remaining time, nor rush to snatch some last pleasure from the world. Instead, with the clear and resolute mind of the wise, he saw at once what such news demanded: that he must use this one short hour, the last of his life, for the one thing that truly mattered - the attaining of liberation, the freeing of his soul before death came.

The king understood, in that moment, the truth that most men forget until it is too late: that life is short and death is certain, that the time given us is precious and not to be squandered, and that the one thing worth doing with our time is to seek the highest good. He had been given the rare grace of knowing exactly how little time he had; and he resolved not to waste a moment of it. He would turn his whole heart, in this last hour, away from the world and toward the Lord, and seek in the brief span remaining the freedom that is the true goal of life. What others are given lifetimes to accomplish, he would strive to accomplish in an hour.

In that single hour, King Khatvanga renounced the whole world. At once, without hesitation or lingering, he let go of his kingdom and his wealth and his power, of his throne and his pleasures and all that he had possessed and prized; he cast off in an instant every attachment that had bound him to the world, every desire, every claim of his ego, knowing that none of it could go with him through the door of death, and that all of it was nothing beside the freedom he now sought.

The king who had ruled a great realm and fought in the wars of heaven gave it all up in a moment, his mind grown utterly detached, fixing his whole being on the Lord. He withdrew his heart from every outward thing and turned it wholly inward and upward, abandoning even the thought of himself as a king, as a doer, as a possessor of anything; and he stood, in his last hour, stripped of all attachment, his mind made one-pointed and still, ready for the final striving. So complete and so swift was his renunciation that the work which the slow renunciations of a lifetime accomplish in others, his clear and urgent detachment accomplished in the space of moments.

Having renounced all, King Khatvanga fixed his whole mind, in that last hour, upon the Lord, the supreme reality. With his attachments gone and his heart made still, he turned his undivided attention to the truth, meditating upon the Lord with a one-pointed and unwavering devotion, his whole being concentrated, in the brief time remaining, upon the highest. He sought refuge in the Lord alone, surrendering himself utterly, his mind absorbed in the divine.

And in this concentrated devotion the king found, in his single hour, what he sought. His mind, freed of all worldly attachment and fixed wholly on the Lord, grew pure and tranquil and absorbed; the last veils of ignorance and ego fell away; and he attained the knowledge of the truth, the realization of the deathless self and its union with the Lord. The liberation that he had resolved to win before death came, he won; his soul was freed even as his life ran out. So in the space of one short hour, by the power of his clear detachment and his one-pointed devotion, the king accomplished the highest goal of human life, and was ready to meet death not as a loss but as a passage into freedom.

When the single hour of his remaining life was spent, King Khatvanga met death already liberated, his soul freed, and passed beyond the round of birth and death into the highest abode. What men strive for through many lifetimes - the freeing of the soul, the attaining of the Lord - he had accomplished in the space of one short hour, because he had used that hour with perfect wisdom and wasted not a moment of it.

His attainment became a wonder and a byword among the wise: that a king, learning he had but an hour to live, had won in that hour the liberation that is the goal of all striving. It was not the length of time that mattered, the tale showed, but the use made of it; for the king's one hour, spent in complete detachment and one-pointed devotion, accomplished more than the long, distracted lives of those who fritter away their many years upon the world. He had been given the grace of knowing his time, and the wisdom to use it; and by that grace and that wisdom he had been freed. So the king who fought for the gods won, in the end, the only victory that lasts.

There was in the tale a teaching the sages pressed home: the preciousness of time, and the folly of squandering it. For most men, the sages said, live as though they would never die, putting off the seeking of the highest good to some later day that never comes, frittering away their years upon trifles and desires, and are overtaken by death with their true work undone. But Khatvanga, granted the knowledge of his short time, used every moment of it for the one thing needful, and so was saved.

The king's example, the sages taught, is a mirror for all; for in truth every one of us has but a little, uncertain time, though we do not know its measure as the king knew his. The lesson is to live as Khatvanga lived in his last hour: with clear detachment from the world, with the mind fixed on the highest, wasting not a moment, seeking the true goal of life now and not in some imagined later. For death may come at any hour, and the time we have is precious beyond all wealth; and the wise, knowing this, do not put off their true work, but use each moment as the king used his single hour, as though it were the last and the only one they had.

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

'See, first, the wisdom of the king who valued time above all wealth. Offered any boon by the gods, Khatvanga asked not for riches or long life or power, but only to know how much of his life remained; for he cared not to extend his time or fill it with pleasures, but to use it well. The tale teaches that time is the most precious of all gifts, more to be valued than wealth or power; and that the wise care not so much to lengthen their lives as to use rightly the time they have. Value your time, then, above all your possessions; for it is the one thing that, once spent, can never be regained.

'And see how much may be accomplished in even the shortest time, if it is used with perfect wisdom. Khatvanga, learning he had but an hour to live, renounced the world in an instant, fixed his mind wholly on the Lord, and attained in that single hour the liberation that others seek through many lifetimes. The tale teaches that it is not the length of time that matters but the use made of it; that death may come at any hour and our work should not be put off; and that whoever lives even a little while with clear detachment and one-pointed devotion may attain the highest goal. Waste not your time, then, on trifles and delay; but seek the highest now, as though this hour were your last, as the king sought it, and so be ready, whenever death may come.'

And the Pandavas, who lived ever in the shadow of war and death, took soberly to heart the tale of the king who won liberation in a single hour.