The Sage Whose Blood Was Sap

The sages told the Pandavas of the sage Mankanaka, whose body had become so purified by penance that vegetable sap flowed in his veins in place of blood - and how, when pride at this marvel made him dance with joy, the great Lord Shiva humbled him with a single quiet sign. It is a tale of the subtle pride that can creep even into the holiest of souls, and of the cure for it.

Mankanaka was a sage of immense austerity, who had practiced penance for so long and so fiercely that his body had been wholly transmuted by it. His flesh had become as pure as the elements themselves; the gross blood of an ordinary man no longer ran in him, but something finer. He dwelt by a sacred ford on a holy river, absorbed in his devotions, a being of great power and great purity, honored by all who knew of him; and he had grown, perhaps without quite knowing it, conscious of his own greatness.

One day, as Mankanaka went about by the river, his hand was pricked or cut - some say by the sharp tip of a blade of kusha grass, some say his hand was wounded by a thorn or a point. And when the sage looked at the wound, expecting to see blood well up as it would from any man, he saw instead a marvel: there flowed from the cut not red blood, but a clear sap, the juice of vegetables and herbs, pure and watery, like the sap that runs in a green plant.

For his long and fierce penance had so purified and transmuted his body that the very blood in his veins had been changed; the grossness of ordinary flesh had been refined away, until what ran in him was no longer blood but the pure sap of plants - a visible sign of how far his austerities had carried him beyond the common nature of men. The sage gazed at the clear sap flowing from his wounded hand, and was filled with wonder and delight at this proof of his own attainment.

At the sight of the vegetable sap flowing from his hand in place of blood, Mankanaka was overcome with exultation. Here was proof, plain before his eyes, of the greatness of his penance, of how utterly he had purified himself, of how far above ordinary mortals his austerities had raised him. And in the rush of this exultation, his joy turned to pride, and his pride overflowed into action: the sage began to dance.

Filled with delight at his own attainment, Mankanaka danced for joy by the river, leaping and whirling in his exultation. And so great and so powerful was he, so charged with the force of his accumulated penance, that as he danced the whole world began to dance with him - the earth and the mountains and the trees, all things animate and inanimate, caught up and set trembling and swaying by the overflowing power of the dancing sage, until the very order of the world was shaken by his exultant pride. His joy at his own greatness had grown until it threatened the steadiness of creation itself.

As Mankanaka danced and the whole world danced with him, the gods and the sages grew alarmed; for the trembling of the earth and the mountains threatened the stability of all things, and none could tell where it would end if the sage's exultant dance went on. The cosmos itself seemed to totter with his pride. So the gods went to the great Lord Shiva, the master of all penance and the lord of the dance, and begged him to do something, that the sage might be quieted and the world set at rest.

For it was Shiva above all who could deal with such a thing - Shiva, the supreme ascetic, beside whose penance even Mankanaka's was as nothing, and Shiva, the lord of the cosmic dance, who knew the dance of pride for what it was. The gods entreated him to go to the sage and restrain his exultation, lest the dancing of the proud Mankanaka shake the world to pieces. And Shiva, out of his grace, agreed to go - not to crush the sage, but to cure him of the pride that had seized him, with a single quiet gesture.

The great Lord Shiva came to the dancing sage, taking the form of a brahmana, and spoke to him gently, as if in simple curiosity. 'Revered one,' he said, 'why do you dance so, with such great joy? What is it that has filled you with such delight?'

And Mankanaka, full of his exultation, answered proudly, pointing to his wounded hand: 'Do you not see, O brahmana? Look - from this cut in my hand there flows not blood, but the pure sap of plants. See by this how great is my penance, how utterly I have purified myself, how far my austerities have raised me above the nature of common men. Is this not a marvel? Is this not cause for joy and for dancing?' He spoke as one certain that the stranger must be amazed at so great a sign of his attainment, and must surely share his wonder at the greatness it proclaimed. He had no notion of who stood before him, nor of the gentle humbling that was about to come.

Shiva smiled at the proud sage and said quietly, 'Why be so amazed at a little sap? I, O sage, am not moved to dance by such things.' And then, to show him a far greater marvel without a word of boasting, the Lord pressed the tip of his own thumb with a fingernail - and from the place he pressed there fell, not blood, and not even sap, but pure white ashes, fine and bright as snow.

Mankanaka stared. From the thumb of this quiet stranger had come ash, the very substance of utter purity, the sign of a being who had burned away not only the grossness of the blood, as Mankanaka had, but all the dross of existence itself, down to ash. Here was a purity and a power immeasurably beyond his own, shown without a single proud word, in answer to his boasting. And in that moment the sage's exultation drained away, and his dancing stopped, and he understood. The marvel he had been so proud of, that had set him dancing till the world shook, was as nothing beside the calm and wordless attainment of the one who stood before him.

Mankanaka's pride was broken, and his joy turned to shame and then to reverence. He understood now that the brahmana before him was no ordinary man but a being of immeasurable greatness - and looking more closely, with the eyes of his chastened spirit, he knew at last that this was the great Lord Shiva himself, the master of all penance, who had come to him. He fell at the Lord's feet in worship, ashamed of the pride that had set him dancing, and asked forgiveness for his vain exultation.

The sage saw plainly now the foolishness of what he had done: how, for a little sign of his attainment - sap in place of blood - he had let pride seize him until he danced and shook the very world; and how that pride had vanished in an instant before the calm and far greater power of the Lord, who had needed only to press his thumb. His self-satisfaction was cured; he knew now that however great his penance, there was always a greatness beyond it, and that to be proud of any attainment was to fall, in that very pride, from the height one had climbed. Shiva, well pleased that the sage had learned the lesson, blessed him and granted him boons before departing.

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

'See, first, the subtle danger of spiritual pride, which can creep even into the holiest of souls. Mankanaka had purified himself by penance until pure sap ran in his veins in place of blood - a marvel of attainment; and yet at the very sight of his own greatness, pride seized him, and he danced until the world shook with his exultation. The tale teaches that the higher one climbs, the subtler and the more dangerous the temptation to be proud of the climbing; and that pride in one's own holiness or attainment is itself a fall, that can undo in a moment the fruit of long austerity. Watch most carefully, then, for the pride that hides inside virtue itself.

'And see the gentle cure, and the truth that there is always a greatness beyond our own. Shiva did not crush the proud sage, but humbled him with a single quiet sign - ash from his thumb where the sage had sap in his veins - showing without a boastful word a purity far beyond Mankanaka's, and so curing his pride by simple comparison. However great our attainment, there is always a greater; and the remedy for pride is to remember this, and to grow humble before the boundless. Be humble, then, in all your virtue and all your attainment; for the moment you are proud of it, you have begun to lose it.'

And the Pandavas took to heart the tale of the sage whose pride in his own holiness was cured by a touch of the Lord's thumb.