The Mysteries of Religion, Part One

Vaishampayana, telling the whole of it over again to Janamejaya long afterwards, said that the king put his question that morning like a man asking after a stranger rather than after himself.

"Tell me, O grandsire," Yudhishthira said, "how a poor man, desirous of achieving his own good, should bear himself after having acquired the status of humanity and come into this region of acts that is so difficult to attain. Tell me also what is the best of all gifts, and what should be given under what circumstances. It behoveth thee to discourse to us on these mysteries."

Bhishma lay on the arrows and did not answer out of his own authority.

"Listen to me with concentrated attention, O king, as I explain to thee these mysteries appertaining to duties, after the same manner in which the holy Vyasa had explained them to me in days of yore. This subject is a mystery to the very deities."

That is the frame, and it should be held onto, because everything that follows is a report of a conversation nobody living heard. Yama himself had not been born knowing these things. Yama of stainless deeds acquired the knowledge of them with the aid of vows well observed and of Yoga meditation, as the high fruits of his penances. What pleases what deity; what pleases the Pitris, the Rishis, the Pramathas who attend on Mahadeva, the goddess Sri, Chitragupta who keeps Yama's accounts, and the mighty Elephants that stand at the cardinal points of the compass; the merits of the great gifts, and the merits attaching to all sacrifices. He who knows these, said Bhishma, and knowing acts according to his knowledge, becomes freed from stains if he has stains.

Then he answered the second half of the king's question before the first, and he answered it from the wrong end. Before telling a poor man what to give, he told him whose gifts he must never take.

"Equal to ten butchers is one oilman. Equal to ten oilmen is one drinker of alcohol. Equal to ten drinkers of alcohol is one courtezan. Equal to ten courtezans is a single territorial chief. And a great king is said to be equal to half of all these together."

Ten thousand butchers, then, and half as much again, and that is a crowned head. Hence, said Bhishma, one should not accept gifts from these.

Wealth and Pleasure are naturally attractive, Bhishma said, and need no advocate. Religion has to be listened to on purpose. So a man should sit down with concentrated attention and hear the sacred expositions of it, for the fruits are very great of listening to the mysteries of Religion, and in those expositions is contained the ritual of the Sraddha, in which the mysteries connected with the Pitris have been declared.

Then he told the king where that ritual came from.

Once on a time a celestial messenger came to the court of Indra of his own accord, and remained invisible in it, and out of the middle of that invisibility he addressed the chief of the deities.

"At the command of those two deities who are the foremost of all physicians, I have come to this place where I behold human beings and Pitris and the deities assembled together. Why, indeed, is sexual congress interdicted for the man who performs a Sraddha, and for him also who eats at a Sraddha? Why are three rice-balls offered separately at a Sraddha? Unto whom should the first of those balls be offered? Unto whom the second? And whose has it been said is the third or remaining one? I desire to know all this."

The deities seated towards the east applauded that ranger of the sky, and the Pitris themselves took the question.

"Welcome art thou, and blessings upon thee. The question thou hast asked is a high one and fraught with deep meaning. The Pitris of that man who indulges in sexual congress on the day he performs a Sraddha, or eats at a Sraddha, have to lie for the period of a whole month on his vital seed."

That is not a reason about purity in the abstract. It is a picture of the dead made to lie somewhere filthy for thirty days on account of an hour of a living man's appetite.

"As regards the classification of the rice-balls, we shall explain what should be done with them one after another. The first rice-ball should be conceived as thrown into the waters. The second ball should be given to one of the wives to eat. The third ball should be cast into the blazing fire. Even this is the ordinance that has been declared in respect of the Sraddha. The Pitris of that man who acts according to this ordinance become gratified with him and remain always cheerful. The progeny of such a man increases, and inexhaustible wealth always remains at his command."

The messenger had been given the rule. He came back at once for the reason behind the rule, and his second question is the better one.

"Whom does that rice-ball which is consigned to the waters reach? How does it, by being so consigned, gratify the deities, and how does it rescue the Pitris? The second ball is eaten by the spouse. How do the Pitris of that man become the eaters thereof? The last ball goes into the blazing fire. How does that ball succeed in finding its way to thee, or who is he unto whom it goes?"

"Great is this question which thou hast asked," the Pitris said. "It involves a mystery and is fraught with wonder. The very deities and the Munis applaud acts done in honour of the Pitris. Even they do not know what the certain conclusions are of the ordinances in respect of those acts."

Then they named the single exception, and there is only one. Excepting the high-souled and immortal Markandeya, that learned Brahmana of great fame who is ever devoted to the Pitris, none among them is conversant with these mysteries.

Bhishma, on the arrows, said he had the answer from Vyasa, and gave it in three sentences.

The rice-ball that goes into water gratifies the deity of the moon, and that deity, thus gratified, gratifies in return the other deities and the Pitris along with them. The second ball is eaten by the wife of the man performing the rite, and the Pitris, who are ever desirous of progeny, confer children on the woman of the house. With the third ball, cast into the blazing fire, the Pitris are themselves gratified, and as the result thereof they grant the fruition of all wishes unto the person offering it.

One ball buys the moon's goodwill, one buys a child, one buys whatever the man happens to want.

There is a further consequence, and it falls on the priest. That Brahmana who becomes the Ritwik at a Sraddha constitutes himself, by that very act, the Pitri of the person performing it. Hence he too should abstain that day from intercourse with even his own wedded wife. And the Brahmana invited to eat the offerings should eat them after purifying himself by a bath, and bear himself piously for that day by abstaining from every kind of injury or evil. The progeny of such a person multiply, and he also who feeds him reaps the same reward.

When the Pitris had finished, a Rishi of austere penances named Vidyutprabha, whose form shone with splendour like that of the sun, stood up in the assembly. He had listened to a long discourse about ancestors and offerings, and the thing that troubled him was lower to the ground than any of it.

"Stupefied by folly, men slay numerous creatures born in the intermediate orders, such as worms and ants and snakes and sheep and deer and birds. Heavy is the measure of sin they incur by these acts. What, however, is the remedy?"

He was not asking about murder. He was asking about the killing a man does by walking about, by ploughing, by lighting a fire, by living at all, and about which he can neither be innocent nor stop. All the gods, and the Rishis endued with wealth of penances, and the highly blessed Pitris applauded him for it, and Sakra answered.

"Thinking in one's mind of Kurukshetra and Gaya and Ganga and Prabhasa and the lakes of Pushkara, one should dip one's head in water. By so doing one becomes cleansed of all one's sins, like Chandramas freed from Rahu."

Five sacred waters, and not one of them needed in the flesh. The man holds them in his mind and puts his head under whatever water he has. He should bathe in this way for three days in succession, and fast on each of those days. Besides this, he should touch, after bathing, the back of a cow, and bow his head to her tail.

Then Vidyutprabha, who had asked the question, offered two rites of his own to the god he had asked it of.

"I shall declare a rite that is more subtle. Rubbed with the astringent powder of the hanging roots of the banian, and anointed with the oil of Priyangu, one should eat the Shashtika paddy mixed with milk. By so doing one becomes cleansed of all one's sins. Listen now to another mystery unknown to many, which was discovered by the Rishis with the aid of meditation. I heard it from Brihaspati while he recited it in the presence of Mahadeva. If a person, ascending a mountain, stands there on one foot, with arms upraised and joined together, and abstaining from food looks at a blazing fire, he acquires the merits of severe penances and obtains the rewards that attach to fasts. Heated by the rays of the sun, he becomes cleansed of all his sins. One who acts in this way in both the summer and the winter seasons blazes with energy like the Sun, or shines in beauty like the Moon."

The chief of the deities, he of a hundred sacrifices, sat in the midst of the gods and turned to his own preceptor.

"O holy one, do thou duly discourse on what those mysteries of religion are that are fraught with happiness to human beings, and what the faults are which they commit, together with the mysteries that attach to them."

Brihaspati named four faults, and every one of them is a small piece of ordinary rudeness that no man would think of as a sin at all.

"They who pass urine facing the sun; they who do not show reverence for the wind; they who do not pour libations on the blazing fire; they who milk a cow whose calf is very young, moved by the desire of obtaining from her as much milk as possible. These commit sins."

Then he gave the reason, and the reason is the whole of his teaching. The Sun, the Wind, the bearer of sacrificial oblations, and kine who are the mothers of all creatures, were created by the Self-born himself for rescuing all the worlds. These four are the deities of human beings. They are the light a man wakes in, the air he breathes, the fire on his hearth and the animal in his yard, and the offence in each case is that he treats what keeps him alive as though it could not notice him.

"Listen all of ye to the conclusions of religion. Those wicked men and wicked women who pass urine facing the sun live in great infamy for six and eighty years. That man who cherishes no reverence for the wind gets children that fall away prematurely from the womb of his spouse. Those men who do not pour libations on the blazing fire find that the fire, when they do ignite it for such rites as they wish to perform, refuses to eat their libations. Those men who drink the milk of kine whose calves are very young never get children for perpetuating their races. Such men see their children die, and their races shrink."

Each punishment is cut to the shape of the offence. Insult the sun in the open, and the world knows your name for eighty-six years. Slight the wind, and the breath goes out of what is in the womb. Neglect the fire, and it will not eat from your hand on the day you want something of it. Take the calf's milk, and bury your own children.

"Hence one should always avoid that which has been interdicted, and do only that which has been directed to be done. This that I say unto thee is very true."

After the preceptor had finished, the highly blessed deities, with the Maruts, and the highly blessed Rishis put a question to the Pitris, and it was the practical one the whole assembly had been circling.

"Ye Pitris, at what acts of human beings, who are generally endued with little understanding, do ye become gratified? What gifts become inexhaustible in respect of their efficacy? By performing what acts can men become freed from the debt they owe to the Pitris? Great is the curiosity we feel."

The answer was three items long.

"Bulls endued with blue complexion should be set free. Gifts should be made to us, on the day of the new moon, of sesame seeds and water. In the season of rains, lamps should be lighted. By these acts men can free themselves from the debt they owe to the Pitris. Such gifts never become vain. Those men who, endued with faith, beget offspring, rescue their deceased ancestors from miserable Hell."

At this, Vriddha-Gargya, an aged rishi possessed of wealth of penances and high energy, was so filled with wonder that the hair on his body stood erect, and he asked the question that turns a rule into a mystery.

"Tell us what the merits are that attach to the setting free of bulls endued with blue complexion. What merits, again, attach to the gift of lamps in the season of rains, and to the gift of water with sesame seeds?"

"If a bull of blue complexion, upon being set free, raises a small quantity of water with its tail," the Pitris said, "the Pitris of the person that has set that bull free become gratified with that water for full sixty thousand years. The mud such a bull raises with its horns from the banks of a river or lake succeeds, without doubt, in sending them to the region of Soma."

An animal turned loose flicks its tail in a puddle, and the wet on it feeds the dead for sixty thousand years. The man who freed it is not there and does not see it happen.

"By giving lamps in the season of rains, one shines with effulgence like Soma himself, and the man who gives lamps is never subject to the attribute of Darkness. Those men who make gifts, on the day of the new moon, of sesame seeds and water mixed with honey, using a vessel of copper, are regarded as duly performing a Sraddha with all its mysteries. These men get children of sound health and cheerful minds. The merit acquired by the giver of the Pinda takes the form of the growth of his race."

When the Pitris had ceased to speak, Indra addressed the puissant Hari.

"O Lord, what are those acts by which thou becomest gratified? How, indeed, do men succeed in gratifying thee?"

"That which I greatly hate is the detraction of Brahmanas," Vishnu said. "Without doubt, if the Brahmanas are worshipped, I regard myself worshipped. All superior Brahmanas should always be saluted with reverence, after feeding them with hospitality. One should reverence one's own feet also in the evening. I am gratified with men who act in this way, as also with those who worship and make offerings to the whirl that is noticeable on cowdung when it first drops from the cow. They who behold a Brahmana that is a dwarf in stature, or a boar that has just risen from water and that bears on his head a quantity of mud taken up from the bank, have never to meet with any evil. That man who worships every day the Aswattha and the substance called Gorochana and the cow is regarded as worshipping the whole universe with the deities and Asuras and human beings. Verily, staying within these, I accept, in my own form, the worship that is offered to them. Those men of little understanding that worship me in a different way worship me in vain."

Indra objected, and his objection is the one a modern reader would make.

"Why dost thou applaud the circular marks on cowdung, the feet, the boar, the Brahmana that is a dwarf in stature, and mud raised up from the soil? It is thou who createst and it is thou who destroyest them. Thou art the eternal nature of all mortal or transitory things."

Vishnu smiled a little, and answered by listing his own history.

"It was with my circular disc that the Daityas were slain. It was with my two feet that the world was covered. Assuming the form of a boar I slew Hiranyaksha. Assuming the form of a dwarf I conquered the Asura king Vali. Those high-souled men who worship these gratify me, and they never meet with discomfiture."

That is the whole of the argument. The whirl on the fresh cowdung is his discus. The feet a man salutes at nightfall are the two strides that measured the worlds. The pig coming up out of the river with mud on its head is the boar that lifted the earth. The short Brahmana at the door is the dwarf who took the universe from Vali. Nothing here has been made holy by decree. The god has told Indra where in the ordinary yard his own deeds are still lying about, and asked to be greeted there.

Vishnu added two acts. If a Brahmana leading the Brahmacharya mode of life arrives at one's house, and one offers him the first portion of one's food, which belongs to a Brahmana as of right, and eats what remains, one is regarded as eating Amrita. And if one, after adoring the morning twilight, stands facing the sun, one reaps the merit of ablutions in all tirthas.

Then the speakers came quickly, each with one thing.

Balarama gave the rite of the first waking moment. That man who, rising at early dawn, touches a cow, ghee and curds, as also mustard seeds and the larger variety called Priyangu, becomes cleansed of all sins.

The deities together gave the vessel. If a person, taking a vessel of copper, filling it with water and facing the east, resolves upon a fast or a vow, they become gratified with him and all his wishes are crowned with success. By observing fasts in any other way, men of little understanding gain nothing. In presenting offerings to the deities, in giving and accepting alms, in presenting the ingredients of the Arghya, and in offering water with sesame seeds to the Pitris, copper should be used.

Dharma gave the list of men who must not be fed at a Sraddha, and it is long because it is a list of the ways a Brahmana stops being one. Never give the offerings to a Brahmana who has accepted service under the king, or who rings the bell or attends to subsidiary duties at acts of worship, or who keeps kine, or is engaged in trade, or follows some art as a profession, or is an actor, or quarrels with friends, or is destitute of Vedic studies, or marries a Sudra woman. He who gives the offerings to such a man falls away from prosperity and multiplies not his race.

Then Dharma turned from the invited priest to the uninvited stranger. From the house whence a guest returns unsatisfied, the Pitris, the deities and the sacred fires all return disappointed. He who does not discharge the duties of hospitality towards a guest arrived at his abode is held equally sinful with slayers of women and of kine, with the ungrateful, with slayers of Brahmanas, and with violators of the beds of their preceptors.

Agni spoke of the man who lifts his feet to strike therewith a cow, or a highly blessed Brahmana, or a blazing fire. The infamy of such a man spreads through the world and touches the confines of heaven. His Pitris become filled with fear. Fire refuses his libations. For a hundred lives he rots in hell, and is never rescued at any time.

Vishvamitra gave a single appointment in the calendar. He who offers the Pitris rice boiled in sugared milk, facing south at noontide, in the shade caused by an elephant's body, in the month of Bhadrapada and under the constellation Magha, is regarded as performing a great Sraddha every year for thirteen years together.

Then the kine themselves spoke, and gave away the words in which they wish to be addressed. That man becomes cleansed of all his sins who adores a cow with these Mantras: "O Vahula, O Samanga, O thou that art fearless everywhere, O thou that art forgiving and full of auspiciousness, O friend, O source of all plenty, in the region of Brahman, in days of yore, thou wert present with thy calf in the sacrifice of Indra, the wielder of the thunderbolt. Thou tookest thy station in the firmament and in the path of Agni. The deities with Narada among them adored thee on that occasion by calling thee Sarvamsaha." Such a man attains at the end to the region of the Thousand-eyed Indra.

After this the celebrated seven Rishis, with Vashishtha at their head, rose and walked round the Lotus-born Brahman, and stood about him with hands joined in reverence. Vashishtha, foremost of all persons conversant with Brahma, became their spokesman, and the question he asked is the one Yudhishthira had begun with, days earlier and worlds away.

"By doing what acts may men of righteous conduct, who are however destitute of the good of this world, succeed in acquiring the merits attaching to sacrifices?"

Every rite named in this assembly costs something. Copper vessels, ghee, sesame, lamps, bulls to be bought before they can be set free. The seven Rishis were asking what is left for the man who has none of it.

"Excellent is this question, ye highly blessed ones," Brahman said. "It is at once auspicious and high and fraught with a mystery. Listen to what I say as to how men acquire the merits attaching to sacrifices even when they are unable to perform them through poverty. In the lighted fortnight of the month of Pausha, when the constellation Rohini is in conjunction, if one, purifying oneself by a bath, lies under the cope of heaven, clad in a single piece of raiment, with faith and concentrated attention, and drinks the rays of the moon, one acquires the merits that attach to the performance of great sacrifices."

A man with one cloth, lying on his back in the open in the cold month, drinking moonlight. That is the Grandsire's answer to the poverty of the world, and there is nothing in it that anybody can be too poor to buy.

Surya, whom they called Vibhavasu, priced his rite as low. Two offerings, he said: a palmful of water, and rice-grains with ghee called Akshata. On the full moon one should stand facing that orb and make him both, and is reckoned to have poured libations on the three fires. But he who cuts a large tree on the new moon is stained with Brahmanicide, and incurs it by killing even a leaf; and he who chews a tooth-brush that day injures the deity of the moon, so that his libations are refused and his family dies out.

Sree spoke of houses. That sinful house in which vessels, seats and beds lie scattered, and in which women are beaten, the deities and the Pitris leave in disgust, without accepting the offerings made there.

Angiras gave a rite that takes a year. The offspring of that man increase who stands every night for a full year under a Karanjaka tree with a lamp to light it, holding roots of the Suvarchala plant.

Gargya gave a code entire. Do the duties of hospitality. Give lamps in the sacrificial shed. Avoid sleep by day, and abstain from flesh. Never injure kine and Brahmanas. Recite always the names of the Pushkara lakes and other sacred waters. A hundred sacrifices exhaust their own merit; these duties, observed with faith, do not. And at a Sraddha, robed in white, one should have Brahmanas utter their benedictions, and should recite the Bharata.

Dhaumya listed what a household keeps without noticing: broken utensils, broken bedsteads, cocks and dogs, trees grown inside the house. In a broken utensil is Kali himself, in a broken bedstead is loss of wealth. With a cock or a dog in sight, the deities do not eat. Under a house tree, scorpions and snakes.

Jamadagni cut across the catalogue. The man whose heart is not pure goes to Hell though he adore the deities in a Horse-sacrifice, or a hundred Vajapeyas, or hang head downmost. A very poor Brahmana, giving only a Prastha of powdered barley with a pure heart, attained to the region of Brahman.

Vayu spoke last, and ended on a remedy rather than a sin. The man who thinks it all right when a Sudra ignites the fire for his libations, or sees no fault when women incompetent to assist at Sraddhas assist at them, is stained, and is born a Sudra in his next life. But fasting all the while, he should for three days pour on the sacred fire the urine of the cow mixed with cowdung and milk and ghee. After a full year the deities accept his offerings again, and his Pitris are gratified when the Sraddha comes.