The Road of Works

The rishis of the Naimisha forest had heard the whole of the Narayaniya by then, the hymn and the vision and the White Island and the thousand names, and when Sauti paused it was Saunaka, master of that twelve-year sacrifice, who found the one thread that had not been tied off.

"How is that illustrious god," Saunaka said, "the puissant Narayana who is fully conversant with the Vedas and their branches, at once the doer and the enjoyer of sacrifices?"

He set the difficulty out plainly, because it is a plain difficulty and no amount of devotion dissolves it. Narayana is forgiving. Narayana has adopted the religion of Nivritti, which is abstention, the turning away from works. More than that, it is he himself who ordained the duties of Nivritti and laid them down for those who would follow them.

"Why then has he made many of the deities the takers of shares in sacrifices?" Saunaka asked. "Sacrifices are all due to the disposition of Pravritti. And why has he again created some with a contrary disposition, for they follow the ordinances of the religion of abstention?"

Two roads, then, laid down by the same hand. Pravritti, which is the way of acts, of fires lit and butter poured and shares distributed and rewards collected. Nivritti, which is the way of ceasing, of no fire at all. If the second is better, why is the first there. If the first is good enough for the gods, what is the second for.

"Do thou, O Suta, dispel this doubt of ours," Saunaka said. "This doubt seems to be eternal and is connected with a great mystery."

Sauti did not answer it himself. He answered the way a reciter answers, by finding the place where the same question had been asked before.

"O excellent Saunaka," he said, "I shall recite to thee what Vaisampayana, the disciple of the intelligent Vyasa, said when questioned on these very topics by king Janamejaya."

Janamejaya had listened to the same discourse in his own hall, and the doubt had gone into him harder, because he was a king and kings are men of works.

"The whole world of Beings, with Brahma, the deities, the Asuras and human beings, are seen to be deeply attached to actions which have been said to be productive of prosperity," he said. "Emancipation has, O regenerate one, been said by thee to be the highest felicity and to consist of the cessation of existence. They who, being divested of both merit and demerit, become emancipate, succeed, we hear, in entering the great God of a thousand rays."

That was the teaching he had just been given. Now he turned it over and looked at what was underneath it.

"It seems to me, O Brahmana, that the eternal religion of Emancipation is exceedingly difficult of observance. Turning away from it, all the deities have become enjoyers of the libations of clarified butter poured with mantras on sacrificial fires."

Then he named them, one after another, and the list is the argument. Brahman. Rudra. The puissant Sakra, the slayer of Vala. Surya. Chandramas, the Lord of the stars. The Wind-god. The Deity of fire. The Deity of the Waters. Infinite Space as a living Being, and the Universe itself as a conscious agent, and the rest of the denizens of heaven.

"They, it seems, are ignorant of the way of securing annihilation of conscious existence. Hence, perhaps, they have not betaken themselves to the path that is certain, indestructible, and immutable. Hence perhaps, turning away from that path, they have adopted the religion of Pravritti, which leads to conscious existence that is measured by time. This, indeed, is one great fault that attaches to those that are wedded to actions, for all their rewards are terminable."

He was accusing the gods of taking the lesser road, and he knew it.

"This doubt, O regenerate one, is planted in my heart like a dagger. Remove it out by reciting to me some discourses of old on this topic. For what reason have the deities been said to be takers of their respective shares of sacrificial offerings? Why are the denizens of heaven adored in sacrifices? And to whom do they, that take their shares of offerings in sacrifices performed to their honour, themselves make offerings when they perform great sacrifices?"

"The question thou hast asked me, O ruler of men, relates to a deep mystery," Vaisampayana said. "No man that has not undergone penances, and that is not acquainted with the Puranas, can speedily answer it."

So he did what Sauti had done, and reached back one link further. He would not answer out of himself. He would repeat what his preceptor had said, the Island-born Krishna, otherwise Vyasa, the great Rishi who classified the Vedas, when the same question had been put to him by his own students.

There had been five of them. Sumantu, and Jaimini, and Paila of firm vows, and Vaisampayana himself numbering the fourth, and Suka forming the fifth, who was Vyasa's son. They were self-restrained and pure in observance, they had completely subjugated wrath and controlled their senses, and their preceptor used to teach them the Vedas, having the Mahabharata for their fifth.

Once, while they were studying on the breast of Meru, that foremost of mountains, inhabited by Siddhas and Charanas, this very doubt arose in their minds. It is worth noticing where it arose. Not in a hall of kings and not in the middle of a war. Five men sitting on a mountain with the four Vedas open in front of them, and the thing that troubled them was why any of it should be done at all.

They put it to Vyasa, and Vyasa, that dispeller of the darkness which is ignorance, did not begin with an argument. He began by saying how he came to know.

"I have undergone very severe, in fact, the austerest of penances," he said. "Ye best of men, I am fully conversant with the Past, the Present, and the Future. In consequence of those penances of mine, and of the restraint under which I kept my senses while I dwelt on the shores of the Ocean of milk, Narayana became gratified with me. As the result of the great God's gratification, this omniscience with respect to the Past, the Present, and the Future, that was desired by me, arose in my mind."

Then he told them where he was going to take them.

"I have, with the eye of knowledge, beheld all that occurred in the beginning of the Kalpa."

He began where there was nothing yet to see.

He whom both the Sankhyas and those conversant with Yoga call by the name of Paramatma, the Supreme Soul, comes to be regarded as Mahapurusha, the Great Purusha, in consequence of his own acts. From him springs forth the Abyakta, the Unmanifest, whom the learned call Pradhana. From the puissant Unmanifest sprang, for the creation of all the worlds, the Manifest, the Byakta, and he is called Aniruddha, and among all creatures he is known by the name of the Mahat Atma, the great Self. It is that Aniruddha who, becoming manifest, created the Grandsire Brahman.

Aniruddha has another name, Ahankara, which is consciousness, the sense of I, and he is endued with every kind of energy. From Ahankara sprang the five great elements, Earth, Wind, Space, Water, and Light numbering the fifth. Having created the Mahabhutas, he then created their attributes, and combining the Mahabhutas he created embodied beings.

Vyasa named the first of them.

Marichi, Angiras, Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, the high-souled Vasishtha, and the Self-born Manu. These eight are to be known as the Prakritis, and upon these rest all the worlds. They are not gods of any department. They are the eight foundations under the floor of things, and everything that will happen afterwards happens on top of them.

Then the Grandsire of all the worlds, Brahman, created for the fulfilment of all creatures the Vedas with all their branches, as also the Sacrifices with their limbs. From these eight Prakritis has sprung this vast universe.

And then, out of a different material altogether, Rudra sprang from the principle of wrath. Starting into life, he created ten others that were like him, and these eleven Rudras are called by the name of Vikara-Purushas, the men of alteration, the ones through whom things are undone.

So the roll was complete. The eight Prakritis, made for founding. The eleven Rudras, made out of anger. The celestial Rishis. All of them alive, all of them new, all of them standing in a creation that had just been finished and given no instructions.

They went to the one who had made them.

The Rudras and the Prakritis and the several celestial Rishis approached Brahman with the object of upholding the universe and its operations. That is the reason given, and it is a workmanlike reason. They had not come to be praised or to complain. They had come because a world was running and nobody had been told which part of it was his.

"We have been created, O holy one, by thee, O thou of great puissance," they said. "Tell each of us, O Grandsire, the respective jurisdiction we shall be vested with. What particular jurisdictions have been created by thee for supervising the different affairs? We, each, should be endued with what kind of consciousness, and shall take charge of which of these? Do thou ordain also unto each of us the measure of strength that we are to have for discharging the duties of our respective jurisdictions."

Three requests, and the third is the one that decides everything that follows. A jurisdiction is a list of duties. A consciousness is a nature fitted to them. But strength is a supply, and a supply has to come from somewhere, and nothing had yet been arranged from which it could come.

The Grandsire did not pretend to have the answer ready.

"You have done well, ye deities, in speaking to me of this matter," Brahman said. "Blessed be you all. I was thinking of this very subject that has engaged your attention. How should the three worlds be upheld and kept agoing? How should your strength and mine be utilized towards that end?"

Then the Creator of the worlds said the thing that is the hinge of the whole discourse, and he said it about himself.

"Let all of us, leaving this place, repair to that unmanifest and foremost of Beings who is the witness of the world, for seeking his protection. He will tell us what is for our good."

The maker of the Vedas and the sacrifices did not know how the world was to be kept fed. He knew who did. So he stood up and went, and the eight Prakritis and the eleven Rudras and the celestial Rishis went with him, out of the place they had been made in, desirous of doing good to the three worlds.

They went north, to the northern shores of the Ocean of milk, and there they stopped and began to practise those austere penances that are declared by Brahman in the Vedas. The austerest of them are known by the name of Mahaniyama, the foremost vows and observances, and it was those they undertook.

The posture is given exactly, and it should be read slowly, because the ones standing in it are the gods.

They stood there with mind fixed, immovable as posts of wood, with eyes upturned and arms raised upwards.

That is the attitude of any village ascetic on any riverbank, the arms held over the head until they wither, the eyes turned up until the world goes out of them, the body left standing until it might as well be timber driven into the ground. The eight who hold up the worlds took it. The eleven born of wrath took it. Brahman the Grandsire, who had made the Vedas they were reciting, took it with them.

For a thousand celestial years they were engaged in those severe penances.

Nothing is recorded of the thousand years. No visitor, no temptation, no test, no interruption. The sea on one side and the row of raised arms on the other, and the whole apparatus of creation waiting somewhere behind them for someone to tell it how to work. This is the part of the story that a reader wants to hurry through and that the text refuses to hurry, because the answer that is coming is not going to be an argument. It is going to be a grant, and a grant is made to those who have waited for it.

At the conclusion of that period, they heard words.

They did not see anything. There was no form on the water and no light in the sky. Out of the air above the northern shore came a voice, sweet, and in harmony with the Vedas and their branches, and it was speaking to them by name and by station.

"Ye deities and Rishis possessed of wealth of asceticism, with Brahman in your company, after according you all welcome, I say unto you these words. I know what is in your hearts."

"Verily, the thoughts that engage you are for the good of the three worlds," the holy one said. "I shall increase your energy and strength, investing the same with Pravritti."

There it was, in one line, and it was not a rebuke. The strength they had asked for would be given, and it would be given in a particular currency. Pravritti. Predilection for acts. Their power would come to them through works, and would therefore come to them the way anything comes through works, by being generated, delivered and spent.

"Ye gods, well have you undergone these penances from desire of adoring me. Ye foremost of Beings, enjoy now the excellent fruits of austerities which ye have gone through. This Brahman is the Lord of all the worlds. Endued with puissance, he is the Grandsire of all creatures. Ye also are foremost of deities."

Then the terms.

"Do ye all, with concentrated minds, perform sacrifices for my glory. In the sacrifices which you will perform, do ye always give me a portion of the sacrificial offerings. I shall then, ye lords of creation, assign to each of you your respective jurisdictions and ordain what will be for your good."

The gods are to sacrifice. That is the answer to the question Janamejaya had asked at the end of his list, the one that sounded almost impudent: to whom do the takers of shares themselves make offerings. They make them here, on this shore, at the first sacrifice there ever was.

Hearing these words of that God of gods, all those deities and great Rishis and Brahman became filled with such delight that the hair on their bodies stood on its end. They forthwith made arrangements for a sacrifice in honour of Vishnu, according to the ordinances laid down in the Vedas.

In that sacrifice, Brahman himself dedicated a portion of the offerings to Vishnu, and the deities and the celestial Rishis, after the manner of Brahman, dedicated similar portions each unto the great God. The portions offered were, in respect of both the measure and the quality of the articles used, according to the ordinances laid down for the Krita age, which is to say that nothing bled and nothing was stinted.

And they adored him as one endued with the complexion of the Sun, as the foremost of Beings, situate beyond the reach of Tamas, vast, pervading all things, the Supreme Lord of all, the giver of boons, and possessed of puissance. He was invisible and bodiless the entire time. They were pouring butter into a fire for a god who was not there to be looked at.

Then the voice came back out of the heaven, and what it said first was an acknowledgement, like a man signing for goods.

"The offerings dedicated by you in this sacrifice have all reached me. I am gratified with all of you."

And then, immediately, before any reward was named, the flaw in the reward was named.

"I shall bestow rewards on you that will, however, be fraught with ends whence there will be return."

He told them to their faces. Everything they were about to receive would run out. Whatever they gained by this rite and by every rite after it would carry them up and then set them down again, and there would be no exception made for gods.

"This shall be your distinctive feature, ye gods, from this day, in consequence of my grace and kindness for you. Performing sacrifices in every Yuga, with large presents, ye will become enjoyers of fruits born of Pravritti."

Then the arrangement, which is the actual answer to the whole question, was laid out as a circuit.

"Ye gods, those men also that will perform sacrifices according to the ordinances of the Vedas will give unto all of you shares of their sacrificial offerings. In the Veda-sutras I make him the receiver of a share similar to that which he has himself offered in this sacrifice. Created to look after those affairs that appertain to your respective jurisdictions, do ye uphold the worlds according to the measures of your strength as dependent on the shares you receive in those sacrifices."

So the strength they had asked for on the shore was not to be handed to them in a lump. It was to be metered to them out of the fires of men, for as long as men kept lighting them.

"Indeed, drawing strength from those rites and observances that will be current in the several worlds, taking their rise from the fruits of Pravritti, do ye continue to uphold the affairs of those worlds. Strengthened by the sacrifices that will be performed by men, ye will strengthen me. These are the thoughts that I entertain for you all. It is for this purpose that I have created the Vedas and sacrifices and plants and herbs. Duly served with these by human beings on Earth, the deities will be gratified."

A man pours butter. A god is fed. The god holds up his corner of the world. And the portion that goes past the god to the one who does not need it goes to the only being in the account who is not being paid.

"Ye foremost of deities, till the end of this Kalpa, I have ordained your creation, making your constitution depend upon the consequence of the religion of Pravritti."

Then he divided the rishis, and the division is the answer Saunaka had asked for at Naimisha.

Marichi, Angiras, Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, and Vasishtha. These seven were created by a fiat of the will. They will become the foremost of persons conversant with the Vedas, in fact the preceptors of the Vedas. They are wedded to the religion of Pravritti, for they have been intended to devote themselves to the act of procreating offspring.

And seven others, the spiritual sons of Brahman. Sana, Sanatsujata, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumara, Kapila, and Sanatana numbering the seventh. Their knowledge comes to them of itself, without being dependent on study or exertion. These seven are wedded to the religion of Nivritti. They are foremost among those conversant with Yoga and the Sankhya philosophy, and it is they who introduce the duties of abstention and cause them to flow in the worlds.

Fourteen men, made the same day, sent down two roads.

"The path of those that are wedded to Karma, emerging out of Ahankara, is fraught with return. One cannot, by that path, reach the spot whence there is no return. Different creatures have been created with different ends. Some are intended for the path of Pravritti and some for that of Nivritti. According to the path that a creature follows is the reward that he enjoys."

Then he set the clock. This present epoch is the foremost of all and should be known by the name of Krita, and in this Yuga living creatures should not be slain in the sacrifices that may be performed. Righteousness will flourish entire. After it comes Treta, in which the Vedas lose one quarter and only three exist, in which animals, after dedication with sacred mantras, will be slain, and Righteousness loses a quarter. Then the mixed age, Dwapara, where Righteousness loses two quarters. Then Kali, under the Tisya constellation, where Righteousness loses three and only a quarter of it exists in all places.

The deities heard their own future read out and asked the only question worth asking.

"If only a fourth part of Righteousness is to exist in that age in every place, tell us, O holy one, whither shall we then go, and what shall we do?"

"Ye should, in that age, repair to such places where the Vedas and sacrifices and Penances and Truth and Self-restraint, accompanied by duties fraught with compassion for all creatures, will still continue to flourish. Sin will never be able to touch you at all."

Thus commanded, the deities with all the Rishis bowed their heads unto him and proceeded to the places they desired, each with his measure of strength and the pipe that would carry it.

Brahman did not go. After the Rishis and the denizens of heaven had left, he remained on the shore, desirous of beholding the great Deity in the form of Aniruddha. He had spoken to a voice for a thousand years and wanted to see who had been speaking.

The foremost of deities then manifested himself, having assumed a form that had a vast equine head.

He came with a bowl and the triple stick, the kamandalu and tridanda that any wandering ascetic carries, reciting the Vedas with all their branches as he came, and above that the head of a horse. The Lord of all sacrifices appeared to the Creator in the shape of a mendicant who has renounced sacrifice, with the face of the animal that sacrifice most prizes.

Beholding him, Brahman, moved by the desire of doing good to his Creation, worshipped that boon-giving Lord with a bend of his head and stood with hands joined in reverence. And the great Deity embraced him.

"Do thou, O Brahman, duly think of the courses of acts which creatures are to follow. Thou art the great ordainer of all created Beings. Thou art the master and the lord of the universe. Placing this burthen on thee, I shall soon be free from anxiety."

An odd sentence for a god, and said plainly. The work is handed over. He has arranged the fires, the shares, the jurisdictions and the ages, and now he sets it down.

"At such times, however, when it will be difficult for thee to accomplish the purposes of the deities, I shall then appear in incarnate forms according to my self-knowledge."

Having said these words, that grand form with the equine head disappeared then and there, and Brahman, having received his command, proceeded quickly to his own region.

It is for this, Vyasa told his five disciples on Meru, that the eternal Deity with the lotus in his navel became the acceptor of the first share offered in sacrifices, and came to be called the eternal upholder of all Sacrifices. He himself adopted the religion of Nivritti, the end after which those strive that are desirous of indestructible fruits. He ordained at the same time the religion of Pravritti for others, with the view to giving variety to the universe.

He is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all created Beings. He is their Creator and their one object of meditation. He is the actor and he is the act.