The Thousand Doors to Heaven

Bhishma had come, in the long recital of the unchha vow and the men who kept it, to a householder who wanted to get out of his own house.

"In an excellent town called by the name of Mahapadma," he said, "which was situate on the southern side of the river Ganga, there lived, O best of men, a Brahmana of concentrated soul."

Everything that happens afterwards happens to a man with nothing wrong with him. He was born in the race of Atri and he was endued with amiability. All his doubts had been dispelled, and he was well conversant with the path he was to follow. He was ever observant of the religious duties and he had his anger under perfect control. Always contented, he was the complete master of his senses. He was devoted to penances and to the study of the Vedas, and he was honoured by all good men. He earned his wealth by righteous means, and his conduct in all things corresponded with the mode of life he led and the order to which he belonged.

The family was as sound as the man: large and celebrated. He had many kinsmen and relatives, and many children and spouses, and his behaviour was always respectable and faultless.

Observing that he had many children, the Brahmana betook himself to the accomplishment of religious acts on a large scale, and his religious observances had reference to the customs of his own family. The trouble started there, in the middle of doing everything correctly.

For he reflected that three kinds of duties have been laid down for observance. There were first the duties ordained in the Vedas in respect of the order in which he was born and the mode of life he was leading, which is to say a Brahmana in the observance of domesticity. There were secondly the duties prescribed in the scriptures, those books especially called the Dharmasastras. And thirdly there were those duties that eminent and revered men of former times have followed though they occur neither in the Vedas nor in the scriptures.

Which of these duties should I follow? Which of them, again, followed by me, are likely to lead to my benefit? Which, indeed, should be my refuge? Thoughts like these always troubled him. He could not solve his doubts.

While he was troubled with such reflections a Brahmana of concentrated soul, observant of a very superior religion, came to his house as a guest. The householder duly honoured him according to those ordinances of worship that are laid down in the scriptures, and when he had seen his guest refreshed and seated at ease, he began to talk.

"O sinless one," the Brahmana said, "I have become exceedingly attached to thee in consequence of the sweetness of thy conversation. Thou hast become my friend. Listen to me, for I wish to say something unto thee."

No man builds a preface like that unless what follows has never been said aloud in his own house.

"O foremost of Brahmanas, after making over the duties of a householder to my son, I wish to discharge the highest duties of man. What, O regenerate one, should be my path? Relying upon the Jiva soul, I wish to achieve existence in the one supreme soul."

Then, before the guest could take him for a man who had decided:

"Alas, bound up in the ties of attachment, I have not the heart to actually set myself to the accomplishment of that task. And since the best portion of my life has passed away in the observance of domesticity, I desire to devote the remnant of my life in earning the means of defraying the expenses of my journey in respect of the time to come."

He spoke of merit as of money that must be in hand before a man sets out. "The desire has arisen in my mind of crossing the ocean of the world. Alas, whence shall I get the raft of religion?"

Two sights had emptied his pleasures.

"Hearing that even the very deities are persecuted and made to endure the fruits of their acts, and beholding the rows of Yama's standards and flags floating over the heads of all creatures, my heart fails to derive pleasure from the diverse objects of pleasure with which it comes into contact."

The gods themselves eat what they have cooked. And over every living head, in rows, like the banners of an army that has surrounded the town, the standards of the king of the dead. A man who has seen the field that way does not get his appetite back.

And he had considered the obvious answer and thrown it out. "Beholding also that the Yatis depend for their sustenance upon alms obtained in course of their rounds of mendicancy, I have no respect for the religion of the Yatis as well." He had watched them going from door to door and could not make himself admire it.

"O my reverend guest, do thou, aided by that religion which is founded upon the basis of intelligence and reason, set me to the observance of a particular course of duties and observances."

That is the request. Not comfort, not a blessing. A rule he could reason his way into, asked of a stranger who had eaten at his table an hour before.

Endued with great wisdom, the guest, hearing this speech of his host which was consistent with righteousness, said these sweet words in a melodious voice. And the first thing he said was that he did not know.

"I myself also am confounded with respect to this topic. The same thought occupies my mind. I am unable to arrive at definite conclusions."

He was the holy man from out of town, seated in the best place in the house, with the household waiting on him, and he began by saying that his host's question was his own question and that he had never settled it. Then, instead of stopping there, he did the useful thing. He started counting.

"Heaven has many doors."

"There are some that applaud Emancipation." That is the first, and it is the one that does not lead to heaven at all but past it: moksha, release, wanted for itself, with no residence anywhere at the end of it.

"Some regenerate persons praise the fruits attainable by the performance of sacrifices." The fire, the mantras, the fee to the priests, and a term of dwelling among the gods bought at a stated price and lasting a stated time.

"Some there are that take refuge in the forest mode of life." The third stage: the fires carried out of the village, roots and fruits, a hut, the wife brought along or left behind with the sons.

"Some, again, betake themselves to the domestic mode of life." And there it is, fourth on the list, the very life the host was trying to lay down. Not a lower thing that men do until they are ready for better. A door.

"Some rely upon the merits attainable by an observance of the duties of kings." The rod, the protection of subjects, the tax collected and spent rightly, and death in a war fought for a cause that was owed.

"Some rely upon the fruits of that culture which consists in restraining the soul." The inward discipline, practised by a man who may look from the outside as though he is doing nothing at all.

Six doors, and no two of them opening on the same street. The guest was not finished.

"Some think that the merits resulting from a dutiful obedience to preceptors and seniors are efficacious." No penance in that beyond staying where you are put and doing what the old man tells you.

"Some betake themselves to restraints imposed on speech." A door that costs nothing and is shut in most houses before breakfast.

And then the grammar of the list changes, and it is worth noticing when it does. Up to here the guest has been reporting what men think and rely upon. From here he reports where they have arrived.

"Some by waiting dutifully upon their mothers and fathers, have gone to heaven." Not think they will. Have gone.

"Some have ascended to heaven by practising the duty of compassion, and some by practising Truth."

"Some rush to battle, and after laying down their lives, have attained to heaven." That sentence was recited over a field where the greater part of two armies had gone through that door in eighteen days, by a man lying on the arrows that had sent them.

"Some, again, attaining to success by practising the vow called Unccha, have betaken themselves to the path of heaven." The gleaners, who go into the reaped field after the reapers and the birds are done and pick up what was dropped, one grain at a time, and never ask and never store.

"Some have devoted themselves to the study of the Vedas. Endued with auspiciousness and wedded to such study, these men, possessed of intelligence, with tranquil souls, and having their senses under complete control, attain to heaven."

And last, and strangest, one that nobody chooses.

"Others characterised by simplicity and truth, have been slain by men of wickedness. Endued with pure souls, such men of truth and simplicity, have become honoured denizens of heaven."

A door opened from the outside, by somebody else, at the worst moment of a harmless life. It is on the list with the rest of them, and it is on the list without a word of consolation attached, which is how the epic usually tells the truth about murder.

"In this world, it is seen, that men betake themselves to heaven, through a thousand doors of duty, all standing wide open."

Then the guest said the thing that the host had been dreading since the conversation began.

"My understanding has been troubled by thy question, like a fleecy cloud before the wind."

The man had asked for one road. He had been given a thousand, and told that the person handing them over was standing in the same field he was, with the wind going through him.

"For all that, O Brahmana, I shall endeavour to instruct thee duly."

That is the turn of the whole episode, and the next sentence explains how a man who has just confessed his own confusion can instruct anybody.

"Listen to me as I recite to thee that which I have heard from my preceptor."

He did not answer out of himself. He passed on what had been given to him, which is the one honest thing available to a man in his position, and what he passed on was not a doctrine. It was an address.

"In that place whence, in course of a former creation, the wheel of righteousness was set in motion, in that forest which is known by the name of Naimisha, and which is situate on the banks of the Gomati, there is a city called after the Nagas."

Naimisha is the forest where the great recitations happen, the place the epic keeps returning to whenever something has to be told from the beginning, and it is being named here as the ground where dharma first started turning in an earlier creation. The guest then credentialled it twice more.

"There, in that region, all the deities, being assembled together, had in days of old performed a grand sacrifice. There the foremost of earthly kings, Mandhatri, vanquished Indra, the chief of the celestials."

Mandhatri is the emperor of the solar line whom the Shanti Parva keeps producing as its example of a mortal ruler at the very top of what a mortal ruler can reach, and what is recorded of that ground is that on it he beat the king of the gods. So: the wheel of righteousness began there, the assembled deities sacrificed there, and a man defeated Indra there. Three facts, and the guest laid them down like the address on a letter, so that his host would know he was not being sent into an ordinary wood.

"A mighty Naga, of righteous soul, dwells in the city that stands in that region. That great Naga is known by the name of Padmanabha or Padma."

The Brahmana of Mahapadma, who could not choose between the Vedas, the Dharmasastras and the custom of good men, was being sent to a serpent.

"Walking in the triple path of acts, knowledge and adoration, he gratifies all creatures in thought, word, and deed. Reflecting upon all things with great care, he protects the righteous and chastises the wicked by adopting the quadruple policy of conciliation, provoking dissensions, making gifts or bribes, and using force."

That is statecraft, the four expedients of any king in the books, set down in the middle of a saint's character without apology. Padmanabha is no hermit. He rules, and the guest counts the ruling among his virtues.

"Repairing thither, thou shouldst put to him the questions thou wishest. He will show thee truly what the highest religion is."

Then the rest of him. "That Naga is always fond of guests. Endued with great intelligence, he is well conversant with the scriptures. He is possessed of all desirable virtues the like of which are not to be noticed in any other person. By disposition he is always observant of those duties which are performed with or in water. He is devoted to the study of the Vedas. He is endued with penances and self-restraint. He has great wealth. He performs sacrifice, makes gifts, abstains from inflicting injury and practises forgiveness. Truthful in speech and freed from malice, his behaviour is good and his senses are under proper control. He eats after feeding all his guests and attendants. He has knowledge of what is beneficial and what is simple and right and what is censurable."

And then one clause unlike the others.

"He takes stock of what he does and what he leaves undone."

Every other item on that list is a quality. That one is a practice, kept in both columns, the acts and the omissions. It is the only thing in the description that a man could begin tonight without moving house.

"He never acts with hostility towards any one. He is always engaged in doing what is beneficial to all creatures. He belongs to a family that is as pure and stainless as the water of a lake in the midst of the Ganges."

Set that beside the description of the host in the first scene and it is nearly the same list: the Vedas, the penances, the controlled senses, the abstention from injury, the wealth honestly held, the faultless line. The householder was being sent across the country to a person who was, item for item, what he already was, and who had stopped being troubled by it.

The thousand doors stood open the whole time. What the guest could give him was not one of them. It was a river, a forest, a city, and the name of somebody to ask.