The

Vedas and Upanishads

FOR CHILDREN

ROOPA PAI
Illustrations by Sayan Mukherjee
 First published in 2019 by Hachette India
(Registered name: Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt. Ltd)
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This ebook published in 2019

Text copyright © 2019 Roopa Pai
Illustrations copyright © 2019 Sayan Mukherjee
Illustration on page 55 (top) by Mistunee Chowdhury © 2019 Hachette India

Roopa Pai asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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 To all the readers of this book...
Don’t settle for being human – discover the God
that you really are.
 CONTENTS
Before We Begin

THE KNOWLEDGE
First off, the Vedas
1. So What’s the Big Deal about the Vedas?
2. Nature Songs of the Cattle-Herders
3. The Gods of Big Things
4. A-One, A-Two, A-One, Two, Three, Four
5. A Feast of Hymns

THE SECRET
Next up, the Upanishads
6. So What’s the Big Deal about the Upanishads?
7. Mastermind!
8. Shankara’s Faves – The Top Ten Upanishads
9. Isha: The Upanishad of the Sameness of All Things
10. Kena: The Upanishad of ‘Whence-Came-It-All’?
11. Katha: The Upanishad of the Secret of Eternal Life
12. Prashna: The Upanishad of the Peepul Tree Sage
13. Mundaka: The Upanishad of the Big Shave
14. Mandukya: The Upanishad of the Frog
15. Taittiriya: The Upanishad of the Partridges
16. Aitareya: The Upanishad of the Glory of Being Human
17. Chandogya: The Upanishad of the Sacred Metre
18. Brihadaranyaka: The Great Forest Upanishad

And, in Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Image Copyright Information
 BEFORE WE BEGIN
Hello, hello! It’s lovely to meet you!
You are standing there (or sitting here) reading this for one of two reasons. You have either:
(a) bought this book (or your parents have thrust it on you, believing this is an ‘improving’ book), OR
(b) you are browsing through it at a bookstore or library, wondering if it’s worth taking home.
Whatever your reason, chances are that, like many people, you only have a vague understanding of what
the Vedas and Upanishads are. So let’s very briefly ‘define’ the two first.
The Vedas are some of the oldest texts known to humankind. They are considered sacred texts and
mainly comprise hymns of praise to the elements that sustain us – the sun, the rain, the fire, the wind, the
water. Oh, and they came out of the land that we today call India. (To get the Veda 101, flip to The
Knowledge, on page 1.)
The Upanishads are part of the Vedas, and therefore, also thought to be sacred. They are the last and
newest ‘layer’ of the Vedas (this is India we are talking about, so even this ‘new’ layer was added about
2,700 years ago), but they are not hymns at all – in fact, many are stories, and / or conversations between
teacher and student. And what are these stories and conversations mainly about? Unravelling the answers to
very fundamental questions, the kind that human beings of all regions and races have struggled with
forever. Questions that, astoundingly enough, we still have no clear answers to, despite all the progress
we’ve made in the last 3000 years! (To get up close and personal with the Upanishads, go to The Secret, on
page 123.)
What are some of these fundamental questions? Let’s see now.
• Where did the universe come from?
• Who am I?
• What is the purpose of my life?
• Is there a God, and if so, who/where/in what form is He/She/It?
• What is death?
• How can I be hundred per cent happy all the time?
• How do I decide what the right thing to do is in a particular situation?
(Are these questions that bother you? If yes, keep reading!)

Of all the different answers people across the world have come up with to these questions, it seems that
the old, old answers of the Upanishads are among the most convincing, for a significant number of Indians
– and non-Indians – swear by them to this day. If you’d like to find out what some of those answers are, this
book is a good place to start. You can decide what YOU feel about them once you have finished reading.
You may end up agreeing with the ancients, you may disagree vehemently, or you may be on the fence,
BUT – get this – the sages would be happy with you whichever you are – an agree-er, a disagree-er, or a
doubter!
To the agree-ers, the sages would say, ‘Glad you agree! But agreeing is not enough. You have to try out
our recommendations – on the secret of happiness, say – and find out if it actually works for you. Oh, and
don’t forget to come back and tell us – and everyone else – what you discover, for the point of knowledge is
to share it.’
To the disagree-ers, they would say, ‘Wonderful! Why don’t you spend some time thinking about the
same questions? Read other texts that have different answers, talk to tonnes of wise people who have other
ideas, process all of it through your own head and heart – and when you think you have some answers,
come back to us? We love a good debate!’
To the fence-sitters, they would say, ‘Ah, sceptics! Those who question everything, who will not believe
what someone else says is the truth, who are not content until they find the answers for themselves. We
totally respect your kind – as long as you just don’t sit there on that fence, but actively seek the truth
yourself. We’d love to know what you find out, when you do!’
Because, you see, the sages of the Upanishads were never in the business of making other people
believe what they themselves knew for a fact. Instead, they were ardent seekers of the secrets of the
universe, and they were on this great quest simply to satisfy their own curiosities. Once the secrets had been
revealed to their trained, disciplined minds in a sudden, unexpected flash of inspiration, however, they
couldn’t wait to share them with everyone.
Here’s the remarkable part, though – these sages did not want wealth, or power, or even fame in return.
In fact, so unconcerned were they about such things that they did not even attach their names to their
magnum opuses, the hard-won results of their years and years of intense thought experiments!
What the sages did hope to achieve by sharing the secrets they had discovered was to inspire people to
seek the truth for themselves. What they dearly wanted was to help their fellow humans realize that life
could be a joy if it was lived the right way, and that the human spirit was limitless, chock-full of untapped
power and potential.
My friends, they wanted to tell us, you are all prisoners in a ‘misery yard’, which has such high walls
that you believe, mistakenly, that the yard is the world. But we – we have been beyond the walls, and we
have found there a world of utter bliss. You can get there too, and guess what – you don’t even have to be
dead for that to happen! All you need is the courage to commit to the journey and to all the hardships you
will encounter along the way. Here, we’ve drawn you a rough roadmap to that world beyond the walls – use
it!
That’s what the Upanishads are about – a rough roadmap to living in such happiness in this world that it
begins to feel like Heaven itself. And this little book is a first, very basic key to the map.
So, what do you think? Feel like taking a stroll down ye olde Indian route to joy and freedom? What are
you waiting for, then – turn the page!
THE KNOWLEDGE
First off, the Vedas
 १
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT
THE VEDAS?
 ight. Let’s kick this section off with a fun quiz, designed to test how

R much – if anything – you know about the Vedas. It’s multiple-choice, and
there’s no negative marking, so just go ahead and fearlessly tick the
option you think is closest to the truth. Easy-peasy!
PS: The answers come right after the questions. No peeking!

1. So what are the Vedas, anyway?

a. The. Most. Ancient. Sanskrit. Texts. Ever. (Also, the most ancient Indian
texts ever)
b. Among the oldest existing texts in ANY Indo-European language*
c. The most fundamental sacred texts of many Hindus
d. A vast, and somewhat random, collection of Sanskrit poetry, philosophical
stories, spells, incantations, mantras, musical notations, how-to guides for
all kinds of rituals, and more
e. All of the above
*Indo–European languages include, in order of the number of native speakers, Spanish, English, Hindustani
(Hindi–Urdu), Portuguese, Bengali, Punjabi, Russian, German, French, Italian, Persian and over 400 more,
including – duh! – Sanskrit. PS: South Indian languages are among those classified as Dravidian
languages.

Did you guess (e) – all of the above? That’s the right answer! Bet you got
that right because you’re the sort of person who picks ‘all of the above’ when
that option exists. But that’s perfectly fine – now you know what the Vedas are,
somewhat.
Now, did you notice that the word ‘texts’ was used a lot in the answer
options? You will be hearing that word a lot in this book – get used to it. Why do
we have to call the Vedas texts, though? Can’t we simply call them ‘books’
instead? Nope. Because they weren’t really ‘books’ – no one wrote them out or
printed them on paper/birch bark/palm leaves and then bound the pages together.
Not for a long, long time, anyway. Plus, the dictionary definition of ‘text’ is
‘written or printed work, regarded in terms of its content rather than its physical
form’. That makes ‘texts’ the most appropriate word to describe the Vedas – and
the Upanishads too – because, in the beginning – wait for it – neither had a
physical form at all!
No, seriously. For almost 2,000 years, the 20,000-plus verses of the Vedas
were passed from generation to generation purely via oral transmission – they
were never written down! Do you realize what that means? Both teachers and
students had to know them by heart! (Want to attempt that as a project for your
next summer vacay?) The oldest Veda, the Rig, was probably written down for
the first time as recently as 500 CE. What is even more fascinating is the
accuracy with which the texts, and the ‘tunes’ they were set to, were conveyed
from teacher to student. (How did the ancients ensure that the oral transmission
of their most sacred texts didn’t turn into a game of Chinese whispers? Find out
in ‘Learning the Vedas by Heart (and Ear and Tongue and Mind)’ on page 14.) It
is those verses, intoned exactly as they were 3,500 years ago, that you hear at
Hindu pujas, weddings and funerals, in Hindu temples, schools and homes, and
in the ‘Vedic chanting’ classes now trending across the globe. Gives you the
goosebumps, wot?
2. What does the word ‘Veda’ literally mean?
a. Holy
b. Word of God
c. Knowledge
d. Duty
If you ticked anything other than (c), sorry! The word ‘Veda’ does not mean
Holy, or Word of God, or Duty. The root word of Veda is ‘vid’, which is also the
root word of vidya, which, as you probably know, means knowledge. (That’s
why this whole section is called – ta-daa! – ‘The Knowledge’.)
3. In all, how many Vedas are there? (If you are the sort who pays attention in
 social sciences class, you’ve got this one nailed.)
a. 16
b. 4
c. 9
d. 3
Yup, (b) is the right answer. There are officially four Vedas. In chronological
order, they are the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva
Veda (sometimes called the Atharvana Veda). Apparently, this last, the Atharva,
is a bit of an interloper that sneaked in later – in the old, old texts, the Vedas are
referred to as the Trayi Vidya – the three-fold knowledge, not four-fold.
4. Who ‘composed’ the Vedas? (Why is the word composed enclosed in
quotation marks? You’ll find out below.)
a. A bunch of nameless rishis
b. Veda Vyasa
c. Valmiki
d. Agastya
And the answer is... (a)! Unlike the Mahabharata, which is believed to have
been composed by Vyasa, and the Ramayana, said to have been composed by
Valmiki, the Vedas were put together, over centuries, by several anonymous
rishis or sages. However, Vyasa (whose name literally means ‘compiler’) is
believed to be the one who collected the vast and sprawling body of literature we
know today as the Vedas. He then classified all the different, random bits of it,
decided which portions went together and compiled those into chunks, and then
divided those chunks into four separate Vedas. For accomplishing this mammoth
task in such an efficient, organized manner, he was given the title ‘Veda Vyasa’ –
the compiler of the Vedas.
Oh, and about the quotation marks around ‘composed’. They are there
because the Vedas are actually considered to be ‘authorless’ – i.e., texts that were
not ‘composed’ by anyone, not even by that bunch of nameless rishis. Instead, it
is believed, the Vedas were revealed to these rishis when they were in the kind of
deep trance that is achievable only through years and years of disciplined
meditation. This makes the Vedas part of what is called Shruti, or ‘heard’
literature. In contrast, other ancient Hindu texts, like the Puranas, the Ramayana
and the Mahabharata, are part of Smriti, or ‘remembered’ literature.
Hindus believe that Smriti texts were composed by humans, and came out of
everything their authors had seen, experienced, understood and remembered.
Such texts are allowed to be tweaked, edited, added to and/or rewritten all the
time, since everyone’s experience is different, no one’s memory is hundred per
cent accurate, and no human work is without flaws. Shruti texts, on the other
hand, are believed to contain eternal, universal truths that could possibly have
had divine origins. (Divine origins? Does that mean the ancient rishis heard the
Vedas being recited by a disembodied voice in the sky? Find out in ‘How to
“Hear” the Song of the Universe’ on the facing page.)
That’s why it was so important that Shruti texts be preserved exactly as they
were ‘received’. Got that? Good.
5. Around how many years ago were the Vedas composed?
a. 10,000 years ago
b. 2,000 years ago
c. 5,000 years ago
d. 3,500 years ago
If your train of thought while answering this question went something like –
We’ve already had a, b, c and e as the correct options in previous questions, so
(d) is a dead ringer for the right answer this time, you would be on the right, um,
track. The Rig Veda, the oldest of the four Vedas, has been indeed dated to circa
1500 BCE, which makes the Vedas about 3,500 years old.

LESSONS FROM THE VEDAS

 HOW TO ‘HEAR’ THE SONG OF THE
UNIVERSE
Fun fact: It involves sacrifices, and ancient rituals like
discipline, focus and a heck of a lot of hard work

We just talked about how the Vedas are part of what many Hindus consider
sacred literature called ‘Shruti’ or ‘heard’ wisdom, and how it is believed that
these texts were not composed by humans at all but were revealed (via
confidential sources, suspected to be divine) to certain rishis who were
considered worthy of it.
How do you imagine these revelations happened? Did the rishis hear a voice
from the sky speaking the Vedas, while bathing them in golden ‘God-light’? Or
was it an inner voice (located approximately in the region of each rishi’s gut)
that revealed the universe’s greatest secrets to him? Metaphorically speaking,
neither answer is too far off the mark! It was most likely a combination of the
two, happening at the same time, give or take the God-light.
What does that mean? To understand that, you must first understand who
these rishis were. Very often, rishis are depicted as people who grew weary of
the world and its trials and tribulations, and ‘retired’ (notice how the word ‘tired’
is already in it?) to the forests to pursue a life of meditation and quiet
contemplation. But here’s the thing – true rishis were not escaping the world at
all! In fact, it was the world, with its infinite wonders and apparent randomness,
which fascinated and engaged them more than anything else. These men and
women were intellectuals whose thoughts went well beyond the perimeter of
their careers and home-fires and their own small lives. These seekers of truth had
a burning desire to unlock the mysteries of the world – What is the purpose of
life? What happens to us after death? Is there a God? For them, going to the
forest was a huge sacrifice, but one they were very willing to make – it was a
way to get away from distractions, so that they could focus all their energies on
this one great quest.
When you are willing to make such big sacrifices and are so focused on your
goal, all kinds of magic happens. We see examples of it all around us all the
time, whether we are talking about the greatest scientists or sportspeople or
musicians. Even though science is rigorous, and rational, and methodical, the
greatest scientific discoveries are often made by a leap of imagination, an ‘I-feel-
it-in-my-gut’ sixth sense. The world’s best sportspeople, when they are in their
element, are no longer human but superhuman. The world’s best musicians are
able to transport us to realms we have never dared to suspect actually exist –
places where logic and rationale and science become irrelevant and only
emotions abound; when the guitarist in your favourite band gets into his stride at
a concert you are watching live, you scream and weep for no reason you can
explain, you want to hug strangers.
When people talk about such moments, they use the word ‘inspired’ a lot – it
was an inspired guess, they may say, an inspired stroke. They cannot themselves
explain how it happened – how they connected two unrelated things in a way no
one had before, how they knew exactly where to position themselves for that
‘impossible’ catch on the boundary. Almost always, they are also reluctant to
take credit for their idea or achievement entirely, especially because they know
of so many other talented people who were working just as hard as them towards
the very same goal, but did not get there. ‘It suddenly came to me,’ they say,
their voices full of wonder, ‘I just knew.’
It was possibly the same with the rishis of Shruti literature. One fine day,
years and years after they had begun pursuing their quest by doing all the right
things – training their minds, learning to focus their energies, not checking
WhatsApp more than once a year, eating right, keeping fit (hey, try sitting – or
standing – in one position for hours and hours every day, meditating, and see if
you can do it without eating healthy and being fit!) – they had a moment of pure
inspiration. They ‘heard’ the song of the universe – the answers to the big
questions came to them, they knew.
 Exciting, right? Now for the more important question. Can you learn how to
hear the song too? Can those wise rishis teach you to how to get to that flash of
inspiration in whatever quest of excellence you are engaged in – math, dancing,
poetry, basketball?
Before we go there, let us try and understand what inspiration is. In the
modern world, psychologists break inspiration down to a combination of
instinct (a hardwired-in-our-DNA, natural response to the world, which all
animals have, and which comes from inside); reason (a learned response to the
world, which only humans are capable of, and comes from outside); and
intuition (or gut-feel, or sixth sense), which is a combination of the two, a way
to leap from Step A to Step E without ever going through Steps B, C and D.
The rishis of ancient India had different words to describe the same
phenomenon. They preferred to think of inspiration as a benediction that came
from a divine source. Was this source outside of them, or inside? For the rishis,
who believed that the Universal Energy that pervades everything in the universe
(Brahman) was exactly the same as the indestructible energy they carried inside
themselves (Atman), the answer was a no-brainer. From both inside and outside,
of course!
If you think about it, they were completely spot-on. Inspiration – for a play
you are writing for your school’s annual day, your science project, a ‘fusion’ dish
(like a dosaffle – dosa batter cooked in a waffle iron and topped with cinnamon-
sugar and ghee) that you have just invented – comes both from outside (let’s say
from current affairs, Elon Musk and Masterchef Australia, respectively) and
inside. After all, it is in your mind that you connect something you already know
(dosa) with something you’ve seen on a cooking show (waffles). Add your
intuition about tastes and textures to the mix, and you bring the two together in a
unique, special way.
But if someone asked you to give them a step-by-step account of how you
actually came up with the idea for a dosaffle, would you be able to do it? Not
really, right?
And that’s why, just like a scientist cannot give you a formula for making a
scientific discovery, and a musician cannot tell you exactly how to write a great
piece of music, the rishis of the Upanishads do not pretend that they can teach
you how to find inspiration. Like the others, they can only tell you what they did
to get to that point in their own quest, caution you about the difficulties you may
encounter along the way and give you tips for how to get over them, besides
coaching you in technique and ritual and discipline (and diet!). They might also
add an important injunction: Keep your mind open, turn your receivers on, or
you may not hear the messages the universe is sending you at all! Then, with a
pat on your back and a blessing on your head, they will send you on your way.
Because, you see, the long and winding road to that blinding, exhilarating
stroke of inspiration – Shruti – has to be journeyed alone. You will have to make
the sacrifices, you will have to practise the discipline, you will have to keep the
faith. And then, maybe, just maybe, and only if you are considered worthy, you
will ‘hear’ the universe singing to you. Maybe, just maybe, the magic will
happen, and you will be rewarded with the ultimate inspiration –a brief,
tantalising, breathtaking glimpse of the Brahman within you, without you.
Seems like something worth trying for, don’t you think?
 LEARNING THE VEDAS BY HEART (AND
EAR, AND TONGUE, AND MIND)
Or, how to ensure perfect transmission of knowledge
when you can’t check back with Wikipedia

How do you make sure great lessons for all humanity stay uncorrupted for
thousands of years, when you can’t write them down because your language has
no script?
You would design a system in which only a few were entrusted with the
sacred knowledge. You would put the chosen ones through years of intense
training. And you would create a fail-proof (or close enough) system to ensure
that they retained everything they had learnt.
And that’s exactly what the Vedic seers did – they created the ultimate
ancient Indian coaching class! It was called the Vedic gurukul. What were the
main features of this ancient school? Read on to find out.
1. A most stringent admission process. The gurukul entrance test was tough as
nails and completely transparent – gurus interviewed each candidate,
evaluating each one on his inclination for hard work, ability to follow
instructions and aptitude for this particular kind of rigorous study (with bonus
points awarded for a naturally curious and questioning mind) before deciding
which ones to pick. There was also the small matter of eligibility – only boys,
and that too only brahmin, kshatriya and vaishya boys,* were eligible to
apply. (Shudras were kept out of the admission process entirely. Not many
girls lined up for admission either, but the thirty-one women rishis on record
indicate that they were not entirely absent.)
*The four main varnas, or occupational groups – today, the word ‘caste’ is used to mean varna – in ancient
India were the brahmins (scholars and thinkers), kshatriyas (kings and warriors), vaishyas (merchants and
farmers) and shudras (craftsmen and labourers). While boys of the first three varnas went into gurukuls for
their education, shudra boys – sons of potters, carpenters, weavers, goldsmiths, leather workers, sculptors
and others who worked with their hands, went into ‘vocational training’ with their dads and uncles and
learnt the family trade. Girls of all varnas learnt to cook and keep house with their mothers, apart from
training in music, art and dance.
If you believe academic learning is superior to every other kind, this sounds like girls and shudras being
‘relegated’ to the B league. However, many modern educationists firmly believe that a ‘holistic education’ is
one that gives the arts and crafts as much importance as academic learning, for it creates a more equitable
society, where ‘makers’ – sculptors, weavers, chefs – and artistes – dancers, musicians, designers – are
respected just as highly, and paid as much, as professors and bankers and software engineers. Food for
thought, eh?
The real downside of the gurukul system was that a lot of scary-smart girls and shudras never got the
opportunity to try their luck at academics. And although some gurukuls also taught the arts and crafts, it is
likely that many brahmin and kshatriya boys keen on dance and jewellery design did not find avenues to
explore their creativity.
Sure, there is far less discrimination today on the basis of gender and caste in education, but overall, is
the 21st century world less discriminatory than the one 3,500 years ago? What do you think?’

2. Loads of extracurricular activities. Boys were admitted into the fully

residential programme when they were around twelve years old, and parents
were informed that they could pick up their wards from the gurukul main gate
at noon, exactly twelve years later. Until then, students occupied themselves
not just with studying the scriptures but also helping the guru’s wife around
the house, herding and milking the cows, tending to the farm and vegetable
patch, collecting and chopping firewood, and serving their foster parents (did
you think they were lucky to get away from annoying parents for twelve
whole years? Ha! In life, there is never any getting away from parents) in
whatever ways they could.
When they left the gurukul, most of the raw, unschooled twelve-year-olds
had transformed into well-read, well-mannered, self-reliant young men who
were proficient in debate, logic and critical analysis. They refused to accept
‘facts’ without examining and questioning them, but were open to changing
their opinions on things as and when they came across convincing new data.
They could think for themselves, live without luxuries and do all the work
around the house (although they usually ended up letting their wives do it as
soon as they were married).
3. Small class sizes. Most gurus took no more than twelve students every
twelve years. Apart from the minor difficulty of feeding twelve growing boys
(gurukul education was absolutely free) and figuring out where they would
sleep, teachers preferred a small student group so that they could give each
boy their full and focused attention. Also, since a lot of learning was based on
hearing – very, very clearly – every word the guru said, a small class made
sense.

4. The right learning environment. Nope, they weren’t thinking air-

conditioned school buses or ‘smart classrooms’, actually. Gurukuls were
usually located deep within quiet virgin forests, far away from the distractions
of city and village life. Living and studying in the midst of nature and
observing her in her many moods and seasons developed in the students a
 deep and enduring love for her, and a sense of oneness with the vast and
wondrous universe they were part of – which was one of the main ‘desired
learning outcomes’ of Vedic education in the first place.
5. Get the basics right. Here’s an important fact – as far as the Vedas are
concerned, it isn’t just the words but also their sounds, and tones, that are
considered critical to the meaning and power of the verses (that was part of
the reason they continued to be taught by a guru well after scripts were
developed and the verses were written down). Since each syllable of the
verses was supposed to be pronounced a particular way, sung at a particular
note position and held for a particular duration, teaching students the right
way to chant each hymn and mantra was vital. Once they had got this bit
right, students went on to the next phase: training and disciplining their minds
through – here’s the fun part – memorization* of the Vedic hymns.
Only when they had done years of this did students get to more complex
stuff like logical thinking, critical analysis of texts, introspection, the art of
(respectful) debate, and so on.
*Ever wonder why ‘mugging’ and doing over and replicating the teacher’s notes – to the last word – in the
exams is such a big part of the Indian education system? It’s tradition – that’s the way things have been
done for 3,500 years! Now you know.

6. Patterns and sequences, tricks and techniques! Straight-up memorization

is one thing and works well if you have a good head for it, but imagine if you
didn’t have a book or Wikipedia to go back to and check if you had got it
right! You would have had to have some way of cross-checking the accuracy
of your recitation – with yourself. After all, this was the only way to make the
sacred texts available to the next generation, so the gurus had to make sure
their students had it committed to memory perfectly.
And that’s why students were taught many different styles of chanting the
same mantra. In each style, the words of the mantra were strung together in
different patterns. Every time a mantra was chanted, the student had to chant
 it in several different styles so that his memory was reinforced and not one
word was ever lost.
Of the chanting styles, there were two main ones – Prakriti and Vikriti. In
the Prakriti style, the words of the mantra were chanted in their natural order,
with Word 2 following Word 1, Word 3 following Word 2, and so on. In the
Vikriti style, the words went back and forth a bit.
Boggled? Fret not. Let’s forget the Vedic mantras for a moment. Let’s think
about how you would recite/sing the world’s most famous song – ‘Happy
Birthday To You’ – using the Vedic chanting method.
First, let’s try two methods of Prakriti-style chanting:
• Method 1: Samhita Patha (in which you sing the words exactly in their
original order): Happy / Birthday / To / You. Straightforward enough, right?
• Method 2: Krama Patha (in which words are chanted in pairs, in the pattern
12-23-34 and so on, until the end of the mantra): Happy Birthday / Birthday
To / To You. Weird, but still easy enough.
 On to two methods of Vikriti-style chanting!
• Method 1: Jata Patha (in which words go back and forth in pairs, in the
following pattern – 12-21-12 / 23-32-23 / 34-43-34 and so on, until the end of
the mantra): In our example, the first line would go: Happy Birthday-Birthday
Happy-Happy Birthday / Birthday To-To Birthday-Birthday To /To You-You
To-To You.
Hmmm. Some serious word jugglery there, demanding a great deal of mental
focus to get it right.
• Method 2: Ghana Patha (by far the most complex method, in which the words
are recited in twos and threes, in the following pattern – 12-21-123-321-123,
and so on – until the end of the mantra). Here’s how the first line of ‘Happy
Birthday’ would go: Happy Birthday-Birthday Happy-Happy Birthday To-To
Birthday Happy-Happy Birthday To / Birthday To-To Birthday-Birthday To
You-You To Birthday-Birthday To You.
Say whaaaaaa??

Now for the big question. What’s the point of concentrating so hard to recite
words in the wrong order when they don’t even make sense that way? Well, the
main point, of course, is the ability to check back with a different pattern to
make sure you have all the words of a mantra. But there is another, equally
important, point.
You see, when you focus hard on something, like getting words to fit into a
complex pattern, your mind becomes completely occupied. Since the words
don’t make sense when they are not said in order, your mind simply cannot go
into auto-pilot. Closing your eyes – i.e., cutting off the external stimuli coming
to you through one of your sense organs – helps focus your mind even further. In
that moment of deep absorption, you see nothing but the patterns, hear nothing
but your own voice repeating powerful and mystical words (and we don’t mean
Happy Birthday!) over and over again, in the prescribed notes of the musical
scale.
 If you think about it, it is the perfect practice for learning to turn your
awareness inwards, for training the mind to be (at least briefly) still. And while a
still mind is the hardest thing to achieve, the Vedic seers tell us it is also the first
step towards getting to know yourself as you really are, to finding the most
powerful, most divine part of yourself. When you have made that connection,
the ancients tell us, all your energies will converge, with laser-like precision, to
help you achieve your goal, whatever it is.
Right. So just because they say that, it is your duty to believe them? Naaah.
It would make those rishis much happier if you tried this mind-focusing thing for
yourself before you agreed (or disagreed) with them. They have done their bit by
sharing their mind-blowing, transcendental experiences with you, and by
devising all kinds of clever ways to ensure that the knowledge comes to you
intact, over millennia. Now the ball is in your court. Toss it up, dribble it around,
lob it back, let it lie – the choice is entirely yours to make.
 २
NATURE SONGS OF THE CATTLE-
HERDERS
A brief introduction to the composers of India’s all-time
greatest hits
 urprising as it may seem to us today, the Vedas, which are the oldest and

S among the most beautiful hymns to the nature gods that we have, did not
come to us from a society of scholars who had read fat books, maxed their
exams, or graduated from universities. They came instead from simple people
who lived close to the land, slept under the stars, and had a close connection
with their horses and dogs, and the sheep, goats and cattle that they herded.
Who exactly were these people? Where did they come from? No one is
hundred per cent sure – after all, we’re talking about people who lived 3,500
years ago. What’s more, these people did not believe in permanence – they did
not write things down, draw pictures on rocks for us to puzzle over thousands of
years later, or build anything that would last a century, leave alone millennia.
They only left us their words, thousands and thousands of them, and their
thoughts – about how the universe worked and what the purpose of human life
was and why we should not be afraid of death. And they made pretty darn sure
that we would get to hear all those words and all those thoughts (well, a LOT of
them, anyway) long after they had composed them, by not putting them down on
perishable material like paper or bark or cloth; instead, they put them in the best
safekeeping boxes in the world – people’s memories.* All we know, or think we
know, about these people comes from analyzing these words and thoughts.
*Yes, yes, we know – human memory is notoriously unreliable. But the guardians of the sacred knowledge
– the Chosen Ones – were those whose ordinary minds had become extraordinary simply through the
unwavering discipline and training their owners had put them through. Remember Sherlock Holmes’s
‘Memory Palace’, a many-tiered RAM in his head, organized and catalogued so finely that he could always
reach for one particular memory and pull it out when he needed it? Yup, this was that kind of thing, except
there wasn’t just one ‘born genius’ like Holmes in ancient India, there were hundreds, who had become
‘geniuses’ through practice.

And what have we figured out so far? There are conflicting theories, but one
of the most popular ones over the last few decades is that these people were
horse-riding tribes of nomadic goatherds and cattle-herders from Central Asia
(the area roughly occupied by today’s Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) who found their way to India (specifically the
Punjab and its surrounds) around 1500 BCE. In their literature, these tribes
referred to themselves as Arya (say aar-ya) – ‘the noble ones’.
Experts who lean towards this theory believe that the reason that Arya tribes
left Central Asia was because overgrazing and drought had made their original
homelands, the grasslands called the steppes, unlivable for themselves and their
animals. To ensure less crowding and better opportunities for all in their search
for new pastures, they say, the Arya split up. One branch went east towards
Mongolia, one west towards Anatolia (Turkey) and one south towards Bactria
(the area north of the Hindu Kush mountains). From Bactria, the Arya divided
again, one branch moving west towards Iran, and the other east towards India.
This second branch – whose people these experts refer to as the Indo-Aryans or
the Indo-Iranians – settled first in the Punjab and later in the Gangetic plains.
The timing of the grand entrance of these mystery people – the Arya – onto
the Indian history stage is crucial. We first encounter them around the same time
that the people of the Harappan Civilization – who had lived and thrived on the
banks of the Indus and her tributaries in the Punjab for over a thousand years –
abandoned their vast, flourishing cities and mysteriously disappeared. (Want to
know a little more about the Harappans? Check out ‘Pashupati’s People’ on
page 54.)
This little detail leads to the other popular theory, this one more recent, about
the origin of the Arya. What if the chariot-driving, horse-riding, dog-loving,
weapon-wielding Arya were not foreigners at all, but Harappans themselves who
had quit their riverside cities after a great flood and spread out across northern
India and further west and east, to re-emerge centuries later as the composers of
the Vedas? Or what if they were an entirely different indigenous set of Indian
people?
Let us leave that question to the scholars and academics to wrangle over.
What is not disputed is that it was the Arya who introduced the Iron Age into
India (the Harappans had only known the use of the softer bronze and copper)
and that it was also they who gave India and the world the oldest of the
languages in the Indo-European family of languages, the perfectly formed
‘mother language’ Sanskrit. (That isn’t an exaggeration, by the way; the
anglicized name for the language – Sanskrit – actually comes from the words
‘samskruta’, which literally means ‘perfectly formed’! In fact, in the beginning,
‘samskruta’ was the adjective used to describe the language of the ancient texts –
the language itself was simply called ‘bhasha’, or language. So ‘samskruta
bhasha’ simply meant ‘the perfectly formed language’.)
As the pastures in the north-west were consumed and the rivers that
sustained their crops changed course or dried up because of changes in climate,
the Arya, having now split into five main tribes, began to move slowly east
across northern India. Over the next thousand years, they colonized the Doab –
the fertile land between the two great rivers Ganga and Yamuna – and became
farmers. Each Arya tribe split into clans as they went along, fighting each other
to establish their own little areas of control, called janapadas. By the 6th century
BCE, the many little janapadas had been consolidated into sixteen larger

‘kingdoms’ called mahajanapadas, which stretched between the Himalayas in the

north and the Vindhyas in the south, and from the western (Arabian) sea to the
eastern sea (the Bay of Bengal). The Arya referred to their new land as
Aryavarta (say aar-yaa-varta) – Abode of the Noble Ones.
One of the mahajanapadas was Kuru (does that name ring a bell?), which,
the Mahabharata tells us, was the land of the... yup, the Pandavas and the
Kauravas! Another was faraway Gandhara, in today’s Afghanistan, from where
the beautiful princess Gandhari was brought to Kuru as the bride of the blind
prince Dhritarashtra. A third was Kosala, the kingdom of the Ikshvakus, whose
most famous king was... right, Rama from the Ramayana! There was also the
mahajanapada of Magadha, from where Ashoka Maurya and the Guptas ruled,
and that of Kashi, with its holy cities of Varanasi (revered as a pilgrimage centre
for thousands of years) and Sarnath (where Buddha gave his first sermon).*
*Isn’t this all a bit confusing? Weren’t Ashoka and the Guptas people who actually existed while Rama and
the Kuru princes were merely characters in stories? Well, here’s the thing – Hindus classify the Ramayana
and Mahabharata not under the Puranas, which are considered stories, but under a separate genre called
Itihasa (from iti-ha-asa – Sanskrit for ‘this is how it happened’), or history. Even though they accept that
every single event mentioned in the epics may not have happened exactly in that way, they firmly believe
that the main thread of the narratives describes real events, people, kingdoms and dynasties.

But back to the Arya. The Arya tended not to stay in the same place for too
long, at least in the beginning. Their on-the-go lifestyle made it somewhat
pointless for them to build great cities or temples or palaces, and it seems they
truly did not care for such things.** After all, the scholarly ones among them
carried all they needed to know in their heads, and as for the others, their
greatest wealth – horses and cattle – were fully capable of moving with them.
**Well-planned cities and a script (that we haven’t yet been able to decipher) were two hallmarks of the
Harappan Civilization. Considering that such an advanced civilization had been around in India for a
thousand years before the Arya appeared on the scene, it seems somewhat insane that we would have to
wait another thousand years after that for other cities to be built and a new script to be developed. But from
all the evidence we have so far, that seems to be what happened!

What the Arya did care about, however, was pleasing their gods. Like all
other early agrarian civilizations, they lived equally in awe of the formidable
power and beauty of Mother Nature, and fear at her capriciousness. Naturally,
just like the Egyptians, Chinese and Mesopotamians, they turned the elements –
the sun, the earth, the rain, the rivers, the dawn, the thunder – into gods, and set
about composing extravagant hymns of praise to each one. After all, if the gods
were not kept happy, how could the Arya hope to ensure that the rain fell at the
right time and the rivers did not flood (or dry up!) and the sun shone just so and
the earth gave forth enough of herself to sustain their crops, their animals and
themselves? (Who were the gods of the Arya? Are they the same gods Hindus
worship today? Find out in Chapter 3: ‘The Gods of Big Things’ on page 42.)
Realizing that, at the end of the day, even the most flattering praise was
merely lip service, and the gods would probably expect something more solid,
the Arya devised elaborate sacrifices called yagnas. There were different yagnas
to wrest different boons – long life, success in war, a bountiful harvest, many
fine sons – from the gods, but they were all accompanied by the chanting of
songs of praise and they were almost always conducted in the presence of the
sacred fire, Agni. Into Agni’s all-consuming maw went the various offerings –
ground rice, cooked pulses, milk, soma (Soma? Wozzat? To find out, check out
‘“Theobroma” Soma – Elixir of the Gods’ on page 38), and the all-important
ghrita, aka desi ghee (and you wondered why ghee is such an indispensable
ingredient in the Indian kitchen!) – that were believed to please the gods.
In the beginning, animal sacrifices were also a huge part of yagnas.
Thousands of animals, including cattle and horses (these animals were dearest
and most precious to the Arya, so giving them up to the gods was a huge
sacrifice), were offered to the gods.

Phew. Yagnas sound like a serious amount of work, right? But the payback
was worth it – if a yagna was done right, Agni the divine messenger would
ensure that the offerings were conveyed dutifully to the gods being propitiated,
leaving them with no choice but to rain the right blessings down on the earthly
petitioners. (Yup, that was the belief then – you had the power to persuade the
gods to do what you wanted, assuming you performed all the prescribed rituals
in the correct way!)
Now, how could the yajamana (say yaja-maana) – the king or merchant who
hosted the yagna and provided all the money needed for the firewood, the
offerings, the sacrificial animals and everything else – ensure that the yagna was
conducted in exactly the right way? He requested the scholars, the ritual experts
who knew all the mantras by heart, to come and officiate at the ceremonies. For
this service, he paid them a generous fee. Simple!
So if worship and yagnas were such a big part of Arya life, didn’t they
require, like the Egyptians, special temples where sacred ceremonies could be
conducted? Nope. Whether the yagna was a small private one for one’s
immediate family or a ginormous community one with thousands of people
attending, all it required, apart from a sacrificial post where animals could be
butchered, was a yagna kunda, a fire altar, which was a pit to contain the
firewood and oilseeds that sustained the sacred fire for the duration of the
ceremony. Pits were built and consecrated (i.e., made pure for worship by the
sprinkling of holy water, the chanting of mantras and other rituals) just before
the yagna, and must have been dismantled soon after, since no remains of
ancient fire altars have ever been found (these people were clearly sticklers for
the ‘Leave No Trace’ policy that modern conservationists urge us to follow when
we go camping and hiking).
Yagna kunds were of many different shapes that were variations of the square

The square was considered to be the sacred geometrical shape for the kunda.
But instead of settling for a simple square, the Arya played around with the basic
shape to come up with all kinds of interesting variations – a kunda could be a
right-angled rhombus (a square standing on one of its corners), a rectangle (two
squares placed side by side), a set of triangles (each of which was a square cut in
half), or a many-pointed star (which, if you think about it, is nothing but a
rotating square). The most interesting shape that we know of, used for the most
important yagnas, and built out of a specified number of bricks, each made to
specified dimensions (ancient Indians were nothing if not nerdy, especially
where numbers were concerned) was the hawk- or falcon-shaped altar.*
*Can you come up with your own cool shapes for yagna kundas, using just squares? To make it more
challenging, try and come up with patterns in which the number of squares used is a multiple of nine – nine
squares, or eighteen, or twenty-seven, or 108... Nine was a number sacred to the Arya, so any number
whose digits added up to nine also made the cut. Try it!
 As different groups of people developed expertise in different skills, Arya
society divided itself into four divisions, or classes, called varnas. Those who
knew the Vedas and the rituals became the priests – they were called the
brahmins. Clan leaders who defended the tribe, protected their cattle, fought
wars and hosted yagnas for the well-being of their people became, along with the
soldiers they led, the warrior class – they were called the kshatriyas. The farmers
who grew the crops that sustained their people and the merchants who carried
the grain to distant lands for trade, thus filling the coffers of the tribe and
ensuring there was enough money for yagnas and wars, were the third band –
they were called the vaishyas. Those who worked with their hands, creating
useful and/or artistic products out of leather and gold and wood and clay and
iron, or serving the people of the three other classes – as charioteers, grooms for
horses, lady’s maids, cooks, butchers, and so on – formed the fourth group: they
were called the shudras.
The brahmins were intellectuals who thought deep thoughts and knew the
Vedas verbatim. But they had very few practical skills for earning a livelihood.
In order to survive, they smartly forged an alliance with the ones who wielded
the real power – the kings. Since it was the duty of the king to conduct yagnas,
and no yagna could be performed without someone (usually, several someones)
who knew the Vedas officiating, the brahmins (who were the smallest varna in
terms of numbers) ensured that they were always employable.
It is easy to see how these two varnas – comprising the Smart Ones and the
Powerful Ones – raced to winner and runner-up positions, respectively, on the
varna podium.
Of course it was money that made the world go round even then, and the
people who controlled that part were the vaishyas. They zoomed into third place
in the varna race, leaving the shudras far behind at fourth place.
And thus it came to pass that a society whose divisions had originally been
based simply on the kind of work people did, with no one group considered
higher or lower than any other, turned into one in which one or more divisions
(today we call them ‘castes’) lorded it over the others, claiming that the ‘lower’
castes neither could nor should ever aspire to do the jobs of the ‘higher’ castes.
For instance, in later Arya society, a butcher’s son was stuck with being a
butcher for life, never mind how capable he himself was of committing the
Vedas to memory, simply because no one would agree to teach them to him!*
*Remember the story from the Mahabharata where the great Acharya Drona refused to accept a boy called
Ekalavya as his student, simply because he came from the Nishada tribe, whose people were hunters and
fishermen? It didn’t even matter to the Acharya that Ekalavya was a prince of his tribe, for Drona was far
too busy teaching kshatriya princes, the ‘real’ blue bloods. And when Ekalavya went on to display the kind
of mastery of his craft that made him a threat to Drona’s favourite student Arjuna? Shudder! You know how
that story ended.

What’s more, the dominant varnas claimed that this kind of discrimination
was authorized by the Vedas – and therefore the gods – themselves. As you can
imagine, that kind of claim was incredibly easy for them to get away with,
because only the brahmins knew the Vedas in the first place – everyone else
simply had to believe what they said, or have the wrath of the gods – and the
priests – visited upon their heads.
It was possibly partly to question and challenge this kind of patent unfairness
that had crept into Arya society that the Upanishads were composed, beginning
circa 7th century BCE. The sages of the Upanishads sat down, re-examined the
Vedas and returned declaring that the true message of the Vedas was that all
creatures were equal, since they were all simply manifestations of the same
Universal Energy. They suggested that many things mentioned in the Vedas were
not meant to be taken literally, but metaphorically. Sacrifice your ego, said the
Upanishads, not animals; offer hard work and dedication to the sacred fire inside
you, instead of soma and ghrita into a real fire. And rest assured that this kind of
yagna will make the gods just as happy and the rewards that flow down to you as
a result just as generous.
While the Upanishads attempted to reform the Arya religion from the inside,
two other movements that came up soon after took the opposite route. They
rejected many things about the Arya religion (the Vedas, the yagnas, the animal
sacrifices, the caste system) while still retaining some of its core beliefs, broke
away, and became two new religions. These religions also believed in ahimsa
(non-violence) and the equality of all creatures. They were called – you guessed
it! – Jainism and Buddhism.
In the centuries after, the Vedic religion of the Arya, now revived by the
wisdom and liberal ideas of the Upanishads, crossed the Vindhyas and made its
way into the southern peninsula, taking with it Vedic chants and rituals, and the
Sanskrit language. As its influence spread beyond Aryavarta, it sprawled and
proliferated like a great banyan, putting down roots as it went, and inviting all
the gods, goddesses, beliefs, philosophies, practices and traditions it encountered
along the way to come and set up home under its vast and generous canopy. By
and by, over centuries, it metamorphosed into the chaotic, glorious, impossible-
to-define and uniquely Indian celebration of unity in diversity that we now call
Hinduism.*
Hinduism is still a work in progress, one that is being ceaselessly reformed,
reinterpreted, revised, recast, and yes, challenged, by anyone who wants to have
a go – gurus, politicians, academics, film-makers, artists, philosophers,
historians and any number of common people. And while it has changed
immeasurably as it has grown and spread, perhaps the most remarkable thing
about this old, old religion-that-isn’t-really-a-religion** is how much of it has
remained the same over the last 3,500 years.
Agni is still the witness and the accepter of offerings at yagnas conducted as
part of Hindu religious ceremonies (if you have ever attended a Hindu wedding,
you have been witness to a yagna!), the yagna kunda is still a simple portable
container (most people now prefer to stick with a straightforward square), priests
are still invited to officiate at important religious events, ancient Vedic mantras
(yup, the same songs of praise we talked about earlier) are still chanted at
modern-day ceremonies, and very few people (apart from the priests) still
understand what is being chanted!
 You see why those ancient cattle-herders, whoever they were, were absolute
rock stars? They gave this land a set of all-time greatest hits whose staying
power is yet to be beaten!
* Yes! The term ‘Hinduism’ is fairly new – it was used (by the British) to describe the many variants of the
Vedic religion of the Arya only as recently as the 19th century. In fact, the word ‘Hindu’ itself is a Persian
word that the ancient Greeks and Persians used to describe the people and the land beyond the River Sindhu
(which, in Persian, was pronounced Hindu) – it was never meant to denote people of a particular religion.
This might come as a surprise, but in the Vedas and Upanishads, the word Hindu is never used.
As for Hindus themselves, many often refer to their core belief system as ‘Santana Dharma’ – the
eternal law – a timeless, universal code of ethics and duties that they, regardless of caste, creed and sect, are
bound to follow.
** Unlike most other formal religions in the world today, belief in God is not central to Hinduism – one
can be a good Hindu even while questioning the existence of God. Plus, it does not have a founder, or a
single leader of the faith, or one particular God, or one particular holy book. There is no time of day or day
of the week when Hindus are supposed to gather and pray, and no ‘house of worship’ that they are bound to
visit regularly. As for scriptures and gurus, Hindus are only expected to use them as wise guides to help
them discover the truth for themselves.

‘THEOBROMA’ SOMA – ELIXIR OF THE

GODS
Including: Why 21st century gods no longer have an all-
access pass to this most divine of all drinks

Whoever gave the cacao plant its Latin name was clearly smitten by its best-
loved product, chocolate. He, or she, named the plant Theobroma (literally, ‘food
of the gods’) cacao. If the modern method of botanical classification had been
around during Vedic times, there was surely only one plant that would have
earned that ecstatic descriptor – the mountain plant, soma, from which was
produced the (possibly intoxicating and/or hallucinogenic) ritual drink, soma,
which was worshipped as a god called (what else but) Soma.
 Soma (both the god and the drink) was vital to every yagna, for it was the
favourite drink of Indra, Lord of the Heavens and the No. 1 god in the Arya
pantheon (So Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were not the No. 1 Vedic gods? Nope.
They were seriously minor gods then. For more details on gods old and new, see
‘Who or What did the Arya worship? Element-ary!’ on page 45). Copious
quantities of soma were offered to Indra by pouring it into the yagna fire, while
the even more copious quantities left behind, after having been ‘blessed’ by the
gods, were consumed by the mantra-chanting priests, the yajamana and his
guests, and anyone else who had the right connections.
As you can imagine, both Soma and soma were exceedingly popular – after
all, the brew was supposed to confer immortality (or at least the feeling of being
immortal) on the drinker, as well as improving vitality and vigour in ‘body, mind
and intellect’, and bestowing on him the ability to see the ‘light of the gods’. It
would have been great to test its powers for ourselves; tragically, we simply have
no idea how to brew a draught of soma today.

Sarcostemma acidum, a Himalayan plant identified by some as being used in soma

Considering that so many Vedic rituals and chants and beliefs have survived
until the present day, it is a real shame that the recipe for soma hasn’t. While the
Rig Veda indicates clearly that it was a plant product, made by (1) extracting the
juice from the leaves and/or stalks of a certain mountain plant, (2) purifying it by
straining through a cloth, and (3) mixing it with curd or milk, flour, water and
perhaps honey, no one has so far been able to conclusively identify the mystery
plant itself! We are also told that soma achieved its full potential when the juice
was extracted from plants gathered by moonlight (sounds like something out of a
witch’s recipe book, right?), which was probably why the Arya eventually
promoted Soma the god of the drink to Soma the moon god.*
How did we entirely lose the knowledge of this fabulous plant? After all,
Indians – especially Indian grandmothers – have always had a deep knowledge
of all kinds of healing, nourishing and revitalizing herbs and spices. That
wisdom has come down to us in two ways – one, via texts related to Ayurveda,
the Indian system of medicine (which is enjoying a huge resurgence today); and
two, by word-of-mouth transmission across the generations. The fact that no
knowledge whatsoever exists on the soma plant is puzzling, and probably
indicates that the plant wasn’t local at all, but imported from somewhere far
away in the Hindu Kush mountains, specifically for the purposes of the Vedic
yagnas, until the whole thing became too unviable for one reason or another.
Once the original plant became unavailable, the Arya began to use a
substitute from the Himalayas – most scholars think it likely that it was a plant
called somalata – for their yagnas. Somalata has similar (but not identical)
effects on the body and mind as soma, which is why it continues to be used as an
offering at yagnas even today.
*Many ancient cultures had a god of intoxicants in their pantheon. The Greeks, for instance, had a god of
the grape harvest, wine-making and wine, who was very popular. Do you know his name? The Romans
knew the same god by a different name. Do you know what his Roman name was?

Ans: Greek god of wine: Dionysus; Roman god of wine: Bacchus

 ३
THE GODS OF BIG THINGS
Roarers and healers, slayers and protectors, sustainers
and devourers, the Arya revered them all
 f you were part of a nomadic cattle-herding people who conducted their

I entire lives in the lap of nature – waking each day to a glorious sunrise,
retiring to bed as another beautiful sunset painted itself into a starry, starry
night in the upturned bowl of the sky above, watching lightning split the dark
sky in a spectacular storm as you hurried to shelter with your flock under a rocky
overhang, dancing in abandon when rain-bearing clouds gathered and burst
above your head, filling the rivers after a particularly merciless summer – where
would you look for your gods? In those very elements, of course! And that’s
exactly what the Arya did.
The Arya believed that our universe was just one of the many universes that
made up the multiverse. In their minds, our universe was divided into three
‘planes’ or lokas – Bhuh, Bhuvah and Svah. Bhuh was the earth, Svah the sky
and Bhuvah the space in between the two. There were gods in each of these three
lokas – the fire, earth and the rivers were all Bhuh deities; the wind, rain clouds,
thunder and lightning were gods who inhabited Bhuvah; and the sun, moon, the
dawn and the stars were the gods who looked down on them from Svah. By and
by, though, the Arya ended up sending all their gods up to Svah.
Considering that the Arya composed the Vedas and the Upanishads, which
are the main scriptures of the religion we know as Hinduism, were the gods of
the Arya the same as the gods the Hindus revere today? Yes and no. While a few
Vedic gods, like Mitra and Ushas, are all but forgotten today, others, like Indra,
who were all-powerful and top-of-the-heap then, are now treated as minor gods.
On the flip side, gods like Vishnu, who languished way down the god hierarchy
in Vedic times, have zoomed to its highest rungs today. As you can see, the
theory of evolution applies to gods and goddesses as well –they evolved too,
depending on the whims, concerns and aspirations of the humans who
worshipped them.
Words used to describe gods have evolved as well. One of the most startling
evolutions has been in the meaning of the word ‘asura’. Today, we understand
the word asura as demon – a stereotypically dark-skinned and malevolent being
who causes chaos in the world and trouble in the heavens. We see asuras today
as the negative counterparts of the fair-skinned, sweeter, nobler suras, or devas.
The ancient Arya, however, saw asuras quite differently. To them, all their gods,
including their chief god Indra, were asuras. There were good ones and bad ones
(and fair-skinned ones and dark-skinned ones, one would imagine) among them,
but asura* simply meant a powerful, superhuman being who could bring joy or
destruction to humanity.
*In fact, this is one of the linguisitic ‘clues’ that historians who believe that the Arya came into India from
outside use to support their theory. Ancient Persian, the language of the Zoroastrian holy book, the Zend
Avesta, has several words in common with Vedic Sanskrit. Only, in Persian, the ‘s’ sound is replaced with
the ‘h’ sound – the drink soma in the Vedas becomes ‘haoma’ in the Zend Avesta, for instance, and Sapta
Sindhu, the group of seven sacred rivers in the north-west of India, becomes Hapta Hindu. This similarity of
language, say experts, is one strong indication that both the Iranians (who were Zoroastrian) and the Arya
originated in the same place in Central Asia. Even the two religions were similar – both involved fire
worship. Now, with all this background info, can you guess where the first part of the name of the almighty
Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, came from? That’s right – Asura!

WHO OR WHAT DID THE ARYA WORSHIP?

ELEMENT-ARY!
Now, who were the main gods and goddesses of the Arya? The best indication of
‘god popularity’ comes from the 1,028 suktas (hymns) of the Rig Veda, the
oldest and bulkiest of all the four Vedas – the more hymns addressed to a
particular god, the more popular, or higher up in the god hierarchy, he or she
was. Based purely on that yardstick, here are the ‘main’ Arya gods and
goddesses.
• Indra – Heroic friend of mankind, Lord of Heaven, god of rain and storms,
lover of soma, wielder of the thunderbolt Vajra, and slayer of demons, Indra
held a very special place in the Arya heart. His chief nemesis was Vritra, the
dragon of drought, who took great pleasure in blocking the flow of rivers.
Vritra’s brother Vala was no less a foe – he specialized in turning himself into
a stone cave around the cows that his allies, the mischievous Panis, stole from
 the Arya.
Whenever Indra destroyed Vritra, the waters of the celestial river (the
Milky Way, or the Akash Ganga, was believed to be the original celestial
river from where waters flowed down to fill earthly rivers) were released to
earth as rain. When he split Vala in two, the stolen cows were released to
make their joyful way back to their rightful owners. In fact, this is why the
Vedas sometimes use cows as a symbol for clouds. The ‘liberation of cows’ is
a metaphor for the release of rain from the clouds. Whichever interpretation
you pick, Indra was a superhero!
Sadly, his fondness for soma and beautiful apsaras, and his insecurity about
human sages whom he feared would become more powerful than him, seem
to have weakened Indra’s powers and lost him the respect of the Arya.
Slowly but surely, the most beloved Vedic god fell off his mighty pedestal
and became one of the minor Hindu gods.
• Agni – As the divine messenger who conveyed human offerings and prayers
to the gods, Agni was believed to inhabit all three lokas – in Bhuh he was fire,
in Bhuvah lightning and in Svah the sun. All offerings to the gods were made
into his all-consuming ‘mouth’ here on earth. Agni continues to be present at
all Hindu weddings and yagnas today as the accepter of offerings and the
witness of the gods, but he doesn’t enjoy the kind of wild popularity he did in
Arya times, when he was the first god to be propitiated at every yagna.
• Soma – The favourite drink of Indra – and of the Arya – was venerated as a
god by itself. No less than 123 of the Rig Vedic hymns are dedicated to this
divine brew. Later, perhaps because of how difficult it was to obtain the plant
from which soma was made, the name soma was given to the moon, and a
new god, Soma, was created.
• The Ashvins – Twin horsemen, who were the sons of the sun and the clouds,
the Ashvins represented the similar but not identical glows of sunrise and
sunset. They protected humans from misfortune and sickness, and were
believed to be the doctors of the gods. Centuries later, they were ordained as
 the patron gods of Ayurveda, the Indian science of healing.

The Ashvins, healers of the gods

• Varuna – Lord of the Seas, rivers and the waters, Varuna was an asura with
serious anger-management issues. (If you have ever seen a stormy sea, you
know where that association came from.) Varuna was rarely mentioned alone
in the Vedas, though – he was part of a twin identity called Varuna-Mitra.
Mitra was the gentler side of Varuna, the Dr Jekyll to Varuna’s Mr Hyde, the
friend that humans could appeal to when they wanted the temperamental
god’s blessings. Even though Mitra is no longer venerated as a god, his spirit
lives on in the Sanskrit word for friend – mitra. Varuna–Mitra’s other big
responsibility was maintaining order, or rita, in the universe – things like
making sure that the sun rose, the earth turned, the seasons changed, the tides
rose and fell like clockwork, and so on.
• The Maruts – The sons of Rudra and Diti, the Maruts (also called the Rudras)
were violent storm gods who roared like lions as they wielded their weapons
of lightning and thunderbolts. Another set of Diti’s sons were called Daityas
(who became the ‘bad’ asuras), while her sister Aditi’s sons, the Adityas, grew
up to be the ‘good’ asuras.
• Ushas – The most exalted goddess of the Vedic Arya, second only to Indra,
Soma and Agni, beautiful Ushas was the Goddess of the Dawn. Each
morning, as she rode across the sky from east to west in her golden chariot
drawn by cows or red horses, paving the way for Surya the sun god, she
chased away the demons of darkness, roused everyone and everything from
slumber, set things in motion and sent everyone off to do their duties. In other
words, Ushas was Supermom. (Who was Ushas’s sister? Yup, Ratri, the
night!)

Ushas, the Goddess of the Dawn

• Savitr – One of the ‘Adityas’ or sons of Aditi, Savitr, or Savita, is a form of

Surya, the sun god. Savitr is supposed to be that part of Surya that infuses life
into things, and he was a highly revered god in Vedic times. Over the
 millennia, however, Savitr was forgotten as a deity. But Hindus evoke his
name very often, even though they may not realize it, in a very popular hymn
from the Rig Veda that is chanted to this day. Can you guess which one?*
*The Gayatri Mantra! The first line of the mantra goes ‘Tat Savitur varenyam’ – We meditate on that Savitr!
Oh-kay, but why is the mantra called the Gayatri then – shouldn’t it be called the Savitri? Find the answer
on page 72.

• Vayu – He was the Lord of the Winds then, and continues to be the Lord of
the Winds today. ‘Wind’ did not mean just atmospheric wind, though – Vayu
was also the ‘wind’ in all living things, the very breath of life, or prana.

Vayu, the Lord of the Winds

• Brihaspati – To the ancient Arya, Brihaspati was a wise sage who was
counsellor to the gods and the guru of the devas (or the good asuras). Today,
we also know him as the planet Jupiter and the god of Brihaspati-vaar, or
Thursday.
• Dyaus Pitr and Prithvi Mata – The parents of everything contained on
heaven and earth, Dyaus Pitr (say dhowsh-pitruh) can be translated as Sky
 Father and Prithvi Mata as Earth Mother. Given that Sanskrit is among the
oldest of the Indo-European languages, and remembering that Dyaus Pitr is a
heavenly father, can you guess what the Greek version of his name was? Zeus
Pater – Father Zeus! And what planet’s name do you think Zeus Pater
inspired? Jupiter, of course!
• Apas – In Sanskrit, the word apas literally means ‘the waters’. Whether as
rivers, rain or the sea, the waters were deities by themselves to the ancient
Arya. Apas, together with Vayu (air), Agni (fire), Prithvi (earth) and Dyaus or
Akash (space) were the five elements – the Panchabhuta – that the Arya
believed made up everything in the world, including the human body.
• Vishnu – With only six suktas dedicated to him in the Rig Veda, Vishnu in the
Vedic Age was nowhere near being the Supreme Being that Hindus revere
him as now. But he was even then hailed as the supporter of the earth and the
sky, a close friend of Indra’s and a resident of the highest abode (Paramam
Padam) where all souls go when they escape from the cycle of rebirth. He was
often also equated with light, Surya, and referred to as Suryanarayana, a name
that persists to this day.
• Rudra – Rudra ‘the Roarer’, who shared many attributes – like wild matted
hair, for instance – with the later Hindu god we know as Shiva, was the archer
god of the storm and the hunt, his shining arrows streaking across the sky as
lightning. Again, there are only five suktas addressed to him, which tells us he
was a relatively minor Vedic god.
In the Vedas, Rudra is referred to both as Ghora, the terrifying one, and
Aghora, the peaceful one, but his general demeanour seems to have been
more terror-inducing than reassuring. The fact that Hindus use the names
Rudra (fierce) and Shiva (kind) interchangeably for him even today tells us
that he is still believed to have both those aspects to his personality. Rudra,
who had a whole arsenal of pills and potions at his command, was also
revered as Vaidyanatha, the physician of physicians.
Now here’s the cool part about Rudra – he also shared some attributes with
 a god of the even more ancient Harappan people! Archaeologists have named
his Harappan equivalent Pashupati, Lord of the Beasts, because of the way he
was depicted by them. Could that indicate that the Arya were really the later
Harappans, and therefore natives, not foreigners?
(Want to know a little more about the Harappans and the mysterious
Pashupati? Check out ‘Pashupati’s People’ on page 54.)
• Saraswati – The goddess of knowledge that Hindus revere as Saraswati today
was not the Saraswati of the Vedic Arya. To them, she was simply the
‘greatest of rivers’. Scholars believe that the earliest parts of the Rig Veda
must have been composed when the Arya lived on her banks in the north-west
of India, around 1500 BCE. They have also been puzzling over the identity of
the river that the Arya referred to as Saraswati. Whichever it was, Hindus
consider the Saraswati, along with the Ganga and Yamuna, as one of their
three most sacred rivers, and believe that she merges with the other two at the
Triveni Sangam (the holy spot where three rivers meet) at Prayag in Prayagraj
(earlier Allahabad) in Uttar Pradesh.
• Yama – Ever wondered how Yama got to be the Hindu god of death? Well,
according to the Rig Veda, he won the position simply because he was the
very first human to die and find his way to heavenly realms! As the ruler of
the departed, it was his job to come down to earth on his buffalo, collect souls
released from dying bodies and offer them safe passage to his kingdom.
Phew. All done. And if you thought that was a long list of gods and
goddesses, think about the number of Hindu gods there are now! How come?
Well, the Arya made it a habit to keep adding all the local gods and goddesses to
the large bunch they already had. Luckily, that divine bunch was accommodating
enough, scooting over cheerfully to make place for all the new ones that arrived.
The thing to remember, however, is that while the Arya worshipped all these
different deities, they believed that all of them were only manifestations of one
Supreme Being, the formless, nameless one they called Ishvara. In the
Upanishads, which were composed 1,000 years after the Vedas, this Supreme
Being came to be called Brahman.
One destination, many possible routes – Hinduism sounds like a Google
map, wot?
 PASHUPATI’S PEOPLE
A short intro to the original champions of ‘Jahan Soch,
Wahan Shauchalay’

Some 5,000 years ago, i.e., 1,500 years before our Veda-chanting Arya made
their appearance on the Indian stage and around the same time that the world’s
first cities were coming up on the banks of the river Nile in Egypt, and the rivers
Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq), a very advanced civilization
– we refer to it today as the Harappan Civilization – was flourishing on the
banks of our own Sindhu (Indus) and Saraswati rivers.
The people of this civilization were best known for their brilliant urban
planning. Over a vast area stretching from Shortugai on Afghanistan’s Russian
border to Daimabad in Maharashtra and from Sutkagen Dor on the Makran coast
near Iran to Alamgirpur near Delhi, they built great cities with straight roads,
granaries, working sewerage systems, and houses with built-in bathrooms and
flushes! They traded with Mesopotamia and Egypt both via land and sea routes,
grew crops like barley and wheat, and left behind pottery, beads, terracotta toys,
jewellery, beautifully cast figurines in bronze and mysterious seals for us to find
and puzzle over thousands of years later. They even left behind a script, which
we haven’t been able to decipher yet. In fact, we don’t even know what their
land was called – we think it was called Meluhha because the Mesopotamians
left records of trading with a country called Meluhha in the east.
The statue of the ‘priest king’ from Mohenjo-Daro

No weapons or royal regalia have been found at Harappan sites yet, which
leads us to guess that they were not aggressive conquerors led by kings but a
peaceful agricultural society most likely ruled by priests (experts have deduced
this based on the bust of a bearded man in a robe and a diadem found during
early excavations – they believe this man was a person of authority, most likely a
priest).

The ‘Pashupati’ seal

And when we talk priests, can the gods be far behind? Again, we have no
idea of Harappan gods, but there is one fascinating seal we have found that has
had everyone excited for the longest time. The seal is only about an inch square,
and damaged to boot, but if you squint hard at it, you can see that it shows a
seated male figure. Experts believe that figure could represent a Harappan god
who, with the addition of a few tweaks and changes, is still being worshipped as
a major Hindu god today!
 They came to that conclusion through the kind of deductive process we all
follow when faced with a puzzle – we overlap the knowledge we have with what
is before us, and make some inspired guesses. The process must have gone
somewhat like this:
• Observation: The figure on the Harappan seal is sitting cross-legged.
Deduction: Ah! That looks like the lotus pose in yoga, the ‘padmasana’, so
maybe this is a yoga teacher of some kind, or even, dare I say it, a god of
yoga?
• Observation: He has three faces, one facing forward and two in profile.
Deduction: Ah! Many Hindu gods are shown with more than one head, so
this guy is definitely looking more like a god now.
• Observation: He is wearing some kind of headgear, with two beautifully
curving horns.
Deduction: Ah! Many Hindu gods are associated with animals – the horns
could mean this god is associated with a bull.
• Observation: The horns enclose what looks like a fountain or a plant.
Deduction: Hang on a minute! When the fountain and the horns are taken
together, they look like a... trident! Many Hindu gods are associated with their
own special weapon. Omg, I think I know which Hindu god this is!
• Observation: Around him are carved several animals – a tiger, an elephant, a
rhino, a buffalo and a deer.
Deduction: Ah! This could mean that this figure was revered as the ‘Lord of
All Creatures’. Omg, omg, another name of the Hindu god I was thinking of
before is Pashupati, which means ‘Lord of All Creatures’. I know who this is,
it has to be him – this is an ancient, ancient version of… you guessed it –
Shiva!
And that was how the figure on the broken seal got his name – Pashupati! Of
course we will never know for sure (or at least until we decipher the Harappan
script, and maybe not even then) whether that figure really represents a
Harappan god, and if that god was really a predecessor of the Shiva we are
familiar with today.
In fact, so far, we don’t even know what happened to our great city-building
ancestors and why they disappeared so mysteriously around 3,800 years ago.
One popular theory is that a great drought forced the Harappans to move east
and south on the subcontinent, but it doesn’t explain why they did not build up a
grander civilization somewhere else, and how their advanced knowledge of
urban design and planning died out entirely.
Hmm. Maybe there is a totally different explanation. Maybe the Harappans
were beamed up en masse into passing alien spaceships. Maybe, with the
blessings of Pashupati, they colonized an entirely new planet. Maybe, when they
pass overhead in the dark of a winter night, they shake their heads sadly at how
we are destroying ours. Maybe.
The jury is still out on this one. What is your theory?
 ४
A-ONE, A-TWO, A-ONE, TWO,
THREE, FOUR!
The symbiotic tale of four Vedas and a yagna
 ow that we are somewhat familiar with the history of the Vedas, we can

N get to the important matter of what the Arya used them for.
As you know by now, the religion of the Arya primarily centred
around the ritual sacrifice they called yagna. But what was the yagna ‘concept’
really about?
Well, a yagna was actually a mega-feast hosted by humans for the gods!
Most of the hymns of the Vedas were essentially invitations to these VIPs, laced
with praise and blandishments, and loaded with descriptions of all the delicious
food on offer, to tempt the gods into RSVP-ing with an enthusiastic ‘Wouldn’t
miss it for the world!’ Of course, the inviting had to be done just right, and the
food prepared and served just so, or the gods would either not arrive or stomp
out in a huff in the middle of the yagna, which would not do at all – a lot of
devotion and effort and money would go down the drain then, the yajamana
would make a zero return on investment in terms of boons received, and worse,
incur a round of divine punishments to boot.
Why did the Arya throw such ginormous parties for their gods? Was it only
because they feared their wrath? Not really. A yagna was performed for many
reasons, chief among them being to show gratitude to the gods for always being
there – as sunlight, rain, wind, fertile earth, rushing rivers and overall protectors
– and to return that favour in some small measure, so that the sacred cycle of
give-and-take between gods and humans was kept in motion. Yagnas were also
the Arya way of nourishing their gods with food, drink and adoration, to ensure
that they regained the strength and lustre they had lost combating river-blocking
dragons, cow-concealing demons and other enemies of humankind – for if the
gods were not nourished, who would stand in the way of the forces of
destruction that constantly threatened the world? Equally importantly, yagnas
were performed by the rich and powerful not just for their own benefit but for
the noble cause of ‘loka kalyan’ – the welfare of the world – because the Arya
believed, as we still do, that it was unselfish acts like these that helped tot up
brownie points in their karma accounts for their next life.
And that’s why it was so important to have the right priests in place, chanting
the right hymns from the appropriate Vedas, and doing all the right things as far
as the yagna prep, event flow and offerings went, to ensure a perfect yagna for
the yajamana.
How did the hymns of the four Vedas fit into this picture? Did one priest
know all of them by heart or did it take a whole battalion of them to pull off a
successful yagna? Let’s take a little detour to examine the Vedas in a little more
detail, shall we?

HOW WERE THE VEDAS BUILT? LAYER

BY LAYER!
Each of the four Vedas, i.e., the Rig, the Yajur, the Sama and the Atharva, is
organized into four sections – the Samhita, the Brahmana (say braah-mana), the
Aranyaka (say aa-ranyaka) and the Upanishad.

THE SAMHITA

The Samhita part of each Veda is the oldest layer, and the simplest to explain.
The Samhita, which simply means ‘collection’, is that part of the Vedas that is
called ‘liturgy’ in English. Liturgy is the actual set of hymns that are chanted
during the rituals of public worship in any religion (in Sanskrit*, the Vedic
hymns are called mantras).
*All the Samhitas are in Vedic Sanskrit, which is an ancient form of the language that we know today as
Sanskrit. It wasn’t until the 5th century BCE, when the great scholar Panini put down the rules of Sanskrit
grammar, that Sanskrit became a ‘formal’ language that could be taught, written and spoken in exactly the
same way by everyone. In the beginning, Sanskrit was written using a number of different scripts derived
from the Brahmi script used in Emperor Ashoka’s time, but today its official script is Devanagari, the same
‘washing-line’ script we use to write Hindi.

THE BRAHMANA
Unfortunately, the Samhitas, like a lot of the archaic poetry you are forced to
study in school and college today, were written in language that was often too
obscure and difficult to understand. So an interpretation, which explained the
significance and meaning of each mantra and ritual, apart from providing minute
details on how each ritual was to be carried out, was later added on to each Veda.
This layer is called the Brahmana. (Note: Different opinions as to the real
meaning of the mantras ensured that there was often more than one Brahmana
for a Samhita – we are not called the ‘Argumentative Indians’ for nothing!)
Mercifully, the Brahmanas were written in straightforward prose.

THE ARANYAKA

As centuries went by, many deep thinkers among the later Arya found
themselves questioning the mostly literal interpretations in the Brahmanas. They
pondered questions like – ‘Sure the poet says ‘‘Surya’s chariot has one wheel
and seven horses” here, but what did he or she really mean? Maybe the seven
horses are actually the seven colours of the rainbow and the one wheel means
they all combine to make one colour, the white of sunlight? Maybe the seven
horses indicate the five senses, the mind and the intellect, and Surya is the one
who controls all of them so that the one wheel of our awareness is not pulled in
seven different directions at the same time?’
See how this sort of thing can be fun? And how you can go on endlessly?
The cool part is that when wise, well-meaning people sit down to do this, they
can come up with the kind of creative interpretations that truly expand our
understanding. They can urge us to read between the lines, to not accept things at
face value, and seek the truth beyond what the eyes see and the ears hear.
The rishis who meditated in the deep dark of the jungles, passing their
experiences and learnings along to students in their forest academies, were
among the wisest, most free-thinking and most imaginative people of the Vedic
Age. Their questions (including the ones they asked themselves) and their fresh,
new interpretations of the hymns of the Samhitas, form the third layer of the
Vedas – the Aranyakas. (Why ‘Aranyakas’? Well, in Sanskrit, ‘aranya’ means
forest, and these thinkers usually lived in the forests. Ergo.)

THE UPANISHAD

The Aranyakas seem to flow naturally into the last section of the Vedas – i.e., the
Vedanta or the Upanishads – because the latter are also deep and philosophical
thoughts on life, the universe and everything. But the Upanishads also stand by
themselves, because, unlike the Aranyakas, they do not refer to the Vedic rituals
or the Samhita at all. It’s quite possible, therefore, that the Upanishads were
composed independently, quite separate from the Vedas (after all, they were
composed a millennium later!) and were then tacked on to the Vedas as their
fourth and final layer because the thoughts in them seemed to progress directly
from the Aranyakas. [In fact, the oldest and largest of the Upanishads, the
Brihadaranyaka, literally means ‘The Giant (or Expanded) Aranyaka’.]
As you can see, the Samhitas are the ‘real’ Vedas – the other layers are only
more and more advanced interpretations of them. Also, while the division
between the Samhitas and the Brahmanas is quite clear, the lines between the
other three sections are pretty fuzzy, with one merging merrily into the other*.
There is also a clear division between the first two layers and the later two – the
first two form the ‘doing’ or action part of the Veda – hymns to be sung, rituals
to be performed – while the last two are the ‘thinking’ or wisdom part –
questions to ponder over, lessons to live by.

PS: Can you guess what the ‘action’ section and ‘thinking’ section are called in
Sanskrit? Here’s a clue – the Sanskrit word for section is ‘kanda’ (say kaanda).
Now think about what the Sanskrit words for action and wisdom are, and you
will have your answer.
(Ans: Karma Kanda and Jnana Kanda)
Another bit of trivia before we go on - in the Bhagavad Gita, which carries the
essence of all the wisdom of the Upanishads, Sanjaya, the narrator of the events
of the war, tells the blind king Dhritarashtra that the side that will win the war
will be the one that has action and wisdom (a metaphor for Arjuna and Krishna,
respectively) on its side. This is true in life as well – there is no point in knowing
what to do but not doing it, nor is there any point in doing things without
knowing why. Because the Vedas contain both an action part and a wisdom part,
they are, according to Hindus, the ‘complete’ texts.
*OK, one important clarification here – it wasn’t the ‘composers’ of these four layers who decided which
Aranyaka and Upanishad was part of which Veda, or even that the Aranyakas and Upanishads were layers
of the Vedas at all. That was decided far more recently, once the texts – at least the ones that were
remembered or whose manuscripts were found – were written down and collected, and scholars could study
them as a whole. When an Upanishad was already part of the Brahmana or Aranyaka layer of a Veda, there
was no debate; when it was a stand-alone Upanishad, however, decisions had to be taken on which Veda to
attach it to. Scholars did not always agree on this, which is why there is no definitive list – an Upanishad
may be associated with one Veda in one list, and with another in a different one.

HYMN AND HERB, SPELL AND SONG

Now, what are the Samhitas – the original, oldest parts of each of the four Vedas
– about? (Longish textbookish detour alert!) While the Samhitas of the first three
at least dabble in similar concerns – the gods, the yagna and a bit of philosophy
– each is distinct and serves different purposes. The fourth Samhita, that of the
Atharva Veda, is way off this grid, and is absorbed with everyday human
concerns, which is perhaps why it is the most interesting of all.
The Rig Veda Samhita is the oldest and longest of all the Samhitas. Its name
comes from the Sanskrit ‘ric’, which means ‘praise’ or ‘light’, so ‘Rig Veda’
translates to ‘Hymns of Praise’ or ‘The Light of Knowledge’ or ‘The Knowledge
of Exaltation’ – something like that. The Rig comprises ten books, or Mandalas,
containing 10,600 verses as part of 1,028 hymns dedicated to all the important
Arya deities. (We are speaking here of the version of the Samhita that has
survived. There were almost certainly other versions, with more or fewer hymns,
but they have all disappeared). Mandalas 2–9, which are the oldest, are mostly
hymns to the gods and goddesses. Mandalas 1 and 10 were composed much
later, and while Mandala 1 has similar concerns as the older ones, Mandala 10
talks about things like the creation story – how the universe was born, how man
was created, and so on – and the nature of God.

A page from a handwritten copy (early 19th century) of the Rig Veda

The Sama Veda Samhita is a subset of the Rig Veda Samhita, consisting of a
selection of 1,875 of its verses (yup, no new material there). What makes this
Samhita special, though, is that these 1,875 verses are set to music, which
explains how this particular Veda gets its name – ‘saaman’ is Sanskrit for ‘song’.
It also explains why the Sama Veda Samhita is meant to be heard, not read.
When they began to be written down, the verses were musically ‘notated’ too –
in other words, the ‘tune’ to which the verses must be sung was clearly marked
(similar to how a musical score is written down in western sheet music), which
means that when we ‘sing’ verses from the Sama Veda, we are singing them in
exactly the same tune as they were sung 3,000 years ago! In fact, all Indian
classical music and dance traditions consider the melodies in the Sama Veda to
be part of their original roots. But Sama Veda hymns are neither quite sung like
songs nor chanted like the Rig Vedic mantras. They fall somewhere in between
the two – a melodious chanting, shall we say? The melodies are believed to have
existed before the Sama Veda itself, with words from the Rig Vedic hymns being
fitted into those melodies as best they could.*
*Remember that bit from the 1965 film The Sound of Music where Maria teaches the von Trapp kids a
melody – Sol Do La Fa Mi Do Re / Sol Do La Ti Do Re Do – and the youngest, Gretl, protests – ‘But they
don’t mean anything!’? Remember how Maria answers, ‘So we put in words. One word for every note. Like
this – When- you- know- the- notes- to- sing / You- can- sing- ’most- a-ny-thing!’? The Sama Veda ‘songs’
are believed to have been constructed in exactly the same way.

Unlike the Samhitas of the Rig Veda and the Sama Veda, the Yajur Veda
Samhita is a mix of prose and verse. The verse part, while not identical to the
Rig Veda verses, borrows liberally from them. The prose part, on the other hand,
is original, and comprises the ‘formulae’ recited during a sacrifice as the
offerings are being poured. In fact, the name of the Veda itself comes from the
Sanskrit ‘yajus’, which means sacrifice. (Yajus is also the root word of... yup,
yagna!)
Now, even though the Vedas had stringent methods of oral transmission,
some variations are bound to creep in over three millennia. The story goes that
Veda Vyasa, the compiler and editor of the Vedas, taught the Yajur Veda to his
student Vaishampayana, who in turn taught it to twenty-seven of his students,
who taught it onwards in their own shakhas or schools. Over time, we ended up
with two variants of the Yajur Veda Samhita – the so-called Shukla (Sanskrit for
‘white’ or ‘bright’) Yajur Veda, and the Krishna (‘black’ or ‘dark’) Yajur Veda,
considered ‘dark’ because it was not organized as meticulously as the Shukla,
and was therefore confusing. (Hey, Arya! Your colour biases are showing!)

Most scholars believe that the Atharva Veda Samhita is not directly connected
with the other three, because this one has less to do with liturgy and gods and
philosophical ruminations, and more with the everyday fears and hopes and
troubles of common people. The Atharva Veda’s name origin is different from
the rest of the Vedas too – it is named after the sage Atharvan, who – interesting
sidelight alert! – is believed to be the man who discovered how to make fire by
rubbing a pair of sticks together!
This fourth Samhita is a motley mix of many unusual and somewhat bizarre
things – spells to ward off nightmares and disease, prayers to individual herbs to
do their job as healers, mantras to chant while a broken bone is being set, praise
for the motherland and the mother tongue, and even incantations to wake a dead
person so that he can go and meet his ‘deader’ ancestors. True story.
In fact, there are so many prayers to plants and herbs, and the verses display
such a vast knowledge of the healing properties of each, that the Atharva Veda
Samhita is believed to be the inspiration behind the Indian system of medicine,
Ayurveda! Both the great ancient Indian healer Charaka, who left us the Charaka
Samhita, a fat compendium on Ayurveda, and the ancient Indian doctor and
surgeon, Sushruta, who wrote the Sushruta Samhita, a medical manual listing
1,120 illnesses and their treatment, along with surgical procedures that include
tooth extraction, fracture management and cataract surgery, acknowledge the
Atharva Veda Samhita as one of their main inspirations. Cool, hunh?
Now, armed with all this information about the Vedas, back to the main
pastime of rich and powerful Arya – the yagna!

BACK TO THE YAGNA

By the time some 800 years had passed since the earliest bits of the Rig Veda
were composed, yagnas were really trending in Aryavarta. There were daily fire
yagnas at home and outside, fortnightly yagnas to commemorate the new moon
(and the full moon), four-monthly yagnas to celebrate the start of each new
season, yagnas to celebrate a good harvest or pray for rain after a bad one, and
yagnas for more ‘special occasions’ than anyone could keep count of – birth,
marriage, death, and many more. Then there were the mega one–off yagnas –
performed by a king to celebrate a famous victory, or to ask for blessings before
going to war; the list was never-ending. And while they were seriously
expensive affairs for the yajamana, they certainly kept those knowledgeable in
the Vedas, the brahmins, very happy indeed – after all, a yagna could not happen
without Vedic hymns.
Now, each Veda had its own set of specialists, so there were four sets of
brahmins required at each yagna. One set, called the ‘hotri’, were the Rig Veda
experts – they chanted mantras from the Rig Veda Samhita. The ‘udgatri’ formed
the choir, providing the melodious background score to the yagna via the hymns
of the Sama Veda. Yet another set of specialists, the ‘adhvaryu’, had aced their
Yajur Veda exams and did the real work of clearing and preparing the sacrificial
ground, building the fire pits, ritually slaughtering the sacrificial animals and
cooking them in the prescribed way, and pouring the offerings into the sacred
fire, all the while also chanting the formulae for each act. Phew.
And presiding over all of them, and the yagna itself, was the High Priest and
Master of the Yagna – the learned Brahmana (say braah-mana)*. The Brahmana
sat silent and remote to the right of the yajamana** for the entire duration of the
yagna, his keen eyes observing everything, missing nothing. It was his job to see
that the hotri, the udgatri and the adhvaryu did their jobs perfectly, without
taking shortcuts that would jeopardize the divine feast. The High Priest was also
adept at the Atharva Veda. When and if things went wrong with the yagna, the
Brahmana went into damage-control mode, chanting the right spells and charms
from the fourth Veda to reverse curses, neutralize the bad effects of the wrong
moves, and keep disaster, drought and disease from raining down on the
yajamana’s head, and on his people’s.
*Brahmana (Chief Priest at the yagna) is different from Brahman (Supreme Soul, Universal Energy) is
different from Brahma (Hindu god) is different from brahmin (varna, occupation, caste) is different from the
Brahmanas (the second layer of the Vedas). Phewwww.
**In several yagnas, it was mandatory for the wife of the yajamana to participate as co-host. She sat on his
left.

You can see why this was a great gig for the priests – at the end of each yagna,
the yajamana rewarded each of them with generous amounts of dakshina, or
fees, not only to express his gratitude for a job well done but also to buy himself
insurance from their curses and ill-will. Win-win all around!
Filed away all that macro info about the Vedas? Super. On to the micro now,
in the next chapter!

THE ORIGINAL ‘BEAT POETS’

A brief introduction to the many rhythms of the Vedas

How do you classify a certain grouping of words as verse while another is

classified as prose? In English poetry, verse usually involves a rhyme scheme of
some kind. In a four-line verse, for example, line 2 may rhyme with line 4 (as in
the nursery rhyme ‘Mary had a little lamb’). Or it may be that lines 1 and 2
rhyme with each other, while lines 3 and 4 do the same (as in ‘Twinkle, twinkle,
little star’). But you knew that already.
What you may not have realized is that, to give even the simplest verse its
lovely rhythmic cadence, the number of syllables per line of the verse also has to
follow a plan. In ‘Mary had a little lamb’, for instance, the number of syllables in
the first, second, third and fourth lines is a nice and regular 7-6-7-6. In ‘Twinkle,
twinkle, little star’, it is 7-7-7-7. This rhythmic structure is called the ‘metre’ of
the verse.
If you think about any Sanskrit shlokas that you know or have heard, you
will notice that the lines very rarely rhyme with each other. And yet, there is a
lovely beat to all shlokas when they are recited or sung, because keeping to a
particular metre, or ‘chanda’ (say chhan-da), was considered sacred in Vedic
poetry.
There are seven different chandas, together called the ‘seven mouths of
Brihaspati’, used in Vedic poetry. What are their names, and how do they work?
Let’s find out.
1. The Gayatri – The famous Gayatri Mantra from the Rig Veda is actually a
 salutation to the sun, or Savitr. It is called the Gayatri Mantra because it is
composed in the Gayatri metre, the shortest and the most sacred of all the
Vedic metres! A verse written in this metre has 3 ‘syllable collections’ (also
called ‘foot’ in English or ‘paada’ in Sanskrit) of 8 syllables each, adding up
to 24 syllables in all. Count the syllables in the Gayatri Mantra below and see
for yourself! (FYI, each line is a paada.)

Tat Savitur varenyam

Bhargo devasya dhimahi
Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat

We meditate
On the effulgent glory of that Divine Light, Savitr –
May He illuminate our understanding.

Did you notice that the first line of the Gayatri mantra has only seven
syllables? No one is sure why that is so; perhaps it is because the words were
pronounced a little differently in Vedic times. When it is recited today, to keep
the sanctity of the Gayatri metre, some people split the word and say ‘varen-
iyam’.
2. The Ushni – With two paadas of 8 syllables and one of 12, the Ushni has
exactly four syllables more than the sacred Gayatri.
3. The Anushtubh – The favourite metre of the post-Vedic poets, the
Anushtubh is used extensively in the verses of the Rig Veda, the Mahabharata,
the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita, apart from the Puranas and ancient
scientific works in Sanskrit. This famous prayer to Ganesha is composed in
the Anushtubh metre. Can you calculate the number of paadas, the number of
syllables per paada, and the total number of syllables of this metre?
 Vakratunda mahakaya
Surya koti samaprabha
Nirvighnam kurume deva
Sarvakaryeshu sarvada

O big-bodied Lord of the twisted trunk,

Who shines with the radiance of a million suns;
Remove all obstacles from our paths
And bless all our endeavours, always.

Ans: 4 paadas of 8 syllables each; 32 syllables in all.

4. The Brihati – Like the Anushtubh, this one also has 4 paadas, except, in the
Brihati’s case, the third paada has 12 syllables instead of 8.
5. The Pankti – This chanda has 5 paadas, each with 8 syllables, making 40
syllables in all.
Let’s pause here for a moment. Have you noticed a pattern, a progression,
in the five chandas we’ve looked at so far? If yes, you will know, without
reading further, exactly how many syllables the next chanda, the Trishtubh,
 should have. Make your guess now, and then read on to check if you got it
right!
6. The Trishtubh – The second most favourite metre of the Rig Vedic poets
after the Gayatri, the Trishtubh is used extensively in ancient Sanskrit drama,
epic poetry and literature. It is also used in the Bhagavad Gita to great
dramatic effect in Chapter 11. Here’s how it’s done.
In chapters 1 through 10 of the Gita, sitting in the palace at Hastinapura,
the royal charioteer Sanjaya describes the scenes from the epic battle about to
begin at Kurukshetra to the blind king Dhritarashtra, in verse that uses a calm
and measured Anushtubh metre. By chapter 10, the rhythm has lodged itself
in the reader or listener’s mind, and he is unconsciously keeping beat.
In Chapter 11, when in response to Arjuna’s request, Krishna reveals his
terrifying Vishwaroopa form to him, the metre of the verse suddenly changes
to Trishtubh as Arjuna (and Sanjaya) become incoherent with bliss and
wonder and fear at the vision of this cosmic Krishna. The change of beat
catches the listener unawares, shakes him out of his complacency, and
delivers the kind of mega-goosebumps that that mega-moment deserves.
Clever technique, huh?
But how many syllables and how many paadas in the Trishtubh? Take a
look at Verse 15 from Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita, the point at which
Anushtubh turns to Trishtubh, and find out for yourself!

Pashyaami devaans tava deva dehe

Sarvaans tathaa bhoota-vishesha-sanghaan
Brahmaanam eesham kamalaasana-stham
Risheensh cha sarvaan uragaansh cha divyaan

And Arjuna said: I see all the gods of all the worlds in you, my Lord! I see
hosts of divine beings, Brahma seated on his lotus, Shiva, the sages, and all
the celestial serpents!
 Ans: 4 paadas of 11 syllables; 44 syllables in all.

7. The Jagati – The longest metre among the ancient ones, the Jagati is used a
lot in post-Vedic Sanskrit literature. The shloka below is the third shloka from
the Bhagavata Purana (for more info on the Bhagavata, see ‘The Fifth Veda’
on the next page). It exhorts poets and romantics, sinners and liberated souls,
to read the Bhagavatam so that their souls may be liberated. As before, do a
quick (or s-l-o-w) reading of the shloka and see if you can tell how many
paadas, how many syllables per paada and how many syllables in all the
Jagati has!

Nigama kalpataror galitam phalam

Shuka mukhaat amritadrava samyutam
Pibata bhaagavatam rasam aalayam
Muhur aho rasikaa bhuvi bhaavukaah

O seekers, connoisseurs, and all ye liberated souls, drink deep of the nectar
of the Bhagavatam, which falls from the lips of the sage Shuka; partake
constantly of this life-giving draught of the fruit borne on the giving tree of
knowledge that is the Veda.

Ans: 4 paadas, 12 syllables per paada, 48 syllables in all. Did you notice
how the number of syllables went up by 4 in each chanda, until 24 syllables
in the Gayatri became 48 in the Jagati?

THE FIFTH VEDA

FYI: A clear winner hasn’t emerged, and nominations are
still being accepted

Suuuur-prise! There aren’t just four, but five Vedas!

Where did a Fifth Veda, often called the Panchama Veda, spring from? The
earliest reference to it is in the Sama Veda, in which a work simply called the
‘Itihasapurana’ is singled out as the Fifth Veda.
But ‘itihasapurana’, as we understand it today, is a generic term for works
composed by humans that became elevated over the centuries to the status of
sacred scriptures. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are part of what Hindus
call Itihasa (see page 28), and there are eighteen major and eighteen minor
works that are considered to be Puranas or sacred stories. Which among these is
the Panchama Veda, then? Who knows? Thanks a lot, ancient rishis, for not
being more specific!
There are other contenders to Fifth Veda status as well! One thing common
to all of them is that, unlike the four original Vedas, they were egalitarian – Fifth
Veda texts were accessible to people of all castes (including shudras and women
– hurrah!). Another is that they all aimed to teach the lessons of the Vedas using
completely different approaches – storytelling, dance, theatre – not only in
Sanskrit but also in the language of the common people, so that the lessons
reached as far and wide and deep as possible. Here are some of the top
contenders.

The Mahabharata – The No. 1 contender. After all, it is considered Itihasa, it

scores in terms of sheer size over the other epic Itihasa, the Ramayana and,
according to its fans, it contains every human emotion, foible, drama, conflict
and resolution between its covers. In that sense, it is a great and down-to-earth
teacher of the very same lessons that are couched in such esoteric language and
philosophy in the other four Vedas. Plus, it is believed to have been composed by
Vyasa, the same sage who compiled the other four Vedas.
The Bhagavata Purana – One of the eighteen major Puranas, this one is a
complete eulogy to Krishna and Krishna-bhakti (devotion to Krishna). Contrary
to the idea that rigid worship to the accompaniment of mantras chanted by the
upper-caste guardians of the Vedas was the only way to God, this Purana
declares that simple, honest love for Krishna can get you to the exact same place.
Most of the popular stories about Krishna’s birth and childhood that you may
know are from this Purana, which is mainly narrated by Shuka, the son of Vyasa
(he’s everywhere, this sage!). Composed around the 8th century CE (quite
recently in the Veda calendar, that is), the Bhagavata was the first Purana to be
translated into a European language – a French translation of a Tamil translation
of the text came out in 1788.

The Natya Shastra – An ancient treatise on theatre, drama, dance and music,
the Natya Shastra, believed to have been composed by the sage Bharata, is the
root text for all Indian classical dance and theatre forms. (The name of one of
our main classical dance forms, Bharatanatyam, comes from this sage’s name.)

In the Natya Shastra, the arts were seen as a medium through which to tell
the stories of the gods and the epics to common people, so that they learnt, just
as well as the scholars, how to lead a good and virtuous life. As for the artiste, it
was his or her responsibility to be the bridge between the humans and the gods.
To this day, all genres of Indian classical music and dance tell the same sacred
stories and follow the same philosophy. If, at the end of a particularly
accomplished Indian dance or music performance, you feel a rush of emotions
jostling within you – joy, sadness, wonder, heroism, peace, and above all, a sense
of having been transported to other realms – it didn’t happen by chance, and it
didn’t happen only to you; it was exactly what the performer was aiming for!
Now you know.

The Ramcharitmanas – Often referred to as the ‘Hindi Veda’, the story of the
Ramayana as retold by the 17th century Awadhi poet Tulsidas is considered by
its fans in northern India to have even more authority than the four ancient
Vedas, and to be the perfect scripture for the modern world.

The Divya Prabandham and the Tevaram – Down south, Tamil votes for what
constitutes the Fifth Veda are divided between the Divya Prabandham, a
collection of verses extolling the greatness of Vishnu and his avatar Krishna,
composed by the twelve Tamil saints called the Alvars; and the Tevaram, a
collection of devotional verses dedicated to Shiva, composed by three of the
sixty-three Shiva-worshipping poet-saints called the Nayanars.
Time to vote for your pick now! If you want to exercise the NOTA (none of
the above) option because you want to nominate a different text entirely, that’s
fine too. This is a land of a billion opinions. Another one cannot hurt.

AWESOME THREESOME
Here come the top three Vedic yagnas!

The Ashwamedha – The best known of the three, the Ashwamedha featured an
ashwa, or horse, as the medha, or offering, and was meant to establish a king as
the undisputed ruler of his empire.
Only a powerful king could perform the long-running (minimum duration:
one year!) Ashwamedha yagna, not only because it was expensive but also
because it involved taking on several hostile armies during the period. Here’s
how it worked: First, the horse, usually a young and healthy stallion, was ritually
purified and sent off without a rider or reins in the north-easterly direction.
Along with the horse went a hundred soldiers and officers handpicked by the
king.
As the horse roamed freely through the kingdom, and often beyond it, back
home, the king and his priests kept the yagna fires burning, making offerings
each day to the gods. Whenever anyone – a neighbouring king, a rebellious
vassal, an ambitious young warrior – challenged the horse, either by not
allowing it to pass, or by stealing or capturing it, he would have to go to war
with the king’s soldiers. Letting the horse pass unchallenged meant accepting the
king as your overlord.

At the end of the year, if the stallion returned unchallenged, the king would
declare himself supreme ruler of all the lands his horse had passed through. His
queens would then beg the horse’s forgiveness (because he was about to be
sacrificed – sad but true). In the grand culmination of the yagna, the ashwa
would become the medha for the gods.
In the Ramayana, years after he had sent Sita away to the forest, Rama
performed the Ashwamedha Yagna. Since the yagna required the queen to be
present, and since Rama had never stopped thinking of her as his beloved, his
wife and his queen, he got a statue of her cast in gold and had it stand in for her.
The consecrated horse was set free to roam where it willed, and no one dared to
stop it. Until two young challengers at the forest hermitage of sage Valmiki not
only captured the horse but also took on Rama’s soldiers with such great skill
and valour, defeating all of Rama’s brothers one by one, that Rama himself was
forced to finally intervene.
Can you recall the young challengers’ names, and their identities?
Ans: The twins Lava and Kusha, who were Rama and Sita’s sons.

The Rajasuya – This was an elaborate yagna performed, once again, to establish
that a king (let’s call him King X) was indeed the single and unchallenged big
boss of his kingdom. To kick off proceedings, invitations to the Rajasuya Yagna
were sent out to a whole lot of kings, princes and chieftains, both inside and
outside the kingdom. If a king accepted the invitation and attended the yagna, it
meant that he had accepted King X as his ruler and would henceforth be loyal to
him.

As long as the yagna fire burned, King X was treated not like a king but a
demigod. There were various fun activities that he was involved in too – like a
chariot drive-by, a display of his (hopefully decent) archery skills, a cattle raid
(which tested his skill and strategy at stealing other people’s cows) and a game
of dice.
In the Mahabharata, after Yudhishthira was crowned king at his glittering
new capital city, Indraprastha, he performed the Rajasuya Yagna. Hundreds of
kings from all over attended, accepting him as their overlord. The Kauravas
attended not as guests, but as the Pandavas’ fellow-hosts, while Krishna was
given the status of Most Honoured Guest. This made another guest, the king of
Chedi, furious. This king had hated Krishna ever since the latter had carried
away Rukmini, who had been betrothed to him (not Krishna’s fault, really,
Rukmini had begged him to carry her away). He began to insult Krishna publicly
and viciously, and got his head taken off with Krishna’s chakra for his pains.
What was this king’s name? (Ans: Shishupala.)

The Soma – Unlike the other two yagnas, the Soma Yagna was nobler,
meant for the welfare of humanity. There was no horse involved, but there was,
expectedly, a tonne of soma. The soma offered in such copious quantities was
believed to strengthen and rejuvenate the gods and put them in a good mood, and
the yagna itself was meant to cleanse the air of toxins and pollutants. Whichever
way you looked at it, therefore, health, happiness and prosperity for all was
guaranteed.
While no one has performed the Ashwamedha or Rajasuya yagnas in a long,
long time, the Soma Yagna continues to be performed in India. According to
Wikipedia, the most recent large-scale Soma Yagna was performed in Gujarat as
recently as 2017!

LESSONS FROM THE VEDAS

RITUALS ARE IMPORTANT. THE YAGNA IS

 IMPORTANT. IGNORE THEM AT YOUR
PERIL.
When the title is so dire, subtitles are superfluous

Yeah, yeah, we know. The very word ‘ritual’ sounds unfashionably old, smells of
mothballs, feels like sweat and uncomfortable clothes and mumbling around a
fire, and smacks of blind faith. Rituals are certainly not the kind of thing a
modern and secular young person might want to associate himself or herself
with.
But what is a ritual, anyway? The dictionary defines it as ‘a religious or
solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a
prescribed order.’ Which is exactly what the Vedic rituals were, and exactly the
kind of ritual you were thinking about. But here’s another definition from the
same dictionary – ‘a series of actions or type of behaviour regularly and
invariably followed by someone.’ These were the kinds of rituals recommended
by the Upanishads – rituals like reflecting on things before arriving at a decision,
for instance, questioning everything, looking beyond the differences on the
outside to the sameness on the inside. But they recommended that you perform
these rituals religiously, i.e., with the kind of rigour and fervour that is normally
associated with religion. Because rituals can be important!

All of us have several rituals that we follow as individuals. Brushing our

teeth first thing in the morning. Going out for lunch and a movie with friends on
the last day of the exams. Wearing a particular T-shirt while watching a match
because that’s what we wore the last time our team won. Not doing our
homework until the morning of the day when it is due. You get the drift.
Families have rituals too – the long visit to the grandparents in the summer
vacations, the annual Diwali party, Wednesday night FaceTime with a sibling
who is away at college, and so on. Why, even countries have rituals – the
hoisting of the national flag on Independence Day, for instance.
Do you consider these kinds of rituals important? Of course you do! Why? Is
it simply that, because they are so predictable and repetitive, you derive a certain
comfort from performing rituals, a feeling that no matter how chaotic the world
around you is, you can always depend on this constant? Is it because they make
you feel less alone, and part of something bigger than yourself – a family, a
community, a country? Is it because they force you to press the pause button on
life, no matter how awful (or fabulous!) it seems at that moment, to do
something that you have decided is non-negotiable – taking your dog for a walk,
giving your granddad his medicine, going out to play?
It is for the very same reasons that religious rituals are important to the
people who follow them.
But there are even more important, if less obvious, benefits of following
rituals. The act of doing something over and over again without questioning it is
the necessary first step towards building willpower, focus and discipline, all of
which are among the toughest qualities to cultivate, as also among the most
rewarding. A disciplined, focused person who can say ‘No’ to distractions and
temptations with conviction is a person who is more likely to be successful in
whatever his or her aim is.
Sure, rituals can often seem utterly mindless, even pointless, especially as
your body and mind begin to do them on auto-pilot, whether it is chanting
mantras or reciting the 12-19 times tables each morning or going for swimming
coaching five times a week. But without having gone through these rituals,
without knowing whether they work or not for you and in what ways, you have
no way of progressing, of getting beyond them. How can you be sure that
swimming is not for you unless you have committed to the coaching for a decent
period of time? How do you know that mugging your tables is no use until
you’ve felt the high of finishing your maths exam fifteen minutes earlier than
everyone else?

See? Even rituals that seem mindless can be powerful. And it is precisely
because rituals can be so potent that it is important to pick the right ones. After
all, any ritual eventually becomes a habit, and bad habits are horrendously
difficult to break.
As an exercise, why not sit down by yourself tonight and make a list of your
daily ‘rituals’. Make sure not to leave out even those that you perform only in
your head, like that little ritual where you tell yourself that you hate a particular
classmate, or that you will never, ever be good at studies. When you’re done, ask
yourself two questions about each one – 1. ‘Is this ritual ethical?’ (i.e., Am I sure
it is not hurting anyone, including me? Am I sure it is fair to everyone
involved?) and (2) ‘Does this ritual benefit anyone?’ If your answer to both
questions is yes, the ritual, however annoying, is worth doing. If not, either let
the ritual go or re-examine it to see how it can be changed for the better.
The sages of the Upanishads, who called out some of the Vedic rituals and
exhorted people to see beyond their literal meanings, asked themselves the same
questions. And when the answers came out as ‘no’, they were not afraid to drop
those rituals, even though they realized that all change came at a price.
Neither should you. Be ruthless about nixing the rituals that aren’t healthy
for you or the people around you, and replacing them with those that are. Of
course there will be sacrifices involved – if you want to replace the ritual of
waking up just in time for the school bus with the ritual of getting out of bed
forty-five minutes earlier, for instance, it’s goodbye to that much zzz-time – but
don’t let that deter you.
Instead, look at every good ritual that you bring into your life as a sacrifice
you offer to the universe. Every time you muster up the courage to call out your
own toxic rituals, you sacrifice your old, not-so-great self and replace it with a
new, better one.
That is the real yagna, the real sacrifice – and you will find that it is the one
that counts.
 ५
A FEAST OF HYMNS
A selection of hymns from the granddaddy of the Vedas
 s you now know, there are thousands and thousands of suktas, or hymns,

A in the body of ancient sacred literature called the Vedas. And that’s even
if you consider just the first section of the Vedas, what we have earlier
called the ‘real’ Vedas, i.e., the Samhitas. Since there is no way that the one
small book you are holding just now can introduce you to all those suktas, here
is a selection instead. Alternately lyrical, deeply philosophical and fabulously
imaginative, all these suktas are taken from the Rig Veda Samhita, the oldest and
largest of them all.
Now, what are the hymns of the Rig Veda about? Well, mostly about the
Arya gods. More hymns in the Rig Veda – 289 to be precise – are addressed to
Indra, the Lord of Heaven and the god of the rain and the storm, than to any
other. There are also a substantial number addressed to Agni and Soma.
And while the hymns to their gods are beautiful, and full of wonder and
praise, there are other hymns in the Rig that are far more interesting. Mostly,
these hymns are from the Mandalas (sections) that bookend the text – Mandala 1
and Mandala 10 – which are believed to have been added later. There are stories
there about how the universe was created, prayers to the horse that was
sacrificed and eaten as part of the famous Ashwamedha yagna, funeral chants,
powerful mantras, and spells against rivals, bad dreams and insomnia.
The nine hymns featured here are a mix of these, and have been very loosely
translated - they are simply meant to give you a sense of what they are about. Do
look elsewhere for a more faithful and complete translation.

THE VERY FIRST HYMN

Quite naturally, the first hymn of the first Mandala of what is probably the
world’s oldest religious text that is still in use is pretty special. Surprisingly,
however, it is not dedicated to the Arya’s chief god, Indra, but to Agni! (Here’s
some trivia: so is the very last hymn of the last Mandala.) Agni is also the first
word of the first hymn, and thus the word that the Rig Veda opens with.
 The Fire Hymn
Agni Sukta – 1.1*

O Agni, Lord of the Sacrifice, I pray to you!

You before whom the ancients bowed, the one we adore –
Summon the gods to our feast!
Beloved priest, who ensures the success of our sacrifice
And bestows prosperity and courage and heroic sons –
Bring the gods to our feast!

Radiant One, who are true and effulgent and glorious

To whom we bring our prayers, day after day –
Come to our feast!

Agni, the Lord of Fire

Come to us easily, lovingly, like a father comes to his son,

Come, bringing us joy; bless us so we may prosper –
Come!
*The key to the numbering of the hymns is straightforward enough. The first number tells you which
Mandala the hymn is taken from, and the second, which particular hymn it is within that Mandala.
Sometimes, you will find a third number – that indicates a particular verse in the hymn being referenced by
the first two numbers. If you want to explore the original hymns in Sanskrit, you can find your way to them
in translations quite easily using these numbers.
 THE STORY OF HOW THE WORLD WAS
BORN
• These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others. – American
comedian Groucho Marx
• This is my creation myth. If you don’t like it, I have others. – The composers of
the Rig Veda

Every culture and every religion in the world has its own belief system about
how the universe was born, and how man and his fellow creatures came to be.
All creation myths are set in a vague time period in the past – usually referred to
as ‘In the beginning’, or ‘At that time’ or simply, ‘Then’. They each carry in
them certain truths and world views that are dear to the cultures that tell the
stories, and the hopes and beliefs of the society that created them.
Creation myths also hugely impact and influence the way people in those
societies see themselves in relation to the universe. Understanding a culture’s
creation myths can help you understand why the people of that culture behave
the way they do. Do people believe, for instance, that everything in our universe
is a product of intelligent design, that it was the Great Designer in the sky who
created it, or do they believe that the universe began with a Big Bang? Do they
believe that humans are the most superior of all species, with a divine charter to
rule the world, or do they see all the world’s creatures as interconnected and
coming from one single source of primordial energy? Do they see creation’s
timeline as a, well, line, with a beginning of the world and an end of the world,
or do they see it as a cycle, in which everything that has been, will be again? You
see how each of these beliefs can make people live their lives very differently?
That’s the power of creation myths!
Many early stories and myths travelled between places and people. This is
one reason that many cultures have similar stories of creation, although each is
tweaked a little to suit that particular culture. The most popular kinds of creation
myths include ones in which:
• creation proceeds from the thought, word or dream of a divine being; He, She
or It creates the universe ex nihilo (cool-sounding Latin phrase meaning ‘out
of nothing’), i.e., it is not fashioned out of some pre-existing raw material.
Christian, Islamic and Jewish mythologies feature this kind of creation myth.
• creation results from the dismemberment (the action of cutting off the limbs of
a person or animal; no, seriously!) of a primordial being. (Primordial sounds
like a scary word but isn’t. It just means something ‘that existed at the
beginning of time’.) Different parts of the being then become different parts
of the cosmos. This kind of creation myth exists in Babylonian and Norse
mythology, to name only two.
• creation happens by the hatching of the cosmic egg. This hugely popular
creation story is found in Egyptian, Greek, Finnish, Polynesian, Chinese,
Norse and many other mythologies.
• creation begins with God sending a bird or an amphibian, the earth diver, to
plunge into the waters of the primordial ocean to bring up mud from the
bottom, using which land is created. This myth is popular with the Native
Americans, the Russian Tatars, the Siberian Yukaghirs, among others.
Needless to say, our Arya had their own creation myths as well. Their
attitude to it, however, was – ‘Why settle for one creation myth when you can
have several?’ The good thing about this kind of approach was that it kept the
debate open – after all, new data could turn up any time that proved or disproved
one or more of your myths! More seriously, though, this variety of creation
myths can be seen as proof of the Arya’s great humility in the face of the
awesome, wondrous universe that sustained and nourished them. These guys,
like few others, were not too arrogant, too afraid or too embarrassed to shrug and
say, ‘We think this may be the way it happened, or this, or this, but tbh, we don’t
know.’
Here are four of the Arya creation myths, each presented as a hymn in the
Rig Veda.
 I.THE ‘THE-EGG-CAME-FIRST’ STORY
A ‘cosmic egg’ creation myth

Probably the most popular one of all, this story is about a golden egg –
‘Hiranyagarbha’ in Sanskrit – that rose out of the deep dark of the all-
encompassing floodwaters, containing the seed of everything in the universe.
The heat of the fiery seed caused the egg to split – the top half of the shell
became the sky, the bottom half the earth, and both were - and are - held in place
by the Supreme Being, an all-pervading energy who himself became the
atmosphere, the space between the earth and the sky.
Although most cultures believe in the concept of a primordial ocean, Hindus
have a very particular understanding of ‘the waters’. They associate it with the
all-consuming flood, MahaPralaya, which causes the dissolution of the universe
at regular intervals (each interval is about 311 trillion years long, so you can rest
easy!). Once the Great Dissolution has occurred, creation must begin all over
again. It is in the depths of the MahaPralaya floodwaters that Hiranyagarbha is
believed to arise.
Now let’s get to the hymn itself. Translating an ancient version of a language
can be very difficult, particularly because there is no way to tell what some
words meant in the context of the civilization that produced it. One of the
biggest debates among translators of this hymn is whether a question mark
should be placed after the repeating line – ‘Who is the god we worship through
our offerings’ – or not. It makes sense both ways, but the meaning is quite
different in each case. If you read the line as a question, it sounds as if the Arya
did not know who he was; if you read it as a statement, they sound almost smug
in their certainty of his identity. At the end of the hymn, they give him a name –
Prajapati, Lord of All Creatures.
 Stanza 4 in the translation below says that the floodwaters and the egg came
from Prajapati (by which you deduce that the egg was outside of Prajapati), but
it also says that Prajapati was inside the egg! Eh?
Vedic hymns use such seeming contradictions a lot – it makes the hymns
confounding if you try and make sense of them through logic. But that perhaps
was exactly the message the ancient sages were trying to convey to us! God,
Supreme Being, Energy, whatever you wish to call the life-force that sustains
everything in the universe – is not easily definable. He cannot be described using
our paltry words and metaphors, he lies beyond the grasp of our limited human
intellect, and neither our senses nor our minds can ever hope to ‘see’ him in any
form or fashion. It is only when we set aside our desire to fit him into our boxes
of understanding – logic, rational thinking, seeing, hearing, feeling – that we
may be able to experience the wonder of it all.
And while you’re wondering how to do that, let’s salute the Vedic sages for
not sitting on the fence at least on the prickly chicken-and-egg problem – they
believed, clearly, that it was the egg that came first.

The Hymn of the Golden Embryo

Hiranyagarbha Sukta – 10.121

In the beginning
Before anything else was,
Was Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Egg,
The Lord of All Creation,
The one who held in place the earth and sky –

Who is the god we worship through our offerings.

He who bestows vigour and life,

He whose commands the gods obey,
King of the world, Lord of Death,
Ruler of everything that breathes and sleeps,
And everything that doesn’t, and everything in between –

Who is the god we worship through our offerings.

He from whom snow-clad mountains

And rivers and rain and the sun have sprung,
Who filled the skies with vital air,
made firm the earth,
At whose sight both good and evil tremble in fear,
He who is the source of all our happiness –

Who is the god we worship through our offerings.

When the floodwaters came, they came from him,

Bearing the fiery seed, the golden egg, Hiranyagarbha;
Splitting the womb, he rose, life-breath of the gods,
Holding up the dome of the sky, filling the clouds with water,
Measuring space with the sun, propping the earth with his feet –

Who is the god we worship through our offerings.

Never may he harm us, he who is
Earth’s begetter, Heaven’s creator, guardian of the true law,
Ever may he grant our heart’s desires!
O Prajapati, Lord of All Creatures, father-protector
 There is no one but you –

Who is the god we worship through our offerings.

II. THE ‘GOD-ONLY-KNOWS-OR-DOES-HE?’ STORY

An ‘ex-nihilo’ creation myth

One of the hallmarks of Hindu scriptures is to question everything, but the

Nasadiya Sukta seems to take that spirit of scepticism to, quite literally, a higher
level. First, it proposes a creation myth in which creation happened because
Paramatman, the Formless Energy, suddenly felt the desire to give Himself shape
and form - to become both female and male, earth and sky, beast and bird - and
see what that felt like. Then, it proceeds to doubt itself, wondering if anyone,
even the gods, can ever really know the truth – after all, there was nothing
around when creation began, not even the gods. But there is an even more
sacrilegious twist in the tail – read the hymn to find out what it is!
Again, there are confusing bits to this hymn. The very first line, which reads
so much more mystically and alliteratively in Sanskrit – Na asat* aasit na u sat
aasit tadanim – translates to ‘there was nothing that was non-existent, and
nothing that was existent then’. ‘What!?’ you protest, tearing at your hair, ‘but it
has to be one or the other, innit?’ Nope. Not where a Being that is ‘beyond
dualities’ is concerned. It isn’t ‘one or the other’ with him. Nothing’s black or
white. There are only endless shades of grey, infinite varieties of the
(im)possible. Mental gymnastics, anyone?
*The name of the hymn, Nasadiya, comes from ‘Na asat’, its opening words.
The Hymn of That Which Is Not Non-Existent
Nasadiya Sukta – 10.129

Then
There was nothing that was non-existent, nor anything that was,
No air, no light, no heaven, no space,
No death, no life, no night, no day.
Darkness hidden in darkness -

Except for Something

That stirred in the still, by Its own will,
And then, was born,
Of Its own fire, Its own desire

Cleaving into
Above and below, giving and receiving, seed and womb,
It swelled the universe
Where chaos was rife, with power and life;
 Who really knows where it all came from, this ‘creation’?
Who can declare that this is how it was done?
Even the gods came later.

Only He knows, He who fashioned it all.

Or does He?

III. THE ‘A-MASTER-CRAFTSMAN-BUILT-IT-BUT-WITH-WHAT-

EXACTLY?’ STORY
Another ‘ex-nihilo’ creation myth

If God is a reflection of ourselves, and vice versa, surely God built his house, the
universe, as we build ours? Surely he would need to sculpt things and weld
things and carve things? In this hymn, the Supreme Being is called Vishwakarma
– literally, Maker of the Universe – and he is seen as sculptor and architect,
blacksmith and carpenter.
With a pragmatic understanding that nothing can be created anew if what
already exists isn’t destroyed first, the hymn starts with a sacrifice where
everything is consigned to the consuming fire by the High Priest, Vishwakarma.
After completing the act of creation, the divine priest takes himself out of the
picture. He, literally and metaphorically, fires himself, by turning himself into an
offering, by becoming Agni.
But back to the creation part. If he offered everything, everything, as a
sacrifice before he began, what in heaven’s name did he build the world with?
Read on to find out!

The Hymn of the Divine Architect

Vishwakarma Sukta – 10.81

The first Priest, our Father, Vishwakarma,

Began creation with a sacrifice,
 Offering everything there was, even himself, to Agni
The hotri became the sacrifice.

But if there was nothing left,

Where did he start his act of creation?
From what did he, of the all-seeing eye, sculpt the world?
Why did he create the earth
And the expanse of the sky?
Who knows the answers to these questions?

He who had eyes on all sides and mouths on all sides

And arms and feet on all sides –

Fanning the smithy flame with his arms –

How did he weld together earth and heaven?
From what wood of what tree, in truth,
Did he carve the worlds?

All ye thinking people, reflect on this mystery –

On what did he stand, Vishwakarma,
While he set the worlds up?

PS: This is the even more frustrating part of the Vedic hymns – you go to them
looking for answers, and often come away with more questions than you had
before! But through this no-doubt aggravating technique, they teach us great
lessons – you can never know it all, the really important questions have no
(simple) answers, the world is full of mystery and wonder, and, most importantly,
it is often as much fun, if not more, to employ the fabulous gift of your intellect to
fashion and ponder the questions, as it is to arrive at answers.

IV. THE ‘IT-WAS-THE-MAN-WHO-MADE-MAN’ STORY

 A ‘dismemberment’ creation myth

One of the best-known hymns of the Rig Veda, particularly because of a highly
controversial verse, the Purusha Sukta proposes, once again, that creation began
with a sacrifice. Except, in this case, Purusha, the Cosmic Man, the Supreme
Being, was himself the sacrificial animal. The gods were the priests at this
primordial yagna, and as Purusha was dismembered, different parts of his body
became different parts of the cosmos.
One of the messages of the hymn seems to be that there is always a sacrifice
involved in achievement, whatever human goal you are pursuing – health
(sacrifice the sugary drinks and chips!), wealth (sacrifice the extravagant
spending), fame (sacrifice your right to a quiet and private life), love (sacrifice
your ego), doing the right thing (sacrifice your need to be popular), being at
peace (sacrifice your desire to control everything).
However, the main message of the Purusha Sukta, its core lesson, is also the
underlying philosophy of all Arya thought, all Hindu belief – everything,
everything in the world, comes from a common source. We are all – birds and
beasts and men and mountains and oceans and trees – connected; we carry inside
us, despite all our apparent differences, a common divine spirit; we are all, in
short, God. The philosophy also finds an echo in modern science – the Big Bang
theory, the most accepted theory about how the universe was formed, posits,
essentially, that the constantly expanding universe can be traced back to a single
source, an unimaginably dense, unimaginably hot, unimaginably tiny point.
And the controversial verse? You can find it in stanza 5 of this translation,
the part where it talks about which parts of the Purusha’s body the different
castes came from. A lot of people read this verse as a hierarchical arrangement
of varna; since the brahmins came from the Purusha’s mouth, they believe, they
are naturally the highest caste (for good measure, the hymn also has Agni and
Indra proceeding from the same body part), the kshatriyas are next, and so on,
with the shudras being at the very bottom of the ladder. Through the centuries,
the upper castes have used this verse as ‘divine sanction’ to persecute and exploit
the lower castes.
While it is entirely possible that the sages of the Rig intended to place the
brahmins higher than the shudras through this verse, there are a couple of other
possibilities.
• Apart from in the Purusha Sukta, there is no mention of varnas in the Rig.
This could indicate that varnas were not so clearly demarcated in the Rig
Vedic society. Could it be then, that this one verse was slipped into the text at
a later date, after the varnas had become hierarchical, to ensure that the upper
castes continued to maintain their position in society?
• Or was the verse intended to be a subversive one, designed to cleverly counter
the existing hierarchy in society? Did a wise rishi slip it in, hoping that people
would read it to mean that people of all varnas, equally, came from the same
source?
Like the Rig Veda itself may ask, who knows the answers to these questions?
All we can do when faced with such contradictions in interpretation, is to
always, always, choose the kinder, fairer, more balanced one, over one that is
less so. That is our responsibility as members of the human race, and our sacred
duty.
But on to the hymn!

The Hymn of Man

Purusha Sukta – 10.90

Purusha, Giant Cosmic Man,

With his thousand heads, thousand eyes and thousand feet
Fills the earth and all the space around it –
But fits into a space just ten fingers tall.
That’s not all.
All of earth’s creatures, those that eat and those that do not
Are formed from only one quarter of him,
The other three quarters cover everything about and above them.
From him was born Virat, and from Virat was he –
They begat each other, see?

Then came the great sacrifice of the gods

With Purusha as the sacrificial beast;
They laid him on the kindling that was summer,
Poured on him ghee that was spring,
oil that was autumn –
And then some.

Out of the sacrifice came all Creation –

From the drippings were born beasts and birds,
From the offerings came the hymns and chants,
Of the Rig and the Yajur and the Sama –
Spectacle and drama!

Now the body of Purusha the Offering

Was divided; his mouth became the brahmin who chants,
His arms the kshatriya who wields sword and bow,
His thighs the vaishya who supports, his feet the shudra who serves –
All part of the same body, observe!

His mind? The moon! The sun? His eye!

His mouth? Indra-Agni. The wind? His breath!
His navel? Turned into space! His head? Became the sky!
His feet? Spread themselves out, became the earth –
This is the story of Man’s birth.
PS: In stanza 1, the paradox is that while Purusha is large enough to permeate
(be inside) and encompass (be outside) everything in all the worlds, he is also
able to fit into a space that is only ‘ten fingers tall’. That space is supposed to
indicate the amount of space occupied by a man’s soul. In stanza 2, the Virat
referred to (also known as Viraj) is the female counterpart of Purusha. From
Purusha was born Virat, and from Virat was born Purusha. This kind of thing
would be a paradox in a culture that believes time is linear - first you are born,
then you grow up, then you grow old, then you die - but not so much in one like
the Arya one, which believed time is cyclical - first you are born, then you die,
then you are born again. See how that works?

REQUIEM FOR THE DEAD

The Arya believed that Yama, Lord of the Dead, was the first mortal who died,
and thereafter, found his way to the realms of the gods. When consecrating a
dead man to the flames, therefore, it was him they pleaded with to guide the
man’s spirit ‘home’. (Home, because the Vedas tell us we all came from a
common source, to which we shall eventually return.)
Just like the fierce three-headed dog Cerberus, who guards the gates of the
underworld in Greek mythology, the Arya believed that Sharvara (notice the
similarity in their names?), Yama’s four-eyed dog, guarded the entrance to
Pitrloka, Yama’s kingdom. Sharvara had a companion, another spotted, brindled
dog like himself, and between the two of them, they managed to keep the dead
inside the gates. Both dogs were believed to be the sons of Sarama, Indra’s
divine she-dog.* Sarama’s sons wander among us although we cannot see them,
sniffing around to identify Yama’s next lot of passengers. We can also spot them
in the sky on a cloudless night – Sharvara is associated with the constellation
Canis Major and his companion with what else but... yup, the constellation Canis
Minor (Canis is the Latin word for dog).
*Sarama has a whole hymn to herself in the Rig Veda! In it, she warns the cow-stealing Panis that her
master Indra will be along soon to destroy them and liberate the stolen cows.

A Hymn to the Lord of the Underworld

Yama Sukta – 10.14

Come, O Yama, king who travelled first

To the lofty heights where the gods reside;
Pathfinder Supreme, partake of the feast,
And be kind to this man who has died.

(To the dead man)

Go forth, go forth, on the ancient paths
To the highest heaven, where your fathers wait,

Gain rewards for your earthly deeds –

Go home, to that blissful state.

Away, away, ye ghouls and demons –

This is not your place, ’tis his, ’tis his;
Run, man, past Sarama’s four-eyed sons –
Oh King, grant him good health and bliss.

You four-eyed dogs, who wander among us –

Leave us be, thirst not for our breath;
 O Yama, plead our case with the gods –
Accept our offering, keep us from death.

A TOAST TO THE DRINK DIVINE

We already know that the Arya gods were very particular about their food
(which is why the humans who conducted yagnas fussed so much over it).
Naturally, one entire Mandala in the Rig Veda is dedicated to Pavamana (say
pava-maana) Soma, or Soma the Purifier, the favourite drink of the gods.
As you can imagine, the process of extracting the soma was itself a ritual of
giant religious proportions, with space set aside in the sacrificial ground for the
purpose, maidens employed to press the stalks and cows on standby to provide
fresh milk for the mixing as and when it was needed. And this ritual was
performed – did you ever doubt it? – to the chanting of hymns, of course!
Here is a translation of the very first hymn of the Soma Mandala for you to
enjoy.

A Hymn for Purification

Pavamana Sukta – 9.1

Flow, Soma, flow,

Flow sweet and pure –
Indra’s beloved, our panacea, our cure;

Flow, precious draught,

Thou granter of wealth –
Demon-destroyer, bestower of health;

Flow through the maiden’s fingers

As they grasp and press,
Come, our woes and fears to address;
 Flow through the strainer
That Shraddha* spreads,
Emerge sweet and pure past the waiting threads;

Flow! The sacred herds

Are gathered here –
Their milk to blend with your juice so clear;

Flow, so Indra may drink

Of your rousing mead –
And slay his enemies, and our prayers heed.

PS: Hindu religious ceremonies no longer feature soma the drink, but the Soma
Mandala is still very relevant. To this day, several of its hymns are chanted as
part of a ceremony called the Pavamana Homa – a purifying ritual that is
performed either when a new space is being inaugurated for use, or to cleanse a
space of negative, toxic influences.
*Shraddha is the daughter of the sun. The word shraddha also means dedication, and its use here is perhaps
meant to remind listeners that the preparation of soma was a sacred task that required one to be
conscientious and focused.

HATED ONE, I CAST UPON YOU A SPELL!

Sure the Arya as a society prayed for the rain to fall and rivers to run full and the
sun to shine, just so, in each season, but as individuals, they also had more
pressing and more private concerns. The composers of the Vedas understood that
and obliged, creating spells and incantations to take care of problems both big
and small.
There were spells to be chanted over mothers-to-be for a safe pregnancy and
birth, sleeping spells by which new mothers could ensure that their babies slept
through the night (predictably, these were also chanted by burglars over the
house they were about to break into!), death-repelling spells for healers to chant
over their critically ill patients, and many more. Most spells of this kind are to be
found in the Atharva Veda, but there are a few in the last Mandala of the Rig as
well. Here is one such for you to enjoy.

A Spell for the Destruction of Enemies

Sapatna Naashana* Sukta – 10.166

O Indra!
Make me
A bull among my peers,
A conqueror of my rivals,
A slayer of my foes,
An emperor among men,
A possessor of cows –
In short, make me like you!

O Indra!
May no one hurt or hate me,
May my enemies cower at my feet.
Like the two ends of the bow
Tied down by the string,
I tie you down, O Lord of Speech –
Press down upon the tongues of my rivals
Make them speak humbly to me.

O Enemies!
Here I come
As the conqueror of your minds,
As the conqueror of your deeds,
As your conqueror in battle,
As your leader and vanquisher!
 I tread on your heads as you gather at my feet –
Now speak! as frogs croak when out of water,
Speak! as frogs croak when out of water.
*Sapatna is Sanskrit for a male enemy or rival, while Sapatni is the word for a female enemy. Sapatna
Naashana translates to ‘destruction of male enemies’ while Sapatni Baadhana (the title of another hymn)
translates to ‘abolition of female rivals’. The Arya made no bones about calling a spade a spade!

THE VERY LAST HYMN

As the Rig opens, so it comes to its close. The very last hymn of this sacred
liturgy, like the very first one, is dedicated to Agni. But that’s where the
similarity between the two ends.
The first hymn, as you saw, is a purely ritualistic (and somewhat self-
serving) invitation to Agni to come and partake of the feast being laid out both in
his honour and in the honour of the host of deities he is expected to bring with
him, so that they may all shower humans with blessings and gifts.
But the last and 191st hymn of Mandala 10 is a secular, uplifting and large-
hearted wish for a coming together of people, a sincere hope that cooperation
will triumph over divisiveness in every sphere, that respectful debate will trump
bitter and pointless argument every time. In other words, the Rig Veda, like all
good literature, concludes on a note of hope, with a simple but beautiful prayer
for peace – between friends, among families, and within communities. No
wonder, then, that this last sukta is among the most popular of all the Rig Veda
prayers, and is chanted on so many different occasions and at so many diverse
fora, to this day.
And because it is so important, and so urgently relevant today, here is the
latter part – the best-known part – of the 191st hymn, in the original Sanskrit.
Commit this one to memory (it is super-alliterative, which makes this a nice
challenge) and remember it every time you are tempted to let your anger or your
ego ruin a good relationship. Teach it to others so that this 3,500-year-old
benediction of the ancient sages may ensure that in your little corner of the
universe, a small but genuine effort is being made, every day, towards respect
and acceptance of the ‘other’.

A Hymn for Unity

Sangacchadhvam Sukta – 10.191

Sangacchadhvam samvadadhvam
Sam vo manaamsi jaanataam
Devaa bhaagam yathaa poorve
Sanjaanaanaa upaasate

Samaano mantrah samitih samaani

Samaanam manah sahachittameshaam
Samaanam mantramabhimantraye vah
Samaanena vo havishaa juhomi

Samanee va aakootih samaanaa hrdayaani vah

Samaanamastu vo mano yathaa vah susahaasati

Let’s come together now, to speak our minds,

To raise voices in harmonious song,
Let’s work together, sharing our thoughts –
Like the wise have taught us all along.

May our prayer be one, our goal supreme,

Our brotherhood forever strong;
May the same fire inspire our toil –
United, we cannot go wrong.

May we march to the beat of a single drum,

May our hearts in kinship be bound,
May our minds concur despite dissent –
May harmony and bliss abound!
 THE KNOWLEDGE, APPLIED
A brief note on the Upavedas

Before you ask, nope, the Upavedas have nothing to do with the original four
Vedas. So what are they, then? Well, while the Vedas are the more theoretical
and contemplative texts, the Upavedas used the Vedas as inspiration to spin off
entirely new disciplines of study and practice. Just like engineering or
architecture is really applied physics and/or chemistry, the Upavedas are the
applied Vedas.
Which Indian systems of study qualify to be called Upavedas? There are
four, each associated with one of the four Vedas.
• Dhanurveda –The art of warfare and the martial arts. Although Dhanurveda
literally translates to ‘knowledge of archery’, it is a catch-all term for
yuddhakala (the art of war), aayudhavidya (the knowledge of arms),
veeravidya (the science of being a warrior), shastravidya (say shuh-stra, not
shaastra, the science of weaponry) and svarakshaakala (the art of self-
defence). Apart from archery and sword fighting, it incorporates the old
Indian favourite – mallayuddha, or wrestling (any wonder we are winning
Olympic medals in the sport these days?), and dvandvayuddha, or the art of
the duel, which is a battle fought between two mighty warriors instead of two
mighty armies (much less blood that way). Dhanurveda is associated with the
Rig Veda.
• Sthapatyaveda – The ancient Indian art and science of architecture. It
includes the theory of Vaastu Shastra, which is based on the philosophy that
the design of a building must be integrated with nature and that there are
certain symmetries and patterns that work better than others. It is really a
collection of ideas - not rigid rules but helpful suggestions - on how space
should be organized inside and outside a building, depending on which spaces
are used for what purpose. Since the Yajur Veda contains information about
building too, although mainly on the sacred patterns for yagna kunds, the
Sthapatyaveda is associated with the Yajur Veda.

• Gandharvaveda – The sacred knowledge of the divine musicians called the

Gandharvas, dealing with all aspects of the arts. It concerns itself especially
with music, dance, drama and poetry, giving detailed instructions on, for
instance, how a student must practise music in order to master it. More
interestingly, the Gandharvaveda is a big champion of the idea of music as
therapy, with the power to heal and nourish body, mind and soul. The Natya
Shastra (see page 79 for details), is also part of the Gandharvaveda. And this
Upaveda is associated with – yup, that’s a no-brainer – the musical Sama
Veda, of course!
• Ayurveda – Literally, ‘the science of life’, this best-known of all four
Upavedas is the traditional Indian system of medicine and healing.
Consistently popular through the millennia, Ayurveda is now seeing a huge
resurgence. Based on the philosophy that individual human bodies are
composed of three substances or doshas held in delicate balance, and that it is
a skewing of this balance that causes disease, this physician’s art has eight
main branches, including medicine of the body, the treatment of children, the
extraction of foreign objects (which could involve surgery), antidotes against
poisons, body-maintenance restorative tonics (think chyawanprash), and even
– hold your breath – the exorcism and/or pacifying of spirits that have taken
possession of a human body! Ayurveda is the Upaveda associated with... ye-
es, the Atharva Veda. No points for guessing right – it is the only Veda left!

LESSONS FROM THE VEDAS

TO YIELD OR NOT TO YIELD?

Short answer: Easy! Do both, of course!

There is a constant tussle around the idea of flexibility. Is flexibility (and we

aren’t talking physical flexibility here) a good thing, or a bad thing? Let’s
consider two situations and see if we can find the answer.
 Situation 1. You have made a pledge to yourself, say, that you will only
watch one episode of a favourite series on Netflix each day. Then, when you are
watching the penultimate episode of the season, you make a concession to
yourself, saying, ‘Just this once, just this one time, I will watch two episodes,
because this one has ended on an insane cliff-hanger, and also, how can I not
watch the season finale right now? Tell you what, I won’t watch anything on
Netflix tomorrow to make up for this transgression!’ That sounds reasonable
enough – after all, you are ‘making up’ for it the next day – and seriously, what’s
the big deal if you watch another forty minutes of Netflix when there isn’t an
exam tomorrow and you’re done with all your homework? In fact, being
inflexible about your pledge to yourself in this situation seems pretty silly.

Situation 2. Let’s say you believe that people who work harder than others and
put in more time at their jobs should get paid more (but of course, duh!). As a
result of getting paid more, they will get richer than everyone else, build
themselves bigger houses and drive fancier cars, buy themselves many acres of
farmland, start big factories that will produce goods that will make them even
richer, and so on. Sure, a family of four may not necessarily need that much land
or that much space or that much money, but hey, they worked harder and made
the sacrifices and they deserve their privileges!

Unfortunately, your friend doesn’t agree at all. She thinks that people who have
more than they need should share their wealth with people who don’t have
enough. She believes that if such people don’t share voluntarily, they should be
forced to – either by their religion (many religions insist on this, some even
specifying what percentage of a person’s wealth should be shared with the
community), their government (by way of taxes, for instance – the more you
earn, the more tax you pay), or by the law (since 2013, it is mandatory in India
for companies that earn a certain amount of money annually to spend two per
cent of their net profits on something called CSR, or Corporate Social
Responsibility, where they plough that money back into the community by either
sending donations for disaster relief, sponsoring research in deadly
communicable diseases, supporting government schools or poor villages, and so
on).

You think this is patently unfair. To be forced to give away part of what you
have rightfully earned is Simply Not OK. Your friend is disgusted at what she
sees as your small-mindedness and lack of social responsibility, but you don’t
back down. After all, if you keep backing down every time someone questions
or looks down upon your beliefs, you will soon have no principles to live by at
all. Sometimes, and about some things, one has to be completely inflexible.
Now, what do you think the Vedas would recommend in each of the two
situations? What would they have to say about your decisions on flexibility in
each case? There are four possible options – pick one.
1. They would totally agree with your decisions in both the cases.
2. They would say you should be completely inflexible in both situations.
3. They would say you should be completely flexible in both situations.
4. They would disagree with your decisions in both cases.
What option did you pick? If you picked 1, 2 or 3, so sorry, but those are the
wrong options. Option 4 is the right option – the Vedas would recommend that
you should be inflexible in Situation 1 and flexible in 2. Hang on a minute, you
say – how do you know that for sure? After all, there was no Netflix in the Vedic
Age, so surely the Vedic sages could not have commented on it!
Sure, but it is not Netflix itself, but the ritual of watching one episode a day
that we are talking about here. You could easily replace Netflix with a Vedic
ritual and ask – would the Vedic sages be OK with a student skipping the ritual
or tweaking it occasionally if he ‘made up for it’ later by doing a double yagna
or something? Of course they wouldn’t. In the case of the following of a ritual,
the Vedas demand complete compliance – it has to be done at the recommended
times, in the recommended way, and no convenient short-cuts or ‘adjustments’
are allowed.
Similarly, replace the question of the rightness or wrongness of a forced
contribution to society with the Vedic concept of how the universe was created.
Many religions and cultures are pretty inflexible in their beliefs about creation –
in many states in the USA, for instance, schools do not teach Darwin’s theory of
evolution because the authorities do not believe man evolved from apes; they
believe that it was God who created man, fully formed – but the Rig Veda itself
offers several alternative creation stories. It is very flexible about its beliefs, and
is not shy to admit that it isn’t sure, that it does not know the truth, and is willing
to keep an open mind until it does.
Do you have to go by what the Vedas say? Not at all. But the philosophy of
‘Be inflexible about your rituals but flexible about your ideologies’ has some
good points. We have spoken about the benefits of rituals earlier (see page 84) so
we don’t need to go there again. As for beliefs and ideologies, they are not
‘facts’* but ‘opinions’, which is why it is always better to keep an open mind to
allow new data, fresh opinions and alternative points of view around and about
them, to enter. If you don’t, the wonderful and never-ending process of learning
is stymied, and you are left with a stagnant ideology that will, sooner or later,
begin to smell a little funky.
*Of course, the Upanishads recommend that everything, even so-called facts, must be routinely and
thoroughly questioned.
 But what if you continue to stick to your original beliefs after you have
thrown open your mind, after you have closely examined and seriously
considered the alternatives, and with all the respect they deserve? That’s
absolutely fine! As an extra bonus, you would have Gandhiji’s approval. ‘I do
not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed,’
he once said. ‘I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as
freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.’
 THE SECRET
Next up, the Upanishads
 ६
SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT
THE UPANISHADS?

ight. Time for another quiz! Now that you have read about the Vedas in

R the previous chapters, you have already got some clues, so go right
ahead!
1. What, exactly, are the Upanishads?
a. A part of the Vedas
b. Philosophical ideas and concepts that are based on the Vedas
c. Conversations, usually between a teacher and a student, on complex
questions like ‘What is death, really?’ ‘Who am I, really?’ and even, ‘What
is reality, really?’
d. The set of texts on which the Bhagavad Gita is based
e. All of the above
Did you guess (e) all of the above? But of course you did! You already know
what the Upanishads are, from the previous chapters, duh.
What’s important to remember is that the Upanishads are not just part of the
Vedas, they are also often based on the ideas set out in the Vedas. They question,
analyze and interpret the earlier parts of the Vedas, and move the Veda
conversation forward. Hang on a minute, they say, so we’ve all been chanting all
the hymns and performing all the sacrifices and rituals that the Samhitas and
Brahmanas have prescribed, for centuries. Can we now ask why (or if!) this
ritual stuff is important? In fact, can we put the rituals aside for a bit and
brainstorm about the really important questions like –
- ‘Since we are all going to die in the end anyway, what is the point of this life?’
or
- ‘Those gods that we are always offering things to so that we can have wealth,
power, health, sons, whatever... do they really exist or did we create them
because it makes us feel better to imagine there is someone powerful up there
who we can arm-twist into giving us what we want simply by chanting the
right mantras?’ or
- ‘Never mind the gods and the heavens and contentment in the afterlife – are
there ways in which we can be truly content on earth? And if so, what are
those ways?’
That’s pretty cool, don’t you think? That a sacred text (Veda) should have a
section (Upanishad) that questions everything it has itself said? No wonder the
doubting, inquiring, seeking Upanishads have found many, many fans both in
India and elsewhere, and become far more popular than the Vedas themselves.
2. In all, how many Upanishads are there?
a. 10
b. 1,875
c. 200
d. 100,000
The correct answer is... (c) – there are about 200 Upanishads (give or take a
few) in all. Luckily for us, scholars better and wiser than most of us can ever
hope to be, have decided that only ten of those are what they call the Principal
Upanishads. Phew.
Since the Upanishads are part of the Vedas, they also belong to Shruti, or
‘revealed’, literature, which means we have no idea who composed them.
However, some of them recount conversations of certain sages – including
Yagnavalkya (say yaa-gnya-val-kya), Uddalaka Aruni, Shvetaketu, Shandilya
and Sanat Kumara – with their students, learned kings like Janaka, or other
scholars, notable among them Gargi (one of the very few women mentioned in
the ten Principal Upanishads). It’s fair to conclude, therefore, that these rishis
were responsible for at least some of the main ideas in the Upanishads.
3. When were the Upanishads composed?
a. Between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE
b. Between 1200 BCE and 900 BCE
c. Between 700 BCE and 1 CE
d. Between 1 CE and 300 CE
It’s (c) again! The Upanishads were all ‘revealed’ between 700 BCE and 1 CE.
Since the Upanishads are often based on the earlier sections of the Vedas,
they themselves were obviously composed well after those sections. But the
timeline is all very confusing, and it is almost impossible to date them
accurately. The only thing scholars can say with any confidence is that the oldest
Upanishads (which include most of the Principal Upanishads) could not have
been composed before the 7th or 8th century BCE, and the youngest ones (the
youngest among the Principal Upanishads, i.e. – several others were composed
much later, some as recently as 600 years ago) in the last century before the
Common Era. That’s a 700-year window, but hey, when those 700 years are over
2,000 years ago, it doesn’t make all that much of a difference to us, does it?
The Upanishads are also often referred to as Vedanta (say ved-aan-ta), which
translates to ‘end of the Vedas’ (veda + anta). They are the last section of the
Vedas, which of course makes them Vedanta in a very literal way, but they are
also the most difficult-to-grasp part, which is why they were always taught to
students towards the end of their Vedic studies, once their minds had been well
trained in a certain way of thinking. There is a third important reason they are
called Vedanta – once you’ve absorbed the wisdom of the Upanishads, the rishis
seem to be telling us, you will never need to return to the study of the Vedas
again, because the Upanishads contain all their wisdom, and more, in them.
4. What does the word ‘Upanishad’ literally mean?
a. The smaller, or minor, Veda
 b. Dialogues of the wise
c. Sitting close to, but at a lower level
d. Up and down (derived from the Hindi ‘upar-neeche’)
The right answer is (c) – once again!
(Ha! Bet you didn’t expect that googly – three c’s in succession! Also, if you
answered (d) – ‘The word Upanishad means Up and Down – from the Hindi
words ‘upar-neeche’, think again – Hindi/Hindustani developed as a language
thousands of years after Sanskrit!)
The word Upanishad is a combination of three Sanskrit syllables – upa,
which means to move closer to, or be close to; ni, which means ‘at a lower
level’; and shad, which means ‘to sit’.
So ‘Upanishad’ literally translates to ‘sitting close to someone, at a lower
level’. But what does it mean metaphorically? Think about it. We know that the
Upanishads were never meant to be read; like the rest of the Vedas, they were
meant to be heard (remember they were originally only communicated orally!).
Even more than verses or words, they were sacred ‘sounds’. To be able to catch
every nuance of the speaker’s voice and every teeny change in tone and
emphasis, therefore, it made sense to sit close to him or her. Plus, the teachings
of the Upanishads are often referred to as the ‘paramam guhyam’ – The Ultimate
Mystery, The Secret of Secrets. They would be revealed only to the deserving,
the ‘closest circle’.
What happens when you sit really close to the speaker, especially when that
person is your teacher? Well, you are forced to concentrate – you cannot fidget,
or text anyone, or sneak a look out of the window. Also, by the very act of shad
– sitting down – you are making a commitment to yourself and the speaker; you
are indicating that you are there to give him or her your full attention and are in
no hurry to go anywhere. As for the ni, it is there to remind you that if you really
want to learn what someone has agreed to teach you, it is important to humbly
accept, for the duration of the lesson at least, that you are at a ‘lower level’
intellectually than he or she is.
 So what the Upanishads teach us, by their very name, is a universal, eternal
truth: if you approach learning with focus, dedication, humility, a receptive mind
and respect for the teacher, there is very little chance that you will not move
closer to understanding what is being taught. The best part is that, because the
Upanishads are often structured as a dialogue between a teacher and a student,
they also show us by example that the learning and teaching process works best
when it is a two-way street. What you can take away from the most revered of
our ancient texts is that it is not only OK, but essential, to question your teachers
and parents when you don’t understand, or agree with, what they are teaching.
See? You can totally leverage the Upanishads and their ‘universal, eternal truths’
to garner support for your cause – in the 21st century!
And that’s the First Big Deal about the Upanishads – although they were
composed 3,500 years ago, when the world was a very, very different place (but
human nature was very, very much the same), they teach us ways of being and
thinking that we can use to live better, more fulfilling and more contented lives
today.
Sure, there are parts in them that are too obscure for many of us to
understand, too repetitive, or too irrelevant to our modern lives, but the fact that
they also teach, encourage and celebrate the questioning of everything –
including the holiest of holy cows, the idea of God – makes them pretty much
‘modern’, even scientific, in their approach to the world.
The Second Big Deal about them is that the ideas first expressed in the
Upanishads have become the basis of what most Indians believe is the purpose
of life, the meaning of death, and the nature of the entity called God. Their
biggest influence has been on Hinduism, but they have also impacted the central
ideas of other religions founded in India, such as Jainism, Buddhism and
Sikhism. (And of course, the plot lines of our biggest religion, Bollywood.)
Here are some of those Big Ideas. How many have you heard of before?

1. Samsara or the Cycle of Rebirth: When you die, it’s only your body that
 dies. Your soul simply moves on and makes its home in another body. If
you’ve been good in this life, you are born human again and can proceed
further on your journey to ultimate happiness. If you haven’t been so good,
you might just end up as some other creature in your next life (like, say, a
cockroach) and have to work your way up the hierarchy of creatures, until you
are human again and have the ability to choose to do the right thing, or not.

2. Karma or Action: No action is by itself right or wrong. But every action has
a consequence, so think carefully before you act. Just because you seem to
have escaped punishment for a bad action in the short term, don’t become
complacent. Karma will return to bite you in the butt in ways you can’t even
imagine. After all, it has loads and loads of time to make its move. (For more
details, refer to point 1.)

3. Dharma or Potential: Depending on our innate disposition or nature, each of

us has been assigned (or has chosen) a role to play in this lifetime – thinker,
doer, leader, follower. That role takes on different shades as the play
progresses – as you go from student to professional, child to parent, person-
who-has-something-wonderful (health, money, power, fame, contentment) to
person-who-does-not-have-it-any-more. It is our duty and responsibility to
play our role to the best of our potential, in every phase, uncomplainingly,
without hankering after someone else’s (seemingly bigger or better) role.

4. Moksha or Liberation: Human life is full of toil and trouble. The highest
goal of human life,* the way to true and lasting happiness, lies in breaking
free of samsara’s golden chains. If you are hardcore about performing your
Dharma and doing good, thoughtful Karma in this lifetime, you may have a
 chance of getting there. After roughly two million more lifetimes of good
behaviour. (Hey, no one said this gig was easy!)
* Moksha wasn’t the only life-goal recommended by the ancient Indian sages – there were three other
equally important ones. (To find out what they were, go to page 152.)

The Third Big Deal about the Upanishads is the set of conclusions all that
questioning and analysis threw up. Those conclusions are so wise, so secular and
so liberal that it makes a lot of sense to revisit them today, at a time when the
world seems more divided than ever before. Here are some of the main ones:

• The universe is not random. There is an underlying order and harmony,

called rita, to everything around us (although that may be tough to believe
when you are stuck in traffic at peak hour). Like clockwork, everything in the
universe fulfils its duty according to the all-powerful ‘natural law’ – the sun
rises and sets each day, seasons change, rain falls, the planets and stars move
in their orbits, electrons spin and revolve around nuclei, things are born, and
things die. Now, what is your excuse to not fulfil your duty?

• God is not Santa Claus. God is not making a list and checking it twice, to see
if you’ve been naughty or nice – the good and bad things that happen to you
are simply the result of the natural law of your own Karma. God does not
demand from you worship, or that you flog or starve yourself to gain favour.
God did not create you, as a mirror image or otherwise. God simply – hold
your breath – IS you! Just as God is every other creature and tree and river
and mountain in the world.

• The world is only as real as Netflix. Because all your organs of perception –
eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin – are turned towards, and consume, the world
outside, and because that world is so bright and beautiful and tempting and
demanding, you are tricked into believing that IT is the real thing, that it is the
ONLY thing there is. When really, it is no more real than Netflix, a make-
 believe world your mind has created for its entertainment and then been
sucked into.
• Your body is only a costume. Your form and shape of skeleton and flesh and
everything in there are what you’ve chosen to wear for your role in this act of
the long-running play called Life (or, more accurately, Lives). There will be
other acts and costumes and roles. The person/entity you mean when you say
‘I’, is neither your costume nor your role but something far, far bigger, far, far
better, and far, far more glorious than you can ever imagine. In the
Upanishads, that indestructible, never-changing core of your being, the real
You, is called the Atman (say aat-mun).

• You contain the universe. You are not minuscule or insignificant – you are
luminous, magnificent, large enough to contain the universe! For there is only
one Universal Energy, one Supreme Consciousness, that is inside (each of) us
and around (all of) us. We may each call it by a different name – Shakti,
Shoonya, Allah, Yahweh, Ahura Mazda, God – but that only reflects our own
individual choices and tastes (hey, it’s a free country!). In the Upanishads, this
supreme, all-pervading energy is called Brahman (say Bruhm-mun).

• You were not created by God, you ARE God. The point of your life as a
human being is to realize that Atman is Brahman, i.e., You are God. No,
seriously. Also, that everybody around you is God too. When you truly see
 this truth, and embrace it, when you realize that everyone – despite their
different skin colours and ‘weird’ ways of speaking and eating and worship
and whatnot – is just you in a different form, it is somewhat unlikely that you
will insult them or despise them or want to destroy them (because by doing
that, you are only insulting or despising or destroying yourself).
Instead, you will begin to revel in the fact that you can live so many different
lives at the same time, that you can be man and woman and child and white and
black and brown and Dutch and Eritrean and Peruvian and Kurd and Jew and
Muslim and Parsi and vegetarian and non-vegetarian and Rafa Nadal and P.V.
Sindhu and tree and river and dog and bird and anything or anyone else you
want to be. You will make it the focus of your life to understand all those
different versions of you, by making each of them your teacher. You will engage
in conversations and interactions with them that are marked by humility, respect,
gratitude and an open mind (just like the Upanishads have taught you). And you
will learn from their mistakes, and rejoice in their successes, and share in their
grief, and live their experiences, and become a finer, wiser person each day
because of it.
In other words, you will move closer to becoming the God that you are.

HOW THE WEST WAS WON

Hint: It involved a Mughal prince, a French Indologist
and a German philosopher

In their own land, the Upanishads have been known and revered for over 2,500
years. Their explosive, original ideas influenced Vardhamana Mahavira, who
founded Jainism in the 6th century BCE, and Gautama Buddha, who founded
Buddhism about a hundred years later.* When Buddhist missionaries travelled to
far-flung parts of Asia, like Sri Lanka, Japan, China, Korea, Tibet, Mongolia and
Bactria** to spread their religion in the 2nd century BCE and after, they took
Upanishadic ideas like reincarnation and Moksha with them, making them
popular in the Far East.
*There is some disagreement about this among scholars – while some say Upanishadic ideas influenced
Jainism and Buddhism, others insist it was the Buddha’s ideas that influenced the Upanishadic sages. Until
we can date the Upanishads accurately, this argument looks likely to continue. Most non-scholars, however,
are simply happy to enjoy the wisdom of these ideas, wherever they originally came from.

** A historical region in Central Asia that today would cover parts of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan.

But how – and when – did word of humankind’s oldest, and arguably among the
most original philosophical ruminations get out to the western world? Thereby
hangs a fascinating tale.
The year, so the story goes, was 1640. Prince Dara Shikoh, firstborn son and
heir apparent of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, was on holiday in Kashmir with
his beloved wife Nadira Banu when he first heard of the ancient texts called the
‘Upanekhats’ (his word for the Upanishads).
Like his great-grandfather Akbar before him, Dara was a liberal who had
always been fascinated by mysticism and spirituality, and believed that no matter
what the name, there was only one God. Like Akbar, he would also devote a
large part of his life to finding common ground between Hinduism and Islam.
Most excited to hear about this sacred literature that his Hindu subjects
assured him was among the holiest of the holy, he convened a gathering of
scholars from the great city of Banaras (now Varanasi) at his Delhi palace on the
banks of the Yamuna, the Manzil-e-Nigambodh, and had them explain to him
every possible meaning of the fifty or so Upanishads they had at their disposal.
Over the next few years, he personally translated (so it is believed) all those 52
Upanekhats into Persian, finding several parallels between their teachings and
those of the Quran, especially with respect to their ideas about the oneness of
God. In fact, he became convinced by the end of it that the ‘hidden book’ of
wisdom – the Kitab al-maknun – mentioned in the Quran was none other than
the Upanishads.
In 1656, Dara Shikoh’s translation was published as the Sirr-e-Akbar (The
Greatest Mystery), bringing upon his head the wrath of orthodox Muslims, chief
among them his ambitious younger brother Muhiuddin, otherwise known as
Prince Aurangzeb. A bitter battle for succession was brewing, and Aurangzeb
saw his chance. In 1659, after having usurped the throne and declared himself
Emperor, he denounced crown prince Dara as a heretic and had him beheaded.
Given that anything associated with Dara was now a hot potato, Sirr-e-Akbar
should have by rights disappeared into the mists of history, never to be seen
again. And that might have well happened, if it hadn’t been for Dara Shikoh’s
personal physician, Monsieur Francois Bernier.
M. Bernier had got himself a ‘super-fast’ medical degree after an intensive
three-month course in his home country in the 1650s. Unfortunately, that
abbreviated degree did not allow him to practise on French territory, and so, a
few years later, M. Bernier took off to the East to do what he really wanted to –
travel. He reckoned he could also put his medical skills to use along the way, but
never imagined he would end up where he did – as part of the team of royal
physicians who attended the Mughal emperor himself!
When the good doctor went back to Paris in 1671, after also having served as
Emperor Aurangzeb’s doctor for a dozen years, he carried a copy of Sirr-e-Akbar
back with him. Hanging out with Dara Shikoh’s Sanskrit pandit had given
Bernier himself a deep insight into the Upanishads, and he was very attached to
the translation. Within Bernier’s own circles, the Upanishads thus became
known.
From top: An amazing three-way connection: Mughal prince Dara Shikoh, French Indologist M. Anquetil–
Duperron and German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer

But another hundred years would pass before M. Anquetil-Duperron, famous

as the first ‘professional’ French Indologist and the person who introduced the
Zoroastrian holy book, the Zend Avesta, to Europe, got his hands on a copy of
Sirr-e-Akbar. Now, while Sanskrit wasn’t a language that people on the street,
even in India, were fluent in, Persian was not only the official language of the
Mughal court but also a language that many Europeans, including Anquetil-
Duperron, spoke well. In 1775, he decided to retranslate Sirr-e-Akbar, first into
French, and then into Latin.
Anquetil-Duperron’s Latin translation ‘Oupnek’hat or Upansichada’, when
published in 1801, was the very first European-language translation of a ‘Hindu’
text, ever. In the spring of 1814, the translation came to the notice of the famous
German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, who was so taken with it that he
repeatedly called it his favourite book of all time. What’s more, he declared that
among the entire body of world literature, the Upanishads were the texts most
worthy of being read.
Not everyone agrees with Schopenhauer’s interpretations of the Upanishads
[but spare the poor man a thought – he was working with a (Latin) translation of
a (French) translation of a (Persian) translation of a Sanskrit work!]. But he was
so respected and his work had such a huge influence on other western
philosophers, that after his exuberant pronouncements about them, there was a
sudden and renewed interest in the Upanishads not just in Europe but back in
India as well. Today, they occupy a pre-eminent place in literature as one of the
world’s greatest philosophical works.
And all thanks to a curious, large-hearted, liberal-minded, questioning
Muslim prince who knew in his heart that there was always common ground to
be found between seemingly disparate peoples and cultures and ideas and
religions, if only one made the effort to look.

PS: Dara Shikoh’s palace, the Manzil-e-Nigambodh, was called that because it
stood close to the Nigambodh Ghat, Delhi’s oldest ghat for performing Hindu
funeral rites. Believed to have been first set up by Pandava prince Yudhishthira
himself, the ghat is also thought to be the spot where another landmark
mythological event occurred. The story goes that the Vedas had been lost to
humanity after Lord Brahma, believed to be their originator, was cursed by
Yamuna, and lost his memory as a result. When, relenting, Yamuna returned the
Vedas to her banks, she did so at the Nigambodh Ghat. A grateful Brahma took a
dip in her holy waters, and wisdom was restored to the world.
In fact, the word ‘Nigambodh’ literally translates to ‘understanding of the
Veda’. Pretty cool that the prince who helped take the ‘understanding of the
Veda’ to the world lived at that very spot, wot?
 ७
MASTERMIND!
Presenting – tan-tan-taraa! – the Ultimate Challenge:
The Conquest of the Mind

irca 700 BCE. Elaborate, expensive and inflexible rituals had taken over

C every aspect of Arya life. Increasingly, the rituals were performed simply
because they were part of tradition, with very few people trying to understand
their true significance. Society had become rigidly hierarchical, with people of
the upper varnas (or upper classes) cruelly discriminating against those of the
lower ones. What’s more, they insisted that they had the divine sanction of the
Vedas for doing so.
This kind of claim seemed outrageous to the liberal-minded thinkers of the
time, who believed that all people, regardless of gender and varna, should be
treated fairly and with kindness. Surely the holiest of their holy texts did not
actually recommend exploitation and oppression of those who were different or
less fortunate!
Reluctant to dismiss outright the sacred texts that their forefathers had lived
by, these liberals decided to go back to the originals for a closer look. Maybe, if
they studied them with an open mind and complete focus, they would find the
secret code that cracked open the true message of the Vedas! Retreating into
tranquil forests where there were few distractions, these thinkers spent years
studying, analyzing and debating the message of the scriptures, while putting
aside the largest chunk of time for deep and solitary reflection.
And what were their findings? A range of different ones, actually. Some
thinkers came out roundly criticizing the rituals, and all the grovelling that
people did in the name of worship, declaring that human endeavour should be
directed not towards pleasing some god outside of us, but finding God inside
ourselves. The fire that needed tending, they said, was not the one in the yagna
kund, but the flame of true knowledge that burnt so brightly inside us. The real
yagna was not about sacrificing animals but about sacrificing negative energies
like ego, greed, hate and anger.
Others said there was nothing wrong with physical, external rituals, as long
as one remembered their metaphorical meaning. It was important to remember,
for instance, that the horse sacrificed during the Ashwamedha yagna, bringing
power and glory to the person performing the sacrifice, was only a symbol for
the universe – one had to give up one’s attachment to material things like wealth
and success and fame, which come and go – for more permanent rewards like
peace and contentment.
Meanwhile, some truly enlightened sages came up with beautiful, powerful
ideas like ahimsa (non-violence) – which the Buddha championed, and which
was later adapted to great effect in the political arena by Emperor Ashoka and
Mahatma Gandhi – damyata (self-control), datta (generosity), daya
(compassion) and satya (a truth-justice-‘rightness’ combine that goes well
beyond ‘not lying’).
It was these thinkers who also produced the four Mahavakyas, or Great
Pronouncements, which are different ways of expressing the mightiest central
idea of the Upanishads – Atman is Brahman; you are God.
(You will find the Mahakavyas later in the book, as part of the Upanishads
they belong to. When you find one, remember to say ‘Eureka!’.)
They put these epiphanies down as they struck them, these ancient sages of
India, in rambling chunks that had neither a clear theme nor logical sequencing,
over hundreds of years (obviously, it wasn’t all the same sages – even powerful
sages did not live that long). Today, we know these collections of illuminating,
ecstatic revelations as the Upanishads.
 THE MENTALISTS
The ‘true message of the Vedas’ was only one outcome of the whole exercise of
questioning. All those years spent in deep and focused contemplation helped
these thinkers travel well beyond the Vedas, to unknown realms. The cool part
was that these realms were not outside of themselves – they didn’t travel to the
top of Mt Everest or darkest Peru or the frozen wilds of Antarctica – but deep
inside their own minds!
Thousands of years before psychoanalysis was a thing, these sages explored
the least probed recesses of the human mind and played around with different
states of consciousness (the state of being awake, the dream state, the deep-sleep
state – Inception, anyone?). They discovered, to their wonder and delight, that
the world inside our minds was just as vast, complex, stunningly beautiful and
dangerous to negotiate as the world outside, and far more difficult to conquer.
More importantly, they found that while the joy that came from conquering the
world outside was short-lived, if only because that world was constantly
changing, the deep contentment that came of conquering the world inside was
not only long-lasting and unchanging, but also made the conquest of the outer
world seem, well, less important.
That is an exciting enough thought in itself, but before you go haring off to
conquer your inner world, it might be a good idea to ask what you are actually
supposed to be looking for when you plumb the depths, or how you will know
that that world has been conquered. It might also help to find a wise teacher to
help you get there, for the Upanishads are categorical that no one can go on this
journey without an experienced guide.*

*How does one find that wise and experienced spiritual guide? Just like one finds the perfect tuition teacher
– by looking around, getting recommendations from friends and seniors, taking a few trial classes and
asking yourself some hard, honest questions at the end of it. Questions like – Do I feel comfortable around
this teacher? Do I understand a concept better after she has taught it to me? Does she allow me to ask
questions (which are sometimes admittedly dumb)? Does his teaching style involve pushing me hard or
letting me be? (Both methods work, but for different kinds of students – the trick lies in picking a teacher
whose style works for you.)
The analogy does not end there. Just like you may have to suffer several bad or unsuitable tuition
teachers before you find the right one, you may have to try out several spiritual guides for size before you
settle on a good one. Here’s what’s vital, though:
• Even after you think you’ve found him or her, make sure you keep questioning yourself about what you
want from a teacher, and reflecting on whether your teacher fulfils those conditions.
• Be careful not to stay with a particular teacher simply because ‘everyone says he’s the best’.
• Most importantly, always remember that spiritual guides come in all shapes and forms – they need not
be wearing saffron or white or green or have long beards or shaven heads. Anyone who lives his or her
own life gently, calmly, compassionately, responsibly and cheerfully is a great guide!

Why is a guide so important, though? Because, while it isn’t so hard for the
human brain to understand the ‘inner world conquest strategy’ at an intellectual
level and it isn’t so difficult to tell someone else how it is done, it all becomes a
lot more complicated when you actually have to do the conquering yourself, for
it’s your own brain, or more correctly, your own mind, that you are trying to
study and observe and conquer! As you can imagine, that is like entering a hall
of mirrors, where everything is bound to get very confusing. Plus, this whole
journey into the inner world is not about ‘understanding’ things, but about
‘experiencing’ things and ‘intuiting’ things. And we all know that that intuition,
while it often happens by chance, isn’t easy to come by in a conscious way.
It is for this reason that the Upanishads insist on a guide. Eventually, of
course, you will have to find your own way, but it will certainly help to get tips
from someone who has already been there, at least part of the way, to tell you of
his or her experience at each stage (like how reading up the reviews on Zomato
gives you a much better idea of what to expect from a restaurant than reading the
menu does).
But back to our original question – how will you know that the destination
has been reached? The ultimate prize in this ultimate quest for everlasting
contentment and peace, say the sages, is the mind-blowing realization that your
life-force, the energy that fills you with life and light, is nothing but the all-
pervading life-force of the universe itself. When you know that truth – declare
the sages – and feel it, deeply, wholly, in every cell of your being, you have
arrived.

ENTER THE CODEBREAKERS!

Once the ancient sages had themselves ‘arrived’, they hastened to share their
revelations with the world. Which was great.
The trouble was, these revelations were spread across sprawling collections
of poetry and prose, and were almost always oral in transmission, making them
almost impossible to access in their entirety by people who had livelihoods to
earn and families to take care of. Moreover, the thoughts expressed in them often
bordered on the mystical, and spoke of ideas and places and experiences that
ordinary people, even the most imaginative and intellectually adept among them,
could not fully fathom.
The precious wisdoms may have been lost to common folk but for the efforts
of a small, select band, who began to put down their own interpretations of these
wisdoms in simple terms that everyone could understand. They made sure to
include lots of relevant examples as well, so that more people could benefit.
The best-known of these ancient ‘CliffsNotes’ to the Upanishads are the
Brahmasutra and the Bhagavad Gita. Together, the sacred triad (that number
again!) of the Upanishads, the Brahmasutra and the Bhagavad Gita is considered
to be the true and complete Vedanta (distillation of the Veda), containing all the
guidance you need in your quest for the Brahman inside you.
The Brahmasutra, composed by a sage called Badarayana, is difficult to date
accurately, but it was probably composed around the time when BCE turned to CE
(or a couple of hundred years earlier, or a couple of hundred years later – you
know how this goes). It comprises a set of 555 sutras, or verses, divided among
four chapters that neatly and brilliantly collate, organize, classify and summarize
all the lessons and wisdom of the sprawling Upanishads.
There’s more to like about the Brahmasutra – like a good NCERT science
lesson, it starts by introducing the Topic (Brahman), goes on to the Definition
(What is Brahman?), does a ‘Review’ of different theories about it (What do the
Hindu texts say about Brahman? What about the Buddhist texts? And the Jain
texts?), clears up apparent contradictions within the Upanishads themselves, lays
down the steps of the ‘Process’, all the way to the ‘Result’, Moksha, in a step-
by-step bullet-point format, and concludes with the ‘Uses and Benefits’ of
setting off on the Great Brahman Quest.
The Brahmasutra works great as a handy guide to the Upanishads for the
logical learner who wants his facts straight, but for the romantic who prefers his
wisdoms laced with a nice dose of spectacle and melodrama (which is most of
us), another kind of treatment was needed. Enter, stage right, the Bhagavad Gita,
the most compact, comforting and accessible friend, mentor and teacher of the
Upanishads that anyone could want. By cleverly locating some of the most
complex philosophical ideas in the world on a battlefield, with a war about to
begin, Veda Vyasa, the author of the Gita, takes the lessons of the Brahmasutra
out of the textbook and into the laboratory, shifting it dramatically, and
effectively, from Theory to Practicals. By delivering the Upanishads’ highest
wisdoms via a conversation between two best friends, both of whom we know so
well from a time much before the war, he grabs our attention and converts ‘Pure
Philosophy’ into living ‘Applied Philosophy’.
Wow – 360-degree learning, anyone?

#LIFEGOALS
Purushartha – the Hindu mission statement for the ideal
human life

While it is quite common, even essential, for countries and businesses to have
clearly articulated goals and aspirations, it is not often that you find a religion
that has one. We are not talking rules here – every religion has those by the
bushel – but a set of recommendations on how to lead a good and upright life.
Here are the four goals, called Purushartha, of human life, as conceived by the
sages of ancient India.
• Dharma – Doing your duty, fulfilling your responsibilities (to yourself, your
family and your community), leading a morally upright life and living up to
your potential, whether you are student or daughter or father or teacher or
boss or doctor or construction worker.
• Artha – Having a goal and purpose in life, which includes the accumulation
of material wealth. This may sound surprising, but the sages of the Vedas
were pretty pragmatic. Realizing that a life of dignity required a person to be
able to provide himself and his family with food, shelter and clothing, they set
down the pursuit of Artha (wealth) as a noble goal, as long as it was done in
accordance with Dharma. That meant that exploiting others or coveting
wealth beyond one’s needs was out, unless one also gave the extra wealth
away to the less fortunate or used it to better the community. The sages were
also pretty ruthless – by making Artha a goal, they sent out a clear message:
‘Frittering away time aimlessly, drifting along without giving back to the
community and general navel-gazing are a strict no-no. Make yourself
useful!’ Ouch.

• Kama – The pursuit of pleasure. Yup, the Vedic sages were so woke that
they even put the pursuit of pleasure down as a legitimate goal of human
existence! Love, affection and anything that pleased the senses or was
considered enjoyable – a beautiful sunset on a beach holiday, the smell of the
earth after the rain, listening to a concert by your favourite pop star, the
feeling of your dog’s soft fur, slurping up your grandmother’s kheer, hanging
out with your friends – were all considered not only good, but necessary
ingredients in a life well-lived. Once again, though, pleasure had to be chased
 within the rules of Dharma – going to a movie on the day before your exams
wouldn’t work, for instance, because it would clash with your Dharma as a
student, which would demand that you spend that time studying.

• Moksha – The quest for ultimate happiness and the most complete and
blissful kind of freedom. While Dharma, Artha and Kama are all worldly
pursuits, and are very important – after all, we all do live in the material world
– Moksha urges you to be detached from those very same worldly pleasures,
i.e., love, hate, wealth, success!

Eh? How can all four be the goals of human life if one of them, Moksha, is
at complete odds with the other three, or at least two? Expectedly, the ancient
sages debated this question a lot – until they found a way to reconcile the
two, with a killer concept called ‘Nishkama Karma’ (action without
attachment). It was Krishna who explained the concept to Arjuna, and
through Arjuna, to us, so famously in the Bhagavad Gita – ‘Do your duty
(i.e., enjoy your concert, or go work at a job), but don’t become attached to
the result of that action.’ In other words, go work at a job, but don’t make
earning money (or loving your job) the object of your work; love your friends
as much as you like, but don’t expect that they should love you back in
exactly the same way; study as hard as you can to fulfil your Dharma as a
student, but don’t fret if you don’t top the class as a result. Do that, they said,
and the effects of being ‘worldly’, i.e., pursuing pleasure and wealth, will not
bind you, and you will be free.
Got that? Sure. Cool concept? Maybe. Easy to follow in real life? We-ell…
 ८
SHANKARA’S FAVES – THE TOP
TEN UPANISHADS
Lists, rankings, peace prayers and other essential
Upanishadic basics

ou know by now that while there are differences of opinion on exactly

Y how many Upanishads there are, ‘around 200’ seems to be a figure

everyone is comfortable with. Of course, we haven’t actually been able
to lay our hands on the manuscripts of all 200 – we only know many of them
existed because some other Upanishad, or some other text, refers to them, or
because we have found a commentary on the Upanishad (and not the Upanishad
itself), written by someone who lived hundreds of years later.
The Muktika Upanishad, composed about 600 years ago, is one such text. It
puts down what is considered a ‘Definitive List’, in which it names 108
Upanishads. What of the other ninety-two? We are not sure – either they did not
make it to the coveted list because they were not considered worthy, or they were
composed after the Muktika went to press. (Yes, not all the Upanishads are over
2,000 years old!)
But even 108 Upanishads are too many to discuss in a book like this. So we
shall take refuge, as so many have in the past, in the scholarship of the 8th
century boy mystic from Kerala – Shankara – who, after studying as many
Upanishads as were around in his time, wrote expansive, illuminating
commentaries on ten of them (or possibly eleven, but the eleventh commentary
has never been found, so we shall go with ten for now). Because Shankara was
so highly regarded, those ten Upanishads have come to be celebrated as the
Mukhya, or Principal, Upanishads, and occupy the Top Ten position in the
Muktika’s Definitive List as well.
What was good enough for Shankara is surely good enough for us, so in this
book we shall stick to discussing only the Principal Upanishads. Deal? Deal.
(For the story of Shankara, check page 169.)
Here, then – drum roll, please! – is the list of Shankara’s Chosen Ones.*
*The following info is strictly for stats and trivia nerds. If you aren’t one, go back to reading the main text.
• Shankara’s hand-picked Upanishads made it to the ‘Top Ten’ in the Muktika’s list as well. The Muktika
humbly lists itself in the 108th place as the one that completes the list.
• This list is not in chronological order. The oldest Upanishads are, in fact, the last two on the ‘Top Ten
list’, from around 700 BCE. The youngest of the ten are the Prashna and the Mandukya, from around
the 1st century CE.
• The span of time over which the 108 Upanishads were composed is about 2,000 years, starting with the
Brihadaranyaka and ending with the Muktika in the 15th century. Phew.

1. Isha
2. Kena
3. Katha
4. Prashna
5. Mundaka
6. Mandukya
7. Taittiriya
8. Aitareya
9. Chandogya
10. Brihadaranyaka
Wait. Stop. Don’t just skim the list! Pause, and actually read the list, saying
the words in your head or aloud. Of course the words probably don’t mean
anything to you right now, but don’t worry about that. Instead, focus on their
sound and cadence, like students did in the old times.
 Notice what a nice rhythm the names have when spoken in sequence, and
how the number of syllables progresses steadily from two – in Isha, Kena,
Katha, Prashna – to three – Mundaka, Mandukya – to four – Taittiriya, Aitareya.
Then comes the anomaly, the three-syllabled Chandogya, but perhaps that was
snuck in there to help you catch your breath, so that you’d have enough left in
the tank for the formidable, six-syllabled, final one – the dense and sprawling
BRI-HAD-AAR-AN-YA-KA.
Wasn’t that fun? Onward!
Now, each Upanishad – not just these ten here but every other one as well –
is part of one Veda or another (as we discussed not so long ago, the Upanishads
are the fourth layer of the Vedas). So let’s put down the list again, this time
connecting each Upanishad to its Veda.
1. Isha – Yajur Veda (Shukla)*
2. Kena – Sama Veda
3. Katha – Yajur Veda (Krishna)*
4. Prashna – Atharva Veda
5. Mundaka – Atharva Veda
6. Mandukya – Atharva Veda
7. Taittiriya – Yajur Veda (Krishna)
8. Aitareya – Rig Veda
9. Chandogya – Sama Veda
10. Brihadaranyaka – Yajur Veda (Shukla)
*Remember we talked about two versions of the Yajur Veda in Chapter 4? To recap, one version, the one in
which the four layers of the Veda are neatly separated and organized, is called the Shukla Yajur Veda, and
the other, in which the four layers are all a bit mixed-up, is called the Krishna Yajur Veda.

Moving on. Each Upanishad is not only associated with a particular Veda,
but also with a special invocation or prayer called a Shanti Mantra, which is
essentially a prayer for peace. Before you start reading an Upanishad – or, more
correctly, ‘listening’ to a teacher explain its essence to you – it is recommended
that both of you chant the peace prayer associated with it.
Right, now let’s put down our list of Upanishads yet again, this time tagging
each with its respective Shanti Mantra. You can skip this list if it feels like too
much information for now, but you will be able to come back to this ready
reckoner any time you need to.
1. Isha – Yajur Veda (Shukla) – Aum poornamadah poornamidam
2. Kena – Sama Veda – Aum aapyayantu mamaangaani
3. Katha – Yajur Veda (Krishna) – Aum sahanaavavatu
4. Prashna – Atharva Veda – Aum bhadram karnebhih
5. Mundaka – Atharva Veda – Aum bhadram karnebhih
6. Mandukya – Atharva Veda – Aum bhadram karnebhih
7. Taittiriya – Yajur Veda (Krishna) – Aum sahanaavavatu
8. Aitareya – Rig Veda – Aum vaang me manasi pratishtithaa
9. Chandogya – Sama Veda – Aum aapyayantu mamaangaani
10. Brihadaranyaka – Yajur Veda (Shukla) – Aum poornamadah poornamidam

PSALMS FOR CALM

How to Peace Out, the Upanishadic way

What is the point of the Shanti Mantras? And why should they be recited before
the study of an Upanishad? Simply because the sounds and words of these
mantras are believed to create an atmosphere that quietens the mind and
facilitates learning. As a collateral benefit, they also help calm the community
and the environment around the student. Which isn’t that hard to believe,
considering that all of them end with that most calming of calming phrases –
‘Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih’.
Why three Shantihs? One explanation is that it is because the mantra invokes
three kinds of peace – peace in the mind (easy enough to understand), peace in
speech (i.e., an absence of extreme emotions like anger, fear, hate, great joy or
excitement when one speaks, because it is only then that the mind can think –
and the tongue can speak – clearly and rationally) and peace in the body (a
steady pulse, a deep rhythmic breath, a happy gut). Another explanation is that
the triple Shantih calls for peace within oneself, peace in the community and
environment, and peace in the universe. Both theories are quite lovely, don’t you
think?
The other nice thing about the Shanti Mantras is of course, their aspiration.
Seriously, who could have a problem with prayers that ask for nothing other than
peace, not only for oneself but for everyone else as well? (FYI, you don’t have to
restrict yourself to chanting these mantras only before you study the Upanishads,
you can chant them at any old time at all – when you’re feeling stressed and
want to calm yourself down, just before you begin a particularly challenging
music or maths lesson, when your two best friends are mad at each other, when
you have just had a huge family row, or simply when you are feeling wonderful
and calm and want to share your bliss with the world!)
The third thing (everything related to the Upanishads seems to come in
threes!) is that these mantras aren’t the I’ve-never-heard-them-before kind of
verses. Many of you are probably familiar with at least a couple of them and
may even have chanted them at home or at school, without ever knowing that
they had such a deep connection with the Upanishads.
Time now to take a closer look at the Shanti Mantras – how many do you
recognize?

Shanti Mantra of the Rig Veda Upanishads

(To be chanted before studying the Aitareya)
Aum vaang me manasi pratishtithaa
Mano me vaachi pratishtitham
Aavira-avir-ma edhi
 Vedasya ma aaneesthah
Shrutam me maa prahaaseeh
Anena-adheetena-ahoraatraan-san-dadhaami
Ritam vadishyaami satyam vadishyaami
Tan-maam-avatu tad-vaktaaram-avatu
Avatu maam avatu vaktaaram
Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Aum!
I pray
That my words make their home in my mind,
That my mind makes its home in my words,
That the knowledge of my true self reveals itself to me,
That my mind and my speech work in harmony to help me understand,
That I do not just hear the lesson, but understand it,
That what I learn and practise night and day is never lost to me.
May this Divine Truth that I speak today
Protect my teacher
And protect me.
Aum Peace Peace Peace.

Simple enough to understand, this prayer asks for mind and speech to work
harmoniously, as one unit. What are you really asking for here? That your
monkey-mind doesn’t jump around, completely distracted, thinking about the
fun party you have been invited to this evening, while your mouth repeats words
after the teacher. (Remember, ‘repeating after the teacher’ was a HUGE part of
learning in the days of oral transmission – today, you would probably pray for
your eyes and mind to be in harmony – so that you are not just looking at the
teacher, your mind is actually processing what she is saying as well – or for your
fingers and mind to be in harmony – so that you are not playing Hangman with
your seat partner but actually making notes about the lesson.)
The part where the chanter prays for knowledge to be retained is also
important – please, God, I’ve done my bit and studied hard, now can you please,
pretty please, help me remember all of it in the exam hall? The prayer ends with
a lovely wish for the teacher – now that’s something you probably don’t think
about doing, but should!

Shanti Mantra of the Sama Veda Upanishads

(To be chanted before studying the Kena and the Chandogya)
Aum aapyaayantu mamaangaani
Vaak-praanas-chakshuh-shrotram
Atho-balam-indriyaani cha sarvaani
Sarvam brahma upanishadam
Maaham brahma niraakuryaam
Maa maa brahma niraakarod
Aniraakaranam astu aniraakaranam me astu
Tadaatmani nirate ya upanishatsu dharmaah
Te mayi santu, te mayi santu
Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Aum!
I seek blessings
That my limbs, speech, breath, eyes, ears, strength
And all my senses be nourished;
I pray
That I may never deny Brahman or be disloyal,
That Brahman may never forsake or reject me;
I, the seeker, ask
 That all the wisdoms of the Upanishads
Shine in me,
That they all shine in me.
Aum Peace Peace Peace.

If you substitute the word Upanishads with whatever skill or lesson or craft
you are trying to master, this simple, heartfelt prayer for strength and health of
all kinds – mental, physical, emotional and spiritual – is a mantra that works
well. After all, no quest – whether it is summiting Everest or mastering quantum
mechanics – can be undertaken unless the mind, body and spirit are at peace, and
in perfect harmony with one another.
It’s important to note that while the seeker hopes fervently that Brahman
never forsakes him, he is careful enough to put in a little reminder for himself as
well – he asks that he may never deny Brahman either. Imagine if we always did
that with our prayers as well – ‘Please, God, make Dad get me that new device
I’ve been longing for, but make sure too that I am never rude to Dad.’ Or ‘Oh, I
hope-hope-hope that the girl/boy I really like talks to me in school today, but I
equally hope-hope-hope that I will not spread awful rumours about her/him if
she/he chooses to not like me back as much.’ That would totally make for a
world full of Shantih-Shantih-Shantih, don’t you think?

Shanti Mantra of the Shukla Yajur Veda Upanishads

(To be chanted before studying the Isha and the Brihadaranyaka)
Aum poornamadah poornamidam poornaat poorna-mudachyate
Poornasya poornamaadaaya poornamevaavashisyate
Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Aum!
That is complete, and This is complete,
 From That completeness comes This completeness;
If you take completeness away from completeness,
Only completeness remains.
Aum Peace Peace Peace.

Say what? Uh-hunh, this particular Shanti Mantra is a bit mind-boggling,

and you wonder if it is deliberately meant to confuse. Logically speaking, if you
take something away from something – completeness from completeness in this
case – how can the original thing, even if that thing is ‘completeness’, remain?
But as we discussed in an earlier chapter, this kind of paradox is typical of the
Upanishads, especially when Brahman or God is being described, as he is in this
case.
Completeness – a quality of being whole, unified, and independent of
anything and anyone else – is something human beings see as superhuman. After
all, we are all deeply dependent, in one way or another, on something or
someone. We constantly seek completeness – a best friend, a soulmate, a passion
to follow, likes on Instagram, success, approval from others and a tonne of other
things to feel complete, to feel happy. But we realize very quickly that this kind
of completeness is transient. It departs quickly, and we are soon on the streets
looking for it again.
Brahman, on the other hand, is the epitome of completeness. This mantra is a
prayer asking him to guide us towards that completeness. And where may we
find this completeness? Right within us! As the mantra says, ‘That completeness’
, i.e., Brahman, is ‘This completeness’, i.e., Atman, your individual soul. Once
we find it, we will be blissfully happy.
And what of taking completeness away from completeness? Brahman, says
the mantra, does not become diminished, not even a tiny little bit, by splitting
Himself into a million creatures in a million ways, just as the flame of a candle
burns just as bright even after lighting a hundred other candles. In exactly the
same way, you will not become diminished by giving of yourself – your love,
your attention, your compassion, your respect – to every other creature in the
world. Therefore, advise the sages of the Upanishads, give! Give recklessly,
prodigally, unabashedly, and don’t be afraid – for when you take completeness
away from completeness, only completeness remains.
What a beautiful message, right? Remind yourself of it every time you chant
this Shanti Mantra.

Shanti Mantra of the Krishna Yajur Veda Upanishads

(To be chanted before studying the Taittiriya and the Katha)
Aum saha naavavatu
Saha nau bhunaktu
Saha veeryam karavaavahai
Tejasvinaavadhitamastu maa vidvishaavahai
Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

Aum!
May He in the Highest Heaven
Protect both of us, teacher and student;
Nourish both of us together
So that we may work together with great energy,
So that we may learn from each other,
So that our learning is effective,
So that we steer clear of dispute and discord.
Aum Peace Peace Peace.

With its strong message that learning is a two-way process in which both
teacher and student are mutually benefited, this is a great prayer to put up in
classrooms and school corridors. If the part about ‘learning from each other’ is
something you may want to draw your teachers’ attention to, the part petitioning
for an absence of dispute and discord is probably something your teachers wish
you would keep in mind. The plea that both teacher and student be protected and
nourished is important too – it tells us that learning is not effective unless both
parties are equally committed to the task and participate in it with a healthy
respect for each other.
PS: This may also be a great way to approach conversations in general, even
when, say, you are in the middle of an argument with a friend. Treating the other
person as your teacher (since you don’t know his point of view and are trying to
‘learn’ it from him), giving him your full attention and respect, and listening with
an open mind may be the shortest and most sure-shot route to resolving conflict.

Shanti Mantra of the Atharva Veda Upanishads

(To be chanted before studying the Prashna, the Mundaka and the
Mandukya)
Aum bhadram karnebhih shrinuyaama devaah
Bhadram pashyem-aakshabhir-yajatraah
Sthirair-angais-tushtuvaamsas-tanoobhih
Vyashema devahitam yadaayooh
Svasti na indro vriddhashravaah
Svasti nah pooshaa vishvavedaah
Svasti nastaarkshyo arishtanemih
Svasti no brhaspatir-dadhaatu
Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Aum!
Ye gods, bless us
That we may hear words that are pleasant
And see things that are blessed,
 That we may live our lives in ways that nourish you.
O great Indra, O All-Knowing Poosha,
O Garuda, destroyer of evil, O great teacher Brihaspati,
Take care of us, blessed ones!
Aum Peace Peace Peace.

This prayer is straightforward enough, a nice general-purpose bless-us-with-

everything prayer that can be pulled out on any occasion at all. But if you look
carefully, it isn’t all gimme-gimme-gimme. The chanter is also promising to play
his part in the universal cycle of give-and-take by promising to live his life in a
way that nourishes the gods. How can one do that? Simply by doing his or her
duty without fear or malice or love or hate, by fulfilling responsibilities calmly
and cheerfully, and by remembering, always, to be grateful.

ADI SHANKARA
The boy saint who restored the Vedanta

Some 1,500 years after the oldest Upanishads had been composed, and over a
thousand years (give or take a few centuries) after the clearest, most concise and
most creative compilations of their wisdoms – the Brahmasutra and the
Bhagavad Gita – had been put together in the north of India, a baby boy was
born in the little town of Kaladi in what is now Kerala, in the deep south. His
fond parents named him Shankara, but more about him in a bit.
Let’s first look at what had transpired in the country after the ten great
Upanishads had been composed. The Vedic religion, which had receded
somewhat from centre stage under Emperor Ashoka – who had embraced
Buddhism – was seeing a resurgence, thanks to the generous patronage of the
Hindu kings of the mighty and long-lived Gupta empire. On the ground,
however, things had gotten pretty chaotic among the inheritors of the ancient
texts. Scores of contradictory and downright confusing interpretations had
sprung up, and dozens of popular sects had mushroomed under the broad
umbrella of the religion we call Hinduism today.
Among these sects were atheistic ones like the Charvaka; ritual-loving ones
like Mimamsa, which embraced the Vedas and rejected the revelations of the
Upanishadic sages as a bunch of mystical mumbo-jumbo; and others like the
Samkhya, which believed that while it was quite possible that a God existed, we
shouldn’t waste time over Him because our lives, our actions and our choices
were guided only by our own free will. This diversity of thought and belief was
wonderful, and the debates they generated mind-expanding; the only shame was
that the followers of these sects fought so much with each other.
A lot of other action had also happened over the same thousand years. The
practitioners of the Vedic religion had crossed the Vindhyas and travelled south,
taking their gods and their philosophical ideas with them. The no-longer-new
religions of Buddhism and Jainism had travelled too and won themselves a
country’s worth of new recruits while the Hindu sects squabbled. Meanwhile,
Christianity and the brand-new religion of Islam had made a quiet but definite
entry via the south-western coast.
Fortunately for Hinduism, splintered and anxious with this bubbling of sects
and opinions, a new and charismatic sage – a towering intellectual who not only
knew the original, liberal core of the scriptures like the back of his hand but
could also present them simply and lucidly – showed up around the 8th century.
No one realized at first that the messiah had arrived. Far from the matted
dreadlocks and snow-white beards of the old sages, this one had a shaven head
and no facial fuzz – he had, in fact, barely begun to shave. He was sixteen years
old, and his name was Shankara.
Who was this boy Shankara? When was he born? Where did he get his
spiritual inspiration from? What was his life like? When did he die? Sadly, we
simply don’t know. All we have on Shankara today is the stuff of legend and
folklore, so we cannot be sure of any of it. But that doesn’t really matter, because
there are some really lovely stories there, like this one about how the eight-year-
old Shankara arm-twisted his widowed mother into letting him become a monk.

Once, when the two were bathing in the river (so the story goes), a crocodile
clamped its jaws on Shankara’s leg and began to drag him down.
‘You have never given me permission to become a sannyasi, Mother,’ yelled
Shankara, ‘at least give it to me now, in my last moments, so I can die happy!’
‘You have my blessing!’ sobbed his petrified mother. Instantly, the croc let
Shankara go.
Soon after, the grateful eight-year-old set out happily on his chosen path. The
story goes that he walked some 2,000 kilometres from his home in Kaladi to the
ashram of his chosen guru, Govinda Bhagavatpada, on the banks of the river
Narmada in central India. When the guru asked him who he was, the boy
answered, ‘Neither fire nor air not water nor earth nor space am I, but the
indestructible Atman that is hidden inside all names and forms.’ Impressed with
the boy’s instinctive understanding of the ultimate reality, the guru accepted
Shankara as his disciple.
In the next four years, Shankara attained mastery of the scriptures. Around
this time, an intense monsoon broke. The Narmada was in spate, its dark, roiling
waters rising wildly and threatening to flood a cave where Bhagavatpada sat in
the deepest of deep meditative states, Samadhi. The students of the gurukul were
in a tizzy, for they were completely forbidden to disturb their guru when he was
in Samadhi. It was Shankara who placed his kamandala at the mouth of the cave
then, calmly proclaiming that it would contain the floodwaters within itself. To
everyone’s wonder, that was exactly what happened. When the guru later heard
what had happened, he blessed Shankara, saying, ‘Just as you contained the
flood in your little kamandala, may you distil the essence of the scriptures into
your writings.’
Encouraged by his guru’s words, Shankara began to write commentaries on
the Upanishads, the Brahamasutra and the Bhagavad Gita. At the age of sixteen,
he was done with the writing, and ready, with his guru’s blessings, to embark on
the next phase of the journey – spreading the good word. For the next sixteen
years, Shankara walked across the length and breadth of the country, spreading
the explosive and egalitarian message of the philosophy called Advaita* and
engaging in public debates with scholars who espoused a different point of view
on what the scriptures said or the right way to live.
* One of the three most popular schools of Vedantic thought of the past millennium, Advaita (which means
‘not two’) philosophy takes its cue from the Upanishads, reiterating that there is no difference, none at all,
between Atman (one’s indestructible soul) and Brahman (the constant, unchanging reality that is the life-
force of the universe). In other words, there is no ‘other’ – beyond our bodies and our minds and our
intellect, we are all the same and we are all divine. Advaita thought existed before Shankara, but he is its
best-known and most influential teacher.
Gurus who came after, like the 11th century saint Ramanuja and the 12th century teacher
Madhvacharya, however, disagreed with Advaita, saying that it only suited monks who had rejected the
world. Both also accused Shankara of considering only those sections of the Upanishads that supported his
own theories. The world, said Ramanuja and Madhva, was real, not something you could detach from and
wish away, and the path to liberation lay in embracing one’s worldly responsibilities and fulfilling one’s
duties as householders and soldiers and priests, all the while leading morally upright lives.
 They came up with their own different and more ‘practical’ philosophies, which they said encapsulated
the true message of the Upanishads.
Ramanuja’s version was Vishishta-advaita, which believes that Atman and Brahman are not the same
(i.e., you are not God), but agrees that every Atman can attain Brahman because they share the same divine
essence. Madhva’s radically different version was Dvaita, which insists that Atman and Brahman are not at
all the same. There is only one Brahman, and while some Atmans can attain Brahman by choosing to do
what is morally right, those Atmans that insist on choosing to do the wrong thing are doomed forever.
Despite their differences with Advaita, or perhaps because of it, both Vishishta-advaita and Dvaita
found their own loyal sets of followers. To this day, these three schools of Vedantic philosophy continue to
influence millions of Hindus in India and across the world.

Shankara’s peregrinations, and his inclusive philosophy, expressed in pithy

and powerful phrases like ‘Brahman Satyam, Jagan Mithya, Jeevo Brahmaiva
Na Para’ (Brahman is the only truth, the only constant – focus on it; Jagan, the
world, is only a material reality – stay detached from it; Jeeva, the individual
soul, is no different from Brahman, the soul of the universe – believe it!) caught
the imaginations of the splintered Hindus and gave them a guiding slogan to
rally around.
It helped that for all his high-level philosophical musings, Shankara was also
a practical soul – to bring together different groups that worshipped different
gods and fought about which one was greater, he formulated a system of worship
that included the six most popular gods of the time – Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti,
Ganesha, Muruga (Karthikeya) and Surya (quite a different list from the top gods
of Vedic India, what?) – while repeating that they were all really one and the
same. He even formulated a system of ritual worship for each of these gods, to
be followed at their respective temples, cleverly nipping in the bud all the
conflicts that might arise over those.
Adi Shankaracharya by legendary painter Raja Ravi Varma

Shankara was also a most efficient organizer, with a great vision to boot. In
the course of his travels, he established the Chaturdham [aka Char Dham, the
four centres of Advaita in the four corners of the country – the Sringeri Math in
Sringeri (in present-day Karnataka), the Sarada Math in Dwarka (Gujarat), the
Jyotir Math in Badrinath (Uttarakhand) and the Govardhan Math in Puri
(Odisha)] – put his most enlightened followers at the head of each, and entrusted
each Math with the guardianship and propagation of one of the four Vedas.
He also continued to write extensively. Apart from some eighteen
commentaries on existing texts, including ten of the Upanishads, Shankara left
as his legacy twenty-three books explaining every nuance of the Advaita
philosophy and seventy-two beautiful devotional hymns that are sung to this day.
Then, having made sure that the main teachings of the Vedanta, as he saw
them, had been restored to the front and centre of the Indian philosophy stage, he
went off on an expedition to the holy site of Kedarnath, and was never seen
again. At the time he left, Shankara was all of thirty-two.
But his life’s work had been done. To this day, some 1,200 years after his
death, he is loved, revered and celebrated as one of the Jagadgurus – Supreme
Teachers – of the Upanishads.
Now that you have read this far, have you noticed one big difference between the
Vedas and the Upanishads? That’s right – while the Vedas describe rituals and
invoke gods of one particular culture or people, the Upanishads talk about
universal truths that anyone from any culture can relate to and live by. But
perhaps what is even more wonderful about the latter is that they allow for
several interpretations, including some seriously contradictory ones – the debate
is never over, the jury is always out.
In the next ten chapters, as we skim (very lightly, and in no way
exhaustively!) the surface of the ten greatest Upanishads, you will have a chance
to experience their power, beauty and wisdom for yourself (finally!). And you
will see what a...
Aaaarghhh! Enough with the build-up already! On to the No. 1 Upanishad on
the Muktika’s list – the Isha!
 ९
ISHA
The Upanishad of the Sameness of All Things
In which we learn that the single-minded pursuit of
knowledge can, um, throw you into the most blinding
darkness

Aum!
That is complete, and This is complete,
From That completeness comes This completeness;
If you take completeness away from completeness,
Only completeness remains.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
t a mere eighteen verses (one version has only seventeen), the Isha (say

A ee-sha) Upanishad (aka the Ishaavaasya Upanishad or the Ishopanishad)

is one of the shortest of them all. But what makes it special is that unlike
other Upanishads, the Isha is not the fourth layer of the Shukla Yajur Veda;
instead, it is part of its Samhita (or the first layer) itself, as its fortieth, and
concluding, chapter. Remarkably, while the rest of the Samhita is all about the
yagna rituals (which is really what the Yajur Veda is about), the fortieth chapter
is highly philosophical, and in fact, disses those who focus only on the rituals
and not on the truth behind them!
The Isha gets its name from the very first word of its very first verse,
‘Ishaavaasyam’. Isha simply means Lord or Ruler (it is the root word of
‘Ishvara’, the Vedic term for the Supreme Being*). While some Upanishads are
written as stories, the Isha isn’t. It is a straightforward set of philosophical
reflections on:
1. Brahman and Atman (but of course!);
2. True Knowledge (vidya) vs False Knowledge (a-vidya);
3. The specific fates that await those who seek vidya alone and those who revel
in a-vidya alone (both are tossed into the dark worlds of ignorance); and
4. The ways in which death can be overcome and immortality gained.
Whoa! That’s a lot to pack into eighteen verses, but the Isha does it
remarkably well.
* Think! You have encountered the word Isha as part of the names of many, many Hindu gods – and people!
For instance, Ganesha, or Ganesh, is formed from the words ‘Gana’ and ‘Isha’ and means ‘Lord of the
Ganas’, while Suresh is Indra, the ‘Lord of the gods (or Suras)’, Naresh is ‘Ruler of Men (or Naras)’,
Umesh is the ‘Lord of Uma (or Parvati)’ and therefore another name for Shiva. And Sarvesh and Rajesh and
Paramesh? Go on, figure them out yourself!

THE STORY
RENOUNCE AND REJOICE!
Shloka 1
Ishaavaasyam idam sarvam yat kim cha jagatyaam jagat
Tena tyaktena bhunjeetaa, maa grudhah kasyasvid dhanam

The whole world is Isha’s abode;

He dwells in everything, of everyone He is a part,
So covet not what is another’s,
Instead, renounce and rejoice, dear heart!
 Mahatma Gandhi once said, famously, that if all the Upanishads and all the
other Indian scriptures were suddenly and irretrievably lost to humankind, and
only the first verse of the Isha Upanishad (the one above) were left in the
memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live forever.

His words may seem an exaggeration, but if you take a closer look, the verse
does seem to contain a lot of the core principles of Hinduism – (a) your soul is
divine, i.e., you are divine, for the Supreme Being lives within you; (b) setting
aside external appearances, no other animal, vegetable or mineral is really
different from you because it contains the same divine essence as you do; and (c)
to ‘renounce attachment’ to things and people is the only way to bliss.
How can ‘renouncing attachment’ bring bliss? Well, although something
‘appears’ to be yours – your parents, your high rank in class, your position as
vice prefect at school, even your opinions – it really isn’t. In fact, says the Isha,
you have only been given all of it as a gift, a blessing, on short-term lease, by the
One who actually owns it all. Which is why, getting too attached to any of it is
foolish. It’s like getting attached to a book you have borrowed from the library
and insisting that it is yours simply because it is in your room at this moment,
even though you know you have to return it the next day.
Of course, ‘renouncing attachment’ to your parents does not mean you don’t
care what happens to them (just like ‘renouncing attachment’ to a library book
does not mean you can let your dog chew it up). It just means that you treat their
time with you, and yours with them, as a precious gift. It means that you respect
them and their right to guide you in ways that seem right to them. It means you
don’t get mad at them because they seem to favour your sibling over you, or
because they decided to go off on a holiday by themselves (how selfish are
they!). Instead, says the Isha, be grateful for all that they have done for you.
When you do this, i.e., flip that perspective switch inside your head, you stop
thinking of your parents as your property and stop expecting them to treat you,
and you alone, as the centre of their universe. In other words, you ‘renounce
attachment’ to their actions towards you.
The concept of renouncing attachment to your opinions, your prejudices,
your fears, your loves and your hates is easier to understand, but is equally
difficult to practise (what might help, somewhat, is to sing ‘Let It Go’ from the
movie Frozen at the top of your lungs while you’re trying to renounce
something, like, say, your dislike for the partner you’ve been saddled with for
the history project). You do see why this renouncing must be done, though,
right? If you don’t, you will eventually turn into a petty, bitter and angry person,
and you certainly don’t want that.
 Think about it. When you stop having expectations of other people, and are
grateful instead, when you are willing to keep an open mind to let fresh, exciting
and contradictory opinions flow in, leading to a more informed, empathetic and
better understanding of situations and people, what else but bliss can follow?
PS: Now ask your parents to read this section, substituting ‘children’ for
‘parents’ in the para about renouncing attachment to parents, and watch...
ahem... their reaction. It’s your Dharma as their child to make sure the Isha’s
wisdom reaches them too!

MIRROR, MIRROR, EVERYWHERE!

Shloka 6-7
He who sees all beings in himself
And himself in every being there is,
Love fills him, and disgust flees –
As delusion recedes, he brims with bliss.

These two shlokas need no real explanation, but their egalitarian message,
which follows from shloka 1, is vitally important. When you see every person
around you as having the same essence as you, you will be less likely to dislike
or hate him or her; instead, you will see their victories as your victories, their
happiness as your own.
The real source of our unhappiness comes from seeing others as different
from us; all our negative emotions – envy of others’ successes, anger at other
people’s attitudes towards us, revulsion at the way others look or dress or act, or
at the gods they worship or the food they eat – stem from the delusion that they
are different from us.
The same thing applies to our relationship to other creatures – animals, birds,
insects. When we judge them in relation to ourselves – as lovable or repulsive,
threatening or non-threatening, useful or irrelevant – we unconsciously place a
value on their lives, deciding which creatures (or trees, or mountains) are more
important than others, and which, therefore, are more deserving of our respect,
care and protection.
If we see ourselves ‘in every being there is’, however, we become instantly
conscious of how each of them fits into the ecosystem of the universe in a
complex but vital way. We understand, deep down and for real, that every
creature has as much of a right to its life as we do to ours. Suddenly, every
creature’s pain will begin to resonate with us; never again will we be able to turn
a blind eye to atrocities against animals, trees, rivers, the air, the earth.
 The Isha insists that the ‘separateness’ that we see between us and everyone
and everything else is like a veil drawn over the eyes of our souls. It exhorts us
to rip the veil apart and see the world for what it really is – a place in which the
countless wonderful manifestations of the One gather to dance and play. Once
we realize this, it is only one more step to treating our fellow creatures right.

THIS OR THAT? NAAH. THIS AND THAT? ALWAYS!

Shloka 9-14
Into blinding darkness
Enter those who worship ignorance;
A worse fate awaits those that delight in knowledge;

Into darkest night

Enter those who believe only in what the senses experience;
A worse fate awaits those who insist that the only truth is what the senses
cannot;

For He is different from ignorance,

and different from knowledge –
So the wise tell us.

He is different from what is visible,

and different from what is not –
So the wise tell us.

He is beyond all that exists – transcendent,

And inside all that exists – immanent,
So the wise tell us.

Knowing one and not the other

Is futile; he who knows
Both ignorance and knowledge,
 He who experiences
Both the world outside and the world inside,
He who rejoices
In both the transcendent and the immanent –
He is blessed,

For he passes beyond death by the one

And wins immortality by the other.

Eh? A man who delights in knowledge will come to a worse fate than one
who is happy to wallow in ignorance, i.e., someone who is content doing
mindless action? Yup, according to the wise sage who composed the Isha (Nope,
we haven’t got our lines crossed here)!
How can that be? After going on and on about how the world outside is a
delusion and an illusion, how can the Isha sit there and tell us, smugly, that the
man who believes that there is a world of the spirit (that which is not visible) that
is greater than the material world (that which is visible),* is hurtling towards a
night darker than someone who believes the opposite?
*You will hear the word ‘material’ used a lot when the scriptures are discussed – material world, material
possessions, material pleasures. What does the word really mean? Well, the root word of ‘material’ is
‘matter’, so material means anything that is made of matter, anything that you can touch and feel and see,
that has form and that you can measure. Material things are things like wealth, measured by possessions; or
success, measured by your position in a race or in an organization; or power, measured by how many people
you can influence. Even something like beauty (of the body) is material, for the body is matter too. The
word ‘physical’ is often used interchangeably with ‘material’, because it means the same thing. The
‘opposite’ of material (and physical) is spiritual, and it refers to the spirit of something, its essence, which
cannot be seen or touched or measured, but can only be experienced. Spiritual ‘things’ are feelings,
thoughts, emotions, happiness, grief... Most scriptures of most religions will advise you not to give too
much importance to physical or material things, and to focus instead on spiritual things.

Because, boys and girls, the operative word for a good life, a blissful life, a
blessed life, is balance. Extreme beliefs (whichever end of the spectrum they
may sit on) and exclusionary beliefs (i.e., beliefs that exclude every other belief)
simply do not wash with the sages of the Isha. It’s all very well to believe that
the Real Truth can only be experienced by meditating in a forest, but hey,
everyone has responsibilities to fulfil in the material world as well! The pursuit
of Moksha has to be balanced by the pursuit of Dharma, Artha and Kama!
Escaping your responsibilities to go after a selfish pursuit, however noble it may
seem, is simply not A-ok by the Upanishads.*
*It was not A-ok by Krishna either, in the Bhagavad Gita. When Arjuna wanted to escape his
responsibilities as a warrior and a king, and run away from the battlefield, because he simply could not bear
the thought of bringing down his nearest and dearest in a bloody war, he saw himself as doing the noble
thing. Krishna was quick to point out that he was kidding himself, and this was exactly the kind of there’s-
no-escape lecture poor Arjuna got.
Krishna’s larger message, as is the message of the Isha, is to all of us – the householder’s life (in your
case, the student’s life) with its never-ending, never-changing routine of work and responsibility, is no less
noble than the hermit’s life, which is spent in prayer and meditation. What’s more, the rewards of the
worldly life, when it is lived with the understanding that there is something beyond the material, are just the
same as the rewards of the ascetic life. Hurray!

Again, while it may be true that what cannot be experienced by the senses is
What Really Counts, we are unfortunately born into bodies that can only
experience the world via the senses. Denying and rejecting the beauty and
endless variety of the world of the senses while chasing Things That Really
Matter is just as bad as denying and rejecting the sublime world beyond the
senses, and spending your life chasing Things That Don’t Really Matter.
In fact, if you have the knowledge of this truth, and yet your action is not in
keeping with it (i.e., you live your life as if the material world and its rewards –
fame, power, wealth – was everything), your sin is greater than that of the
ignorant person, who lives a life of pure action simply because he doesn’t know
any better. Similarly, if you know that the scriptures say that every creature is
equal, but don’t follow it up with appropriate action (i.e., you treat your
fellowmen badly), yours is a ‘sin of commission’ and thus deserving of a greater
punishment than those who haven’t bothered to go to the scriptures at all, for
theirs is merely a ‘sin of omission’. You see why those who live by knowledge
alone are condemned to a worse fate than those who live by ignorance (or
action) alone?
And therefore, says the Isha, do your Dharma, fulfil your responsibilities, do
the right thing, be a role model. In short, live fully and joyously in the material
world, performing the kind of actions that make it a better place for everyone
around you. But know, always, that there is a world beyond what you can see
and hear, which can only be gained by (1) believing in the underlying unity of all
things and (2) being detached from the ups and downs, the praise and scorn, the
joy and grief, and every other pair of opposites that are an inseparable part of
living in the material world.
In other words, tena tyaktena bhunjeetaa – renounce and rejoice!

THE GREAT SECRET – REVEALED!

Shloka 15-16
O Pooshan, I’ve heard it told –
The Truth lies hidden by your disc of gold;
O Lord of Light, now hear my plea –
Dim your brilliance so I may see.*

Thy radiance dims, the One emerges

In me, a wondrous wonder surges;
For when I raise my eyes to Thee –
What do I see? That I am He!
 The tone of the Isha changes suddenly here, as if the composer was suddenly
overwhelmed with devotion. Shlokas 15 and 16 are addressed to Pooshan,
another name for the sun, and end with the resounding declaration So’ham Asmi
! – I am He!
So’ham Asmi is not traditionally considered one of the four Mahavakyas, or
Great Pronouncements, of the Vedas, but it is essentially saying the same thing
every other Mahavakya is – I am He, Thou art That, You are God.
*Does that bring to mind a similar plea from another beloved Indian work? Yup, the plea that Arjuna made
to Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna displayed his cosmic Vishwaroopa form, as brilliant as a
million suns, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra! ‘Dim your brilliance, Lord,’ Arjuna begs him then, ‘so I
may behold what is behind the light.’ Krishna obliges, but the Truth is so awesome and so terrifying that
Arjuna cannot bear to look upon it.

REMEMBER, REMEMBER!
Shloka 17
May breath merge into immortal breath!
As body turns into ashes – Aum!
O Mind, remember what’s done, remember!
Remember what’s done as you go home!

While the 18th and last shloka of the Isha, which is also the last shloka of the
Shukla Yajur Veda Samhita, is a simple and fairly typical prayer to Agni for
blessings and guidance, the penultimate one, Shloka 17, seems a little out of
place as far as its content is concerned. It has the same heightened emotional
tone as the previous two shlokas, but is nowhere near as ecstatic. Instead, it is an
urgent exhortation chanted over a funeral pyre to the mind and intelligence of the
person who has died, asking him to remember all the deeds of his life just past,
for they will impact and influence his next life.

We will never know why the composer of the Isha decided to bring this
particular verse into it, but that does not reduce its impact or importance in any
way. In fact, so long is the shadow cast by this particular shloka that it is used as
part of Hindu funeral rites to this day.

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

 १०
KENA
The Upanishad of ‘Whence-Came-It-All’?
In which we discover that the reason we can’t recognize
Brahman is that He has (smartly!) never shared his
photograph

Aum!
I seek blessings
That my limbs, speech, breath, eyes, ears, strength
And all my senses be nourished;
I pray
That I may never deny Brahman or be disloyal,
That Brahman may never forsake or reject me;
I, the seeker, ask
That all the wisdoms of the Upanishads
Shine in me,
That they all shine in me.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
nother short Upanishad, the Kena is part of the Sama Veda, the Veda that
Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, hailed as the loveliest of the four. The Kena has a
 rather unusual structure. Of its four chapters, the first two are in verse

A and are philosophical reflections, while the last two of are written in
prose, and relate a story and its epilogue. The whole Upanishad takes the
form of a dialogue between teacher and pupil. Its name, as in the case of the
Isha, is taken from the first word of its first shloka.
What does the Kena broadly deal with? There are two main subjects:
(1) Nothing happens, nothing moves, nothing is possible, without desire, so
whose desire is it that moves the universe? From where, from whom, does
that desire originate? (Kena is Sanskrit for ‘from whom’ ); and
(2) The difficulty – even for the gods – of understanding the nature of
Brahman the Supreme.
As always, before getting into the Upanishad, take a minute to reflect on its
Shanti Mantra (you’ll find it on the previous page) and ask that its wisdom may
shine in you.

THE STORY
The teacher and the pupil sat in companionable silence under the peepul tree,
ready to begin the day’s lesson. The boy was a little fidgety this morning, his
eager, shining face more impatient than usual. He was a rare one, this boy,
thought the teacher, with his many, many questions, his insatiable curiosity and
his willingness to work harder than his fellows – he would go far. Chuckling to
himself, he decided to put the boy out of his misery without delay.
‘So,’ said the teacher, ‘tell me, what burning question has troubled you all
night? What do you want to learn from me today?’
‘Oh sir,’ began the student, ‘From whom comes all of it – my thoughts, my
sight, my hearing?

‘Who is He
Who makes my mind soar and my speech flow,
And my eyes see and my breath grow,
 And my ears hear and my thoughts go?’ *
*Being a modern, rational, science-loving 21st century student, who does not believe in all this god
mumbo-jumbo, you might well ask the same questions of your science teacher, changing the ‘Who is He
who...’ to ‘What is it that...’ His or her answers, however, may not be much clearer, or more satisfying, than
those of the teacher here, because even science does not have answers to these questions yet. More than
2,500 years after the Upanishads were composed, the Great Secret, the Eternal Mystery of Life, is still just
that – a thrilling secret and a ginormous mystery.

Ah, the big one. All his best students got to that one at some point. The
teacher took a deep breath. ‘Son,’ he said –

‘He is
The hearing behind hearing, the speech behind speech,
The sight behind sight, in a place beyond reach.’

The student listened, rapt. He didn’t quite understand what that meant, but he
wasn’t going to interrupt, not yet.

‘He is
What words cannot express, seed of all that is uttered;
What the mind cannot grasp, by which thought is bestirred;
The wellspring of hearing, itself never heard.’

That sounds so beautiful, thought the student. But what does it mean?

‘Inconceivable, unperceivable, indescribable, Supreme –

That is Brahman, not the one they deem.’

The student nodded. It was all a little hazy still, but he thought he had a fair
idea of Brahman now. Brahman was clearly not Indra or Agni – ‘not the one they
deem’. He clearly wasn’t someone you could please and get favours from by
pouring ghrita and soma into a fire – he was wayyy more complicated than that.
‘I think I understand,’ said the student. ‘Thank you.’
 The teacher smiled to himself. If only Brahman was that simple to
‘understand’, if only he could be ‘understood’ at all by the limited human
intellect! He looked at the young upturned face and shook his head. Some tough
love was called for.
‘If you think “I know it well”, son, perhaps you do, but know that you know
only a tiny, tiny part, which He chooses to reveal to us here on earth. For there is
one part of Brahman that dwells among the gods, and that – that you have yet to
discover. Ergo, back to your toil! Think about what I have told you, meditate,
contemplate – there’s a long, long way to go yet!’
The student flushed.

‘I do not think that I know Him well, sir,

But I would not say that I do not, either.’

The teacher was impressed in spite of himself. The boy was not one to be
cowed easily. Perhaps it was time to take him a little further. ‘You see, my boy,’
he said, ‘the difficulty with Brahman is this –

‘The one who knows Him, knows Him not

And the one who sees it, knows not
That he sees what he sought.’

The student’s face fell. How would he ever know Brahman then? If his
teacher was to be believed, it was a futile quest. Clearly, Brahman was not
someone who could be understood, he could perhaps only be experienced. But
the ones who had experienced Him, it seemed, could not share the experience,
because they didn’t even realize it had happened!* But the teacher was speaking
again.
*Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, an Indian scholar–statesman, in his commentary on the Upanishads, quotes
Plotinus, a philosopher from ancient Greece, to beautifully illustrate this seeming inability of those who
have ‘seen’ to share the vision with others. ‘In other words,’ says Plotinus, ‘they have seen God and they do
not remember? Ah, no: it is that they see God still and always, and that as long as they see, they cannot tell
themselves they have had the vision; such reminiscence is for souls that have lost it.’
That sounds confusing, but it’s just a olde-worlde way of saying that you cannot ‘remember’ something
when it is still part of you. It’s only when you no longer have something – your old phone, long hair, a toy
you played with when you were little – that you can ‘remember’ it. Those who have seen God, Plotinus is
saying, cannot ‘remember’ seeing Him because once that happens, He becomes an integral part of that
person, forever.
The teacher’s words in the story have another meaning too – if you don’t know what the person or thing
you are seeking looks like, how will you identify it when you see it?

‘But when the truth a man finally sees,

He becomes immortal, undying, ceases to cease.

Should that wisdom come to him on earth,

He escapes forever the cycle of rebirth;

If it does not, let him beware,

For great destruction awaits the unaware.’

Would that wisdom ever come to him? wondered the student, a little
despondently. It seemed as if there was no way to make sure it would. The
teacher’s heart went out to the boy. He decided to throw in a little tip.

‘But he who sees Him in each and every being –

 He is blessed, in worlds both seen and unseen.’

Well, that was a bit of hope there, at last! thought the student to himself. That
was something he could try to work towards. If he treated all his fellowmen and
fellow creatures like he treated himself – with respect and kindness – maybe,
some day, he too would experience Brahman. But the question still remained –
would he recognize Him when he did?
The teacher’s voice broke into his soliloquy. ‘Let me tell you a story,’ said
the teacher, ‘of how the gods were once humbled.’
‘I am all ears, sir,’ smiled the student. Trust his teacher to know when to
break a low mood, with one of his stories! The stories were fun on the surface,
but they usually came with a hidden lesson. He leaned in eagerly to give it his
full attention.

‘Once upon a time,’ began the teacher, ‘a great war was fought between
the gods and the demons. The gods won and started to congratulate
themselves, feeling invincible in their victory. ‘We did it, boys!’ they
exulted. ‘We did it all by ourselves! How cool are we!’ They did not
pause for a moment to reflect, or to give thanks to the real reason behind
their success, who was Brahman.
Seeing this, Brahman made himself visible to them. Drunk on their
success, they did not recognize Him. ‘What is this strange apparition?’
they wondered. ‘Better send someone to find out if it is friend or foe.’
After a quick discussion, Jatavedas (he was more often called Agni)
was picked to be the one to approach the apparition. Agni was powerful
and fearless – with his torrid breath, he could turn anything to ashes in a
twinkling.
‘All right, then,’ said Agni, and he reached the apparition in a few
quick strides.
‘Who are you?’ the apparition asked him. ‘Why, I am Fire,’ said
Agni. ‘They call me Jatavedas.’
‘Uh-hunh. And what sort of power do you have?’
‘I can burn up the whole world,’ boasted Agni. ‘Like, everything on
earth!’
The apparition said nothing. Instead, it placed a blade of grass in
front of Agni, saying, ‘Show me.’
Agni smiled. Mustering up all the firepower at his disposal, he
breathed plumes of scorching flame at the challenger. The blade of grass
lay there, as fresh and green as before.
Agni returned to the gods, very shaken. But he did not reveal what
had happened. ‘I could not find out who that Being is,’ he said shortly,
and took his place among the gods.

The gods turned to Wind. ‘Maybe you can find out for us, Wind?’
they said. ‘You are among the strongest of us all.’
Wind smiled. ‘That I am,’ he said and walked jauntily towards the
apparition.
 ‘And who are you?’ said the apparition.
‘Me?’ said Wind, a little put out that the Being did not already know
him. ‘I am Matarishvan, the Wind!’
‘I see,’ said the apparition. ‘And what sort of power do you have?’
‘I can carry away the whole world,’ boasted Wind. ‘Like, everything
on earth!’
The apparition did not reply. Instead, it placed a blade of grass on the
ground, saying, ‘Impress me.’

‘You can’t be serious!’ chuckled Wind. And he huffed at it a little.

Nothing happened. He puffed at it some more. Nothing happened.
Baffled, Wind loosed upon it a hurricane, with all the power at his
command. But the blade of grass remained exactly where it was, not
lifting off the ground by so much as a whisper.
 Humbled and sore, Matarishvan returned to the gods. But he did not
reveal what had happened. ‘I could not find out who that Being is,’ he
said curtly, and went away to lick his wounds.
‘Maghavan,’ said the gods to their king, Indra. ‘There’s something
strange afoot. You’d better go yourself and find out who or what it is.’
‘Right,’ said Indra, and off he went towards the apparition. But the
moment he got close to it, it disappeared. In its place appeared the
beauteous Uma, daughter of Himavat, the snow mountain.
‘Fair lady,’ said Indra, ‘I wonder if you know who or what that
strange apparition was.’
‘That?’ said Uma. ‘That was Brahman, of course. Did you not
recognize him?’ Indra shook his head.
‘Look at you all,’ chided Uma, ‘celebrating Brahman’s victory as
your own! Do you not see that all your power and glory comes from
Him, and Him alone?’
Instantly, Indra realized the truth of Uma’s words. He returned to the
gods, ecstatic, singing Brahman’s praises.

‘Know this, my son,’ continued the teacher, ‘that Agni, Vayu and Indra are
considered among the greatest of the gods, for it was they who approached
closest to Brahman. Know this – that Indra surpasses the other two, for he was
the one to whom the identity of the Being was revealed.’
The student bowed. How cleverly his teacher had comforted him, by letting
him know that even the gods did not quite ‘get’ Brahman, that even they did not
know Him when they saw Him, without some help from someone wiser than
them – in this case, the goddess Uma. A surge of hope filled the student’s heart.
If the gods had Uma, he had his teacher to help him!
‘Now join me, if you will,’ said the teacher, ‘in a prayer to the Supreme
One.’
‘It would be my pleasure and privilege, sir.’
 ‘He is the flash of lightning on a moonless night,
He is the twinkle in our eye,
Brahman, we meditate on your glorious light
For You are the I in the I!

Hail dearest One, who drives our mind

And our heart and our spirit and our will,
He who knows You thus will forever find
That he is dear to all; he will!’

‘That was a great story, sir,’ said the student. ‘I know now that I can never
hope to approach or recognize Brahman without your help. So teach me, sir!
Teach me the Secret! Teach me the Upanishad!’
The teacher placed his hand on the boy’s head, blessing him. Such
impatience to learn, such eagerness to uncover the greatest mysteries of the
universe! Blessed were the teachers who found students like these.
‘It has already been taught to you, my son,’ he said. ‘This is the Upanishad,
this is the great secret about Brahman. Be moderate in your thoughts and actions.
Exercise self-restraint. Perform the rituals. Serve self lessly. Live the wisdom of
the scriptures. Stay honest to yourself.
‘That is how the demonic in you is slain and the divine nourished. That is
how Brahman is attained.’

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

THE AFTERSTORY
How do you describe someone or something that, by definition, is unperceivable,
inconceivable and, well, indescribable? The Upanishads tell us that neither does
language have the words nor imagination the pictures to describe the
phenomenon we know as Brahman. Nor can our senses grasp Him (not at all
surprising, that, considering that our senses are pretty limited; our ears can’t
even hear the range of frequencies that dogs can!).
Worse, all the methods we have of classifying something – by type, quality,
function or special attribute (in Sanskrit, jaati-guna-kriya-visheshanaih) – fail
spectacularly when it comes to describing the One – for He is, again by
definition, beyond classification!
Given these insurmountable constraints, the only way to get closer to a
‘profile’ of Brahman is by contradiction – saying two seemingly contradictory
things about Him – or by negation – stating what He is not rather than what He
is, a technique called Neti, Neti – not this, not that. By eliminating all the
possibilities that were not true, the sages hoped to take us closer to what was;
sort of like what good detectives or doctors do – eliminating possibilities one by
one to arrive at the identity of the perpetrator of the crime, or the disease.
The teacher in the Kena does this via statements like ‘To whomsoever It (the
Supreme Truth) is not known, to him It is known; to whomsoever It is known, he
does not know he knows.’
Wow! That makes it all crystal clear. Not!
But never mind that for now.
One good lesson that you can take away from all this seeming obfuscation is
this – if it is a given that you will not recognize Brahman when you see
Him/Her/It, simply because you don’t know what It looks like, wouldn’t it
makes sense to treat everyone and everything like you would Brahman? Just to
make sure that you don’t miss It when and if It does choose to come into your
sights – maybe as the old and frail person standing behind you in a queue, maybe
as the hoity-toity aunty honking at you at a traffic light, maybe as one of the 171
trees that the City Corporation has decided to chop to make way for yet another
flyover, or maybe as something else altogether?
You bet it does. What does that mean, though – ‘treating everyone like
Brahman’? Well, if you knew that someone or something was the One Supreme
Power of the universe, without which you could not yourself exist or live a
happy, comfortable, sentient life, how would you treat it? With equal parts
respect, gratitude, love and reverence, right? If that Power was in trouble, you
would rush to its aid, if It was losing its spirit, you would move heaven and earth
to cheer It up, because you knew your very survival depending on It being
vibrant and cheerful. In short, you would treat It as you would treat yourself.
And that’s really what ‘seeing’ Brahman really means – seeing the power that
sustains the universe not just in the sun and the rain and the earth, but in every
tree and rock and creature and person around you, and treating them all as you
would treat yourself.
Do it!
 ११
KATHA
The Upanishad of the Secret of Eternal
Life
In which a teenager coolly walks up to Death and has a
long conversation with him

Aum!
May He in the Highest Heaven
Protect both of us, teacher and student;
Nourish both of us together
So that we may work together with great energy,
So that we may learn from each other,
So that our learning is effective,
So that we steer clear of dispute and discord.

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
The Katha Upanishad (aka the Kaathaka Upanishad or the Kathopanishad) is one
of the most popular, most beloved and most studied Upanishads of all. Part of
the Krishna Yajur Veda, its impact has extended well beyond Indian shores, its
philosophy inspiring writers like British poet Edwin Arnold (whose translation
of it is called ‘The Secret of Death’), British novelist W. Somerset Maugham
(who used a phrase from one of its verses as the title of one of his novels, The
Razor’s Edge), Irish poet W.B. Yeats and American essayist Ralph Waldo
Emerson (whose poem ‘Brahma’ encapsulates the Katha’s philosophy), apart
from philosophers like German greats Max Mueller and Arthur Schopenhauer.
The jury is still out on when the Katha was written – while scholars they
agree that it was written after the 7th century BCE, they differ about whether it
was written before the Buddhist texts (thus influencing them) or after (thus being
influenced by them). Be that as it may, there are other, more interesting, things
about the Katha, like the wordplay in its name.
The Katha is pronounced KaTHa – with a hard TH, as in the Hindi word
meeTHa (sweet) – which means ‘distress’ in Sanskrit. This seems apt, as the
Upanishad kicks off with the distress of the teenager Nachiketa. But if
pronounced Katha, with a soft ‘th’, the word means story, legend or report, all of
which apply too, for this Upanishad reports a conversation between the teenager
Nachiketa and the god of Death, Yama.
The Katha is composed as two chapters, each with three sections. It narrates
the legend of Nachiketa, a boy so steadfast in his pursuit of Moksha that he
demanded that the god of Death teach him the secret of eternal life (sounds
ironic, but who else but the god of Death would know all about life beyond it,
eh?).
It is no wonder then, that today, Nachiketa has become a metaphor for single-
mindedness of purpose. Swami Vivekananda, who loved the Kathopanishad,
once said that if he could get hold of a dozen boys with the faith and focus of
Nachiketa, he could turn ‘the thoughts and pursuits of this country into a new
channel’. In fact, even the Swami’s rousing call to the youth of India – ‘Arise,
awake, and stop not until the goal is reached!’ can be traced to a verse in the
Katha, which begins with the words ‘uttishtatha jaagrata’ (‘Arise! Awake!’ – see
page 228).
 But enough with the prelude. On to the story!

THE STORY
Once upon a time, the sage Vaajashravas, famous across the land for his
generosity, was giving away all that he possessed. His young son, Nachiketa,
stood by his side as a good son should, and Vaajashravas was well-pleased.
Nachiketa was well versed in the word of the scriptures and had always had
an unshakeable faith in them, just as he had in his father. But as he silently
watched the scene, the spirit of the scriptures entered him and nudged that faith
awake, turning it from a blind, passive thing that accepted what it was told, into
‘shraddha’ – a faith that believed intensely, but was not afraid to question,
analyze and respectfully demand answers. The trusting child was gone, never to
return; in his place stood a curious, sceptical young man who saw the hypocrisy
of those around him with a sudden clarity.

‘What is my father doing?’ thought Nachiketa to himself. ‘These cows he is

giving away – old, weak, devoid of milk – what use are they to anyone? This
kind of joyless gift is surely not what the scriptures recommend? Surely there is
no place in Heaven for the man who gives such gifts as these?’
Convinced that his father hadn’t realized what he was doing, Nachiketa
decided to alert him before it was too late.
‘Father,’ he began. Vaajashravas took one look at his son’s face, noticed the
change in him and understood what he was about to say. Brusquely, he motioned
to Nachiketa to keep silent and went on with his gift-giving.
Nachiketa was stunned. His father knew full well that what he was doing was
a hollow, empty thing! But he was pretending that the gifting was more
important than the gift, the ritual more worthy than its purpose. This was far
worse than he had imagined! Worried that no rewards awaited such a man in the
afterlife, the dutiful son came up with a master plan – he would request his father
to give him away as well. For Nachiketa knew well that he was his father’s
dearest possession – if his father gave him away, the gods would regard it as the
ultimate sacrifice, and Vaajashravas would gain all the blessings of Heaven.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘you are giving away all that is yours. To whom, pray, will you
give me?’ His father pretended not to hear. ‘Sir,’ said Nachiketa again, ‘to whom
will you give me?’ Vaajashravas did not turn around. ‘Father,’ said Nachiketa for
a third time, stubbornly, ‘to whom will you give me?’
Riled, Vaajashravas whirled around. ‘You?’ he yelled. ‘I will give you away
to Death! Happy now?’
Nachiketa started as if he had been slapped. But his dismay lasted only a
moment. His father had spoken and it was his duty to honour his father’s word.
Vaajashravas, by now ashamed of his outburst, was casting about for ways to
make amends when he saw the steely determination in his teenager’s eyes. ‘I did
not mean that, Nachiketa, you know I didn’t!’ he begged. ‘Forgive me, lad, don’t
leave me!’
‘Father, don’t fret,’ said Nachiketa calmly. ‘Everyone must make this journey
some day – you told me so yourself. After all,

I go as the first of many to come,

 One among legions that have passed this way;
I go to meet the Lord of Death
To see what plans he has for me today.

A mortal man ripens, on the stalk, like grain;

Like grain, he falls, to be born again.’

And leaving his distraught father behind, Nachiketa walked, straight-backed

and purposeful, towards the abode of Death.

***
Only to find there was no one at home! Death was out, rounding up his next
victims, or some such, and Nachiketa was forced to wait on the stoop. For three
days and three nights, without a bite to eat or a drink of water, he sat there,
uncomplaining, patiently waiting. When Death finally lumbered in on his big,
placid water buffalo and saw the young boy sitting there, he was most sincerely
apologetic.

How often have I told you, Vaivashvata,

That a guest must never be neglected?
Run now, bring him water and food –
May his curse on our heads be deflected!

I ask pardon, my boy, this is right bad form,

But I will make it up to you, never fear;
You will be compensated for each day you’ve waited –
Ask for three boons, loud and clear!

‘This isn’t necessary at all, sir, but thank you, I will,’ said Nachiketa,
delighted at the unexpected turn of events. No one had told him that Death was
so affable. Oh, he would make those boons work for him, and how!
 ‘For my first boon, sir, I ask that my father’s temper be cooled. I cannot bear
the thought of having upset him, so if you could ensure that he is well disposed
towards me when I return...?’
‘Not bad,’ thought Death to himself, impressed. ‘Of all the possible things,
the boy asks for this!’ Aloud, he said, ‘You may rest assured on that point, my
boy. Any father, on seeing his beloved offspring released from the jaws of Death,
cannot be anything but ecstatic.’
Nachiketa bowed, his heart brimming with gratitude. ‘Thank you, sir. For my
second boon, then, I request instruction. I have heard that in the place we call
Heaven, there is no fear. The reason? You, sir, cannot enter there! There is no old
age, either, they tell me, in Heaven, no sickness of mind or body or spirit, only
the greatest joy. You, Lord of Death, are the master of the yagna that throws
open the doors of Heaven to mortals – teach it to me!’
‘Gladly,’ said Death. And he proceeded to teach Nachiketa the secrets of the
great fire sacrifice that leads to Heaven – exactly how to build the altar – how
many bricks, their dimensions, the angles at which they were to be laid and so
on, what offerings to prepare, which incantations to recite; and all the rest of it.
The boy listened intently. When Death had finished, the boy repeated it all back
to him, verbatim, not a word missed.
‘What a joy you are to teach, Nachiketa!’ exclaimed the delighted teacher.
‘I’m throwing in a special reward for you – henceforth, this fire sacrifice shall
bear your name. That man who has performed the Nachiketa yagna three times;
who lives in perfect harmony with three people – father, mother and teacher;
who faithfully executes the triple rite – performing the sacrifice, studying the
scriptures and giving alms to the needy in the true spirit of giving; he goes
beyond death and attains everlasting peace. Such a man shakes off the dread
noose and crosses over to realms joyous, never to return!’
Nachiketa bowed, overcome. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Now, ask for your third boon!’
Nachiketa hesitated. What he was about to ask for was enormous, audacious,
unprecedented. Death, he felt deep in his gut, would resist, and resist mightily.
Did he, Nachiketa, have it in him to wrest this boon and also to honour it
afterwards? Did he really have the single-mindedness of purpose, the dogged
determination, that it would take? Or should he just settle for something more
commonplace and easier to fulfil?
‘Stop it!’ he chided himself. ‘Stop second-guessing yourself! Look at the
opportunity before you – how many people are privileged enough to get an
audience with Death himself? You know this is the question that has plagued
you, and humankind, forever. What could be a nobler quest than to learn the
answer, so that generations to come may benefit from it? Go on, ask!’
‘For my third boon, Sir,’ said Nachiketa, ‘I would like an answer to the most
important question of all.’
‘Ask, boy,’ said Death, indulgent, unsuspecting.
‘When a man dies, sir, there are some people who say “It’s all over now. He’s
dead.” There are others who say, with great conviction, “He still lives.” What is
the truth, sir? What happens after death?’
Too late, Death realized he had been blindsided. ‘Even the gods are not sure
of the answer to that one, Nachiketa,’ he stammered. ‘It’s a very complex thing
to grasp. Ask for anything else, my boy. but do not, I beg you, press me for the
secret of death!’
‘I believe you,’ returned Nachiketa calmly. ‘But if the answer is as complex
as you say it is, where in the world will I find a better teacher than you to explain
it to me? I’m afraid I cannot change my wish.’
‘How about,’ said Death eagerly, changing his tack, ‘I make you an offer you
can’t refuse?

Sons and grandsons, noble and true,

Cows and elephants, horses too,
Gold and earth, pretty maidens to woo,
Nachiketa, I will give them all to you.
 Do you wish to live through a hundred springs?
Do you crave success, and beautiful things?
Do you covet the pleasures that great wealth brings?
Speak, and I will give your dreams wings!

But ask not about death, I beg of you –

It isn’t what well-brought-up teenagers do.’

But Nachiketa was steadfast. ‘Oh Lord of Death,’ he said, smiling sadly,
‘how could I ever find pleasure in life again, however long it be, now that I have
gazed upon your face? For as long as I live, O King, you will stalk me like a
spectre, your shadow tainting every fleeting breath of worldly happiness. No, sir,
it isn’t life that interests me any more, but death. Tell me the secret, reveal to me
the Great Mystery. I will settle for nothing less.’
Death sighed. This one would not be shaken from his goal. ‘Listen, then,’ he
said.

***
‘Two kinds of action constantly present themselves to us, Nachiketa,’ said the
Lord of Death. ‘One is good action, the other merely pleasant. The first leads to
good things – peace, contentment, lasting joy, the welfare of the world; the
second leads to pleasure, sure, but selfish pleasure that does no one any good,
and does not last.
‘On the surface, there seems not to be much difference between the good and
the pleasant, but we must choose wisely, for the choice is entirely ours to make.
‘The wise reflect deeply on the two choices and pick the good, which gives
perennial joy, even if that joy should take long to arrive, and involve hard work,
many sacrifices and plenty of self-doubt. The ignorant, on the other hand, led
only by their senses, greedy for short-term gains and seeking instant
gratification, pick the pleasant one every time. Worse, they go around
congratulating themselves on the choice they made, believing that they are the
wise. “There is only this world, there isn’t any other,” proclaim these foolish
men. “When my body dies, I die. So I take only what pleases the body, and enjoy
the world to the fullest!” Such men, Nachiketa, are like the blind who are led by
the blind. They never escape my coils – they die a hundred deaths as they
blunder from life to life.
‘Only a few realize that the body is not the Self, that when the body dies, the
Self remains – untainted, unchanging, eternal. It is the rare person who hears the
Self speak, and rarer still is the person who recognizes that it is Him who speaks.
Wondrous is the person who can teach someone else about Him, and more
wondrous is he, who, on finding such a teacher, is able to glean that knowledge.

‘For you can talk about Him all you will – debating His nature, arguing about
what He is and isn’t; and you can think about Him, and study the scriptures, and
listen to all the discourses you like, but you will never attain Him via those
routes, for He lies beyond the grasp of reason, beyond the reach of the intellect.
Find a good teacher, however, and He is easily gained.
‘You, Nachiketa, are among the rarest of the rare. I laid before you every
kind of treasure known to man and you rejected them all without a second
thought – you chose the good over the pleasant! You have grasped the truth of
the Self, dear boy. Blessed is the teacher who has a seeker like you to question
him!’*
*Here, as is so many other places, the Upanishads point out how a worthy student is just as rare a species as
a worthy teacher. Next time you want to blame your teachers for something, take a moment to reflect on
whether you’ve done your part towards being an ideal student!

Nachiketa bowed. ‘What you call “treasure”, sir, I know is transient – it

comes with a bang but is gone with a whimper. I seek that which is eternal and
unchanging, and that can never be gained through something fleeting.’
Yama smiled and nodded. The boy was right, of course. But before he could
say anything, Nachiketa spoke again.
‘I have heard that there is something beyond right and wrong, past and
future, action and inaction. What would you say that is, sir?’
‘That, Nachiketa, is the word proclaimed by the Vedas as the holiest of the
holy, glorified in every ritual, the supreme syllable that we know as the
everlasting spirit Himself – Aum! Dwell on it, son, chant it, let the sacred
syllable echo unceasingly in your heart, and you will go beyond sorrow, and all
your longings will be fulfilled.’
(The conversation between Yama and Nachiketa ends around here, but the
conversation with the reader about death, the body and the Self continues.
On a different note, ever wondered about the meaning of Nachiketa’s name?
Here are some theories – ‘Na kshiti’ means ‘that which does not decay’, relevant
to that part of the story in which the second boon is granted to him by Yama; ‘Na
jiti’ means ‘that which cannot be vanquished’, which applies to the third boon he
receives; and ‘Na chiketa,’ which can be translated as ‘I do not know’, is what
Nachiketa essentially submits to Yama – ‘Tell me because I do not know’ – while
asking him to reveal the greatest secret of all. Now you know.)

DEATH, BE NOT PROUD

Does a man die at his death, or does he still live? The wise know that the Self
within is neither born nor ever dies, has not come from anything and does not go
anywhere, and is constant, unchangeable and everlasting. If the slayer imagines
that he slays, or if the slain imagines he has been slain, they are both wrong, for
the Self who lives inside neither slays nor is ever slain.*
*Sounds familiar? It would, if you had read the Bhagavad Gita – this is one of the first arguments that
Krishna presents to Arjuna, while trying to convince him to do his duty as a warrior and a king, even if it
means killing his closest family. ‘You see, you can’t really kill the Self in them,’ says Krishna, ‘you only
kill their bodies, which are meant to die one day anyway.’ Krishna thinks it’s a pretty persuasive argument.
Arjuna, quite understandably, doesn’t. So Krishna is forced to give him the long lecture we know today as
the Gita.

Smaller than the smallest, vaster than the vastest, the Self lives within the heart.
Stop striving in vain – submit instead to His will, embrace with equanimity
everything that comes your way, sacrifice your anxiety about the outcome of
your work. Thus will your mind be tranquil, thus will you behold His glory in
yourself.
For He is closer to you than you know but farther away than you can
imagine. Sitting still, He moves everything; lying down, He goes everywhere.
And though He abides in everyone, He only reveals Himself to a few.
The unrighteous cannot reach Him, nor they whose minds are not composed.
The man who controls not his senses cannot know Him, nor he who gives not a
thing his complete dedication.
He who consumes both priest and king like a dish of boiled rice and gobbles
up death itself like the curry on top, who can truly know where to find Him, until
He decides to reveal Himself?
 ***
What are the main messages in this passage? One, of course, is clearly stated –
the death we talk about is only the death of the body, not the soul, which is our
one true Self.
But there seems to be another big message here as well: no matter how hard
you work towards something, how sincerely, or how single-mindedly, it is
impossible to achieve what you set out to, or scale the pinnacle of your particular
mountain, unless your effort is also touched by divine grace. Or, as the
Kathopanishad puts it, unless ‘He decides to reveal Himself’.

That is one way to explain, say, why certain sportspersons are consistently at
the top of their game even though others practise just as hard, or why certain
musicians are more popular than others who are just as focused, or why someone
else got elected school prefect when you are just as responsible a leader as she is
– the former simply have that something ‘extra’. You can call it luck if you wish,
or find a dozen rational-sounding reasons for their success; the Kathopanishad
itself attributes it to Him deciding to reveal Himself.
Unfortunately, there is no formula for ensuring that He reveals Himself to
you – bummer! – but here’s what you can and must do. Simply continue to put in
your very best effort, because showing that you are worthy – by doing the hard
work and making the sacrifices required – is the very first step to becoming a
Chosen One. For it’s only when someone’s effort – even if that someone is a
genius – combines with divine grace, that success – both in this world and the
next – is guaranteed.
One more thing – while you are putting in that effort, quit looking over your
shoulder to see when your turn to be the Chosen One will come. Oh, and stop
hating on those who seem to have been picked over you – that kind of thing
distracts you from your own effort. Instead, focus entirely on your effort and
enjoy it for its own sake. This last is vital, say the scriptures – letting go of
expectation is the key to a happy life!

THE RIDER IN THE CHARIOT

In the chariot of the body rides the Master, the Self.

Who’s the driver? Buddhi, the Intellect!

The reins? Manah, the Mind!
The horses? Why, the five senses!
The paths they wish to traverse? Selfish desires!

O charioteer, hold firm the reins and control your skittish horses, which
pull in every direction! O Intellect, understanding that worldly desires
lead only to sorrow, train the Mind to be one-pointed, and draw the
senses to yourself!

For he whose intellect is not discriminating and whose mind is not still,
he stumbles along winding paths that lead from death to death. But he
whose charioteer is illuminated by understanding, he sticks to the one
true path to his destination, the abode of the Supreme, never to return.

Using a chariot as an allegory to talk about the importance of controlling the

wild horses of the mind and the senses is not unique to Indian thought. The 4th
century BCE Greek philosopher Plato, student of Socrates and teacher of
Aristotle, also uses the chariot allegory in one of his dialogues, Phaedrus.
Socrates tells Phaedrus that the human soul is a chariot pulled by two winged
horses, with Reason as the charioteer. One of the horses is white, and of noble
breed and character, the other is black, and quite the opposite, which necessarily
makes driving the chariot a very difficult proposition.
In Plato’s story, the white horse represents good passions (like being
passionate about confronting and fighting injustice, seeking the truth, and so on),
while the black one represents more pedestrian and not-so-noble passions –
wealth, fame, success.
Those souls who are fully enlightened know for certain that a realm exists
beyond what the senses can see, and aim for it single-mindedly – they let the
white horse lead them there. Others are not so sure – they bob up occasionally
into the other realm, catching a glimpse of what exists beyond the material
world, but without that unshakeable faith, or shraddha, which Nachiketa had to
guide them, they forget what they have seen and let the black horse bring them
crashing down to earth.
Depending on how much of the other realm a soul has seen in one lifetime,
Socrates tells Phaedrus, it gets reincarnated into one of nine categories of people
(see list on following page) in its next. Those who have seen the most (the
almost-enlightened) will come back as No. 1 on the list – philosophers – while
those who have seen the least (the grossly unenlightened) are likely to come
back as No. 9. Everyone else fits somewhere in between. (Given how you have
behaved in your life so far, what do you think you will be reborn as? More
importantly, which category of people would you like to be reborn into? From
his list, it is clear that Plato did not believe that even the most terrible people
would be reborn as cockroaches; according to Hindu philosophy, however, this is
a very real possibility. Eeeeeps!)
A sculpture of Greek philosopher Plato

On to the list now!

(1) Philosophers (devious, that, considering Plato himself was a philosopher;
but the category basically includes learned men, whose nature makes them
delight in the pleasures of the mind. Yup, exactly how brahmins are defined in
the Gita);
(2) Law-abiding kings and leaders (essentially, men of action, or kshatriyas);
(3) Politicians and businessmen (vaishyas, among others – although if Plato
came back to live in the 21st century, he might want to reconsider this
category’s position in the list);
(4) Doctors and healers (so low down on the list? Unfair much?);
(5) Prophets, diviners, alchemists and assorted mystics;
(6) Poets and artists (at number six? Seriously? Seriously. Plato did not care
for poetry and art, dismissing both as imitative; they were either copied from
nature, he said, or were pure fantasy – Greek poetry then was mostly about
 the gods – and therefore inauthentic, unoriginal and fake);
(7) Craftsmen (people who got their hands dirty, i.e., shudras);
(8) Sophists (who were also philosophers, but who, according to Plato and his
friends at least, were the worst kind of frauds, only imparting philosophical
truths to those who could pay for them, and coming up with all kinds of
flawed reasoning to support their specious arguments); and
(9) Tyrants (enough said!)

But enough about Plato. Let’s talk now about the Bhagavad Gita, which
borrows so heavily from this section of the Katha. Apart from the argument
about the slayer and the slain, Krishna also uses the chariot allegory to instruct
Arjuna on who or what his Self really is. The fact that their conversation
happened in a chariot, where he, the Lord of Wisdom, was Arjuna’s charioteer, is
not a random coincidence at all! Also, by choosing Krishna as his charioteer,
Arjuna had declared, loud and clear, his shraddha to the highest goal. Later,
Krishna would choose to reveal Himself to Arjuna, thus blessing his effort with
the elusive divine grace. You see how, with all this on his side, Arjuna could not
but win – not just the earthly war he was fighting with the Kauravas but also the
bigger war he was fighting with himself?

ARISE! AWAKE! YOU’RE TREADING THE RAZOR’S EDGE!

Uttishtatha jaagrata praapya varaan nibodhata

Kshoorasya dhaara nishita duratyaya; durgam pathas tat kavayo vadanti

Get up! Wake up! Pay attention

To all the blessings you’ve received!
Sharp as the razor’s edge is the path, they say,
More arduous than can be conceived!

To believe implicitly in a world that you cannot experience with your senses, to
choose always the good path over the pleasurable, to be so dedicated to your
quest that no earthly temptation can divert you, even while everyone around you
mocks at your ‘idealistic nonsense’ – all of it demands a rare brand of courage.
What does that kind of courage translate to in the real world? Not paying a
bribe to get something done, perhaps, even though you know it will delay things
for you, and require you to make many trips to do it; or skipping a friend’s
impromptu party because you have already promised your granddad you will
play chess with him; or taking issue with your mom, respectfully, when you
believe she is not treating the domestic help right; or picking up the litter on your
street each Sunday, even though your neighbours never step in to help (in fact,
they don’t even stop throwing stuff out of respect for your efforts; instead, they
hasten to discourage you, assuring you that you are wasting your time and
should be studying instead).
Do you see how displaying this kind of courage will eventually make you a
better person, in your own estimation if not in anyone else’s? Sure. But is it
something that you’d rather avoid? Oh, most certainly! See how the sages were
so on point when they declared that the path to self-realization was as sharp as a
razor’s edge?

ETAD VAI TAT – THIS, INDEED, IS THAT!

All the body’s ‘gates’ – eyes, nose, ears, mouth – He in his wisdom
turned outwards; therefore, willy-nilly, we look outside us for our
happiness. But the wise sage looked inside himself, and beheld the Self
within.

When we can only perceive what lies outside,

Using all our tools of perception.
That which is left behind, which nestles inside –
This, indeed, is That!
He who rose from the primordial ocean
And abides in the cave of the heart,
And of every creature is the driving notion –
This, indeed, is That!

Divine mother, who sustains each breath,

Aditi, the boundless one
Who dwells in our hearts and keeps us from death –
This, indeed, is That!

Concealed in kindling is the eternal spark

(Hidden like a life in the womb)
Of Agni the Glorious, who puts out the dark –
This, indeed, is That!

With its roots in Heaven and its branches on earth

Stands the upside-down world-tree,
Immortal source of our sustenance, our worth –
This, indeed, is That!

They speak of a city with eleven gates,

And of Him, its watchful guardian;
He guides us across sorrow’s straits –
This, indeed, is That!

The thumb-sized Being enshrined in the heart

Like a flame smokeless and eternal
Lord of time, of every creature a part –
This, indeed, is That!

When death comes to the body, and the Self breaks free
And vanishes quicker than eye can see,
 What remains is the Word that holds the key –
This, indeed, is That!

How do we describe something we cannot perceive? And what is the Self?

Here’s how the sages of the Kathopanishad did it – they declared that the Self
was no different from Hiranyagarbha the Creator, Aditi, the divine mother, Agni,
the eternal fire, the upside-down Ashvattha tree*, or the ‘guardian of the city
with eleven gates’.** In fact, said the sages, the ‘thumb-sized being that is
enshrined in the heart’*** was no different at all from the Universal Soul – the
Supreme Spirit that is all around us and deep inside us, enveloping the universe
and extending beyond it (vaster than the vastest), while at the same time sitting
snug as a bug inside every atom of creation (smaller than the smallest).
And to hammer their point home, the sages employed a rousing refrain –
Etad vai tat! – This (the Self), indeed, is That (Hiranyagarbha, Aditi, Agni, the
upside-down tree, the guardian of the fort with eleven gates, the Universal Soul)!
*The story of the ‘world-tree’ that connects Heaven and earth is found in many cultures. Most stories about
these ‘connectors’ place them at a mythical location called the Axis Mundi (centre of the world), which is
believed to be the spot at which the four cardinal directions meet. While most stories have it that it is
through such connectors that prayers go up to the gods and blessings descend to our world, the Indian
conception of it is a little different.
Our tree is an upside-down one, with its roots in Heaven and its branches on the earth. But so thick do
this tree’s branches grow on the ground that we are deluded into believing that the branches are the forest,
that it is the earth, and not Heaven, that sustains the tree. Instead of seeking the great trunk rising to the sky,
we begin to chase after the low-hanging fruit on earth, believing foolishly that this is all there is.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna this story and exhorts him to hew down the dense forest of
delusion using the sharp axe of detachment, so that the truth stands revealed. Another example of the
influence of the Upanishadic stories on the Gita!
 **The ‘city with the eleven (or nine) gates’ is a common metaphor for the body in Indian philosophy
and storytelling. The nine gates of the body are the nine ‘openings’, all of which face outwards – the two
eyes, the two nostrils, the two ears, the mouth, and the two openings down under through which stuff is
discharged (women have three, of course, but the sages were, as usual, not thinking of them when they
wrote this). Sometimes, eleven gates are mentioned – the two extra ones are the navel and what is called the
‘brahmarandhra’ (Brahma’s passage), the opening at the top of the skull which closes up as a baby grows.
Hindus believe that it is through the brahmarandhra that the life-force, or Brahman, enters the foetus, and it
is through it again that the soul leaves once the body dies.
***The Self, or Atman, is often sweetly described as the ‘thumb-sized Being’. Perhaps the sages
reckoned that if the Self had to reside in the heart, it should logically be of a size that fits in it. Metaphysics
was all very well, but sometimes things had to be anatomically correct too, what? Unlike with some other
religions, Hinduism has never been in conflict with science, considering scientific theories as just one more
way of looking at the world, so this isn’t such an outlandish theory.

BACK TO NACHIKETA

Did you think it was a bit odd that Nachiketa dropped off in the middle of the
Upanishad? Never fear, he returns triumphantly, right after the bit about Etad vai
tat, to conclude the Upanishad.
Thus did Nachiketa, having gained this knowledge from Death himself,
conquer death and gain everlasting life. And so may every other who realizes
this truth, and knows his inner Self thus, be free.
Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

THE AFTERSTORY
It’s interesting to note that the main protagonist in the Kathopanishad is not a
wise sage or one of the gods, but a teenager. Could it be that the composer of the
Katha, having taught a bunch of teenagers himself, or perhaps having raised a
couple of his own, realized that none but a teenager would be as disgusted at a
beloved parent’s hypocrisy as Nachiketa was? Or be so determined to establish
his own identity that he would undertake as risky and unprecedented an
adventure as a visit to the abode of Death? Or have the sheer chutzpah, when he
got there, to ask Death so many difficult questions, confident that he would
eventually be returned to the world of the living?
It is a likely theory. And whether true or not, it holds a lesson for all teens
and almost-teens – Be like Nachiketa. Ask the difficult questions. Shake up
complacency. Question tradition. Challenge authority respectfully. Undertake
rigorous journeys – sticking to a tough exercise routine, going at calculus until
you’ve cracked it, training for a half-marathon, learning a new language. Bring
fresh eyes and minds and perspectives to existing social structures and practices,
and back it up with the hard work and the sacrifices needed to pull them down or
make them better.
It’s in your young, powerful hands to fulfil your potential and make the
world a better, fairer, kinder place. Go for it!
 १२
PRASHNA
The Upanishad of the Peepul Tree Sage
In which six questions go in search of a teacher

Aum!
Ye gods, bless us
That we may hear words that are pleasant
And see things that are blessed,
That we may live our lives in ways that nourish you.
O great Indra, O All-Knowing Poosha,
O Garuda, destroyer of evil, O great teacher Brihaspati,
Take care of us, blessed ones!

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
nce upon a time, there was a great war between the Devas and the

O Asuras. Vritra, the fearsome serpent demon whose favourite pastime was
to block rivers and cause drought on earth, was in the ascendant, and
Indra and his Devas were routed. As was usual, Indra ran to Vishnu for help, for
Vritra had sucked up all of the earth’s water and humans were dying like flies.
‘There is only one weapon, Vajra the thunderbolt, that is powerful enough to
destroy Vritra,’ said Vishnu. ‘Unfortunately, it must be fashioned out of the
bones of the sage Dadhichi.’
Never one to be cowed by awkward tasks, even when they involved asking
someone to consider giving up his life so that he, Indra, may win back his
kingdom, Indra went straight to Dadhichi (who, by the by, was the son of sage
Atharvan, the composer of the Atharva Veda). The selfless sage agreed to his
request immediately, becoming the ultimate poster boy for the Big Idea that no
individual sacrifice is too great when it comes to protecting the good against the
forces of evil. In the war that followed, the Vajra, which would go on to become
Indra’s signature weapon, crushed Vritra and his hordes, returning peace and joy
to the three worlds.*
*This particular story is one that India, and especially the Indian Armed Forces, has taken deeply to heart.
The Param Vir Chakra, India’s highest gallantry award, features the four-lion capital surrounded by four
replicas of – hold your breath – Indra’s Vajra, equating the sacrifice of the medal winner (the PVC has
almost always been awarded posthumously) with Dadhichi’s own. Here’s another bit of cool trivia - the
medal was designed not by an Indian but by Hungarian-Russian designer Yvonne Maday de Maros, who ran
away to India as a nineteen-year-old to marry army officer Vikram Khanolkar. She fell so in love with India
that she changed her name to Savitri Bai Khanolkar, became an Indian citizen and eventually ended up
designing not just the PVC but also the other medals for gallantry – the Maha Vir Chakra, the Vir Chakra
and the Ashoka Chakra. After her husband’s retirement and death, Savitri Bai became a nun at the
Ramakrishna Mission, where she remained until her own death in 1990. Now you know.
 Now, while making the snap decision to donate his bones, Dadhichi had
overlooked one tiny detail – he hadn’t bothered to inform his pregnant wife
Swarcha of this. When Swarcha found out that her husband was dead, she was so
distraught that she committed suicide, but not before she had – the following
content may be disturbing to young audiences – ripped open her womb with a
rock and deposited the foetus under a peepul tree. Her sister-in-law, i.e.,
Dadhichi’s sister, Dudhimati, took charge of the infant and nourished him on a
steady diet of peepul leaves and the life-giving amrit that the moon had kindly
thought to drop off. The boy, who Dudhimati named Pippalada after the peepul
tree under which his mother had left him, grew up to become one of ancient
India’s most revered sages.
And we are telling this story because? Because it was this very Pippalada (he
of the severely traumatic childhood) who is – ta-daa! – immortalized in the
Prashna Upanishad!
The Prashna Upanishad – also known as the Prashnopanishad – is part of the
Atharva Veda. It was most likely composed after 400 BCE, which makes it
‘newer’ than, say, the Kena and the Katha.
Prashna, as every child who has ever written a Hindi or Sanskrit exam
knows, means question, and the Prashnopanishad is a straight-forward account
of six questions that were asked to the sage Pippalada, and his answers to them
(which is why this Upanishad is sometimes also called the Shat Prashna – or Six-
Question – Upanishad).
The six questions address a wide range of concerns, from the universal –
How did life begin? – to the specific – What are the functions of the five breaths
in the body (yup, according to the Upanishads there are five, not one; tell that to
your biology teacher!)? When I am asleep, who watches my dreams (never
thought about that – good question!)?
Here is a quick look at the six questions, and Pippalada’s responses.

THE STORY
Once, in days long past, six men – called Sukesha, Satyakama, Gargya,
Kausalya, Bhargava and Kabandhi – who were all true seekers of Brahman and
had spent most of their lives engaged in austerities and contemplation, decided
to visit the great sage Pippalada. They had all, you see, reached a plateau in their
spiritual enquiry, and try as they might, were unable to progress to the next level.
Realizing that they needed a guru to answer the questions that plagued them,
they went to meet Pippalada, carrying fuel for sacrifice, as it was customary for
students to do.*
*Whenever students went to start instruction with a teacher, the practice was to take with them a load of
firewood, which would be used as fuel in the sacrifices the teacher performed at the gurukul.
Metaphorically speaking, however, the firewood symbolized the student’s commitment to the sacrifices that
would be demanded of him in the long, hard and lonely path to knowledge.

Pippalada welcomed them warmly. Then he said, ‘Live with me for a year as
my students do, practising self-restraint, chastity and faith. At the end of the
year, you can ask me your questions, and if I know the answers, I shall most
certainly share them with you.’
So the six men lived with Pippalada for a year, doing all the jobs that novice
students did. At the end of the year, they approached him again, and Kabandhi
asked his question.

Prashna 1: Where did all the creatures in the world come from?
‘Bhagavan*,’ said Kabandhi, ‘where, truly, do all the creatures in the world
come from? Where, indeed, do they take their birth?’
And Pippalada answered: ‘Prajapati, being the Lord of All Creatures, had a
desire for creatures, quite naturally. Once, he did great penances, and from the
heat generated inside him, produced a pair of twins – rayi (matter), which was
female, and prana (energy), which was male – thinking, ‘Now these two will go
forth and multiply, producing all manner of creatures for me to enjoy.’ And they
did.
 ‘What is rayi or matter? Everything that has a form is rayi, and so also are
things that are formless, like the mind. But matter remains just that – matter –
until it is infused with prana, energy. The moon is simply matter, but the sun is
prana**, for it is only when the sun rises and illumines the whole world – east
and west, north and south – that everything comes alive. It is only when he
throws his light on the moon that she comes alive. Verily, Kabandhi, the sun is
both the prana of the universe, and Vaishvanara, the spark of life in every
creature.
* Say bhaga-vuhn.
**Similarly, the night, when everything is asleep (read: dead) is considered rayi, while the day, when
everything is vibrantly alive, is prana. Neither rayi nor prana is complete without the other. It is only when
the two – rayi and prana, matter and energy, female and male – come together and become one that life can
result.

‘In the cycle of a man’s life, there are two paths available to him – the
northern and the southern. Those men who perform rituals and do acts of charity
for selfish ends, not recognizing the essence, the prana, in those rituals, are
bogged down by rayi, and they take the southern route; they return to the
material world, the world of rayi, again and again. But those who seek true
knowledge, practising chastity and self-restraint, keeping the faith, they, dear
Kabandhi, soar with prana along the northern route, and gain the realms of the
fearless, radiant sun, eternal source of all lifebreaths, never to return.’

Prashna 2: Of all the different powers that define an intelligent, engaged

living being, which one is the most important?
Then Bhargava asked his question.
‘Bhagavan,’ said Bhargava, ‘who are the gods that support life in the body?
Which of them make a being “alive” to everything around itself? And which
among them is the greatest?’
 And Pippalada answered: ‘The five elements, dear Bhargava – space, earth,
fire, water, air – of which the body is made, these are the gods that support the
body. But speech and mind, sight and hearing – they are the gods that light up
the inanimate body, turning it into a self-aware, intelligent being that can engage
with the world around itself.
‘Let me tell you a story about these four gods, As they appeared in the body,
one by one, each boasted, “I, and only I, am what truly sustains and supports the
body.’’
‘Only after they had all spoken did Prana the lifebreath show himself. “Do
not delude yourselves,” he said. “Without me – call me energy, lifebreath, what
you will – who is present in the body as five distinct breaths, the body would not
survive.”
‘“Ha!” mocked speech and mind, sight and hearing. “Show us!”
‘“I will,” said Prana, and he made as if to leave, proceeding swiftly upwards
towards the brahmarandhra, the passage at the top of the human head through
which life enters and leaves a body. And the gods that light up the body, all four
of them, found themselves being pulled upwards and out, willy-nilly, in Prana’s
wake, just like bees are “pulled” behind the queen bee when she leaves the hive.
‘“Mercy!” cried the gods. “We believe you now. When Prana leaves, so do
all the other faculties – none can exist without the lifebreath!”’*
*This is clear enough, but just to reiterate – when breath leaves a body, so do thought, speech, and the
faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. The vital being that existed before – talking,
laughing, enjoying a beautiful sunset or a dish of pani puri – is gone. What remains is simply matter, rayi, a
body made up of the five elements.

Prashna 3: Now, about this lifebreath – where is it itself born?

Then Kausalya asked his question, nay, questions.
‘Bhagavan,’ said Kausalya, ‘whence does prana come? How does it enter the
body? Once inside, how does it divide itself into the five breaths? How does it
leave the body? How does it support life, both inside and outside the body?’
‘That’s too many questions,’ smiled Pippalada, ‘but since I know you as a
true seeker, Kausalya, I will answer them.
‘Prana comes from the Self, it is an integral part of the Self. Just as a man
and his shadow are inseparable, so indeed are the Self and prana inseparable.
Both enter the body together, through a path created by the mind. For the mind
remembers unfulfilled desires from previous lives, and needs prana to bring alive
a new body so that those desires may be fulfilled in this life.
‘Once inside, prana splits, creating four other breaths to take charge of
specific tasks in the body, just as a king appoints officers to carry out specific
duties. The main breath, Prana, dwells in the eye and ear, mouth and nose – it is
the lifebreath, which allows us to see and hear, smell and taste, think and talk.
Apana (say apaa-na) is the downward breath, pressing down on the organs of
excretion and reproduction, so that they may work as they are meant to. In the
middle of the body is Samana (say samaa-na), the breath that stabilizes, working
the bellows that keep the fire of digestion burning steadily and well.
‘Vyana (say vyaa-na), the breath that travels, is the distributor of energy,
carrying it along a network of 101 channels that lead from the heart, where the
Self dwells, and so along the hundred smaller channels that each branches into,
and thus along the thousands more channels that each of those cleaves into, to
take the sustaining, nourishing energy that Samana helps create from food, into
the remotest reaches of the body.
‘Rising straight up through one of these channels, the one that leads from the
heart to the head, is Udana (say udaa-na), the upward breath, which manifests at
the time of death to convey the lifebreath out of the body to whatever worlds a
man has gained through his actions. Those who have done good work in this life
go to good realms, those who did evil, evil realms. Those who did a bit of both
come back to the human realm. Know this, Udana also appears in dreamless
sleep or deep meditation, when the senses have been withdrawn, to convey the
mind to Brahman.
‘This is the way, dear Kausalya, that prana supports life inside the body.
‘Outside the body, the sun, which, when it rises, awakens the prana in every
eye, is the Prana of the universe. Earth, which pulls everything towards itself, is
indeed Apana, the downward force. Space, the element that dwells in the middle
region, between earth and sky, is Samana, the stabilizer. Air, the wind that moves
within this space, travelling through it, around it, and into every nook and
cranny, is Vyana the distributor. And what of Udana? Fire is verily Udana, for it
is an upward force, always reaching for higher realms.*
*Isn’t it fascinating how the Upanishadic sages always connected the happenings in the individual body to
the happenings in the universe, and vice versa? You are the universe, they are saying at every step, and the
universe is you. If you believe that the universe’s actions can impact you, they declare, know that your
actions can equally impact the universe. Therefore, be very careful, very mindful about what you do, for
you have the power to shake up the world, in ways both bad and good.

‘When the fire of life is extinguished, the mind draws the senses back into
itself. Then, together with Prana, and aided by Udana, it readies for rebirth (if
that was its desire at the time of death) or to move to higher realms (if that was
its last thought).
‘The wise who know prana thus, Kausalya – how it is born, how it enters the
body, where its five different manifestations live, both in the body and outside it,
and how it is related to the individual Self, Atman, and the Supreme Self,
Brahman – they become immortal, yea, they become immortal.’

Prashna 4: When I am sleeping, who in heck is the guy watching and

enjoying my dreams?
Then Gargya asked his question.
‘Bhagavan,’ said Gargya, ‘when a man sleeps, who is it that really sleeps
within him? When he is awake, who is he that is awake within him? Who is it,
truly, that sees his dreams? Who enjoys himself when a man is happy?’
And Pippalada answered, ‘Just as, at the end of day, the sun gathers all his
rays into his golden disc, only to send them out into the world again the next
morning, and the next, and the next, so, Gargya, does the mind, the highest deity
in the body, gather all up into itself when a man sleeps. In that state, therefore, a
man sees not, hears not, tastes not, smells not, feels not, eats not, emits not,
enjoys not and moves not. That’s when we say, “He is sleeping”.

‘Only the fires of life – Prana, which is the very breath of life; Apana, which
smoulders, constant and true, like the fire in a householder’s hearth; Samana,
which balances a man’s in-breath and out-breath; and Vyana, which diffuses
energy through the body – burn in the sleeping city.
‘And with these fires, the yagna of life continues inside the sleeping body.
The mind, which is the yajamana, the performer, of this yagna, pours into the
sacred fire the offerings of the in-breath and out-breath. The fruit of this night-
long sacrifice, the reward for the yajamana, is the fifth breath, Udana, which
arises in deep, dreamless sleep, and leads the mind to Brahman.
‘In the dream state, when the senses have been gathered up in sleep, the mind
is supreme. He sees again things that have been seen, hears again things that
have been heard, and experiences again things that have been experienced in the
waking state. Things seen and unseen, heard and unheard, lived through and not
lived through, existent and non-existent, the mind sees all, the mind sees all.*
*How can the mind see things that are unseen, hear things that are unheard and enjoy what it has not
enjoyed in real life? In the dream state, when the mind is not accountable to the senses, which insist that the
only reality is what can be seen, heard and felt, it sets free imagination and truly enjoys itself, constructing
all manner of unlived fantasies that are only vaguely related to lived experiences. All of us who have had
recurring nightmares of being on a cliff that crumbles suddenly under our feet, or of being chased by a tiger,
or found ourselves in any weird, that-can-never-happen-in-real-life dream situations, know first-hand of the
truly elaborate fantasies the mind is capable of conjuring up!

‘By and by, the warmth of dreamless sleep irradiates the body. The mind is
finally stilled, and the body finds itself at last in the bliss of true repose. Just as
birds wing their way back to the tree when they are weary, everything in the
body returns to its true resting place, the Self.
‘In dreamless sleep, earth, water, fire, air and space, eyes and ears, sight and
sound, nose and palate, smell and taste, skin and touch, tongue and speech,
hands and feet, things that are held and paths that are walked, things excreted
and that which excretes, things emitted and that which emits, mind and intellect,
imagination and reason, self-awareness and ego, belief and understanding, light
and life, things that are illuminated, rayi, and things that the breath, prana, brings
alive – all of them, all of them, find their repose in the Self.
‘It is He, Gargya, this Self in which everything reposes, that is truly the seer,
the hearer, the smeller, the feeler, the taster, the doer, the perceiver, the knower,
the thinker, the experiencer, the Person in the body. And this Person himself
reposes in the higher self – the immortal, imperishable, Supreme Self that is
Brahman.
‘He who knows the Self in the body – the formless, stainless, shadowless
Self on which rest the five elements, the vital breaths and the various
intelligences – as the constant, shining, imperishable, Supreme Self – such a one,
dear Gargya, knowing the whole truth, becomes the truth.’
Prashna 5: Is that very difficult thing called meditation even worth the
effort?
Then Satyakama asked his question.
‘Bhagavan,’ said Satyakama, ‘if a man were to meditate on the sacred
syllable Aum for his whole life, what rewards would he win through that
meditation?’
And Pippalada answered, ‘That sound Aum (say Om*), Satyakama, is verily
Brahman, both the higher one (Supreme universal spirit) and the lower one (the
Self in every individual). Only by contemplating deeply on Aum, without
distraction, may a man reach either.
*In Sanskrit, when the vowel sound ‘aa’ is followed by the vowel sound ‘uu’, the resulting sound is not
‘aauu’ or ‘ow’, but ‘oh’. A+u+m, therefore, is not Aauum or Owm, but Ohm.

‘Even a man who only meditates on the first sound, A, wins rewards. He
comes quickly back to earth after death, led by the verses of the Rig Veda,
blessed with the qualities of austerity, chastity and faith, to lead a full and happy
life in the world of men.
‘A man who meditates on the first two sounds, A and U, is conveyed after his
death to intermediate worlds, ruled by the moon, by the rituals of the Yajur Veda.
There he enjoys a glorious life until the fruits of his Karma are depleted, after
which he returns to earth again.
‘But he who meditates on all three sounds of Aum – A, U and M – he is
escorted after death to the abode of the sun by the melodious chants of the Sama
Veda, where he becomes one with the light, never to return.
‘These three sounds – A, U and M – if meditated upon separately, dear
Satyakama, cannot lead a man beyond death. Wise is the sage who meditates on
all of them as one, letting the sound of ‘Aum’ resonate in his heart without pause
as he goes about his work both in the outer world and the inner, for he is freed
forever from fear. He crosses beyond old age and death, and attains that which is
serene, that which is luminous, and that which is peace everlasting.’

Prashna 6: Help! A seeker asked me about the person with sixteen parts –
and I had no idea what he meant!
Then Sukesha approached Pippalada and asked his question.
‘Bhagavan,’ said Sukesha, ‘Hiranyanabha, the prince of Kosala, once came
to me and said: “Sukesha, do you know the person with the sixteen parts?” I did
not, so I told him so. He did not say a word as he got back onto his chariot and
departed. Now tell me, sir, who is this person of the sixteen parts?’
And Pippalada answered, ‘Right here, Sukesha, within your body and mine,
is the Person from whom, in whom, the sixteen parts are born. This Person, the
Self, thought to himself, “There must be something that comes into the body
when I do, filling it with life, and leaves when I leave, withdrawing life. I must
create such a thing.”
And so he created (1) Prana, the lifebreath. From the lifebreath came (2)
faith or shraddha, and from faith came (3) earth, (4) water, (5) fire, (6) space, (7)
air, (8) the senses, (9) the mind, and (10) food, for everything needs fuel to grow
and move. From food came (11) energy, from energy (12) the penances we
undertake, (13 ) the hymns we chant, (14) the actions we do, (15) the worlds we
do and do not inhabit, and (16) the names of everything in these worlds, for it is
only once a thing has been named that it can stand apart from the others.
‘But just as rivers entering the ocean from every side lose their individual
names and forms and become, simply, the ocean, so does the separateness of the
sixteen parts of a person disappear and become, simply, the Person, no sooner
than the Self is known. That one, the Person, is beyond name and form,
immortal.
‘Know the Person, dear Sukesha, as the one by whom, in whom, the sixteen
parts are held together, just as spokes are held together in the hub of a wheel, and
you will see beyond name and form, and go beyond death.’

Then, to the six seekers, the sage Pippalada said, ‘That is all I know about that
Supreme Brahman, higher than whom there is nothing else.’
And the students bowed to their teacher, and sang his praises, saying, ‘You,
indeed, are our father, who has taken us across the sea of ignorance to the other
shore.’
Praise the supreme seers! Homage to the supreme rishis!

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

THE AFTERSTORY
Afterstory 1: The Upanishadic Classroom

Remember how Pippalada didn’t immediately answer the six seekers’ questions?
Instead, he asked them to live with him as his students for a year, serving him
exactly as his other, much younger and much less enlightened, students did,
despite the fact that these men had been on the spiritual path for several years,
meditating, practising austerities, and all the rest of it.
Pippalada’s little throwaway line in the Prashna Upanishad – ‘Live with me
as my students for a year, and then we can talk’ – tells us that what Indians
believe to be among the most important attributes in a student are:
• Humility – In response to Pippalada’s suggestion, those men could well have
retorted – ‘You can’t be serious!’ or ‘Do you know who my dad is?’ (for they
were all sons of renowned sages), but they didn’t.
• Patience – There are no shortcuts to mastering a subject, a sport, a craft. If
you really want to master something, patience is vital. Bet those poor men
 never expected that they would be required to wait a whole year simply to be
allowed to speak to Pippalada! But they never complained, and were
rewarded.
• Commitment and Discipline – If you truly want to go after a dream, you
must be prepared to commit all to it. By asking the seekers to stay with him
for a year, Pippalada was not only testing their commitment to the pursuit of
truth, but also buying himself the opportunity of observing them up close,
over an extended period, to see if they had the discipline and perseverance
such a quest required. When he found that they were worthy, he shared
everything he knew with them.
• Faith – Unless they truly believed in the teacher, and trusted that his
injunction came from a place of wisdom and love, the six men would have
never accepted to do as he said. Shraddha – both in the teacher and the cause
– is a very important requirement for all kinds of quests.
The other thing we can deduce from the description of Pippalada’s classroom
is that the ancient Indian style of teaching was an interactive one as against a
lecture-based one. Also, it was clearly led by the student – unless the student
took the trouble to think deeply about a subject himself and formulate a question
that he truly wanted answered, the teacher did not speak.
You know through your own experience how important self-learning is –
when you are truly interested in learning something, like, say, a game hack, you
will display severe commitment, scouring the Internet yourself for hours, reading
and trying out all the tutorials online, and then, finally, when you have almost
got it, except for one small technicality, you will stop using random keywords in
your search and instead, formulate your question using Very Specific Keywords,
which – bingo! – will pull up the exact web page you needed. That kind of
learning is exactly what the Upanishads recommend!
Unfortunately for both teachers and students, the world of education today
seems to be largely focused on ‘finishing the portions’ and getting top grades
rather than on true understanding. Sigh.
Afterstory 2: Really? My Mind Remembers My Past Lives?

Well, according to Hindu thought, yes!

Hindus believe that even after the body is long gone, the mind retains the
memories of past lives. As long as the mind has unfulfilled desires and/or regrets
from a previous life, it will keep looking for another body to take up residence
in, so that, in its next lifetime at least, it may fulfil those desires/redress the
wrongs it has committed.
Apparently, the very last thought your mind has before your body dies will
determine what happens after. If you die wishing that you had lived your life
better (been kinder, less lazy, not smoked, done nicer things for your mum or
your kids), or that you had had a better life (maybe you would have liked to have
been richer or taller or a different sex), your mind will remember that and ensure
you live through another lifetime, during the course of which, invariably, you
will create more desires for yourself and/or commit different mistakes. And
begin the whole sorry cycle once again.

To escape from this trap, to end this endless cycle of samsara, is every
Hindu’s dearest wish, and all Hindu scriptures are essentially a set of
recommendations on how that may be achieved. If you can tell yourself, at the
time of your death, that you had the best life ever, that you have no regrets about
things you did and did not do, that there is no one you need to apologize to, and
nothing more you desire, you will be liberated, free.
But how can you ensure that you feel that way when you die, especially
when you haven’t the foggiest when you are going to pop it? By telling yourself
those things, believing those things, doing everything that allows you to say
those things with conviction – all the time! That means reviewing your life every
few days, and course-correcting immediately when it seems to be veering off the
path – if you feel you haven’t done something nice for your mum in the past
week, do it now; if you are feeling bad that you said something mean to a friend,
say sorry now; if you feel that you are obsessing too much about your dream
phone, make up a story for yourself – quickly – about how it won’t really change
your life, and let go of that desire. See how that works?
Start clearing your mind of samsara baggage, today! Go on, chop, chop!
 १३
MUNDAKA
The Upanishad of the Big Shave
In which two little birds teach us a great truth

Aum!
Ye gods, bless us
That we may hear words that are pleasant
And see things that are blessed,
That we may live our lives in ways that nourish you.
O great Indra, O All-Knowing Poosha,
O Garuda, destroyer of evil, O great teacher Brihaspati,
Take care of us, blessed ones!

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
hristmas 1918. In the bitter cold of a Delhi winter, leaders of the Indian

C National Congress (INC) huddled together, getting the final bits in place
for the party’s 33rd session, due to begin the next day. The person who
had been picked to lead this session, as its president, was Pandit Madan Mohan
Malaviya, a well-known educationist, editor, barrister, moderate leader and
Sanskrit scholar.
Just a couple of years earlier, Pandit Malaviya, referred to admiringly by
Mahatma Gandhi as Mahamana (‘The Great Mind’) had founded the iconic
Banaras Hindu University, then one of the largest universities in the world.
Three years before that, he had been part of the team that started the Scouting
Movement in India, going on to become the country’s first Chief Scout. Four
years before that, in 1909, he had founded The Leader, an English newspaper
that would become a highly influential flag-bearer of the Indian freedom
struggle. As a barrister too, he had had many great courtroom victories before he
hung up his robes in 1911, on his 50th birthday, to devote himself wholly to the
freedom struggle.*
*He would don them again, just once, in 1924, to defend 170 revolutionaries who had been condemned to
the gallows in the wake of the appalling carnage at Chauri Chaura. In February 1922, a group of non-violent
Indian protesters had turned into a frenzied mob after police had opened fire on them. The mob locked the
twenty-two British officers inside the police station and burnt it down, killing everyone inside. Pt
Malaviya’s impassioned and compelling arguments before the British judge, over four charged days, would
result in over 150 of those death sentences being commuted to life imprisonment.

But back to the 33rd session of the INC, which is remembered for the many
resolutions that were passed during that week, demanding complete self-
governance for India. What is often overlooked about this session, however, is a
rather significant sidelight – Pt Malaviya’s recommendation that the Congress,
and India, look to a particular Sanskrit phrase – Satyam eva jayate – The Truth
Alone Triumphs – as their beacon and anchor while they fought the good fight.
So powerfully did the sentiment of this mantra resonate, not just with the
members of the INC but also with the people of India, that when India became
independent, the founding fathers chose to adopt it as our nation’s motto, and
had it inscribed at the base of the lion capital we chose for our country’s
emblem.
The National Emblem of India
 Great story. But we are talking about it here because? Because this phrase –
Satyam eva jayate – is part of – you guessed it! – a verse in the Mundaka
Upanishad. The whole line reads – ‘Satyam eva jayate na anritam’ – Truth alone
triumphs, not falsehood.
Like the Prashna, the Mundaka Upanishad, as you would know after seeing
its Shanti Mantra, is also considered to be part of the Atharva Veda. Its sixty-four
verses are divided into three Mundakams or chapters, each with two sections. As
with so many others, this Upanishad is also cast as a dialogue between a teacher,
the sage Angiras, and his student, the householder Shaunaka.
The word Mundaka has its roots in ‘mund’, which means ‘to shave’.
(Remember when you and your family were invited to a baby’s mundan? And
how that baby’s shrieking while his or her head was shaved was part of your
nightmares for weeks after? Yup, that kind of mund.) What does shaving have to
do with this Upanishad? There are a couple of theories. One says that this
Upanishad is aimed at sannyasis or monks, they of the shaven heads, and that its
higher truth is accessible only to those who have renounced the world. [Which is
a bit odd, considering the student asking the questions here is not a hermit or a
brahmachari (celibate bachelor) but a householder.] Another theory suggests that
the mundan suggested by the name Mundaka is a ‘shaving away of ignorance’,
which anyone who understands this Upanishad will experience.
 Whatever. The important thing is the subject of the Mundaka. More than any
other Upanishad, this one is scathing about those who revere rituals above all,
believing that if they do ‘right action’ – perform rituals according to the rules,
give charity, et al – the rewards of immortality will be theirs. The Mundaka
insists that right action, even when done in the right spirit, can at most lead you
to what it calls a ‘lower truth’. Of course, attaining this ‘lower truth’ helps create
the discipline and platform needed to launch yourself into the bigger quest for
the ‘higher truth’, the knowledge of Brahman,* but mistaking the lower truth for
the higher, or believing that the former is all there is, marks one out as an
ignoramus.
*The Mundaka refers to this higher truth as ‘Vedanta’. This is arguably the earliest recorded use of this
famous, oft-used word!

The famous Upanishadic metaphor of the two birds on a tree, one restless,
the other content – is also from the Mundaka Upanishad. Never heard that story?
Time you did, then. Read on!

THE STORY
Brahma arose as the first among gods, creator, protector, guardian of the world.
And to Atharvan, his beloved firstborn son, he revealed the knowledge of
Brahman, which is the root of all knowledge. That knowledge Atharvan revealed
to Angir in ancient times, and Angir to Satyavaha, and Satyavaha to Angiras.
One day, the householder Shaunaka went to pay the sage Angiras a visit,
carrying firewood as every student does, and asked, ‘What is it, Bhagavan,
knowing which everything else may be known?’
‘There are two kinds of knowledge, the higher and the lower, that a man
must know, Shaunaka, so the wise tell us,’ replied Angiras. ‘The lower
knowledge is held in the four Vedas, in grammar and phonetics, linguistics and
metrics, astronomy and etymology, ritual and poetry. The higher knowledge, on
the other hand, is one by which the Imperishable One is grasped.’

That which mind cannot grasp, and eye cannot see,

That which has no hands, nor feet, nor family,
No caste, no colour, nor eyes, nor ears has He –
From that Deathless One, springs all life, verily.

As silken strands from the spider issue,

As plants sprout from the earth, on cue,
As hair grows on a man, without much ado –
The universe springs from Him, in the sages’ view.

Shaunaka nodded, rapt. ‘Please go on, sir.’

‘This is the truth, Shaunaka. Perform all the rituals as recommended – at the
new moon, the full moon, the harvest, once every four months; make offerings to
all the gods, feed guests and give alms – all this must be done. Pour your
oblations into the sacred fire, in between the first and last pourings of ghee, so
that it can lap them up with its seven flaming tongues – Kali the Black, Karali
the Terrible, swift-as-thought Manojava, blood-red Sulohita, smoky
Sudhumravarna, Sphulingini – spitting sparks, and beautiful Vishwaruchi.
‘Do that, and those offerings will beckon you – “Come, come!” – and whisk
you away, on the shining rays of the sun, to a beautiful world you have won by
your good deeds.’
Well, that was good to know, thought Shaunaka to himself. He had always
been very particular about doing everything that had been recommended by the
scriptures. Of late, though, he had begun to feel a weariness with the humdrum
routine of worldly life and it simply would not go away. Surely there was
something bigger than the ritual, something he could do that would fill him with
bliss and make him love his life again? However, the sage seemed to suggest that
the rituals were indeed all.
But Angiras was speaking again. Shaunaka leaned in to listen.
 ‘Beware, Shaunaka! Such rafts are unsteady craft by which to cross the
ocean of samsara!’
A-ha! There it came! Shaunaka focused harder. He did not want to miss a
word now.
‘Those who delight in the ritual itself, believing it to be enough, believing it
to be all, are truly deluded. They are like the blind leading the blind. Again and
again, wallowing in ignorance, the fools congratulate themselves when they
reach the world of the gods, saying, “We have reached our goal! Glory be!”
‘But they only abide there for a while, for once the rewards of their good
deeds have been exhausted, their raft sinks and they fall back into the sea of
samsara, to experience all the trials of life, and old age, and death, all over again.
‘But those who practise austerities and faith in the quiet places of the mind,
who live the life of one who craves nothing from the world, they go, sinless,
spotless, through the sun’s radiant door, to where the Imperishable One dwells,
never to return.
‘When he sees how transient are the worlds of pleasure won by mere rituals
and good deeds, a true seeker understands the futility of doing them. Thoroughly
disgusted, he declares – “What’s made cannot make That which is unmade!”*
And firewood in hand, off he goes to find a teacher, someone who not only
knows the scriptures but also knows Brahman, for only such a one can help the
seeker build a sturdier ship for the stormy voyage across samsara. And to such a
student, who approaches him with commitment and faith, and whose mind is
tranquil, the wise teacher imparts, with delight, the higher knowledge.’
*In other words, mere physical actions (i.e., ‘what’s made’ by a man) like pouring offerings into a fire or
giving away alms, cannot create the experience (‘cannot make’) of something that is as subtle, as non-
physical, as difficult to grasp, as impossible to describe, as different from everything we know, as Brahman
(‘That which is unmade’).

Then Angiras began to describe Brahman, and Shaunaka was transported.

‘Like the thousand sparks a blaze throws out,

 No one spark like another –
So from Him, countless beings arise,
Each one unlike the other.

From Him come life, and mind, and sense

And the elements, the light, and more,
Moon and sun are His eyes; the doors to space
Are the ears of the One we adore.

His speech is the scriptures, His breath the air,

The earth from His feet emerges;
Fire, rain and gods from Him are born,
From Him the ocean surges.

Mountains, birds, food and faith,

The very sap in plant and tree,
Breath and actions, form and name –
The source of it all is He!’

Moved beyond words, Shaunaka bowed to the teacher.

‘My heart yearns for Brahman, venerable one,’ he said. ‘But what can I do to
gain Him? Tell me, teach me, how this can be done!’
Angiras smiled. ‘Pick as your weapon the mighty bow of the Upanishad,
beloved one,’ he said, ‘and place in it the arrow that is you, honed and made
fierce by meditation. Draw on the bowstring with a mind focused unwaveringly
on the Imperishable One, for He is your target. Now unleash it! With unstinting
faith, let the arrow go, and you will be united with Brahman!
‘Dismiss everything else that you know, except this one truth – He who is
Brahman is indeed the Self which shines forth in you, and in every other
creature. This is the knowledge that cuts the knots of self-doubt that strangle the
heart, saumya*, this is how He is gained.
*Saumya simply means dear one, someone who is beloved. In the Upanishads, the teacher often uses this
word to address his students.

‘Now let me tell you a story, Shaunaka, about two birds on a tree. They are
inseparable, these two, always within sight of each other, always coming to rest
on the same tree. One of them is usually perched on a lower branch – let’s call
her the “lower bird” – the other, golden and radiant, perches on a higher one. The
lower bird knows well that her companion is around, somewhere near her, and
dearly wants to spend more time with her, but even as the thought crosses her
mind, she spots a luscious-looking fruit. Waves of desire wash over her, wiping
the thought of her friend from her mind, and she hops eagerly towards the fruit
and begins to eat, enjoying the taste of it.
‘Once she has finished, her mind begins to drift towards her friend again, but
suddenly, another fruit catches her eye, even more juicy-looking than the last.
Friend forgotten, she races towards it greedily, even though she is no longer
hungry. She gobbles this one up too, and as she is scooping up the last bits, she
spots yet another fruit. She thinks about waiting a while, even till the next day,
but she is suddenly nervous and insecure. “What if that fruit is not there
tomorrow?” she asks herself. “What if some other bird grabs it? What if I never
find any other fruit again and, horror of horrors, die of starvation?” Working
herself up into a state, she hops frantically to the new fruit and swallows it too.
 ‘And what of her friend, the higher bird? She does not move at all from her
perch. She sits there, calm and composed, undistracted by all the delicious-
looking fruit around her, quietly watching the frenzied activity below. She is not
troubled by the fact that her friend does not seem to want her company, for she
trusts that she will arrive eventually, when she is ready.
‘So this lower bird continues hopping from fruit to fruit, until, one day,
something completely unexpected happens. She takes a bite of the fruit that has
just popped into her line of sight, and... gags. The fruit is bitter, so bitter that it is
almost unbearable! As she wallows in self-pity, she remembers her friend, the
higher bird. “Oh, how good it would feel to narrate my tale of woe to a friend
who truly understands!” she thinks, and looks up, seeking her. And there she is,
that golden-hued friend, patiently waiting, exactly where she had first perched.
‘Full of gratitude, and feeling vaguely guilty that she has neglected her all
this while, the lower bird begins to fly up to her friend, but it is a long journey,
and soon enough, her mind – and her eyes – begin to wander. Needless to say,
they soon light upon... what else but another succulent fruit! All thoughts of her
friend vanish, and she flutters away towards it, to begin her cycle of frantic,
pointless activity all over again.’
Angiras paused, and Shaunaka smiled.
‘Thank you for that beautiful story,’ he said. ‘I understand now. The lower
bird is the lesser Self, comprised of the senses, the mind and the intellect. The
higher bird is the Supreme Self. Both of them rest in the tree that is the body. But
the lower Self is too distracted by the luscious fruit, the temptations of the
material world, and chases after them, forgetting the friend who accompanied it
here, who is even now waiting, patiently, above. Only when she comes across a
bitter fruit – a bitter life experience – does the lower Self finally go in search of
the higher one, looking for solace, compassion and reassurance.’
‘That’s not all,’ said Angiras. ‘When the lesser Self finally reaches the
Supreme Self, on its tenth, hundredth, thousandth attempt, it realizes that it had
been deluded on this count as well – there has never been another bird! As she
merges into that golden radiance that has been her constant companion, it finally
dawns on the lower bird that the friend she had looked up to and adored is...
none other than herself!’
‘How I wish I could get there myself some day, Venerable One!’ sighed
Shaunaka.
Angiras was touched by the yearning in the student’s voice. ‘As you can see,
saumya,’ he said, ‘this flight towards the higher bird is not an easy one. It cannot
be attempted by the weak, the witless, or those who flounder aimlessly through
life. But through right knowledge, and the constant practice of chastity, and by
living a life of truth, you can most certainly get there.
‘Satyam eva jayate na anritam – it is truth alone that triumphs, not untruth.
Casting off desire, walk the paths laid out by truth alone, and you cannot but
reach the supreme abode of Truth, where dwells the Imperishable One. Just as
the rivers flowing into the ocean lose their name and shape and disappear into it,
so does he who has understood well the meaning of Vedanta lose name and form
as he becomes one with the Immortal.
‘Know this, Shaunaka – he who knows the supreme Brahman becomes
Brahman Himself. It is only to those who perform the rites (with dedication),
know the scriptures (and understand them), make themselves the offering in the
inner sacrificial fire (with faith) and are devoted to Brahman, that the knowledge
of Brahman may be revealed.’
Tad etat satyam. This is the truth. This is what the sage Angiras declared, in
ages long past.
All hail the wise sages! All hail the great seers!

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

THE AFTERSTORY
What is our takeaway from the Mundaka Upanishad? It begins by saying that
performing rituals and doing good action, like giving charity to the needy, takes
one to the realms of the gods, and then proceeds to roundly condemn the people
who do exactly that, calling them ‘moodhaah’ or fools. So should you, or should
you not?
Let’s see now. While it’s true that it talks of ritual-performers with disdain,
the Mundaka also clarifies, almost immediately, that the people it is calling
ignorant are those who believe that the ritual is all there is to it, or those who
only follow the word of the scriptures, not its spirit. We all know people like
that. People who, for instance, spend an hour in prayer each morning at home, or
visit places of worship, and drop undisclosed amounts into the donation box
there, and so on, but who will also kick a dog out of their way on the street, snarl
at a beggar child who comes to their car window, or treat the waiter at a
restaurant like scum. It is such people that the Mundaka calls ignorant fools, for
they haven’t understood the core message of whichever scripture they follow.
But even such people, says Angiras, who are proficient in the ‘lower
knowledge’, gain rewards – after all, they have performed the rituals (all of
which help them develop discipline), studied the scriptures (which are full of
wisdom) and done some charity. But if they think that just doing those actions is
going to give them the kind of mental peace they are seeking, they are so
mistaken. Anyone who snarls at a child or hurts an animal without cause is
clearly full of anger and bitterness and hate, and is the sort of person who sees
those who are not his own as different, and therefore threatening or repulsive.
Never mind Heaven, such people make their own lives, and the lives of those
around them, absolute hell. The most incredible part? They think they are among
the best people in the world because they’ve done their charity and said their
prayers! What else would you call such people but ignorant fools?
On the other hand, if you can see the essence of the Supreme Soul in every
person and creature and tree and shrub, you will be full of love, not just for
yourself but for everything around you. You will perform your duties and fulfil
your responsibilities to your family, your community and the world – for
instance, help your parents clean up the kitchen without being asked, cheerfully
take on a tiny role in the school play without being resentful about the classmate
who bagged the bigger one, join a rally against a plan to build a parking lot in
place of a charitable hospital, and so on – with as much dedication and
enthusiasm as you would fulfil a responsibility to yourself (like spending an hour
watching TV after school, because you’ve worked so hard that day; or treating
yourself to a giant chocolate milkshake because you’ve been running two
kilometres every morning).
 What’s more, you will do all the nice stuff you do for everyone else for no
other reason than that it makes you feel good, just like watching that hour of TV
or having that milkshake does. You will not expect mom or dad to thank you for
your help, or your friends to pat your back for playing even your tiny role with
gusto, or want to be featured in the newspapers the next morning as the youngest
person who took part in the protest rally.
See what happened there? You focused hundred per cent on joyful effort, and
zero per cent on the outcome of that effort. In the process, without even realizing
it, you left anger, bitterness, jealousy, resentment, hate and expectation behind.
You threw yourself into the work, whole-heartedly, dedicatedly, joyfully, but
completely ‘renounced’ the results of that work. In other words, you became
detached from the outcome of your actions, thus gaining the ‘higher knowledge’.

Combine that ‘higher knowledge’ – detachment - with ‘lower knowledge’ –

performing the rituals (being disciplined about homework and exercise),
studying the ‘scriptures’ (reading an inspiring book or watching a movie that
confirms your faith in humanity) and doing charity (by donating part of your
pocket money to someone who needs it) – and what do you think will happen?
Well, if the wise sages of the Upanishads are to be believed, you, boys and girls,
will be well on your way to creating your own little piece of heaven for yourself,
right here on earth. Try?
 १४
MANDUKYA
The Upanishad of the Frog
In which we learn that there’s no grace like Aum

Aum! Ye gods, bless us

That we may hear words that are pleasant
And see things that are blessed,
That we may live our lives in ways that nourish you.
O great Indra, O All-Knowing Poosha,
O Garuda, destroyer of evil, O great teacher Brihaspati,
Take care of us, blessed ones!

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
any ancient Indian texts tell the story of Janaka, the great philosopher-

M king of Videha* (aka Mithila), one of the well-known kingdoms of the

Vedic age. In the Upanishads, Janaka is hailed as a saint-king who was
a great patron of sages and scholars. In the Ramayana, he is cast as the adoptive
father of Sita. One of the best-known stories about him is about a dream he had.
This is how it goes.
*Today, Videha would occupy a part of north and east Bihar, and a bit of eastern Nepal as well.
 One night, the great king Janaka fell asleep, as usual, on the soft pillows and
silken sheets draped over the soft mattress on the gilded cot in his royal
bedchamber (you get the idea – King Janaka was wealthy beyond your wildest
dreams). But no sooner had he drifted off into a deep sleep than he was woken
up again, by a commotion right outside his door.
Janaka sat up instantly, all his senses on high alert, as the general of his army
rushed in. ‘All is lost, O King!’ cried the general. ‘The enemy has stormed our
gates and is swarming across the city, making for the palace. We must leave
before it is too late!’ Leaping out of bed, the king grabbed his sword and
followed the general through the safe route out of the palace and into the forest,
along with his most trusted soldiers.
 In the dark depths of the forest, however, the king was fatefully separated
from his companions. For three days and three nights, Janaka roamed the forest
alone, finding nary a morsel to eat. On the fourth day, exhausted and ravenous,
he stumbled upon a few edible roots. Relieved, he dug them out with his bare
hands and was about to begin eating when two wild boars rushed out of nowhere
and gobbled the roots up. Janaka let out a howl of frustration, and immediately
wished he hadn’t, for in the next instant, he heard a yell of triumph – ‘I think
I’ve found one of them!’
Janaka reached for his sword, but realized too late that he had lost it while
crossing a river the previous day. Picking himself up with the last ounce of his
strength, he began to run. But the enemy soldier had him within his sights! As
the horse thundered towards him, Janaka turned around and saw the soldier draw
his bowstring and let the arrow go...
‘Sire, sire! Wake up! What has happened to you? Why are you screaming?’
Janaka sat up and looked around him with wild, disoriented eyes, his heart
thudding in his chest, his body – and the luxurious sheets that draped his soft bed
– drenched in sweat. His queen was by his side, looking very concerned.
‘Calm down, sire,’ she said soothingly. ‘You have had a nightmare, that’s all.
However bad it was, it is over now. You are back in the real world.’
But Janaka would not be quieted. ‘I wish it were that simple, my queen,’ he
said, in between shallow, ragged breaths. ‘But it isn’t. The question is, which one
is real – this world, with you in it, or that world, where I was about to be killed
by the arrow of an enemy soldier? Is this real, my love, or is that real?’
Worried, the queen called in, by turns, the royal physician, the prime
minister, the general of the army (this was not a good idea at all, as you can
imagine!), the queen mother and everyone else she thought might be able to
help. But to each one, the king would only ask one question – ‘Is this real, or is
that real?’ And he was never satisfied with their answer – ‘This, of course, my
king!’
Eventually, the great sage Ashtavakra* – literally, ‘the one with eight
deformities’ – who happened to be passing through Mithila, arrived at the palace
gates and asked to see the king. When the king asked him his question – ‘Is this
real, or is that real?’ – Ashtavakra let out a full-throated laugh, and whispered,
with a wink, ‘Neither of them is, O King!’
Instantly, Janaka lit up with happiness. ‘A-ha!’ he said. ‘That makes me feel
so much better. Although, if that is true, it begs the question – “Then what is
real?’’’
*Ashtavakra’s mother, Sujata, was the daughter of the sage Uddalaka. She was married to one of her
father’s favourite students, Kahoda, who was also a teacher in Uddalaka’s gurukul. When she was pregnant
with Ashtavakra, Sujata made sure she sat in on all the lessons taught by her father and her husband, so that
her child would benefit from them. Once, when Kahoda was teaching, he mispronounced a word several
times. The baby in the womb squirmed every time his father made the mistake, until, after he had done it for
the eighth time, he could bear it no longer and cried out, ‘This is the eighth time you’ve mispronounced the
word, Father!’ Furious at being humiliated in front of his students, Kahoda laid on his son a terrible curse,
that he be born with eight deformities. Ashtavakra’s appearance made him the butt of all jokes, but he grew
up to fulfil the promise he had shown in the womb and became a great Vedantin, a most revered teacher of
the Vedanta.

‘It does,’ agreed Ashtavakra. ‘But first, let me ask you a question – would
you say, O King, that you were present, actually present, in your nightmare?’
‘I most certainly was!’ said the king, shuddering. ‘I heard the twang of the
bowstring, felt the warm, fetid breath of the boars...’
‘All right,’ said Ashtavakra. ‘And would you say you are here now, in this
palace, reclining against soft pillows as you lie on these silken sheets?’
‘I guess I would.’
‘Well then,’ said Ashtavakra, ‘there’s your answer. Neither is that real, nor is
this real. But you, O King, who were present there and are present here – you,
and only you, are real.’
‘When you say “I” am real, do you mean my physical body, which is here
now?’ said Janaka, puzzled. ‘Or do you mean my dream body, which fled the
palace while my physical body still lay supine on this bed? Who am “I”?’
‘A-ha!’ said Ashtavakra. ‘Now that’s the real question, isn’t it?’
And he proceeded to deliver to the king a long discourse on many different
subjects, including of course, the answer to Janaka’s real question – ‘Who am I?’
We know that discourse today as the Ashtavakra Gita.

Ohhh-kay. But what does this story have to do with the Mandukya Upanishad?
Well, the core question at the heart of the Mandukya is the one that Janaka asked
Ashtavakra! What’s more, the Mandukya uses the same device, of different
states of consciousness – the wide-awake state, the dream state, and the deep-
sleep state – to bring its message home.
At just twelve mantras, the Mandukya is the shortest Upanishad of them all,
but it packs a serious punch by addressing one of the most fundamental
questions – Who Am I, Really? – that human beings have grappled with since
the beginning of time. No wonder Adi Shankara declared that the Mandukya
contained within its (very small) nutshell the entire wisdom of the Upanishads.
Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, apparently believed that too. In the Muktika
Upanishad, he tells Hanuman – ‘If you had to pick just one Upanishad to master,
Vayuputra, pick the Mandukya, and you will reach your goal of self-
realization!’*
*Before you start celebrating – ‘Understand just one Upanishad to gain ultimate bliss? I can totally do that!’
– remember that this advice was for Hanuman, who, through the sheer power of his devotion to Rama, was
well on his way to becoming a realized soul. As for other, less advanced seekers – ahem! – Rama goes on to
say that depending on where they are in the hierarchy of realization, they would need to study the ten
Principal Upanishads, or the thirty-two major ones, or, um, all 108 of them. Yeah, life’s tough like that.

One of the other interesting things about this particular Upanishad is that the
detailed commentary on it – the Mandukya Kaarika (composed by a sage called
Gaudapada, who was the guru to another teacher called Govinda Bhagavatpada,
who was – yup, the guru to Adi Shankara – read more about him on page 169) –
is as well known as the Upanishad itself. In fact, the text of the Upanishad has
never been found independently - we only have access to it because it is the first
chapter of the Mandukya Kaarika!
Now, where does the name Mandukya come from? One theory is that since
the word Manduka means frog in Sanskrit, and the metamorphosis of a frog from
tadpole to adult is a common metaphor for spiritual growth and enlightenment,
‘Mandukya’ is an apt name for an Upanishad that helps in this growth. Another
says that the Upanishad was composed by a sage called Manduka. A third
combines the two and speaks of Varuna, the god of the realms of water and sky
and a venerated rishi himself, taking the form of a frog to sing the praises of the
cosmic vibration Aum (which is the other subject that the Mandukya Upanishad
concerns itself with). Pick your favourite!

How does the Mandukya link the question of who we are to the significance
of the Pranava (another word for Aum)? Very creatively! By mapping the three
states of consciousness to the three sounds that come seamlessly together to form
the sacred syllable, the Mandukya explains not only who we all really are, but
also how, by meditating on the Pranava, we can realize that truth about
ourselves.

THE STORY
And the teacher said, ‘The whole world, everything that you can see, feel,
perceive, intuit, deduce, understand, is that imperishable sound, that cosmic
vibration – Aum! It is what has been, what is, and what will be, and it is beyond
these three, beyond time itself, this Aum!’
The student nodded. He could believe that about the Pranava. Each day, he
felt its enormous power resound through his being when he chanted it before the
start of a prayer or at the end of a lesson, meditated on it, or heard it being
chanted in the quiet of a forest clearing by his fellow students. It calmed him
deeply, those three sounds that coalesced into the Aum – the vast, expansive ‘A’
vibrating in his abdomen before it rose into his chest as the more focused ‘U’,
which radiated through his upper body before it rose even further, into his head,
as the rounded, sonorous ‘M’, where it reverberated, it seemed to him, in
harmony with the hum of the very universe.
 But if you had asked him which his absolute favourite bit was, he would
have picked without hesitation the brief pause right after the chant, when the last
of the M still hung, soundless, in the air; that moment of utter peace and quiet,
even blankness, between one ‘Aum’ and the next. Everything around him –
mountains, trees, people, earth, sky – and his own physical body seemed to melt
away in that golden moment, losing shape, form and name as they merged into
each other and into the cosmos, just as the A melted into the U and the U into the
M. His breath was momentarily stilled, and the universe itself seemed to be held
– by him! – in suspended animation. The student shivered. Even the memory of
that moment made his hair stand on end.
‘This Aum, my boy, is Brahman – it is the whole, it is all of it, there is
nothing else. And this soul, ayam atma...’
The teacher paused, and the student felt his breath catch in his throat. He
knew, somehow, that the teacher was about to reveal something momentous.
‘Ayam atma Brahma!’ said the teacher, and the student felt a delicious awe
run through him. ‘This Atma inside you, your individual soul, that Atma... is
Brahma. You, my boy, are God!’
There it was. No frills, no flourishes, no mystical riddles. A simple fact of
life, simply delivered. Ayam atma brahma. This Self is God. What was left to be
said?
If only one knew how to truly feel like God, though, how to reach and claim
that utterly calm, utterly compassionate, utterly non-judgmental, utterly content
part of oneself!
‘Just like Aum has four parts – A, U, M and the pause after...’ The student
looked up, startled – had the teacher read his mind? ‘...the Self or the Atma has
four feet on which it stands, four ways in which it experiences the world and
itself. These are the four states of consciousness.
‘The first is the wakeful state – jagrita (say jaag-rita) – which you and I are
in now. In this state, the Self is turned outwards, conscious only of the external
world – engaging with it, interacting with it, consuming it, processing it, making
sense of it. It is as if the Atma is Vaishvanara himself, the Universal One of the
seven limbs, who straddles the cosmos like a colossus, who is the cosmos. His
head is the sky, his eyes the sun and moon, his ears all of space, his breath the
wind, his speech the Vedas, his heart the world, his feet the earth – he is the doer
of all actions, the thinker of all thoughts, the enjoyer* of all things.
*In the Upanishads, enjoyer just means ‘someone who experiences’. All the experiences that one ‘enjoys’
are not necessarily what we would consider joyful ones. But looking at an experience as either good or bad,
scary or reassuring, pleasant or unpleasant, is human folly. If, as your true Self does, you look at an
experience simply as something to be lived through and learnt from, any experience can be ‘enjoyed’. See
why it makes sense to connect with your true Self?

‘As the Vaishvanara in the body, the Atma, in the wakeful state, is the doer of
all the body’s actions, the thinker of all the mind’s thoughts, the consumer and
enjoyer of all the material things it takes in through its nineteen mouths. Which
are, of course,
- the five senses, plus
- the five organs of action (the mouth that speaks, the arms that grasp, the legs
that move, the anus that eliminates waste, the organs that reproduce), plus
- the five breaths* that convert the air the body breathes and the food it eats
into the fuel that sustains life, plus
- the four forms of the ‘mental body’ (antahkarana) – which are the mind
(manas) that thinks thoughts and feels emotions; the intellect (buddhi) that
sifts through the thoughts and emotions generated by the mind to decide the
right course of action; the ego (ahamkara) that mistakes the body and mind
and intellect for the Atma and calls them ‘I’; and the memory (chitta) which
remembers and forgets selectively, and thus influences the mind and the
intellect.’
*For a quick refresher on the five breaths, check out Sage Pippalada’s answer to Prashna 3 in the Prashna
Upanishad, on page 244.

That was quite a visual, marvelled the student to himself, as he imagined

himself to be Vaishvanara, consuming, consuming, consuming – sights, sounds,
tastes, smells, feelings, ideas, emotions, fears, hopes, memories, both his own
and other people’s. But it was true – as long as a man was awake, it was all about
the body seeking to quench its hunger, and about the senses feeding the mind
with stimuli, causing thoughts and emotions to erupt constantly and randomly.
‘The second state of consciousness,’ continued the teacher, ‘the second
“foot” on which the Atma stands, the second way we experience things, is the
dream state – swapna – that comes to us in sleep. In this state, the senses are
withdrawn and the mind now has the opportunity to look inwards, to turn a light
on itself. In this state, the Atma is Taijasa, the Illuminated One. In swapna, the
mind constructs a dream world from all the inputs it has received from the
material world in the waking state, and all the actions and desires that have left
their impressions on it. In this dream world, one’s fondest hopes and deepest
fears, some never acknowledged in the waking state, bubble up to the surface.
Wishes are fulfilled in swapna, nightmares come true.
‘This dream world seems so real to the mind that the seven limbs and the
nineteen mouths of the Self, the Atma, are still seemingly working, the limbs
doing exactly what they do in jagrita, the mouths still consuming, consuming,
consuming, still enjoying, even if the things it experiences are insubstantial and
disappear in the clear light of day...’
It was true, thought the student to himself. When he awoke from a
nightmare, it took several minutes before his heart stopped thudding or his
panicked breath returned to normal. The body certainly believed in the dream
world conjured up by the mind and reacted exactly as it would to a crisis in the
waking state.
‘The third state of consciousness, the third foot on which the Self stands, is
sushupti, the state of deep sleep. Here the mind thinks no thoughts, dreams no
dreams, feels no desire. In this state, the Atma is Prajna – the Knowing One.
Withdrawing everything – senses, mind, memory, imagination, all thoughts, all
actions – into itself, the Atma is at last at rest, in deep repose, a mass of
consciousness, the seed of everything that was, is and will be. All distinction
vanishes – when the Self doesn’t see itself as “I”, it cannot see the other as
different, as “You”. As “I” merges into “You”, so does subject merge into object,
the seer into the seen, and This into That – until at last, there is only one. As
Prajna, the Self consumes nothing, but continues to enjoy – not material things
as in jagrita, not imaginary things as in swapna, but deep, deep bliss, ananda (say
aa-nanda).
‘This, my boy, this Prajna, is the lord of all, the knower of all, the source of
all, the true enjoyer of everything the body experiences through its seven limbs
and nineteen mouths, the beginning and end of all things. The tragedy is that we
are never conscious of this aspect of the Atma – we never see our own true self
even though it is revealed to us every time we are in deep sleep. The tragedy is
that when the sleeper returns to the waking state, he instantly returns to being
Vaishvanara, fed by the senses, seeing separateness everywhere instead of
oneness, and experiencing, as a result, pain, grief, anger, fear and hate.’
Ah, sighed the student. How wonderful it would be to experience the bliss
one experienced in deep sleep while one was conscious! If that could happen,
why would anyone ever want to return to being Vaishvanara?
‘Tell me, sir,’ he said to the teacher. ‘Is Prajna then the highest state of
consciousness? If we could stay there forever, would we be liberated?’
‘Ah, but you cannot stay there forever, can you?’ smiled the teacher. ‘For
Prajna is just as transient as Taijasa and Vaishvanara – when the state of deep
sleep passes, so does Prajna.’
So it did, agreed the student. And anything that changed, that was transient,
was not the ultimate reality, which was unchanging and immortal.
 ‘Don’t look so despondent,’ smiled the teacher. ‘Think about this – even
though you are never conscious in the Prajna state, there is one part of you that
remembers it well once you come out of it, the part which says, “I slept so well. I
am so refreshed.”’
‘That is true!’ cried the student. ‘How do I remember, how can I remember,
that I slept well? All my tools of remembering and recognition – my mind, my
intellect, my memory and my ego – are withdrawn in sushupti, the state of deep
sleep! Who, then, is the “I” that says, “I slept so well”? Who was it that
experienced that state of blissful sleep, first-hand, and remembered it too?’
‘There is one,’ said the teacher, ‘which is beyond Prajna. The last “foot” of
the Self, the fourth state of consciousness, is called, simply, the Fourth, or turiya,
for there is no other way to describe it. It is neither an outward-looking state, like
jagrita, nor an inward-looking one, like swapna. It is not a mass of
consciousness, like sushupti, but it is not non-consciousness either. It is
indescribable, unnameable, invisible. You cannot engage with it, or speak of it,
or claim any relationship to it (because a relationship can only exist between two
different things, and turiya contains everything, everything, inside itself), or
think any thought about it (because it is beyond the range of thought). But it
abides in you, a silent witness to your every action and word and thought.
‘It is your Atma, in the blessed fourth state of turiya, that is the enjoyer of all
that you experience in all three states of consciousness, for turiya is inside each
of them and yet is none of them,* supporting them all, illuminating them all. It is
the Atma, in the state of turiya, which is the real “I”, your true Self, not your
body or mind or thoughts or emotions or memory.’
*The best way to explain this concept is to think of the three states of consciousness as three ornaments
made of gold – a bracelet, say, and a necklace and a ring – and the turiya state as gold itself. The gold is in
all the ornaments, but is itself none of the ornaments – you can’t say, for instance, that ‘gold’ is the same as
a bracelet. And although a bracelet may look quite different from a necklace and a necklace from a ring, and
although each of them may have unlike functions, to the goldsmith they are all just gold. In the same way,
although the three states of consciousness may have distinct names, forms and functions, they are all really
turiya. Just as no golden ornament would exist without gold, there would be no consciousness without
turiya, which makes each state possible.

‘I can’t think of anything I want more in the world than to experience turiya, sir,’
said the student, ‘for it seems to me that it is a combination of true knowledge
(sat), true consciousness (chit) and true bliss (ananda). But if I can’t even
experience the Atma as Prajna, how can I ever hope to experience it as turiya,
which is beyond Prajna?’
‘There is a way,’ the teacher said. ‘And I will teach it to you.’
The student sat up, delighted and expectant.
‘You see, my boy, turiya is contained in the Omkara, in the syllable ‘Aum’.
Meditate on the Omkara with faith, devotion and true understanding, and you
will enjoy not just the first three states of consciousness, but also what lies
beyond them, while you are fully conscious.
‘The first sound of the Omkara – A (say aa) – is Vaishvanara, for it is the first
letter of the alphabet, just as Vaishvanara is the first state of consciousness.
Chant A with devotion, giving thanks to the visible universe as you do, and you
will master your senses, and thus master Vaishvanara. Then will you become the
first among equals, and obtain your heart’s desire.
 ‘The second sound – U (say oo) – comes from ubhayatva, or ‘intermediate’,
and stands for Taijasa, for it is the intermediate state of consciousness. Chant U
with dedication, worshipping the invisible universe within you and without you,
and you will master your dreams, and thus master Taijasa. Then will you be
blessed, and your descendants will all tread the path of the spiritual life.
‘The third sound of the Omkara – M (say mm) – comes from ‘im’ – ‘to
merge’ – and represents Prajna, in which state everything merges and becomes
one. Chant M with faith, and you will still your mind. Your sense of “I”, your
sense of separateness from everything else in the universe, will fall away from
you and you will see the oneness of all things, and enjoy Prajna in the conscious
state. So will the measure of your understanding grow, and you with it.
‘The fourth part of the Omkara – that infinitesimal, infinite pause between
one Aum and the next – has no letter, no sound and no characteristics. It is
beyond description and ungraspable, cannot be heard and cannot be spoken of –
but it contains within it the three sounds of the Omkara, which contain the entire
universe. This is the supreme state of turiya. This is Atman, your true self. This
is Brahman.
‘Meditate on the pause, knowing Aum as turiya, knowing Aum as your true
Self! He who knows this, and meditates on the Omkara, unceasingly,
consistently, with faith and devotion, becomes the Omkara, and realizes his true
self.’

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

THE AFTERSTORY
Afterstory 1: Need help with a school report? Never fear, the Upanishads
are here!
Don’t you just love how logically, how scientifically, even, the sages of the
Mandukya Upanishad approached an entirely new field of study? The field, of
course, was ‘states of consciousness’, and as far as we know, these men were
among the first in the world to focus on this subject. How did they do it?
Actually, how would you do it? If you had been given a project to research
something that had never been researched before, on which no data exists, either
on the Internet or otherwise, where would you start? Let’s say your project was
to create a PPT presentation on the ‘littering pattern’ on the street outside your
school. The report would have to include not only information on how and
where littering happens, by whom, and when, but also suggestions on how it can
be controlled. Got that? Great. Now put this book away for ten minutes, and
think about the steps you would need to take to create your presentation.
All done? Now let’s do a quick rundown of the steps the Mandukya sages
used to arrive at their own brilliant presentation – The States of Consciousness
and How They Relate to Aum (aka the Mandukya Upanishad). Then we can
compare their steps and yours. Here goes.
•Step 1: Don’t assume; observe.
Instead of saying, ‘Hey, there are two states of consciousness, the waking
and the sleeping – everyone knows that!’ or ‘Hey, let’s declare that there are
eight states of consciousness, spin a fabulous story around each and dazzle our
audience with tonnes of colourful slides – that’s what really counts in these
things!’, the sages sat down and observed their own minds, extensively,
obsessively, trying different thought experiments (can the mind observe the
mind?), reflecting deeply on tricky questions (is daydreaming a separate state of
consciousness? Maybe not, because the body is still receiving stimuli from the
external world, same as in jagrita), and brainstorming with fellow explorers.
•Step 2: Organize your data; then analyze and classify it.
Once they had made their observations and had their data together, the sages
sliced and diced it many ways (jagrita-Vaishvanara / swapna-Taijasa / sushupti-
Prajna) to come up with three separate states of consciousness. Then, after
considering the question, ‘But how do we remember enjoying the bliss of deep
sleep, given that the mind is not functional in that state?’ they deduced that there
must be a fourth state, beyond the mind, just as astronomers today deduce the
location of an invisible black hole by the behaviour of objects around it.
•Step 3: Communicate your findings in a lucid manner.
The sages of the Upanishads were never content to perform their
experiments for their own sake. They believed it was their sacred duty to share
their findings with as many people as possible, so that the knowledge was not
lost to humanity. So they gave each of their four states names (the fourth state
was indescribable, so they simply went with ‘The Fourth’), put them down in
logical sequence, and described each briefly but clearly. Like the best
communicators and teachers, they started with the known (the waking state) and
then took their audience, step by step, to the unknown (turiya). To make the
presentation less dry (God knows there are too many of those!), they used poetic,
even trance-y language (for instance, here’s how they described turiya –
‘adrishtam avyavahaaryam agraahyam alakshanam achintyam avyapadeshyam’ –
that which cannot be seen, discussed, or grasped; that which has no defining
qualities, is beyond thought, and cannot be described in words) and rich visual
imagery (‘seven limbs, nineteen mouths’).

•Step 4: Turn your audience into believers.

It is all very well to report our own findings, thought the Mandukya sages,
but unless we also give people a methodology that they can use to corroborate
them, we will not be able to create evangelists who understand the findings and
believe in them and spread the word. So they came up with a practice –
Meditating on the Aum – and suggested that their audience try it diligently. If
they did so, promised the sages, they would reach the same state of bliss that one
reached in deepest sleep, except this time they would be aware of it when it
happened!

With that kind of hook, is it any wonder that so many millions of people,
over the millennia, have wanted desperately to try the practice? And that the
small percentage of them who actually stick with it and experience the promised
bliss, recommend it so highly?
Now, let’s see how this four-step Mandukya process can be mapped to your
‘littering pattern’ project.
• Don’t assume it is the kids from the slum down the road or the rich ‘brats’ in
their fancy cars who litter; instead, observe the street for several days, with no
preconceived notions.
• Organize your data by, say, the kinds of people who litter (all kinds, you
 may conclude, there is no ‘littering type’), the kinds of litter (candy wrappers,
paper teacups, cigarette butts), the time of day when littering is highest (right
after mealtimes, maybe), the kinds of places that people seem to litter in more
(they add to already-existing piles of garbage, perhaps, because of the lack of
bins), and so on. Analyze and classify it by, say, time of day (‘morning and
evening litterers are office-goers who drink chai at the bus stop kiosk;
afternoon-litterers are kids from my school who bring candy bars in their
lunch bags).
• Communicate your findings at a meeting in the local hall or club, which is
attended by students from your school, local residents and top executives of
the companies that have offices on the street.
• Instead of blaming or guilt-tripping your audience, explain how you can
work together to create a beautiful and clean street for all of you to enjoy (you
may recommend that offices donate bins, local residents take turns policing
the street for litterers and each grade in the school spends five minutes of its
lunch break one day of the week picking up whatever little litter is left). When
tasks are shared, people are more likely to co-operate, and once they see how
a clean street boosts their mental well-being, they will work towards it
without being told. See what you did there? You turned your audience into
believers!
And you thought the Upanishads had nothing practical to teach you! Ha!

Afterstory 2: Sat+chit+ananda: The Real Real

Remember how, in the story of King Janaka, the sage Ashtavakra told him that
neither the dreaming state nor the waking state was real? What did he mean,
really? Surely the waking state is real and the dreaming state is not? I mean, who
can argue with the fact that real food satisfies hunger in a way that dream food,
erm, does not?
Hey-hey, hang on! This is the You who lives in the waking state speaking,
right? Of course you would say this world is real and the other is not! If you
asked the You who lives in the dream state the same question, he or she would
insist the dream state was real, while what you call real was the dream state.
Now what if a third You came along and told you that both your so-called
real world and your so-called dream world are mithya, not real? What if he or
she said that the real real world was somewhere else, but you did not realize that
because you were in a dream state? There is no real reason to disbelieve that, is
there? How can you be hundred per cent sure that this world is not a dream
world, and that, when you finally wake up in the real, real world, you will not
turn to your friend, and say, like Alice, at the end of Alice in Wonderland, ‘Oh, I
have had such a curious dream!’?
That is what Ashtavakra meant when he said both the real world and the
dream world were mithya. For the ancient sages tell us that when we realize who
we really are, when we understand that we are no different from any other
creature in the world, we will ‘awake’ to a new world, one in which we are truly
free from dreams and delusion. That knowledge of oneness, they say, is sat, the
real real, the true knowledge. That state of consciousness in which sat is gained
is chit, true consciousness. And that bliss, that is enjoyed when sat and chit come
together, is the truest, purest bliss, ananda.
In that sense, the only real real world, the one into which we must all strive
to wake up, is sat-chit-ananda, the world in which true consciousness gains true
knowledge to create unending, unchanging, glorious bliss.

Afterstory 3: Spot the Mahavakya!

One last thing. Did you notice that there was a Mahavakya, one of the four grand
pronouncements of the Vedas and Upanishads, lurking somewhere in this
Upanishad? You did? Super. Can you say it out loud?

Ans: ‘Ayam atma Brahma’ – This Self is Brahma. This is the Mahavakya of the
Atharva Veda.
 १५
TAITTIRIYA
The Upanishad of the Partridges
In which we learn that each of us is really a Matryoshka
doll

Aum!
May He in the Highest Heaven
Protect both of us, teacher and student; Nourish both of us together
So that we may work together with great energy,
So that we may learn from each other,
So that our learning is effective,
So that we steer clear of dispute and discord.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
emember that hilarious exchange from the movie Shrek, where Shrek is

R trying to explain to Donkey that there is more to ogres than meets the
eye? To illustrate, he tells Donkey that ogres are like onions. Needless to
say, Donkey misunderstands, asking if ogres stink, or make you cry, or get all
brown when left out in the sun. Until an exasperated Shrek yells that both onions
and ogres have layers!
Remember? Of course you do. (If you have not watched Shrek, right about
now’s a good time to fill in that huge gap in your education.) But what’s it doing
here, in the chapter on the Taittiriya (say taitti-reeya) Upanishad?
Well, according to the Taittiriya, we humans have layers just as ogres do! We
are onions too, or, to use another, less smelly, metaphor, we are all really
Matryoshkas, those classic Russian nested dolls. (Remember those? The doll
inside the doll inside the doll, all identically shaped, only smaller and smaller as
you go along?) Our true Self, says the Taittiriya, is enclosed in five concentric
layers, or sheaths (of consciousness). Only when these sheaths are peeled away
is our true Self revealed. And what are those five sheaths? Hold your horses –
for now, let’s learn a little more about the Upanishad itself.
Thousands of years ago, in a scenic hermitage in the deep-dark of the Indian
jungle, a student quarrelled horribly with his teacher and mentor. Incensed, the
teacher, Vaishampayana, ordered the student, Yagnavalkya, to return to him the
Veda he had been taught, for he had proved an unworthy student. Equally
furious, but duty-bound to obey his teacher, Yagnavalkya vomited the entire
Yajur Veda on the forest floor. Seeing their opportunity, the other students of
Vaishampayana, who had been looking on at the great showdown in horror,
turned themselves into partridges and sucked up as much as they could of the
‘regurgitate’ (for this version was rather special, and a limited edition to boot – it
was the Yajur Veda as processed by the great Yagnavalkya!). Later, these
students, individually and collectively, would pass on Yagnavalkya’s
understanding of the sacred Veda to their own students, in the form of this very
Upanishad. And that’s the (admittedly stomach-turning) story of how the
Taittiriya Upanishad (‘tittri’ is Sanskrit for partridge) came to be named.
Matryoshka nesting dolls

The Taittiriya is part of the Krishna Yajur Veda. Instead of being a separate
text, however, the three chapters of the Taittiriya are the sixth, seventh and
eighth chapters of the Taittiriya Aranyaka, called Shikshavalli (with twelve
‘anuvakas’, or lessons), Brahmanandavalli (or simply, Anandavalli, with nine
anuvakas), and Bhriguvalli (ten anuvakas) respectively. ‘Valli’ literally means a
creeper, so you can imagine these three chapters as three sturdy offshoots of the
tree of the Taittiriya Aranyaka.
Right. End of intro. On to the mind-expanding chapters now!

THE STORY
SHIKSHAVALLI – THE CREEPER OF INSTRUCTION

The Shikshavalli leaves esoteric metaphysical topics aside to focus entirely on

the Vedic school curriculum – it talks, among other things, of phonetics, and the
right sound, accent, stress and metre to be used while pronouncing a word or
reciting a chant. Along the way, it takes a little detour to talk about Aum and
three other holy vibrations. (Can you guess which ones they are? Hint: They are
always uttered before chanting the Gayatri Mantra. Check if you got them right,
in the next section).
Anuvaka 3 – Wheels within wheels

Is everything in nature interconnected? Is every creature equal to every other?

Not all religions and philosophies believe that – some, in fact, insist that God
created everything else in the world for his supreme creation, man, to rule over
and enjoy, but the Upanishads strongly declare that everything and everyone in
the universe is an equal, shining strand in the great web of life.

What connects the earth to the sky? Space –

Space traversed by air.
What connects the fire and the sun? Water –
Water blazed through by lightning.
What connects the teacher to the student? Knowledge –
Knowledge imparted through instruction.
What connects a mother to a father? The child –
The child born of love.
What connects the lower jaw and the upper jaw? Speech –
Speech formed of the tongue.

See how cleverly the teacher in the Shikshavalli connects the obvious (what
connects the teacher and the student? Knowledge) to the somewhat obscure
(what connects the fire and the sun? Water)? All kinds of small jumps and big
leaps of imagination are needed to wrap one’s head around the idea of a God
who resists definition, and the underlying sameness of things that seem very
different from one another. What better way to help students develop those skills
than to nudge them towards it by degrees, as the teacher does in this anuvaka?

Anuvaka 5 – A Mystical Sound Garden

Remember we talked about the three holy vibrations in the previous section? The
three that have become an inseparable part of the Gayatri Mantra today, even
though they are not part of the original mantra? Well, according to the Taittiriya,
they are Bhur, Bhuvas and Suvah – did you guess them right? As always, the
sages of the Upanishads compare the three sounds, which anyone can chant, to
different elements of the cosmos, thus connecting the personal to the universal.
By repeating these powerful sounds while meditating on them, says the
Taittiriya, you can master not only your own senses and thoughts, but the entire
universe. For you are not only a microcosm of the universe, but the universe
itself.
Bhur, Bhuvas, Suvah are the three holy sounds. To these, Mahachamasya
added a fourth – Mahas, which is the Self, Brahman.*
*As you will see in the verses that follow, Mahas also refers to the cosmic vibration, Aum, which, as the
Mandukya Upanishad tells us, is no different from Brahman.

Bhur is the earth, Suvah the sky,

and Bhuvas what’s in between –
But they would be nothing without Mahas the sun,
In his light, the three worlds preen.

Bhur is the fire, Suvah the sun,

Bhuvas the air that binds them –
But it is Mahas the moon that holds up the sky
And oh-so-joyously minds them.

Bhur is the Rig, Suvah the Yajur,

Bhuvas the song of the Sama –
But would they shine so bright were they not sheathed
In Aum the Mahas’ golden armour?

Bhur is the in-breath, Suvah the out-breath,

Bhuvas the blessed pause ’twixt the two;
But annam – food – is the Mahas that nourishes
 Every breath that’s strong and true.

Four mystical sounds times four

Make sixteen holy vibrations;
Meditate on these – they are, to Brahman
The sacred invocations.

Anuvaka 9 – Learn and teach, teach and learn

In the Vedic Age, as you know, students returned to the real world to take up the
real business of life after spending up to a dozen years in disciplined study, work
and play in the safe space of the gurukul. They were strapping young men by
then, ready to earn a living, shoulder the responsibilities of a householder’s life
and become upstanding members of their communities. But before they left them
for good, their fond gurus were wont to issue a last set of stern instructions. Like
this one:
 Practise right conduct, while learning and teaching;
Stay true to yourself, while learning and teaching;
Perform the rituals, while learning and teaching;
Beget children, while learning and teaching;
Practise austerity, self-control, tranquillity, compassion –
While learning and teaching, learning and teaching.

In other words, this teacher in the Taittiriya is saying – live a full, rich and
upright life, but never, ever stop learning and passing on what you’ve learnt.
Whether you are student or teacher, self-learning – svaadhyaaya – is vital,
because the pursuit of knowledge, when it becomes a joyful, lifelong enterprise,
staves off boredom and depression, keeps the brain agile and ensures that you
stay engaged with a constantly changing world. As for teaching – pravachana –
why, that is super-important too, for not only is the passing on of knowledge a
noble act in itself, but it’s also one of the best ways to get a better understanding
of what you have learnt – you have to know something really well before you
can teach it to someone else.
More importantly, one in the absence of the other is incomplete – gaining
knowledge without passing it on is selfish, and simply passing on what you
learnt a long time ago, without bothering to update your knowledge with more
recent information, is a disservice both to yourself and your student. Taken
together though, so the Upanishad tells us, svaadhyaaya–pravachana are magic.
Try it and see!

Anuvaka 11 – Commencement speech to graduating students

Yup, convocation addresses and commencement speeches are not a modern

invention – they were given to graduating students even 2,500 years ago in
Indian gurukuls! And not much has changed in their content either.
So what exactly did the teachers of the Taittiriya Upanishad tell their
graduating class? Here’s the entire list. Place a tick or a cross next to each point
depending on whether you think it is good advice (or not) for a twenty-one-year-
old in the 21st century.
(Quick quiz: Part of this commencement speech is a very famous Sanskrit
verse that urges you to treat your parents, teachers and guests as gods (points
no. 8–11). Can you remember the original verse? Hint: Point no. 11 has a
connection with Aamir Khan.)
1. Do not neglect the truth.
2. Do not neglect the law.
3. Do not neglect your health.
4. Do not neglect your daily svaadhyaaya and pravachana.
5. Do not neglect the rites and rituals.
6. Do earn money – prosperity is essential to a good life.
7. Do have children – it is your responsibility to further the race.
8. See your mother as a god.
9. See your father as a god.
10. See your teacher as a god.
11. See your guest as a god.*
12. Do only good and irreproachable deeds, not others.
13. Follow only good and irreproachable practices, not others.
14. When you’re with wise and good people, don’t talk or argue unnecessarily
– listen instead.
15. When you’re with wise and good people, give of yourself generously, with
faith and humility.
16. If you are not sure what the right thing to do is in any situation, observe
the actions of gentle, law-abiding, wise people around you, and do what
they do.
17. If you are not able to decide who is right in a situation, especially when
people around you are being critical of one or the other, observe the
actions of experienced, qualified, law-abiding, gentle people around you,
and do as they do.
*The original Sanskrit verse, as you must have guessed by now, is: Maatr devobhava, Pitr devobhava,
Acharya devobhava, Atithi devobhava. And the Aamir Khan connection? Some years ago, ‘Atithi
Devobhava’ was chosen as the tagline of a campaign by the Union tourism ministry to urge Indians to make
foreign tourists feel welcome and safe in our country. Aamir Khan was the celebrity ambassador of that
campaign.

Did you notice how, in points 16 and 17, the quality of gentleness is held up
as being something to look for in a mentor? You can, and should, look up to
people who are smart and successful and qualified and cool, of course, but
unless they are also gentle – alooksha – say the Upanishads, be careful about
making them your role models. That’s a wise, heart-warming piece of advice if
there ever was one.

BRAHMANANDAVALLI – THE CREEPER OF SUPREME BLISS

The Brahmanandavalli comes at the core Upanishadic question – Who am I,

really? – from a different angle, declaring that our true self, Atman, lies hidden
inside several sheaths, or kosha, of superficial or false knowledge. It also
includes a ‘bliss ladder’ to explain just how ginormous Brahma-bliss (topmost
rung of ladder) is, compared to human bliss (bottom-most rung).

Anuvaka 2-5: The Kosha Question

The Taittiriya talks about the Self as being veiled in five separate sheaths – the
panchakosha. Each sheath or kosha feels so real that we are often deceived into
believing that one of the sheaths is who we are. Let’s try to get past the
panchakosha, one by one, and see if we can reach Supreme Bliss.

***
Now then, when you ask yourself the question – ‘Who am I?’ – what is the first,
most obvious answer that comes to mind? The body, of course. ‘I am my body,’
you say. ‘The colour of my skin and hair and eyes, this particular kink in my
pinky finger, the way my hair frizzes on a humid day, the smell of my sweat, my
incipient beard, my crooked teeth – these are all uniquely me. This is who I am.’
Great. Now, what are you made of? In other words, what is your body, which
you identify as you, made of? You might say your body is made of blood and
muscle and bones, or go a little deeper and say it is composed of cells and
tissues, or go even more basic and say it is built of carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen. The Upanishad, however, takes a macro view. Essentially, says the
Upanishad, your body is made of nothing but... food. It is food, after all, that
grows your body, makes it possible for it to carry out its functions and gives it
the strength to do what it does – walk, swim, cycle.

From food, surely, are made all creatures –

By food alone they live, and survive, and thrive,
And into food they pass in the end.
Food is Brahman, the foremost of all beings,
The healing herb, the eldest, most revered –
For it is eaten by all beings, and eats all beings.*
*Food eats all beings? But of course, since all beings are food. Ta-da! Think about it. When animals and
people die, their bodies become part of the earth. Plants grow out of the earth, and are eaten by animals and
people. Food (or a being whose body is made of food) eats all beings (whose bodies have nourished the soil
so that new food can grow) This is why there is so much reverence for food in Indian thought, and why we
have traditionally been so reluctant to waste it or treat it casually. Food, we believe, is us, and our ancestors,
and Brahman himself.

But hang on a minute – is your body really you? For the body changes every
year, every day, every minute (approximately ninety-six million of your cells die
every minute and ninety-six million new ones are added within the same time),
but the person you think of as ‘you’ remains unchanged. Your memory, your
intelligence, your awareness, tells you that the little baby in that cute photograph
on the fridge is as much you as the toddler with the goofy grin in the family
album, who is as much you as the fourth-grader with missing front teeth, who is
as much you as the tenth-grader who was just voted captain of your house at
school.
Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that someone was in an accident and
shattered a joint, which then had to be replaced with a metal one – would he still
be he? Of course he would, even though his body has changed irrevocably. Do
you see why, therefore, your body cannot be you? There is something else,
clearly, that is the real you.
The Upanishad calls this first sheath, i.e., the ‘body sheath’ the ‘Annamaya
Kosha’, or the food sheath. It is part of you, but since ‘you’ can see it and feel it
and smell it, it cannot be you. The real you is the guy inside, the one seeing and
feeling and smelling the body. The body is the object, not the subject. You – the
experiencer and enjoyer of the body – are the subject. Therefore, you are not the
body sheath.
So ignore the material* sheath, the Annamaya Kosha, for now, and let’s go
deeper.
*As explained earlier in the book, material simply means ‘something that is made of matter’.

***
What keeps the body alive, apart from food? Why, it’s the lifebreath, prana,
without which the body is but inanimate matter! The next kosha, the next sheath,
therefore, is the Pranamaya Kosha, the Sheath of the Lifebreath. The Taittiriya
asks you to think of this sheath as also having the shape of your body, with
different breaths taking on different shapes – Prana is the head, Vyana the right
arm, Apana the left. It rests on the earth, this human-shaped Pranamaya Kosha,
and is filled with space.

Breath, verily, is the life of all beings;

The gods live by it, as do men and beasts;
 It is the true sign of life, the fount of vitality,
The soul of the body, the reason it is alive.
Worship the lifebreath as Brahman,
And you will be blessed, for it is indeed Him.

The lifebreath may be Brahman, but is it you? It is part of you, of course, but
is it the person you refer to as you? Let’s see. You can feel your breath, you can
observe it if you try (during a pranayama session, for instance), and you can
become conscious of it when you want to be, which means, once again, that your
breath is the object – the observed – and not the subject, the observer. You, on
the other hand, are the one looking at your breath – you are the observer, not the
observed.
Plus, your breath is changing all the time – deep and long when you are
calm, ragged when you are sad, shallow when you are stressed, quick and short
when you exercise. But the entity you think of as ‘you’ is the same, unchanging,
constant, whether you are breathing in or out, whether you’re sprinting down the
street, or in deep sleep. You, therefore, are not the lifebreath.
So ignore the vital* sheath, the Pranamaya Kosha, for now, and let’s go
deeper.
*Vital simply means ‘to do with life’ or ‘needed for life’. It comes from the Latin root ‘vita’, which means
life. Since the breath is needed for life, the Pranamaya Kosha is also called the vital sheath.

***
One thing that we have established during this search for the ‘real you’ is that the
real you is aware, conscious, capable of thought. We have discovered that the
body, which you think of as you, is not you, because of two reasons – (1) it
changes, and (2) it is the observed, not the observer; the object, not the subject.
Now we can add a third parameter to the list, which will determine what is really
you and what isn’t. The third parameter is this: can the ‘you’ that you think of as
you, think for itself? Both the body and the lifebreath fail the test of ‘Is this
really me?’ on the third count as well – neither the Annamaya Kosha nor the
Pranamaya Kosha can ‘think’. There is something else that is doing the thinking,
and that is the mind. Let’s take a closer look at this mind sheath, then, the
Manomaya Kosha.
Once again, says the Taittiriya, imagine it as having the shape of a man, with
the Yajur Veda as the head (naturally, since the Taittiriya is part of the Yajur
Veda, it considers this Veda the highest!), the Rig Veda as its right side and the
Sama Veda as its left. The body of this man-shaped mind sheath is made up of
knowledge, and it stands on the foundation of the Atharva Veda.

From Manas, all words return –

Brahman, verily, is Manas,
And he who knows Him as Manas knows no fear.

The mind may be Brahman, but is the mind – the intellectual part of you, the
tool you use to make sense of the world around you – you? The Taittiriya
declares that words return from this layer – i.e., we are able to interact with the
external world in an intelligent, articulate way from this layer, which makes it far
more powerful than the body sheath and the breath sheath. In fact, the mind
sheath permeates both the body and the breath – it is the mind that directs both
of them to do what they do. But to decide conclusively if the mind sheath is you,
let’s put it through our three-part test.
Can ‘you’ observe the workings of your mind? Of course you can. Therefore,
the mind is an object, just like the body and the breath, not the subject. Does the
mind change in its abilities? Of course it does. When you were younger, you did
not understand physics as well as you do now, maybe, or maybe you’ve
forgotten a language you spoke very well as a toddler. Therefore, it is not
unchanging, while ‘you’ are. Can the mind think ‘for itself’? Not really. It is
influenced very much by what ‘you’ read or watch or feel. What have we got
then? Epic fail on all three counts! Therefore, you are not the mind.
 So ignore the mental* sheath, the Manomaya Kosha for now, and let’s go
deeper.
*Oh come on, you know what mental means!

***
The mind directs the body and the breath, but what is the mind directed and
supported by? By Understanding, or Intellect, the part of you that takes in
stimuli and information from the external world, processes it using the mind,
analyzes how it feels about it, and decides, using its discernment, how to react to
it. This is the sheath of perception, emotion, intuition, discretion, of right and
wrong, ethics and morality – the Vijnanamaya Kosha.

It is Intellect that conducts the sacrifice

And performs the rites;
It is Intellect that is venerated by the gods
As Brahman himself;
He who understands Brahman as the Intellect
Leaves all his sins behind
And attains all his wishes.
 Intellect, understanding, perception and discretion are undoubtedly Brahman.
They are the highest, most superior and most sophisticated of all the faculties.
They are what make us human. But is your intellect really ‘you’? Of course it’s
me, most of us would retort. My feelings, my emotions, my opinions, my
particular likes and dislikes, my sense of what is right and wrong, my unfounded
phobias and my strongest beliefs, which together form my intellect, or are born
of it – those are what make me me, right? Perhaps. But let’s put that conviction
to our three-part test right away.
Can you observe your feelings? Can you control your emotions? Of course
you can, which means they are still objects to the subject called ‘you’. Can you
alter your understanding of something as new data comes in? Do you sometimes
change your opinions based on what your group of friends believes? Yes and
yes. That means understanding and perception are not constant or unchanging –
unlike the Self called ‘you’, which is.
How? When you say ‘I’ve changed’, what are you really saying? You are
saying, maybe, that your physical body has changed (maybe you’ve lost weight,
or become more muscular) or that your ability to understand or learn something
has changed (it’s easier to learn, say, a new language, as a child rather than as an
adult), or that your opinions or feelings or tastes have changed (you hated
tomatoes as a child, but not any more; you used to look down upon people from
a country or religion in the past, but no longer). You aren’t really saying that
‘you’ have changed, are you? You are the same person you ever were! Fail again,
on every count! You are most certainly not the Intellect.
But what else is there besides the body, the breath, the mind, and
understanding, intelligence, emotion? What else could there be? Let’s find out,
shall we?
So ignore the intellectual sheath, the Vijnanamaya Kosha, for now, and let’s
go deeper, to find the Subject, the Self, Brahman himself, who illuminates all the
other, outer sheaths.
{Pause here for a moment. Do you want to take a guess at what we may find
when we go past the Sheath of Understanding? There’s a clue in the name of this
section!)

***
Where does true understanding come from? And wise, unbiased judgment? And
integrity? Or, to reverse that, what is it that surfaces when you are at your most
content – when you’ve finished a tough project that you have slaved over for
days, say, or when you are immersed in learning a piece of music that you love
deeply, or when your mindspace is speedily thinking up ideas for raising money
for the kids of the construction workers who are building a new wing in your
school? What is it that you experience, for a few fleeting moments or hours,
when you are living so intently, intensely, in the moment that the world itself
seems to fall away from around you, and you are not conscious of your body or
breath or mind or intellect, when your thoughts are not jumping around like
monkeys, and you feel a vast, all-embracing love for, or a complete detachment
from, everything and everyone around you?
I feel joy, did you say? Delight, contentment, peace, love? If you are feeling
any or all of these things at any point, says the Taittiriya, you have succeeded in
shedding all the four sheaths we’ve talked about so far and entered the realm of
Anandamaya Kosha, the spiritual Sheath of Bliss. When that happens, you see
the world as it truly is, you understand that you are no different from anyone
else, and that no one is any different from you, and you are able to see the way
forward with crystal clarity, undistracted by your own emotions and feelings and
prejudices.
The Sheath of Bliss also has the shape of a man, who has love as his head,
joy as his right side and delight as his left side. His body is permeated with bliss,
ananda – it is the heart of him, his very soul. And he stands, straight and tall and
true, this man, on a foundation of ecstasy that is Brahman himself.

Know ye –
 If a man denies Brahman, he denies himself,
If a man affirms Brahman, he affirms himself;
For he is Brahman, and Brahman is he.

The trouble is that it is extraordinarily difficult to ‘get’ to this state of bliss.

For neither can your mind help you get there, nor your intellect. Even if you
have arrived there by some fluke, the moment you put what you are feeling into
words – ‘Ah! This is blissful!’ – you have analyzed your experience, which
means you have moved away from the Anandamaya Kosha into the
Vijnanamaya Kosha. You can’t even notice it, because that would mean it had
been observed, and that the Manomaya Kosha had kicked in. Actually, it is
beyond foolish even to seek it, because it isn’t the object, outside of yourself. It
is the subject itself – you can’t seek bliss because you are bliss, you are love,
you are joy – that, in fact, is your true nature, for that is the nature of Brahman
himself. That is who you really are. Almost. (Why ‘almost’? Find out on page
323.)
Here’s what’s interesting, though. Each day, every single day, we each of us
get to enjoy a brief and blissful few hours in the Anandamaya Kosha! No,
seriously. Except, the sages say, it happens when we are in deep, dreamless,
untroubled sleep, when we are no longer thinking of ourselves as separate or
different from anyone or anything else, when ego, the sense of I, disappears,
when body and mind and intellect subside into nothingness.
The only way to peel back the outer sheaths and get to the Bliss Sheath in the
conscious state is to stop identifying yourself with your body, your mind, your
desires, your feelings, your thoughts and your emotions.
Ha! Good luck with that!

Anuvaka 8 – The Ladder Of Bliss

How does one describe the great, grand joy that comes of realizing the Self,
especially when so few have been there, done that? The Taittiriya comes up with
a cool ‘device’ – a bliss ladder!

Take a young man, a good young man who is well-read and well-built and
strong. Imagine that the wealth of the whole world is his.
That is a single measure of human bliss.
A hundred measures of human bliss is as one measure of bliss for the
gandharvas,
A hundred measures of gandharva bliss is as one measure of bliss for the
pitris,
A hundred measures of pitr bliss is as one measure of bliss for the devas,
A hundred measures of deva bliss is as one measure of bliss for Indra,
A hundred measures of Indra bliss is as one measure of bliss for Brihaspati,
A hundred measures of Brihaspati bliss is as one measure of bliss for
Prajapati,
A hundred measures of Prajapati bliss is as one measure of bliss for
Brahman –
Which is also the measure of bliss enjoyed by one who has realized the Self
and is free of desire.*
*So how many times a measure of human bliss is a measure of Brahman-bliss? You do the math.

Wowzer! Sure, we are all a gazillion light-years away from attaining

Brahma-bliss, but hey, a luscious carrot like this at least inspires one to try. No?
What would you rather have then, the stick? ‘If you do not work towards
realizing the Self, the slavering Hounds of Hell will come after you, and when
they find you – and they will – they will rip you limb from limb!’? No, thanks!

BHRIGUVALLI – THE CREEPER OF BHRIGU

The Bhriguvalli tells the story of how the great sage Bhrigu, son of Varuna,
discovered, through severe penances, the true nature of the self and the true
nature of Brahman and the true nature of bliss. It contains ideas similar to those
in the Brahmanandavalli, but also tells us, over and over, how important single-
minded determination is to any great quest.

Anuvaka 1-6: How Bhrigu came to discover Brahman

Bhrigu went to his father, Varuna, and said to him, ‘Sir, teach me about
Brahman.’
But Varuna, who was clearly not the kind of teacher who believed in spoon-
feeding his students and certainly not the kind of parent who mollycoddled his
children, sent him away with a flea in his ear.
‘Food, lifebreath, sight, hearing, mind, speech – first spend some time
meditating on these things, learning about them,’ he said. ‘Think about where
they come from, what they are sustained by, where they go when a man dies.
That is Brahman. Come back to me when you have some answers.’
And Bhrigu, never one to cross his father, went away and did his penances,
and discovered that food was indeed Brahman. From food all creatures are born,
on food are they sustained, and into food they pass when they die.
But he wasn’t fully satisfied. So he went back to his father and said: ‘Sir,
teach me about Brahman.’
‘Go and do your penances again,’ said Varuna, ‘and you will discover Him
for yourself.’
So Bhrigu went away and did more penances, and discovered that Brahman
was the lifebreath. From the lifebreath indeed were all creatures born, by
lifebreath they were sustained, and to the lifebreath they returned upon death.
But he wasn’t entirely satisfied. So he went back to his father and said: ‘Sir,
teach me about Brahman.’
‘Go and do your penances again,’ said Varuna, ‘and you will discover Him
for yourself.’
 And so it went on, over and over, until Bhrigu, through intense meditation
and reflection, discovered that Brahman was not only food and lifebreath, but
also mind, perception and bliss.
This is how Bhrigu realized the Self, and thus realized Brahman. Those who,
like him, discover the Self for themselves,* will never lack for food. They will
have offspring, fame, wealth, and the radiance that comes from sacred
knowledge. So concludes the Taittiriya.

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

*Here, once again, is the Upanishadic insistence on self-study and self-discovery. You may have the
greatest teacher in the world on your side – and make no mistake about it, you will need a good teacher to
guide you in any pursuit you choose – but unless you put in the blood, sweat, toil and tears required, you
will never get anywhere. The teacher is only a guide, the journey is entirely yours to make.

THE AFTERSTORY
Remember we talked about the five sheaths that conceal our true nature? There’s
a fun addendum to that story – according to the Taittiriya, even the Anandamaya
Kosha is not our ultimate destination. After all, a sheath, by its very definition,
covers or conceals something, which in this case is the truth. So what lies
behind, beyond the final sheath?

The Anandamaya, in a manner of speaking, is the tiniest Matryoshka. And

what do you find when you prise her two halves apart? Precisely! Nothing. Or, if
you look at it another way, Everything, for the game is now over, and the secret
has been revealed – there is no need to seek any more.
It’s exactly the same with the Anandamaya Kosha. When it has been peeled
back, say the sages of the Upanishads, what you are left with is Atman, or Pure
Consciousness, your true Self, which does not judge, which is untainted by
thoughts and actions, past and present, right and wrong, fear and pain, joy and
peace. And that pure consciousness is both nothing and everything, which is
why it is referred to both as Shoonya (nothingness) and Poorna (completeness).
Pretty cool, hanh?
 १६
AITAREYA
The Upanishad of the Glory of Being Human
In which we get to enjoy yet another story of how the
universe was created

Aum!
I pray
That my words make their home in my mind,
That my mind makes its home in my words,
That the knowledge of my true self reveals itself to me,
That my mind and my speech work in harmony to help me understand,
That I do not just hear the lesson, but understand it,
That what I learn and practise night and day is never lost to me.
May this Divine Truth that I speak today
Protect my teacher
And protect me.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
ver stood at the edge of a cliff after an exhausting climb uphill and, gazing

E at the panorama of sky and land sprawling before you, thought to

yourself, ‘How insignificant we humans are in this vastness, and yet, what
airs we give ourselves!’? Ever sat on the seashore and, fixing your eyes on the
faraway horizon where a shining sun is rising out of the water, painting the
world a million shades of gold, whispered, ‘I am as a grain of sand on this beach,
completely inconsequential to the business of the universe!’ Ever lay down
beneath the upturned bowl of a night sky studded with stars, and exclaimed,
overwhelmed and diminished by the size of the cosmos, ‘Who am I, after all?
Just a small creature living “on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in
a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of the universe in which there are
far more galaxies than people”.* Sighhh.’?
Of course you have! And whoever was around you in each of those
situations – friends, family, the random stranger you just befriended – probably
nodded and sighhhhed along with you, shaking their heads at the incontestable
truth of your words.
Well, you can thank your lucky stars none of the sages of the Upanishads
were around you at that point. Had they been, they would have smacked you
smartly on the head, shaken you hard, and ordered you to Stop.That.Sighhhh-
ing.Right.Now!
For the Upanishads take entirely the opposite view of man’s place in the
cosmos. In a hundred ways, in scores of different Upanishads, they proclaim the
joyful truth that you are not insignificant, or irrelevant, or inconsequential to the
cosmos. How can you be, they ask, when you contain the cosmos? How can you
be, when you are the cosmos? You are Vaishvanara, the Universal Being, insist
the Upanishads – embrace your bigness! You are Brahman, the Supreme
Consciousness – acknowledge your greatness! When you look up at the night
sky, don’t think of the stars as bigger or brighter, or different from you –
breeeeathe them in, make them yours!
Did you think it was by diminishing yourself, or thinking of yourself as
infinitesimal against the enormity of the universe – by being ‘humble’, in other
words – that you became a better person? Perish the thought! For it is only when
your sense of ‘I’ becomes big enough to include the whole universe, say the
Upanishads, that you will truly respect every other creature and thing in it; only
when you are able to see yourself in everything around you, will you realize that
there isn’t, there can never be, anything vaster than you.
While other Upanishads bring home this truth in ways mystical and
metaphorical, as part of a bunch of other things they are talking about, the
Aitareya Upanishad makes the joyous celebration of being human its central
theme, through yet another lovely story of creation. Packed to the gills with
fantastic imagery and non-stop action, this story describes how the gods that
animate, populate and hold up the cosmos came to be the exact same ones that
animate, populate and hold up the human body – in other words, you.
The Aitareya is part of the oldest Veda, the Rig, and is therefore probably
also part of the oldest group of Upanishads. The name Aitareya literally means
‘descendant of Itara’ – the sage Mahidasa, who is sometimes credited with
composing this Upanishad, is also referred to as Aitareya, ‘descended from sage
Itara’.
Enough with the backstory! Now let’s go find out how the universe was
created!
*This is part of a quote by the brilliant and wise American scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan, his answer
to the question ‘Who are we?’ But Sagan was far from dismissive about the significance of human life.
Elsewhere, he has also said, ‘Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees
with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.’

THE STORY
In the beginning, there was only the one, the Self, Atman. Nothing else,
whatsoever, was. Nothing so much as blinked. And He thought to Himself, ‘Let
me create the worlds.’
So He brought the worlds out of Himself – high-up Ambhas, realm of rain
and floodwaters, supported by the sky; Marichi, realm of the glittering specks,
stretching across the intermediate regions, brought to life each day by the rays of
the sun; Mara, the earth, kingdom of the mortal; and beneath it, Apa, world of
the waters.
Then he thought to himself, ‘Here are the worlds. Now I must create
guardians for each.’ And from the waters, he drew out Purusha, the Person, gave
him a shape and brooded him, like a hen broods her eggs to hatch them.
And from that man who had been brooded –
- A mouth opened. And from the mouth sprang speech, and from speech, fire.
- A pair of nostrils bloomed. And from the nostrils gushed breath, and from
breath, air.
- Two eyes fluttered open. And from the eyes leapt sight, and from the light of
sight, the sun.
- A pair of ears uncurled. And from the ears came hearing, and from hearing
came the four directions of space, for sound to travel through.
- A swathe of skin unfurled. And out of the skin grew hair, and from hair, trees
and plants.
- A heart blossomed. And from the heart came the mind, and from the mind,
the moon.
- A navel popped. And from the navel proceeded the downward breath, Apana,
and from that breath, death.
- A male part emerged. And from the male part came life-giving waters.

***
Once these gods – fire, air, sun, moon, space, water – were created, they all fell
into the ocean here, the vast ocean of samsara. And the Self thought to himself,
‘I must infect them with hunger and thirst, for hunger and thirst are desire.
Without desire, nothing will be created, no work will be done.’ And so he did.
Then those gods said to the Self, ‘Find us a body in which to live, so that we
may eat and drink and work and play and satisfy our hunger and thirst. So the
Self brought the body of a cow to them, but they shook their heads. ‘That will
not do at all.’ Then the Self brought them the body of a horse, but they shook
their heads. ‘That will not do at all.’ Then the Self brought them the body of a
man and they exclaimed with joy, ‘Now that is what we call well made!’ For a
man is indeed well made.
‘Go on, now,’ said the Self, ‘enter and establish yourselves in your respective
dwellings.’ So –
- Fire became speech and entered the mouth.
- And air became breath and entered the nostrils.
- And the sun became sight and entered the eyes.
- And space became hearing and entered the ears.
- And the plants and trees became body hairs and entered the skin.
- And the moon became the mind and entered the heart.
- And death became the out-breath and entered the navel.
- And water became life-giving water and entered the male part.
Then hunger and thirst, who had been left behind, began to clamour, ‘Find us
also a dwelling!’ And the Self said, ‘Oh, all right! You can live in the same
dwelling as the deities and share in whatever they are offered.’ And that is why,
to whichever deity man makes an offering – whether the deity is wealth or power
or the spiritual life – hunger and thirst gobble it up, and always want more.

***
Then the Self thought to himself, ‘Now here are the worlds, and here are the
guardians of those worlds. Now I’d better create some food for them.’ So he
brooded the waters like a hen broods her eggs, until something firm and solid
emerged from it. And that something was food.
But no sooner was it created than it tried to run away, fearful of being eaten.
And man, the first being with a body, tried to seize it, except he did not know
how.
First he tried to seize it with speech. But that didn’t work. If it had, we would
have been able to satisfy our hunger simply by talking about food. Oh well.
Then he tried to seize it with his breath. But that didn’t work. If it had, we
would have been able to satisfy our hunger simply by smelling food. Oh well.
Then he tried to seize it with sight. But that didn’t work. If it had, we would
have been able to satisfy our hunger simply by looking at food. Oh well.
Then he tried to seize it with hearing. But that didn’t work. If it had, we
would have been able to satisfy our hunger simply by hearing about food. Oh
well.

Then he tried to seize it with the skin. But that didn’t work. If it had, we
would have been able to satisfy our hunger simply by touching food. Oh well.
Then he tried to seize it with his mind. But that didn’t work. If it had, we
would have been able to satisfy our hunger simply by thinking about food. Oh
well.
Then he tried to seize it with Apana, the downward breath of digestion. And
he succeeded! For it is truly the digestive breath that seizes food for the body,
and it is the digestive breath that is nourished by food.

***
Then the Self thought to himself, ‘How will all this carry on without me? The
city of the body needs a lord to enjoy the doings of the body. I must stick
around!’ And he thought to himself, ‘How shall I enter this man? Which shall be
my dwelling?’ And he thought to himself, ‘If speaking is done through speech
and breathing through breath, if seeing is done through sight and hearing through
hearing, if feeling is done through skin and thinking is done using the mind, then
who am I? What is my function?’
The Self split the man’s head along its birth fissure, closed since babyhood,
and entered, finding three abodes for himself, which are the three states of
consciousness – the waking state, the dreaming state, and the deep-sleep state.
When he came to life inside the body, the Self looked around to see if there
was anyone else there. But he only saw the One, Brahman, and no one else, and
cried, ‘Idam aadarsham iti – I have seen this!’
Therefore He is called Idandra, he who sees. But the gods call him Indra, he
who lies beyond the senses. Because the gods like being cryptic like that.

***
Don’t you love those little snarky asides the sages throw in, like the very last line
above? The only thing missing at the end of it is an eye-roll emoji. The line is
completely unnecessary to the story, but the storyteller was probably annoyed
with the inscrutable ways of the gods that day, so he decided to get his own back.
These little side jokes are also a great way for the sage to connect with his
audience – suddenly, he loses that intimidating halo and becomes one of them.
Also, did you notice that the storyteller does not reveal what the Self decided
its function would be? He tells us how the Self entered the body and where it
chose to live and what it saw when it first became conscious inside the body, but
he doesn’t reveal the most important part – the Self’s function. He saves that for
the end of the Upanishad. But before that, he inserts a little instructional note on
the ‘three births’ of the Self. Read on to find out what they are.
 ***
Life begins in a man’s body, strong, swift, gathered from the vitality of his limbs.
It is the Self, indeed, that bears the Self. This is the Self’s first birth.
When man releases life into woman, a new life begins. This is the Self’s
second birth.
The mother nourishes the child in her womb, as the life of her life, breath of
her breath; that’s why she should herself be nourished. This is the father’s
responsibility, and he fulfils it, remembering that it is his own Self he is
nourishing. Thus is the world kept going. In time, the child emerges from the
mother’s body. This is the Self’s third birth.
The child grows, taking the place of his father, adding to the good deeds of
the father, continuing his work in the world. And this goes on, over and over,
across generations – first the father becomes the son, then the son becomes the
father. Thus is the world kept going.

***
And now for the big reveal – what function did the Self choose for itself in the
human body?
‘Who is this Self, anyway? Who is the one we venerate here?
Is it the one which helps us see? Is it the one which helps us hear? Is it the
one which helps us smell, taste? Is it that which makes speech possible? Is it the
heart and the mind? Is it thought and desire? Is it Awareness? Perception?
Insight? Intuition? Understanding? Cognition? Purpose? Memory? Intention?
Impulse? Control? But these are all just different names of Intelligence, they are
all only servants of the Self.
This Self is Brahman, it is the primordial father Prajapati, it is all the gods.
It is the five immense beings – earth, wind, space, the waters, light. It is all
creatures great and small – born of eggs, born of wombs, born of sweat,* born
from sprouts; it is horses, elephants, cows and men; it is all beings that walk,
and all beings that fly, and all beings that neither walk nor fly.’**
*Born of sweat? Yup. Sometimes these sweat-born creatures were also described as being born of heat, or
moisture, but since a combination of heat and moisture is sweat, that word covers all the bases. What are
these creatures born of sweat and heat and moisture, though? All kinds of creepy-crawlies – mosquitoes,
lice, ticks, mites and bugs that come out of nowhere (or so it seemed to the ancients)! Now we know that
mosquitoes are born from eggs, but those eggs are laid, and hatch, in standing water, especially in the hot
summer months. In that sense, the ancients were not too far off the mark.
**In other words, plants and trees. Rocks and metals don’t fit into this category, because they are not living,
breathing creatures. Even non-living things are believed to carry the essence of Brahman, but in them, it is
dormant, pure potential energy, which cannot become kinetic energy without external help.

The Self is Prajna, Knowledge. Prajna guides all, sees all, is the foundation of
all else. Prajna is the eye of the world; on Prajna is the world supported.
Prajnanam (say praj-naa-nam) Brahma. Knowledge is God.
Those who realize this truth live in joy, and go beyond death.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE AFTERSTORY
Afterstory 1: The Small Matter of the Mechanics of Rebirth

So you know now, after reading the Aitareya Upanishad, that the Self is believed
to have three births – the first happens when a soul finds its way into a man’s
body, the second when a baby is created, and the third when the baby is born.
Ever wondered how the first birth of the Self happens? What are the actual
mechanics involved in rebirth? How does a soul enter a man’s body? Are
millions of souls floating around us as disembodied spirits, waiting for a man to
lower his guard so that one of them can sneak into his body, fighting off all other
souls who have the exact same idea?
There could be a million theories, but one of the most popular in Hinduism is
a fascinating one, involving the water cycle, photosynthesis, digestion of food in
the body, the assimilation of food, and a lot more. Here’s how it goes.
 When the body dies, the soul leaves for the heavenly realms, where it has a
great time until the credit in its good Karma account drops to zero and it is
forced to fall back into the sea of samsara. It does this ‘falling back’ in a literal
way, seeding itself into a cloud and dropping to the earth as rain. The rain seeps
into the soil, and rises as sap in plants, taking the soul along with it. Nourished
by water and sunshine, the plant, the only being that can manufacture its own
food, grows and matures, creating leaves and fruit and seed for other less
capable creatures (less capable in terms of being able to manufacture their own
food, that is), to enjoy and grow strong on.

When a man eats a plant (or eats the meat of a herbivore that has feasted on
plants, or eats the meat of a carnivore that has feasted on herbivores), the sap
enters his body, where it is digested and assimilated. Part of the assimilated food
– including, most importantly, the soul part – becomes all-powerful, life-giving
water, ‘drawn from the vitality of his limbs’. When the seed in a woman is
nourished, a new life begins. Nine months later, a baby is born.
Hurray! The soul has successfully made its way back into a freshly minted
human body!

Afterstory 2: Spot the Mahavakya – Part 2!

Yup, there’s a Mahavakya in the Aitareya as well! And yes, it is indeed

Prajnanam Brahma – Knowledge is Brahman. This is the Mahavakya of the Rig.
And what kind of knowledge are they talking about here? Not the
information you get out of books, not the skills required to make or destroy
things, but ‘true’ knowledge, the kind that is a combination of intelligence,
instinct, intuition, wisdom and the empathy that allows you to sense someone’s
feelings even before they have been expressed, apart from the deep-in-your-gut
understanding that you, like everyone else, carry the essence of the Supreme
Energy that makes the universe possible.
PS: Maybe that’s why, when you understand someone else’s emotions or
intentions without any words being spoken, it is called ‘divining’ – for e.g., ‘She
divined from his body language that the news was not good’. See?
 १७
CHANDOGYA
The Upanishad of the Sacred Metre
In which, through Shvetaketu, we discover who we really
are

Aum!
I seek blessings
That my limbs, speech, breath, eyes, ears, strength
And all my senses, be nourished;
I pray
That I may never deny Brahman or be disloyal,
That Brahman may never forsake or reject me;
I, the seeker, ask
That all the wisdoms of the Upanishads
Shine in me,
That they all shine in me.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
emember when we talked about the different rhythmic structures, or

R metres, of the Vedic shlokas, in Chapter 4? Remember what ‘metre’ is

called in Sanskrit?
 That’s right – chanda!
And since the ninth Mukhya Upanishad is (1) part of the musical Sama Veda;
(2) written in lilting rhythmic verse that has a musical quality to it even when it
is simply recited; and (3) talks so extensively about speech, words, chants,
language and sound, the ancient seers felt it was appropriate to name it the
Chandogya Upanishad – the Upanishad of the Sacred Metre.
The Chandogya is considered one of the oldest Upanishads, and it is
certainly one of the longest – only the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which
occupies the tenth position in Adi Shankara’s list of the ten Principal
Upanishads, beats it in length. With eight lectures (or ‘prapaathakas’), each
comprising several volumes of verses, the Chandogya can seem highly
intimidating, especially because there is no single theme to bind it all. Most
scholars agree that the eight chapters are a motley collection of works by
different authors, which have been compiled into one Upanishad by some wise
person who felt that they belonged together. Despite that, however, it is
considered a most important Upanishad – Shankara himself, in his commentaries
on all ten main Upanishads, referred to this one more times (810!) than he did
any other Upanishad!
What are the main themes of the Chandogya? One big theme is the
significance of that most sacred of sounds, the High Chant, the Udgitha –
otherwise known as Aum. Another is the perennial question of where the
universe comes from, what it is made of and what its driving principle is (Ans:
Brahman, Brahman, and Brahman.) And the third, of course, is the core question
of the Upanishads – Who am I, really? (Ans: Why, you’re Brahman, of course!)
In the Chandogya, these themes are explored both through mystical
metaphors (complex and hard to figure out) and through stories (far easier to
understand). The metaphors are best left for another, more advanced reading of
the Upanishad, and there isn’t enough room in this book to explore all the
stories, but two especially lovely stories must be told. One is the story of
Satyakama, the other of Shvetaketu – both of them young, both eager as heck to
find the answers to the mysteries of the mind and the universe, and willing to
work hard for it, but otherwise worlds apart from each other.
Ready to hear their stories? Let’s go!

THE STORY
PRAPAATHAKA 4

Mother is the necessity of invention: The Story of Satyakama

Satyakama lived with his mother Jabala (say ja-baa-laa) in a village at the edge
of a forest. Like everyone else in the village, he had heard of the great sage
Gautama, who taught students in his gurukul somewhere deep inside the forest.
All of Satyakama’s friends were happy enough living their small, circumscribed
lives – tending to the cows, swimming in the village pool, playing with the other
boys and generally raising hell when they felt like it – but Satyakama, who was
about twelve, had always been curious and deeply introspective by nature, and
dreamed of bigger things.
One night, he was lying down with his head in his mother’s lap, when the
desire to do something more with his life came upon him like a flood. ‘Mother,’
he said, sitting up, ‘I would dearly like to study the Vedas at Rishi Gautama’s
gurukul. But I hear one of the first questions gurus ask, before they accept you as
a student, is who your father is. So tell me, mother – who is my father?’
 Jabala baulked. This was one question she had hoped she would never be
forced to answer. She looked into her little boy’s eager face and wished he didn’t
have these big, impossible dreams – everyone knew teachers of the Vedas only
accepted brahmin, kshatriya and vaishya students, and she couldn’t be sure at all
that Satyakama’s father had belonged to one of those varnas.
For a brief instant, Jabala considered lying to her son, creating a rosy
backstory about a fond brahmin father – life would be so much easier for him if
he, and everyone else, believed that. But she rejected the idea almost
immediately. He was such a good, honest child – how could she, who had spent
all these years raising him to be just such a one, now ask him to base his future
on a lie? No, she would simply place before him the bald, unadorned truth and
hope that he – and she! – could deal with the rejection that the world was sure to
heap upon him.
‘I don’t know who your father is, Satyakama,’ she said. And cupping the
suddenly worried face in her hands, continued, ‘But no one can deny that I am
your mother, and that my name is Jabala. So when the teacher asks, tell him what
I told you and tell him also that your name, therefore, is Satyakama Jaabaala.’
The next morning, a cheerful Satyakama set off for Rishi Gautama’s gurukul.
Jabala watched him go, her heart in her mouth, praying that the guru would find
it in his heart to let her boy down gently. When he got to the ashram, Satyakama
bowed before Gautama and said, in a high, clear voice, ‘Sir, I want, more than
anything, to live with you and be taught the scriptures. Please do me the honour
of accepting me as your student.’
Gautama beamed. Such eagerness in one so young, such clarity about goals,
was rare – it was usually the parent who was chafing at the bit, wanting his ward
to be accepted at the gurukul. ‘What is your lineage, saumya?’ he asked. ‘Who is
your father, and your grandfather before him?’
‘Now that I’m afraid I do not know, sir,’ said Satyakama, whose name means
‘one who hankers after nothing but the truth’. ‘When I asked my mother, this is
what she said: “I do not know who your father is. But no one can deny that I am
your mother, and that my name is Jabala.” And so, sir, my name is Satyakama
Jaabaala.’
Gautama was overwhelmed. ‘None but a brahmin would speak the truth so
fearlessly!’ he declared joyously. ‘Fetch the firewood quickly, my boy, and let us
begin.’

fter Satyakama had been initiated, Gautama picked out 400 of the

A feeblest and skinniest of his cows and handed them to his newest
acolyte. ‘You are now responsible for their care,’ he said. ‘Look after
them well.’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Satyakama, thinking to himself, ‘I will not return, sir,
until I have swelled this herd to a thousand healthy cows.’ And he drove the
cows into that part of the forest where the grass was sweetest and most plentiful,
and threw himself into their care.
Years rolled by. Satyakama was blissfully happy in the lap of nature. He
spent his days looking after the cows, and his evenings in quiet contemplation.
One afternoon, when he was dozing under a tree, Satyakama was awakened by a
voice calling his name. It was the bull.
‘Satyakama,’ said the bull, who was really the god of the air, Vayu, ‘you have
succeeded in your endeavour, saumya. We are now a thousand. Take us back to
the teacher’s house.’
‘I will, Bhagavan,’ said Satyakama.
But the bull wasn’t done speaking. ‘You have taken such good care of us,
and that kind of love and dedication needs to be rewarded. Let me tell you what I
know about Brahman, although that is only a quarter of what Brahman really is,
just one of his four feet.’
‘Thank you, Bhagavan,’ said a grateful Satyakama.
‘Listen, then,’ said the bull. ‘There are four directions – east, west, north and
south – and these form one foot of Brahman, called Prakashavan (say prakasha-
vaan), the Shining. Understand that Brahman rules every direction, and you will
become the ruler of far-flung worlds, and shine in this one.’

Satyakama bowed.
‘When the time comes,’ said the bull as it moved back into the herd, ‘the fire
will tell you about another quarter, another foot, of Brahman.’
The next morning, Satyakama began to drive the herd back to Gautama. That
night, he penned the cows, lit a fire and sat next to it, warming himself, when he
heard a voice call his name. It was the fire, which had suddenly blazed up.
 ‘Satyakama,’ said the fire, who was really the god Agni, ‘Let me tell you,
saumya, about another quarter of Brahman.’

‘I am all ears, Bhagavan.’

‘Listen then,’ said the fire. ‘The earth, the sky, the space between the two,
and the ocean form the second foot of Brahman, called Anantavan (say ananta-
vaan) the Endless. Understand that Brahman is all of these, and meditate upon
them as Brahman, and you will win worlds unlimited, and become boundless in
this one.’
Satyakama bowed.
‘When the time comes,’ said the fire, as it withdrew into itself, ‘the swan will
tell you about another quarter, another foot, of Brahman.’
The whole of the next day, Satyakama drove the herd further towards
Gautama. That night, he penned the cows, lit a fire and sat next to it, warming
himself, when he heard a voice call his name from somewhere above him. He
tilted his head to look, and a swan flew down to him.
‘Satyakama,’ said the swan, who was really the sun god Aditya, ‘Let me tell
you, saumya, about another quarter of Brahman, about his third foot.’
 ‘I cannot wait, Bhagavan.’
‘Listen then,’ said the swan. ‘The sun, the moon, the fire and the lightning
form the four quarters of the third foot of Brahman, called Jyotishman (say
jyotish-maan), the Luminous. Revere these four as Brahman, and you will win
luminous worlds, and be radiant in this one.’
Satyakama bowed.
‘When the time comes,’ said the swan, as it rose into the air, ‘a diver bird
will tell you about the last quarter, the fourth paada, of Brahman.’
The whole of the next day, Satyakama drove the herd further towards
Gautama’s ashram. That night, he penned the cows, lit a fire and sat next to it,
warming himself, when he heard a voice call his name from somewhere above
him. He tilted his head to look, and a diver bird flew down to him.
‘Satyakama,’ said the diver bird, who was really the lifebreath, Prana, ‘Let
me tell you, saumya, about the last quarter of Brahman.’
‘I am overwhelmed with gratitude, Bhagavan.’
‘Listen then,’ said the diver bird, ‘The breath, the eye, the ear and the mind
are the four quarters of the fourth foot of Brahman, called Ayatanavan (say aa-
yata-na-vaan), the Enduring. Know that all these are none but him, and meditate
upon them with reverence and devotion, and you will win worlds enduring, and
endure eternally in this one.’
Satyakama bowed.
The next morning, he drove the herd the final short distance to his guru’s
home.
‘Satyakama,’ said Gautama.
 ‘Bhagavan,’ bowed Satyakama.
‘Saumya,’ exclaimed the teacher, ‘you verily shine with the knowledge of
Brahman! Who taught you?’
‘No human, sir,’ smiled Satyakama. ‘It was the bull, the fire, the swan and
the diver bird. But I will not be content until I hear it from you. Please,
Bhagavan, do me the honour of teaching me about Brahman, for I have heard
that knowledge learnt from a guru best helps the student gain worlds that are far-
flung, unlimited, luminous and everlasting.’
Then Gautama taught Satyakama everything he knew, leaving nothing out,
yea, leaving nothing out.

***
As you can see, there are two distinct parts to this story. The first part is about
Rishi Gautama accepting Satyakama as his disciple, and the second is about
Satyakama learning about Brahman from the birds and the beasts. While both
parts have lessons for us, the first part carries a far more important truth.
From all we have read about the gurukuls of the Vedic age, we know that
there were very strict rules of eligibility for students – they had to be male (in
most cases), and they had to belong to the brahmin, kshatriya or vaishya varna.
Why the story of Satyakama is so important is that it reveals, in very clear,
simple prose, that while those rules existed, they were not altogether inflexible –
when an evolved guru who truly understood the spirit of the scriptures came
across a prospective student who displayed honesty, courage, dedication and a
passion for learning, he could, and often did, choose to disregard the rules.*
*And that’s a great lesson to take away from the Upanishads. Rules are meant to be followed, of course, but
since rules are made by humans, to suit a particular time, place and culture, it is our responsibility as
thinking individuals to re-examine them from time to time, and to challenge, tweak or change them when
they seem unfair, unsuitable or no longer relevant.

Satyakama, we are told, was the son of the maid Jabala, who was in a
profession that involved manual labour. In other words, she was a shudra by
occupation. But a boy’s lineage was traced through his father’s varna, not his
mother’s, so if Satyakama’s father had belonged to one of the other three varnas,
he still stood a chance of being accepted. Not knowing what caste your father
belonged to, or even who he was, was a far worse social sin than knowing that
he was a shudra.
And yet, and yet, Gautama accepted Satyakama as a student. In the story, he
justifies his action by declaring that ‘no one but a brahmin’ would have spoken
an inconvenient truth so fearlessly. In saying this, Gautama, and through him, the
authors of the Chandogya, are echoing what Krishna declared so unequivocally
to Arjuna in a famous shloka in the Bhagavad Gita – it is neither birth nor
occupation, Arjuna, that determines a man’s varna, but his nature. (More
correctly, it is Krishna who echoes Gautama in the Gita – the Gita is the
condensed version of all Upanishadic wisdom and was composed well after the
early Upanishads).
Krishna goes on to explain this further. Those who are calm and
compassionate, possess great self-control and self-discipline, make no distinction
between people, and are role models to everyone around them in knowing the
right thing to do in every situation – such men and women (and boys and girls),
reveals Krishna, never mind the family they are born into, are brahmin by nature.
Knights in shining armour who plunge into the battlefield at every given
opportunity, defending what is right, fearlessly leading heroic campaigns against
all manner of unfairness and injustice, never turning their backs on the good
fight – whether it is against a bully in the playground, a law that doesn’t honour
the country’s Constitution, or animal cruelty – such people are kshatriya by
nature. Those who are willing to brave the heat and dust of the marketplace to
create and sell the products and services that society needs to function, thus
keeping the wheels of trade and economy turning – such people are vaishya by
nature. And those happy cogs in the wheel who want to be neither thinkers nor
activists nor entrepreneurs, but are content executing work and giving their best
to the job at hand with no desire for personal glory – such people are shudra by
nature.*
*By Krishna’s classification, which ‘nature-category’ do you think you most identify with? Of course it is
entirely possible that you have bits of all four in you, but some self-reflection will reveal which one is most
dominant in your nature. This is important to know, for acting according to one’s nature (i.e., staying true to
yourself) is, according to the Gita, one of the vital keys to happiness.

In Part 2 of the Satyakama story, we are told that Satyakama was taught about
Brahman not by humans but by the birds and the beasts and the elements. What
can we take away from this? That we discover more about ourselves and the
universe when we spend quiet time by and with ourselves, preferably around
trees and animals? Perhaps.
And while lessons from trees and animals may be difficult to arrange at short
notice, be sure to put aside some time each day for quiet contemplation. Maybe
you can reflect about your day, all the things you have to be grateful for, all the
things you did today that you would have done differently if you could have
another chance, and all the things you will do better tomorrow. At the end of a
week or two, evaluate what that quiet time by yourself has done for you – has it
helped you discover more about yourself? Do you feel calmer, more grateful,
more in control of each day?
Yes? Great! Stick at it, and one day, while you’re walking along the street, as
happy as a clam, you might hear a koel calling your name!
And what of Satyakama’s belief that his knowledge of Brahman would not
be complete unless he had been taught it by a ‘proper’ teacher? Think of it this
way. Sure you can learn to play the guitar using all the lovely video turtorials
that people put up on YouTube, but once you have learnt the basic chords, would
your skills be enhanced far more quickly if you had a few one-on-one sessions
with a good teacher? What do you think?
 PRAPAATHAKA 6

Tat Tvam Asi – The Story of Shvetaketu

hen Shvetaketu, the beloved son of the sage Uddalaka Aruni, was of

W age, his father said to him, ‘There has never been a one in our family,
saumya, who was a brahmin only by birth. They were all of them well
versed in the scriptures, and so should you be.’
So Shvetaketu went away to a gurukul to be educated, and when he came
back to his father’s house twelve years later, he had grown into a handsome (and
somewhat conceited) young man, with self-assured (and somewhat arrogant)
eyes, and more than a hint of a swagger, for he thought himself a master of the
Vedas.
Deciding that his son needed taking down a peg or two, Uddalaka said to
him: ‘Welcome home, son! Congratulations on completing your education! You
are now familiar with that wisdom, I hope, by which you can hear the unheard,
think the unthought and know the unknown?’
‘Eh?’ Shvetaketu was taken aback. His shoulders slumped a little and his
arrogance retreated. ‘I thought I had learnt a lot and discovered a lot these past
dozen years, sir, but I’m afraid I am not familiar with the wisdom to which you
refer. Perhaps it is best that you teach it to me.’ And he sat at his father’s feet, his
face upturned and eager, and it was as if twelve years had rolled away in an
instant.
‘I will tell you, my son,’ said Uddalaka. ‘It is like this. If you know well the
essence of something, you will “know” everything that carries that essence, even
if it takes on a hundred different forms that bear a thousand different names.’
Shvetaketu was puzzled.
‘It is like this, saumya. By knowing a lump of clay – its texture, its feel, how
it moves on a wheel or in your hand – you understand intimately everything that
is fashioned out of it, even if you have never seen those different forms or
known their names, for their true reality is not their forms, or their names, but
their essence, which is clay.’
Shvetaketu’s face cleared a little. He nodded.
‘It is like this, saumya. By knowing just one trinket made of copper, one
knows and understands everything else made of copper, for everything else is
just a name, just a form, whose true reality is copper.
‘It is like this, saumya. By observing closely just one pair of nail-clippers
made of iron, one understands everything else made of iron, for while we may
give iron different names and forms, we know the underlying reality of all those
forms and names is just this: iron.
‘It is like this, saumya. By understanding the one true reality of the universe,
you understand every other thing in the universe, never mind that it is present in
a million different forms with a billion different names.’
Shvetaketu sat up straighter. ‘That makes a lot of sense, Father. But all those
wise men who taught me all these years never taught me about this one supreme
reality, the one universal essence, by understanding which everything in the
universe may be understood. Please do teach it to me, sir!’
‘Very well, saumya. Listen carefully now.
‘In the beginning, there was only Being, and only that, without a second.
Now, some people will tell you that in the beginning, there was only Non-Being,
and only that, without a second. But that theory has always seemed flawed to
me, for how can all this Being that we see around us emerge from Non-Being?
How can anything emerge from Non-Being? I prefer to think of Being – not
Non-Being – as the first.’
‘I agree,’ said Shvetaketu.
‘Now this Being said to itself, “Come now, let me become many.” And it
began to emit heat, which is essential for life. And the heat, not to be outdone,
thought to itself – “Now let me become many. Let me propagate myself.” And
the heat produced water, which is essential for life. (And that’s why, when a man
feels hot, he sweats, and when he feels stressed, he weeps, for heat emits water.)
 ‘Now the water, not a one to sit around quietly twiddling its thumbs, thought
to itself – “Let me become many.” And out of water came food. (And that’s why,
when it rains, there is no shortage of food.)
‘Now look around you, Shvetaketu, at all the creatures in the universe. All of
them are only born in three ways – from sprouts, from eggs and from creatures.
And the Divine Being thought to itself, “Let me infuse life into these three –
sprouts, eggs and creatures.”
‘That life-essence, Shvetaketu, combined with heat, water and food in a
million different ways to produce a million different manifestations of the
original Being. There is nothing in the universe that isn’t a mix of these!
‘Realizing this, the ancient sages were well pleased, and said to themselves,
“Now nothing in the world, however new and different it looks, can surprise us,
for we know that it is made only of these three – heat, water, food – and we
know that its life-essence is the essence of the one original Being. Truly, there is
nothing else.”’
Shvetaketu was struck with wonder. ‘Really? Then tell me, father, how do
these three divinities – heat, water and food – manifest in my body and in yours?
Which part of my body is heat, father? Which part water? Which part food? Tell
me, sir, for I must know.’
‘Very well,’ said Uddalaka. ‘Now listen. All the food that you eat splits into
three parts. The densest part passes out of the body, the not-so-dense part
becomes flesh, and the lightest, airiest portion becomes the mind.
‘All the water that you drink splits into three parts. The most viscous part
passes out of the body, the less viscous part becomes blood, and the lightest,
airiest part rises in the body and becomes the breath.
‘All the heat that you eat* splits into three – the coarsest becomes bone, the
not-so-coarse portion marrow and the lightest, airiest part becomes speech.
*’Heat that you eat’ translates to food like oil and ghee, which are produced by the application of heat – to
oilseeds in the case of oil and to butter in the case of ghee. It also translates to the heat of the sun, which we
‘eat’ through our skin, and which, modern science tells us, provides the body with vitamin D, important for
building bones. Which is exactly what the Chandogya says the ‘heat that we eat’ turns into!

‘Thus, saumya, does everything consist of three elements and every element
consist of three parts. Thus is the mind made of food, the breath of water and
speech of heat.’
‘How are you so sure of this, sir?’ asked Shvetaketu. ‘Tell me, please, for it is
fascinating what you say, that mind is made of food, breath of water and speech
of heat.’
‘Go away for fifteen days and eat nothing in that period,’ said Uddalaka. ‘But
be sure to drink water, for the breath is made of water and will be cut off if you
don’t drink.’
So Shvetaketu went away for fifteen days, during which he drank only water.
When he came back, he was pale and wan, and much reduced in appearance, but
he was very much alive.
His father welcomed him and said: ‘Now recite to me the verses of the Rig,
my son, and the verses of the Yajur, and the chants of the Sama.’
‘I don’t recall them, sir,’ said Shvetaketu wonderingly, his voice unable to
rise above a whisper. ‘I studied them for twelve years, but cannot recall a word.’
‘And no wonder,’ chuckled Uddalaka, ‘for the mind is made of food and you
have eaten nothing for fifteen days. Just as, in a barely-there fire, a tiny ember
the size of a firefly blazes up again when covered with straw, thus will your
mind be revived when you fan the small spark of your breath with food. And the
heat the food produces will revive your tongue and allow speech to flow. Go and
eat your fill now, and come back to me.’
And of course, when Shvetaketu returned, he recalled all the verses of the
Rig and the Yajur and the chants of the Sama, and was able to recite them to his
father in a strong, full voice. And he understood that the mind is indeed made of
food, and the breath indeed of water, and speech indeed of heat.
 ell me more, sir, teach me more.’

‘T ‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.

‘Learn from me what really happens in sleep. In the waking state,
saumya, the mind is like a tethered bird, flying hither and thither in a rare frenzy,
never finding rest. When sleep comes, just as the fettered bird returns to her
perch, the mind-bird, exhausted by all the frenetic activity, returns to its true
resting place, to its purest state, to breath itself, for the mind is bound to the
breath. And that’s why, when a man is in deep sleep, they say that he has
returned unto himself.
‘Now learn from me what it means when they say a man is hungry. It means
that water has led away all the food he has previously eaten to various parts of
his body. And when they say a man is thirsty, it means heat has led away all the
water he has earlier drunk. And thus we know that the root of the body is food,
and the root of food is water, and the root of water is heat. And the root of heat is
of course that original Being from whence heat first sprang.
‘Now learn from me what it means when they say a man is dead. It is speech
that goes first, merging into the mind – so that even when his voice is weak, a
man is able to think and recognize and remember and understand. Then the mind
goes, merging into the prana or life-breath – so that even when a man does not
understand any more, he is able to breathe and thus stay alive. Then the life-
breath goes, merging into heat. Very soon after, heat leaves, merging into the
same Pure Being from whence it came.
‘And it is that Pure Being that is the root, the finest essence, of all there is.
That is the truth of the universe, the only real there is. And that, the very same
That, Shvetaketu, is your essence too. That, dear one, is who you are.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’

hvetaketu’s hair stood on end as the tremendous revelation crashed into his

S consciousness like a storm crashes into the coast. The essence of his being,
the thing that made him him, was no different, apparently, from the
essence of the universe! The same energy that allowed him to think and
understand and remember and imagine and speak also caused the sun and the
stars to shine and the seas to rise and the rain to fall. He, Shvetaketu, contained
within him the power of the cosmos!
‘Tell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’
‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.
‘Now consider the bees that gather nectar all day from a variety of different
flowers and turn them into golden honey. Once the honey is ready, the different
nectars are no longer able to say, “I am the nectar of this flower”, or “I was
gathered from that flower”, for their individual sweetnesses have now merged
into a homogeneous, delicious whole. In the same way, son, do all the individual,
separate, different existences you see around you – be it tiger or wolf, boar or
lion, worm or moth, gnat or mosquito – merge into pure Being. That is what they
all become, when they pass from their physical bodies, with no memory of ever
having been separate or different from each other.
‘That is the Self, the Atman, of the world. That is the finest, most subtle
essence of everything, the soul of everything, the root of everything, the
scaffolding on which everything else stands. That is the true. That is the real.
And That is your Self, your Atman, too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’

ell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’

‘T ‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.

‘Now consider the rivers that flow into the sea. Some rivers flow
eastwards, into the eastern sea. And some flow west, into the western sea. But all
the seas flow into each other. Once the rivers have become the sea, they are no
longer able to say, “I am this river” or “I am that river”, for their individual
waters have now merged into the only ocean there is. It is from this very ocean
that the rivers were born, although they do not know it, and it is into this ocean
that they eventually return. In the same way do tiger and wolf, boar and lion,
worm and moth, gnat and mosquito emerge from the one Being, although they
do not realize it, and return to it when their time here is done.
‘That is the Self, the Atman, of the world. That is the finest, most subtle
essence of everything, the soul of everything, the root of everything, the
scaffolding on which everything else stands. That is the true. That is the real.
And That is your Self, your Atman, too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’

ell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’

‘T ‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.

‘Now consider this huge tree here, son. If someone should hack
away at its bottom, living sap would flow out of it. If someone should hack away
at its middle, living sap would flow out of it. If someone should hack away at it
close to the top, once again, living sap would flow. You see how jiva, the life-
essence, pervades the entire tree? And that’s why, even though the sap flows out
of it on hacking, the tree itself does not die – it stands straight and tall, thriving
in its soil, nourishing itself with water. But should that life-essence withdraw
from a single leaf, saumya, that leaf is instantly as good as dead. It withers and
falls, never to rise again. Should that life-essence leave a branch of the tree, that
branch withers instantly. And should the Self leave the entire tree, this tree, huge
as it is, vibrantly alive as it is in this moment, will instantly begin to wither away.
 ‘Do you see how this works, Shvetaketu? As with the tree, so it is with us.
The body dies when the living Self leaves it, certainly, but the Self itself does not
die.
‘It is that living Self, the life-essence, that is the Self, Atman, of the world.
That is the finest, most subtle essence of everything, the soul of everything, the
root of everything, the scaffolding on which everything else stands. That is the
true. That is the real. And That is your Self, your Atman, too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’

ell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’

‘T ‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.

‘Now bring me the fruit of a nyagrodha* tree.’
*A giant, spreading fig tree, referred to several times in both Buddhist and Hindu scriptures and mythology.
It is usually identified with the banyan, Ficus benghalensis.

‘Here it is, sir.’

‘Break it.’
‘I have done so, sir.’
‘What do you see inside?’
 ‘Some tiny seeds, sir.’
‘Cut up one of the seeds.’
‘I have done so, sir.’
‘What do you see inside?’
‘I see nothing at all, sir.’
‘Know this, saumya, that “nothing”, which you cannot see, it is from that
“nothing” that the giant nyagrodha grows, it is because of that “nothing” that it
exists at all.
‘It is that “nothing”, saumya, believe me, that is the Self, Atman, of the
world. That is the finest, most subtle essence of everything, the soul of
everything, the root of everything, the scaffolding on which everything else
stands. That is the true. That is the real. And That is your Self, your Atman, too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’

ell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’

‘T
tomorrow.’
‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.
‘Put this chunk of salt in a pot of water and come back to me

‘Consider it done, Father.’

When Shvetaketu came back the next morning, his father said to him: ‘That
chunk of salt I gave you yesterday, please bring it to me.’
‘B...but, Father,’ stuttered Shvetaketu, bringing the pot of water to his father,
‘how can I? The salt is gone now – it has completely dissolved.’
‘Take a sip of the water, son, from this side of the pot. How does it taste?’
‘Salty, Father.’
‘Now take a sip from the opposite side. How does it taste?’
‘Salty, Father.’
‘Now dip a finger into the centre of the pot and taste the water. How does it
taste?’
‘Salty, Father.’
 ‘You see, Shvetaketu? The salt is here, there, everywhere, in the water, only
you do not see it. And so it is with the Supreme Self. It is everywhere, pervades
everything, only we do not see it.
‘It is that Supreme Self that is the Self, Atman, of the world. That is the
finest, most subtle essence of everything, the soul of everything, the root of
everything, the scaffolding on which everything else stands. That is the true.
That is the real. And That is your Self, your Atman too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’

ell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’

‘T ‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.

‘Now consider a man from Gandhara, a stranger to these parts,
who has been brought here by someone, blindfolded and left to fend for himself.
The poor man goes east, and west, and north, floundering in every direction, not
knowing where he is headed, crying out for help. Until some kind person passing
by removes his blindfold, and when he asks, points out to him the way to
Gandhara. Now, if he is a sensible type of man, this stranger will eventually find
his way back, by making sure to check in the villages along his way if he is
indeed on the right track, if Gandhara indeed lies in the direction he is going.
‘In exactly the same way is a man in this world, lost, floundering in every
direction, not knowing where he is headed, until he finds a teacher to show him
the way home. And then he rejoices, for he knows that his time in this foreign
land is limited, and that, sooner or later, with the help of his teacher, he will find
his way back to where he came from, back to his own Self.
‘It is that Self, whose home lies within you, that is the Self, Atman, of the
world. That is the finest, most subtle essence of everything, the soul of
everything, the root of everything, the scaffolding on which everything else
stands. That is the true. That is the real. And That is your Self, your Atman, too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’
 ell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’

‘T ‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.

‘Now consider a man who is gravely ill. His family gathers around
his bedside, one of them asking anxiously, ‘Do you recognize me?’ and another
asking the same, ‘Do you recognize me?’ As long as his speech has not merged
into his mind, and his mind into his breath, and his breath into heat, and heat into
the original Being, he recognizes them. But once speech merges into mind, and
mind into breath, and breath into heat, and heat into Pure Being, there is no
recognizing any more.
‘It is that Pure Being, into which we all eventually merge, that is the Self,
Atman, of the world. That is the finest, most subtle essence of everything, the
soul of everything, the root of everything, the scaffolding on which everything
else stands. That is the true. That is the real. And That is your Self, your Atman
too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’

ell me more, sir,’ cried Shvetaketu, ‘teach me more!’

‘T ‘So be it, saumya,’ said Uddalaka.

‘Now consider a man in handcuffs, being dragged into a public
square, with the mob shouting, ‘Thief! Stealer of others’ possessions! Heat the
axe for him!’ And if he is indeed a thief, and protests his innocence, and takes
hold of the axe, his hand will burn, and everyone will know him for a liar. But if
he is innocent, and protests his innocence, then the axe will not burn him, for the
truth will protect him like a shield.
‘It is that shining Truth, that ultimate Truth, that Truth that shields and
protects, that is the Self, Atman, of the world. That is the finest, most subtle
essence of everything, the soul of everything, the root of everything, the
scaffolding on which everything else stands. That is the true. That is the real.
And That is your Self, your Atman, too.
‘That Thou Art, Shvetaketu, Tat Tvam Asi!’
 And Shvetaketu, the beloved son of Uddalaka Aruni, who knew now that, at
the very core of his being, at the very root of his existence, he was no different
from the nectar in the flowers and the honey in the beehives and the waters in the
rivers and the salt in the sea and the life-sap of the trees and the Truth that
protects and the Pure Being into which everything returns and the nothing-
everything at the heart of a nyagrodha seed, bowed to his father and his teacher,
from whom he had indeed learnt the secret of the Self.

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

Isn’t that a beautiful story? Don’t you love the fact that the teacher uses so many
examples from daily life, so many metaphors, to explain a concept that he knows
the student will find hard to grasp? Doesn’t it make you feel all warm and fuzzy
that the teacher refers to the student so often as ‘saumya’ – dear one? [By the
way, this is not only because Shvetaketu happens to also be his son – throughout
the Upanishads, teachers refer to their students as saumya, and students to their
teachers (whether they were human or beast or bird) as ‘Bhagavan’ – powerful,
respected, worshipped, blessed, prosperous (in wisdom) – indicating that the
relationship is one based on deep and mutual love, and respect.] Doesn’t it send
a thrill running down your spine each time you read that tremendous declaration
– That Thou Art, Tat Tvam Asi?
As you have probably guessed by now, Tat Tvam Asi is the third of the four
Mahavakyas – Great Pronouncements – of the Upanishads that we have
encountered in this book so far. Keep your eyes peeled for the fourth! PS: Easy-
peasy. It has to be part of the next Upanishad, since it is the last one on the list.

THE AFTERSTORY
In the first section of this chapter – ‘The Backstory’ – we talked about how the
answer to most (all?) questions raised in the Chandogya was ‘Brahman’. Is this
the ultimate cop-out by the Vedantic sages, then? Were they in fact pulling a fast
one on us all? Were they being deliberately obscure because they did not know
the answer themselves?
Not really. In fact, these sages were the first to even engage with the kind of
fundamental questions that the Chandogya concerns itself with – Where did the
universe come from? What is it made of/pervaded by? What makes it tick? Who
are we, really? What is it that allows a ‘physical system’ like the body, which
you can touch, see, smell, taste and hear, to produce a ‘mental system’ like the
mind and intellect, which you are aware of and can locate in the region of the
brain, but cannot see? What is it in turn that allows a ‘mental system’ to produce
an ‘emotional system’ that you are aware of but cannot locate in the body (do
feelings emerge from the brain or from the heart, or from somewhere else
altogether)? What is it, or who is it, inside each of us that allows us to experience
our feelings, thoughts, ideas, memories? What is the nature of reality – how can
we call this moment – this present, current moment at which we are reading this
particular phrase – real, if it has receded into the past, into dreamlike memory, by
the time we are done reading this sentence?
The Vedantins’ answer to all these questions was Brahman, which simply
means – Consciousness. (Did you think Brahman meant God? Naaah.) And what
does consciousness mean? The thing that allows all humans to be self-aware, the
ability that we all have to think of ourselves as ‘I’. Do you know what’s even
more remarkable? At least two of the questions that the Upanishads concerned
themselves with deeply 2,500 years ago – (1) What is the universe made
of/pervaded with?; and (2) What is consciousness? – are two questions that
STILL remain among the Top Five Unanswered Questions in science today
(google it!).
The Vedantins believed that both ‘Space’ (here and there, inside and outside,
me and you) and ‘Time’ (then and now, today and tomorrow), the two concepts
by which we have always measured and understood reality, are both illusions
(quantum physics, anyone?) created by our consciousness, which is the only true
reality there is. Consciousness, they said, is itself boundless (not limited by
space) and timeless (not part of past, present or future) – it has simply always
been, and always pervaded everything. In fact, they said, there is nothing else
besides it – this entire universe, and everything in it, is simply a projection of
that Consciousness, an amusing game it plays with itself, as ephemeral as a
dream. In a sense, say the Vedantins, the universe, and everything in it, is
nothing but a giant VR game!

No, seriously. Here’s how it apparently works.

Imagine you are visiting a VR arcade in Jalpaiguri. Imagine you have chosen
to play a game that involves a ski contest set in the Swiss Alps. You have
snapped on your VR headset, stepped into stationary skis and grabbed a pair of
ski poles that you can twist this way and that but are otherwise fixed to the
ground. The game begins, and you instantly find yourself zipping down an
expert-level slope. It feels real, sure, all of it – the pines and firs rushing by, the
skis under your feet, the poles you are digging into the snow to control your
speed, the wind in your hair, even your terror when you sail off the edge of the
slope (check your heartbeat and you will find it is elevated), but it is only a
dream world, which you can step out of any old time you want to, simply by
whipping off your headset. And when the game ends, you know there is no need
to be sad, for you can return to it anytime.
What’s more, each time you return, you can do so as an entirely different
character – a ballet dancer (male), maybe, or a powerful business tycoon
(female), or a beggar on the street, covered with sores – in an entirely different
setting. You may return to the game for a variety of reasons – because you want
to win more points this time, because you want to play a different character, or
game avatar, or simply because you are bored, and the game is fun and
challenging and gives you something to do. Or you may decide to quit the game
entirely, by getting to the most advanced level and winning the maximum
number of points, because the novelty has worn off and it has stopped being fun.
The Upanishads tell us that that is exactly what Consciousness, Brahman, is
doing – amusing itself, through us, characters that It has imagined and created
out of Itself. Which is why, say the sages of the Upanishad, we shouldn’t take
the world, and ourselves, too seriously. Instead, we should watch everything that
is happening, or seems to be happening, around us, and to us, with a certain level
of detachment, knowing it is make-believe.
From Shvetaketu’s story, we know that the authors of the Upanishads
believed that there is absolutely no difference between the original
Consciousness that created us and our own consciousness, which allows us to
feel and think and experience the world in a very different way from how
everyone else experiences it. If you believe that implicitly (the Vedantins would
rather you discovered this ‘truth’ for yourself through contemplation, instead of
simply taking their word for it), sorrow cannot hurt you and death cannot scare
you. Life becomes a wonderful experience, even a game, to be played at the
highest level of focus and dedication, of course – because it would be no fun
otherwise – and to be enjoyed thoroughly, through the wins and the losses, but
never to be taken too seriously.
Yup, that’s not at all an easy concept to grasp, especially by the mind or the
intellect, which are the only two devices most of us use to understand something.
But don’t fret – this is just to get you thinking out of the box a little. Keep
thinking like that, and one day, you may, who knows, get a glimmer of
understanding of what or who Brahman really is, and/or solve some of the most
fundamental questions in science.
 १८
BRIHADARANYAKA
The Great Forest Upanishad
In which we learn that we should be careful what we
wish for, for we are nothing but our deepest desire

Aum!
That is complete, and This is complete,
From That completeness comes This completeness;
If you take completeness away from completeness,
Only completeness remains.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

THE BACKSTORY
merica, 1911. A bright young American, from one of the country’s most

A privileged families, is accepted into a three-year course of study in

Indian philosophy and Sanskrit at Harvard University. He has studied
philosophy as an undergraduate in the same college a few years before and
already has a Master’s degree in English literature. In fact, the twenty-two-year-
old has always found refuge in books and reading, because a debilitating medical
condition has kept him from enjoying all kinds of fun activities while growing
up.
Cut to a decade later. The now-not-so-young man has moved to England and
become the toast of the literary community there and back home in America. He
is recognized as something of a genius, both as a poet and a social critic, but his
personal life is a mess. His marriage is failing, both his wife and he have been
diagnosed with nervous disorders that hamper their work, and his spirit is at an
all-time low. The couple move out of London into the countryside for a three-
month convalescence, and the poet finally has time to work on a ‘long poem’
that has been brewing in his mind. The mega-poem, weighing in at almost 1,000
lines, is as angst-ridden and disillusion-filled as the poet himself, but for the very
last section, which ends on a note of hope and a wish for peace.
In October 1922, after it has been polished and trimmed down to about half
its length, the weird and wonderful poem is finally published in the first issue of
a new British literary magazine that the poet himself has founded. It goes on to
become one of the best known, most quoted, most analyzed poems in modern
English literature, and establishes its poet as one of the greatest of the twentieth
century. It is called ‘The Waste Land’.

T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ includes a story from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Yup, the troubled genius we have been talking about all this time is none
other than T.S. Eliot!* And we are talking about Eliot and his epic poem here
because the last section of the poem – ‘What the Thunder Said’ – the only part of
the poem that isn’t so gloomy, is inspired by a story in the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad (BU)!
 (Check out the original ‘What the Thunder Said’ story from the BU at the end
of this chapter and then google ‘The Waste Land’ to read the poem, particularly
the last section. Make sure you have a good guidebook by your side, for the
poem is itself a sprawling forest, riddled with difficult references to this and
that.)
*You may be interested to know that he also wrote a lovely book of poems called ‘Old Possum’s Book of
Practical Cats’, which was adapted by Andrew Lloyd Webber into the smash-hit musical Cats! Ring a bell?

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is part of the Shukla Yajur Veda and
among the oldest Upanishads, lives up to the first part of its name – ‘brihad’,
which means vast, ginormous – by being the largest of the Upanishads. As for
the ‘aranyaka’ part, if you understood it literally, as ‘of the forest’, then the BU is
‘The Ginormous-Forest Upanishad’. That would be appropriate too, for you
could spend months and years walking its main path and exploring its many
detours. Here’s a startling bit of trivia – together with the also-giant Chandogya,
the BU constitutes two-thirds of all the Upanishadic literature that has survived
to this day!
Clearly, it would be a futile exercise to try and touch upon all the themes
addressed by the BU in its six giant chapters, or adhyayas, in this little book.
Instead, we shall focus on a few stories and a few engaging themes. If you want
to find out more, go ahead – the BU has been around for almost 3,000 years and
isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

THE STORY
ADHYAYA 1

No such thing as bad breath! – A story about gods and demons

 rajapati, Supreme Father, had children of two kinds – demons and gods.

P The demons, who were older, were misguided, selfish, grasping and
always willing to trample over others; in short, they were not the best role
models for their younger siblings. Fortunately, younger siblings are often
smarter, so the gods did not look to their brothers, but to their own sweet natures,
for guidance, and tried their best to be kind, virtuous and unselfish.
Unfortunately, younger siblings are also often bullied, and so it was with the
gods. Their older brothers were always snatching things from them – Heaven,
for instance. Fed up, the gods decided to perform a big yagna, and overcome
their exasperating brothers by means of the power of the High Chant, the
Udgitha, Aum.
So the gods went to Speech, and said, ‘O Speech, we beg you, chant the
Udgitha for us at the yagna.’ Speech chanted the Udgitha, thus gaining for the
gods the great joy that comes from being able to say things. As for itself, Speech
asked for the ability to say only what was pleasant, and received it. This threw
the demons into a tizzy. ‘With this pleasant Udgatri*, the gods’ yagna is sure to
be a success,’ they said, wringing their hands. ‘We can’t let that happen!’ So they
rushed at Speech and pitted it with unpleasantness. And that is why we often say
awful things.
*The Udgatri, or the priest who chanted the verses of the Sama Veda at the yagna (in this case, Speech),
could ask for gifts both for the yajamana (in this case, the gods) and for himself. If the chanting was done
right, both would receive the boons they desired.

With their first Udgatri gone, the gods went to Smell, and said. ‘O Smell, we
beg you, chant the Udgitha for us at the yagna.’ Smell chanted the Udgitha, thus
gaining for the gods the great joy that comes from being able to smell. As for
itself, Smell asked for the ability to smell only what was agreeable, and received
it. This threw the demons into a tizzy. ‘With this agreeable Udgatri, the gods’
yagna is sure to be a success,’ they said, wringing their hands. ‘We can’t let that
happen!’ So they rushed at Smell and pitted it with disagreeable things. And
that’s why we often smell things that make us screw up our noses.
With their second Udgatri gone, the gods went to Sight, and said. ‘O Sight,
we beg you, chant the Udgitha for us at the yagna.’ Sight chanted the Udgitha,
thus gaining for the gods the great joy that comes from being able to see. As for
itself, Sight asked for the ability to see only what was beautiful, and received it.
This threw the demons into a tizzy. ‘With this beauty-filled Udgatri, the gods’
yagna is sure to be a success,’ they said, wringing their hands. ‘We can’t let that
happen!’ So they rushed at Sight and pitted it with ugliness. And that’s why we
often see things that make us weep.
With their third Udgatri gone, the gods went to Hearing, and said. ‘O
Hearing, we beg you, chant the Udgitha for us at the yagna.’ Hearing chanted the
Udgitha, thus gaining for the gods the great joy that comes from being able to
hear. As for itself, Hearing asked for the ability to hear only what was
harmonious, and received it. This threw the demons into a tizzy. ‘With this calm
Udgatri, the gods’ yagna is sure to be a success,’ they said, wringing their hands.
‘We can’t let that happen!’ So they rushed at Hearing and pitted it with
disharmony. And that’s why we often hear things that make us anxious.
With their fourth Udgatri gone, the gods went to the Mind, and said. ‘O
Mind, we beg you, chant the Udgitha for us at the yagna.’ Mind chanted the
Udgitha, thus gaining for the gods the great joy that comes from being able to
think. As for itself, Mind asked for the ability to think only good thoughts, and
received it. This threw the demons into a tizzy. ‘With this righteous Udgatri, the
gods’ yagna is sure to be a success,’ they said, wringing their hands. So they
rushed at Mind and pitted it with evil. And that’s why we often have terrible
thoughts.
The gods, now desperate, went to Prana, the lifebreath, and said. ‘O Breath,
we beg you, chant the Udgitha for us at the yagna.’ Breath, without which there
would be neither gods nor demons, chanted the Udgitha, and asked for nothing
for itself. This threw the demons into a tizzy. ‘With this noble Udgatri, the gods’
yagna is sure to be a success,’ they said, wringing their hands. So they rushed at
Breath and tried to pit it with all manner of vice.

But just as a clod of earth hurled against a rock smashes into bits and flies off
in all directions, the demons who rushed at Breath were smashed to bits and
destroyed. And that is how the gods won, and the demons were destroyed.
Anyone who understands this – that the Breath is the only pure, true thing in the
body, and meditates on it – crushes his demons and becomes one with his true
Self.

***
Did you enjoy that story? It seems simple, even simplistic, a ‘repeating fable’ to
keep a child entertained, but it is in fact, like every other story in the Upanishads,
deeply symbolic, giving us plenty of food for thought.
From the story, it is clear that while the Upanishadic sages believed that the
eyes, ears, nose and tongue were pure matter, part of the physical body, they
thought very differently of Sight, Hearing, Speech and Smell. In fact, they gave
these last the status of deities – deities who enabled the eyes to see, the ears to
hear, the tongue to speak, and so on. It is also clear that the sages believed that
these very same faculties, since they had all been infiltrated by demons,* were
flawed, limited and not to be entirely trusted.
*And why were they infiltrated by demons? Because they all asked for the wrong boon – they asked to be
able to see, hear, smell only what was pleasant, thereby creating room for what was ‘unpleasant’! It is only
when you see certain things as pleasant or agreeable that other things, in comparison, become automatically
unpleasant and disagreeable. This is really the core message of the Upanishads – there is no ‘other’. Joy is
no different from sorrow, agony is no different from ecstasy, you are no different from Brahman. It is only
your own delusion, the ’veil of Maya’, that prevents you from seeing that supreme truth.

Does that mean you cannot believe everything you see or hear? Of course it
does! How can you seriously doubt that, living as we are in the age of fake news,
where entire videos and sound bytes can be doctored and turn normally gentle
people into lynch mobs? But the sages were not talking about the deviousness of
21st century technology in the Upanishads; their beliefs stemmed from
something far more basic.
Say you see two schoolmates fighting. Your mind and heart turn instantly
against the one whom you see as giving the other a hard time. Sure, our first
instinct is to root for the underdog, but it is right or fair to take a stand like that
without finding out more? How can you be sure that what you can see and hear
at the current moment is all there is to the story? Can your eyes ‘see’ and your
ears ‘hear’ the backstory – the circumstances that have led to this showdown?
Even the mind, the sages tell us, has been defiled by the demons, and we can
agree – the mind is also influenced hugely by our own personal experiences and
biases, and therefore cannot be trusted.
What then, can we trust? How can we make sure that we see people and
situations with compassion, clarity and true understanding, and are not swayed
by what our senses tell us and what our mind wilfully nudges us towards? By
disciplining the senses using the reins of the Mind, which are held by the
charioteer called Understanding. One great way to do that, according to sages of
every stripe, is the practice of meditation. And the best way to ease your way
into meditation, so the ancients tell us, is to close your eyes, shut the world out
and bring the entire focus of your attention to your – ta-daa! – breath.
For while the senses are not only unreliable but dispensable,* and are
withdrawn into the mind in sleep (with the mind itself being withdrawn into the
breath in deep sleep), the breath, as long as a man lives, is constant, steadfast and
true, never forsaking him, whether he is awake, dreaming, or in deep sleep.
What’s more, it does not influence, question or judge a man’s decisions; it is
simply the silent witness to them. To the Vedantins, who equated Brahman with
that which was unchanging, everlasting and dispassionate in the cosmos, the
breath was the perfect metaphor for the Brahman within the body.
*Remember the story in the Prashna Upanishad where the senses are bragging about how each of them is
the greatest, until Prana makes as if to leave the body and all the senses find themselves being dragged out
in its wake? The story is repeated in the BU – here, Prana leaving the body is described thus: ‘As a great
horse pulls up the stakes to which it is tethered when it breaks free, so does Prana uproot all the other senses
when it leaves the body.’ What a powerful image, don’t you think?

How can you get started on your own journey to true understanding? By
taking a step back and examining a situation thoroughly before jumping to
conclusions. By listening with an open mind and heart to both – or all fifteen –
sides of a story before you decide who is right and who isn’t (or even that no one
side is entirely right or entirely wrong at all). By reflecting on every opinion you
are about to express, to examine it for your own ends and biases – are you
blaming one person over another because one of them is your friend or someone
you want to impress, or are you crucifying someone simply on the basis of his or
her past behaviour? By not letting yourself be influenced by your emotions –
anger, fear, hate, love. That is how you crush your demons and nourish your
gods, both of whom live within you.
And can you guess what would really help you do all of the above? Exactly!
Taking several deep, calming breaths!

So that’s where it comes from! – A most familiar verse from the BU

Below, reported as it is written, is part of the twenty-eighth paragraph of the

third Brahmana of the first adhyaya of the BU. You don’t need to remember all
that, but as you read, enjoy the goosebumps from realizing that a Sanskrit verse
you have heard or sung, perhaps with no understanding of it, has been chanted
by people for almost 3,000 years! The nicest part? It is addressed to no particular
god! You can invoke your own favourite god when you recite it, or simply call
upon the cosmic energy that pervades the universe to light your way in life.
Now comes the chanting of the mantras for purification. When the priest of the
Sama Veda sings the introductory verses of the Saman, the yajamana of the
sacrifice must silently recite to himself these three verses from the Yajur Veda:

Asato maa sad gamaya

Tamaso maa jyotir gamaya
Mrityor maa-amritam gamaya

From the unreal (asat), lead me to the real (sat),

From darkness (tamas), lead me to the light (jyoti),
From death (mrityu), lead me to immortality.

The unreal, verily, is death, and the real is immortality, so when the
yajamana says, ‘Lead me from the unreal to the real’, what he really means is,
‘Lead me from death to immortality!’ or, in other words, ‘Make me immortal!
Darkness is death, and light is immortality, so when he says, ‘Lead me from
the darkness to the light’, what he really means is, ‘Lead me from death to
immortality’, or, in other words, ‘Make me immortal!
The third line reads ‘Lead me from death to immortality’, and there is
nothing obscure about that.

Simple, straightforward and radiant, the prayer – often referred to as the

Pavamana Mantra or the Chant of Purification – asks not for wealth or fame or
health or happiness, but enlightenment – a mind that sees clearly, an intellect that
is able to distinguish between right and wrong, an awareness that is illumined by
true understanding. Seriously, what greater treasures exist on earth and in
Heaven than these?
PS: Do you know where else you might have heard this mantra? It was part
of the soundtrack of the third and final film of a smash-hit, cult, sci-fi Hollywood
movie franchise! The first of the three movies in the franchise released in 1999,
the second and third in 2003. Do you know its name? That’s right! The movie
franchise was The Matrix, and the third film, in which this mantra features, was
The Matrix Revolutions!
The Matrix movies, written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers (today,
after having transitioned into women, they are known simply as the
Wachowskis), were path-breaking in many ways, including for their many
references to philosophical and religious ideas from all over the world.
You can hear Asato Maa being chanted (though in a very different way from
its traditional chanting) when the end credits of Revolutions begin to roll. The
rest of the song of which this mantra is the chorus also contains mantras from
three other Upanishads – the Isha, the Kena and the Katha.
In fact, the core concept of the film’s plot is that the reality that humans
believe is real is only a simulated reality called The Matrix, created by
intelligent machines – if that reminds you of the core concept of Vedanta, which
says that the reality that humans believe is real is only an illusion called Maya,
you are not alone. Also, much of the film revolves around the waking, dreaming
and deep- sleep states, which makes one wonder if the writers were inspired by
the Mandukya Upanishad!

The Big Fat Secret the gods don’t want you to discover

Like most other Upanishads, a lot of the BU is constructed as a dialogue

between teacher and student. Sometimes, the teacher and student are identified.
More often, the ‘dialogue’ becomes a conversation between the narrator and the
reader, with the narrator himself asking questions that the reader might have
wanted to, and then going on to answer them. This is one such dialogue.

‘Right. Let’s say I take your word for it that a man will become whole, infinite,
realized, by knowing Brahman. That begs the question – “What did Brahman
himself/herself/itself know that enabled it to become Brahman?’’
 ‘Good question! You see, in the beginning, when there was only Brahman
and no one else, Brahman thought to itself, “Aham Brahmasmi – I am
Brahman”, and that very self-awareness made it whole, infinite, self-realized.
The same thing happened to the gods who came after. When they realized who
and what they really were, they said, wonderingly, to themselves, “Aham
Brahmasmi – I am Brahman,” and became whole. It is the same among the
wisest seers, and among ordinary humans too. The moment a man realizes
“Aham Brahmasmi – I am Brahman”, he becomes the whole universe. Not even
the gods can do anything about it then, for he becomes them!
‘If a man bows before another deity, however, saying “He is one, I am
another,” then he doesn’t get it at all. As men use cattle and sheep for their own
ends, thus do the gods use such men for their own ends. Knowing how painful it
is for a man to lose even a single head of cattle, imagine how much more painful
for the gods to lose even one such man!
‘And that’s why the gods are not at all happy with the prospect of men getting
to know this ultimate truth, this great secret – Aham Brahmasmi.’

***
Aham Brahmasmi – I am Brahman – is considered the fourth of the Great
Pronouncements – or Mahavakyas – of the Upanishads. It is also, along with Tat
Tvam Asi, the best known of the Mahavakyas. But is that all it means? How can
you get Aham Brahmasmi into your day-to-day life?
The answer lies in the very first lines of the answer above. ‘Brahman thought
to himself “I am Brahman”, and he was.’
A story with two endings illustrates this rather well.
Version 1: An anxious student approached his teacher and asked him, ‘Do
you think I can achieve this (task)?’ Like every good teacher, this one too turned
the question right back at the student – ‘What do you think?’ The student
pondered for a moment. ‘I don’t think I can.’ The teacher smiled. ‘There’s your
answer. You cannot (achieve the task).’
Version 2: An anxious student approached his teacher and asked him, ‘Do
you think I can achieve this (task)?’ Like every good teacher, this one too turned
the question right back at the student – ‘What do you think?’ The student
pondered for a moment. ‘I think I can.’ The teacher smiled. ‘There’s your
answer. You can.’
The moral of the story is clear enough. It is your own self-belief (or lack of
it) that makes things possible (or not). Believe that you are whole, complete in
yourself, content in yourself, that you have no need for validation or approval
from anyone else (or a god outside of you, like the misguided man in the story)
and you will be whole, you will be Brahman – it’s as simple as that!
But, be warned, says the BU, the gods will try their best to foil your attempts
at self-realization. They will put in your way the demons of fear, self-doubt,
guilt, weariness, all of which will weaken your will and make you say ‘I don’t
think I can’ – for if they did not, who would go to them asking for solace and
strength, and offer them coconuts and prayers and gold? Who would they then
send scurrying to temples and other places of worship?
But, say the Upanishads, if you stay strong, and disciplined, and focused, and
give your hundred per cent to everything you do, treating your work as a great
sacrifice that you are performing for the good of the universe, and expect
nothing in return for it – sooner or later, the veil of Maya will fall away, and you
will discover that you contain everything you need – love, strength, peace,
contentment – within yourself. Brahman will bloom within you, luminous and
radiant, and the universe will resound with the joy of your discovery – Aham
Brahmasmi!

ADHYAYA 2
Not all the treasures of the world – A conversation between Maitreyi and
Yagnavalkya

Once, the great sage Yagnavalkya sat his wife Maitreyi down beside him and
said to her, ‘Maitreyi, I have completed my responsibilities as a householder and
it is time for me to move on to the next stage in my life.* I want to spend more
time henceforth in reflection and contemplation, and I will not be able to stay
here much longer. But before I go, I want to divide all that I have between you
and Katyayini.’
*According to the ancient Indian texts, human life is divided into four age-based phases or stages, called
ashramas. Each ashrama has recommended activities and pursuits, combining into a ’complete’ experience
through a lifetime.
For the first twenty-four years of his life (in today’s terms, approximately until he finishes a Master’s
degree), a young man is expected to focus entirely on his education. He is expected to remain single and not
be distracted by romantic relationships. (Plus, no smartphones.) This is the student stage, or the
Brahmacharya Ashrama.
For the next twenty-four years, until the age of forty-eight, a man is expected to live in the larger
community – finding a job, getting married, educating his children, taking care of his parents and
contributing to society in whatever way he can. This is the busiest, most productive stage of a man’s life,
when he works to sustain both the generation before and after him, and raise worthy children to sustain the
community in the future. This is the householder stage, or the Grihastha Ashrama.
For the next twenty-four years, between the ages of forty-nine and seventy-two, a man is expected to
gradually hand over the reins of his household and/or his business to the next generation, and take on the
role of an adviser, always available to the young ’uns when they need him, but otherwise allowing them to
run their own ships in the way they think fit, so that they in turn can flower into their own full potential.
Thus gradually distancing himself from attachment to his family and home in the retirement stage, or
Vanaprastha (say vaana-prasta) Ashrama, he prepares for the next life-stage. (In the story, this is the stage
Yagnavalkya wanted to move to, which is why he wanted to divide his possessions among his wives).
From seventy-two onwards, a man is expected to remove himself from all ties of family and society (at
least emotionally, if not physically) and lead the equivalent of an ascetic life, full of prayer, reflection and
contemplation. This is the renunciation stage, or Sannyasa Ashrama.
Pretty neat, don’t you think? The age divisions and recommendations seem to echo what naturally
happens as people get from the age of twenty-four to forty-eight to seventy-two, especially with regard to
their attitudes. Sure, you are still at the Brahmacharya stage, but you can see what those in other ashramas
are doing and thinking by taking a look at your older cousins, parents and grandparents. Make sure you
include the women too – now that they are just as educated as men are, the ashrama recommendations
would apply to them too.
Maitreyi was heartsick to hear of her husband’s imminent departure, but she had
always known this day would come, so she took the blow with good grace and
asked, ‘You talk of dividing your property, sir, but tell me this – if the wealth of
the entire earth were mine, would that make me immortal?’
‘Eh?’ said Yagnavalkya. ‘What kind of a question is that? If all the wealth of
the earth were yours, you would simply live, while you were alive, like very rich
people do. But you certainly would not be able to buy immortality, however
wealthy you were.’

‘What will I do with half your property, then?’ said Maitreyi. ‘I want none of
it. Give it all to Katyayini, who loves such things. As for me, teach me
something that will help me become immortal.’
‘Beloved!’ cried Yagnavalkya, well pleased. ‘You have always been dear to
me and now you have made yourself dearer by asking me to share what is
closest to my heart. Come, sit beside me, and I will tell you what you want to
know. But make sure not just to hear what I say, but also to reflect on it as I
speak.’
Maitreyi nodded. ‘I promise, sir.’
‘Why does a wife love her husband, dearest? Not for his sake, but her own –
he makes her Self happy. Why does a husband love his wife? Not for her sake,
but his own – she makes his Self content.
 ‘Why are children loved, dearest? Not for their own sake but their parents’ –
they make their parents’ Self joyful.
‘It is the same with everything else – priestly power and royal power, wealth
and the gods, the universe and all the creatures in it – they are all loved not for
their own sake, but for the sake of one’s own Self.
‘Is it not clear, then, Maitreyi, that it is the Self that one should direct one’s
attention towards? That it is the Self that should be thought about, reflected on,
meditated upon? That once one knows the Self, one understands everything else?
That it is only by knowing yourself that you know the world?
‘Fie on the priest who believes his priestly power comes from outside of his
Self. Fie on the king who believes his royal power comes from outside of his
Self. May the gods forsake anyone who believes the gods live outside of his Self.
May all creatures abandon anyone who believes that those creatures lie outside
of his Self. May the Infinite reject anyone who believes that the Infinite rests
outside of his Self.
‘You see, Maitreyi, as the sound of a drum cannot be fully understood by
someone who knows not both drum and drummer, neither can one fully
understand the sounds of a conch or a lute without knowing both instrument and
musician.
‘As clouds of smoke arise, unbidden, from a fire overlaid with damp fuel, so
from the breath of Brahman have arisen, effortlessly, all the Vedas, Upanishads,
poetry, history, ancient lore, the arts and the sciences.
‘As all the waters converge into the ocean, all touch into the skin, all smells
into the nose, all visible forms into sight, all sounds into hearing, all thoughts
into the mind, all wisdom into the heart, all action into the hands and all
movement into the feet, so does everything in the universe converge into the
Self.
‘As a lump of salt thrown in water cannot be taken out of it again, although it
makes every drop of that water salty, even so, beloved, does the individual Self
dissolve in limitless Being and cannot be separated from it, although that Being
itself carries in it the essence of every individual self. The Being arises at birth
with the Self and departs with it at death. After death, therefore, there is no
separate self, no awareness, nothing.’
Maitreyi blanched. ‘After death, there is nothing? You are confusing me, sir,
I am bewildered.’
‘Reflect once more, calmly, on what I have said, beloved – where does the
sense of separateness come from? From the limited body, which perceives itself
as different, separate, from everything around it. But once the body is gone and
the Self dissolves into the Immense Being, there is no “other” to perceive, don’t
you see? When there is no other to see, and no eyes to see it with, what can you
see? Nothing. When there is no other to smell, and no nose to smell it with, what
can you smell? Nothing! When there is no other to hear, and no ears to hear it
with, what can you hear but nothing? When there is no other to think about, and
no mind to think about it with, what is thought but nothing? When there is no
other to know, and no intellect to know it with, what can you know but nothing?
‘Tell me, Maitreyi, by means of what can one perceive the one who perceives
it all? How, beloved, can one know the Knower when he himself has become it?’

***
In this famous Upanishadic story, known not only for Yagnavalkya’s insights
into what it means to be immortal but also for the fact that it is one of the few
stories that features a woman as the seeker of truth, Maitreyi, who is not
interested in worldly possessions, asks her husband to teach her how to go
beyond death.
And what can we take away from his answer? That as long as we think we
are our little, flawed, limited, perishable bodies, we most certainly cannot, will
not, be immortal, for the body decays and dies from minute to minute, until one
day, it stops functioning altogether. But once we understand that who we are,
what we are, is pure energy, pure consciousness, pure being – everything
changes!
Sure, for the present, we are energy and consciousness contained in a
physical body (and it is that energy that is the reason the body is able do what it
does). But when the body is gone, the energy that sustained us simply goes back
to becoming part of the energy that sustains the world, pushing plants up from
the soil, keeping the earth in her orbit and the sun and moon in theirs, bringing
atoms together to make molecules, giving tigers the power to roar and deer the
strength to run.
The great advantage of being able to see yourself as cosmic energy is the
sudden and stunning realization that everything and everyone you see around
you is in fact the same energy, poured into a dazzling, mind-boggling, fabulously
diverse and absolutely wonderful array of bodies and forms and shapes. It is the
same energy that enables each of those forms to do its own fascinating set of
things, just as it is the same electricity that enables a vacuum cleaner to suck up
dust and an X-ray machine to see your bones. Once that switch is thrown, you
will see everyone and everything as part of a multi-armed, multi-headed,
multitalented, multidimensional, limitless you.
That cosmic energy, so the Upanishads tell us, has been around since before
the earth existed, is the reason the world exists and will be here well after the
universe as we know it is gone. And since you have now had the realization that
YOU are that cosmic energy, it stands to reason that you will be around forever
too. Does that sound a bit like immortality? You bet it does!

ADHYAYA 3

It ain’t bragging if you can back it up!

If you aren’t familiar with that line above – ‘It ain’t bragging if you can back it
up!’ – it is actually a well-known quote by one of the most charismatic, cheeky
and beloved sportspeople of the twentieth century, the iconic Muhammad Ali,
but it works quite well as a title for this story from the BU. This story also
features the sage Yagnavalkya,* this time interacting with the only other female
seeker we find mention of in the Upanishads, Gargi Vachaknavi. Here’s how it
goes.
*It is believed, in fact, that it was Yagnavalkya himself who composed the BU, or at least a large part of it,
since his conversations form such a big part of the Upanishad.

anaka, the king of Videha, had just finished a great sacrifice and was

J handing out generous gifts to all and sundry. Many learned sages had come
from as far afield as Kuru and Panchala, and Janaka, eager to find the wisest
among them, fastened bags containing ten gold coins each between the horns of
a thousand cows, drove them all into a pen and announced, ‘These cows are for
the wisest among those present here. Step forward and take them if you believe
you are the one!’
While everyone else hesitated, Yagnavalkya stepped forward and said to one
of his students, in a voice that carried, ‘Drive the cows home, son.’ The boy
cracked a huge smile. ‘Hail the prince among sages!’ he said, and joyfully drove
the cows away. Furious, the other sages came down upon Yagnavalkya like a
tonne of bricks. ‘The man is beyond presumptuous!’ they fumed among
themselves. And at him, they snarled, ‘You really believe you are the wisest
among us, do you?’ Yagnavalkya shrugged. ‘We all bow to the wisest one here,
I’m sure,’ he said, ‘but we know, don’t we, that what we are all really after are
the cows?’
The irreverent answer, which hurt more because it was the truth, only served
to get the other sages even more riled up. ‘Let’s have a debate, then, and we shall
see if you are indeed the wisest!’
Thus began a right royal debate at King Janaka’s court. It lasted for days,
with the most learned men in the land – Ashvala, Arthabhaga, Lahyayani,
Chakrayana, Kahola, Uddalaka* – questioning Yagnavalkya on the technicalities
of the yagna layout and chants, and the nature of Death, Brahman and the Self.
He answered them all satisfactorily and they were all forced to eventually admit
defeat.
*Remember him from the Chandogya Upanishad? That’s right, Shvetaketu’s father!

Then Gargi Vachaknavi stepped forward. ‘Respected brahmins,’ she addressed

the gathering. ‘I am going to ask this man two questions. If he answers them
satisfactorily, know that any further debate is a futile exercise.’

The gathering bowed. Gargi was a highly respected sage, a woman of great
wisdom, and most of them were willing to take her at her word that if
Yagnavalkya answered her questions, he was indeed the wisest in the hall.
Turning to Yagnavalkya, Gargi said, ‘Like a fierce warrior of Kashi or
Videha would rise to fell an enemy, I rise to fell you, Yagnavalkya, with two
questions that are as the two deadliest arrows in the warrior’s quiver.’
‘Shoot, Gargi,’ said Yagnavalkya.
And Gargi asked her two questions, which Yagnavalkya answered expertly,
winning her respect. At the end of it, Gargi turned to the gathering and said:
‘Respected brahmins, consider yourself fortunate if you get away simply by
paying this man homage. For I declare this, here and now – no one can defeat
Yagnavalkya in a debate about Brahman.’
But Shakalya, a stubborn pandit, insisted on challenging him, and came,
expectedly, to a bad end.
Then Yagnavalkya turned to the august assembly and said: ‘Respected
brahmins, is there anyone else among you, who would challenge me, singly or
together?’ And he added, cheekily, ‘Or I could question you, if that’s what you
prefer.’
This time around, however, not a one dared to say a word. And Yagnavalkya
returned home, laden with gifts, having gained the respect not just of the
gathered sages but of the great King Janaka himself.
You see? It ain’t bragging if you can back it up! But if you aren’t quite sure
you can, it’s best you stay silent. Shakalya’s ‘bad end’ was having his head
shatter into a thousand pieces, and no one wants that, really.

ADHYAYA 4

Can you change your destiny? Of COURSE you can!

So thoroughly had Yagnavalkya succeeded in impressing King Janaka at the

impromptu debate that the latter became the sage’s fan for life. The BU features
several other conversations between the two, with Yagnavalkya as teacher and
Janaka as starry-eyed acolyte, plying his guru with thousands and thousands of
cows in return for answers to his (never-ending) questions.
Here is an excerpt:
ne day, Yagnavalkya paid a visit to King Janaka, thinking, ‘Today, I will

O not answer any of his questions.’ But then he remembered that the last
time he had been at Janaka’s court, he had offered the king a boon and
the king had asked for nothing but the right to ask the sage questions.
Yagnavalkya sighed, resigning himself to another volley.
The moment he had been respectfully received and seated, Janaka began.
‘Yagnavalkya, what is the source of light for a man in this world?’
‘The sun, Your Majesty,’ replied Yagnavalkya. ‘For it is by his light that a
man sits, goes out, does his work, and returns.’
‘Quite right,’ said the king. ‘And when the sun sets, what is the source of
light for a man in this world?’
‘The moon, Your Majesty, for it is by his light that a man sits, goes out, does
his work, and returns.’
‘Quite right. And when the sun and moon have both set?’
‘Then fire is our light, Your Majesty, for it is by that light that a man sits,
goes out, does his work, and returns.’
‘And when the fire has died out?’
‘Then the voice is our light, for even if it is too dark for a man to see his own
hand, he goes straight to the spot from where he hears a voice.’
‘Quite right. But when the sun has set and the moon is dark and the fire is out
and the voice is stilled, what then is the source of a man’s light?’
‘His Self, or Atman, your Majesty. It is by the light of the Self that a man
sits, goes out, does his work, and returns.’
‘And what Self is this?’
‘That person that is neither the body nor the mind, neither sight nor hearing,
but pure awareness, the light within the heart – he is indeed the Self.’
And so it went, with Janaka asking question after question, and Yagnavalkya,
bound by his promise to the king, answering him patiently. They talked of the
exact mechanics of Death and the blissful world of Brahman where the Self
reposes between one life and the next. They discussed the oneness of the Self
with Brahman and how there was really no difference at all between the two.
And then they came to the tricky question of how exactly a man’s destiny is
fashioned. Was a man’s destiny determined even before he was born? Was there
any way he could change it? How did one man become ‘good’, and another
‘bad’?
And Yagnavalkya said, ‘O King, what a man becomes depends entirely on
his own actions. If his actions are good, he himself becomes good; if they are
bad, he himself becomes bad.’
‘But what makes a man act?’ asked the king. ‘What if he performs no action
at all?’
‘Ah, but a man cannot perform “no action at all”,’ smiled Yagnavalkya. ‘For
the root of all action, good or bad, is desire, and a man is made of nothing but his
desire.’
‘Know this, Your Majesty,

A man is nothing but his deep, driving desire.

As is his desire, so is his will,
As is his will, so is his action,
As is his action, so is his destiny.’

The dire words, so simple but so powerful, so ruthless, echoed in the good
king’s head. Yagnavalkya was right – it was really as simple as that. Learn to
control your desire and you can control your destiny – that’s all there was to it!
Janaka bowed low before the great sage. ‘I salute your wisdom, blessed one,’
he said, in a voice brimming with gratitude, ‘I beg you, accept me as your slave.’

***
Learn to control your desire, and you can control your destiny! Really? Yes!
Control your desire for TV time before an exam, and you will be able to focus
better on your studies and crack the exam. Control your desire for junk food, and
you will be healthier. On the flip side, don’t control your desire to sneak a look
into your friend’s answer paper, and be marched off the principal’s office. Don’t
control your desire to lie to your parents, and suffer a truckload of guilt over it.
 Even situations where controlling your desire seems like a bad idea could
end up working for you! For instance, let’s say you control your desire for that
pricey new phone, becoming an outcast among your friends as a result. (PS: If
this happens, you might want to review those friendships.) Now, you can cry
quietly about it, or you can let your parents know how their action (of not getting
you a new phone) has ruined your life. Chances are, your parents will be guilted
into getting you something else that you really want,* which they may not have
otherwise. See what you did there? You controlled your destiny!
*You wish! – Signed, Your Parents

Jokes apart, think very, very carefully about your actions before you do
them, for you become your actions. And it is the little, everyday actions that
count just as much, or more, than the big, grand, one-off actions. ‘I’m going to
cheat a little today, and that’s OK, because from tomorrow I’m totally going off
it,’ may sound good as an excuse for cheating when you say it to yourself, but
don’t be fooled – in the grand scheme of things, every single action counts.
This is not in the sense that there is someone sitting in the clouds recording
your every deed in a giant register, which she will use to decide whether you will
go to Heaven or Hell after you die, but in the sense that you can decide, for
yourself, how you want to fashion your life, right here on earth, and then proceed
to make that dream come true – simply by being vigilant about your actions.
That’s a tremendous superpower. Use it mindfully!

ADHYAYA 5

What The Thunder Said

One of the shortest, simplest and most heart-warming stories in the Upanishads
is the one below, the very same one that influenced Eliot so deeply. Enjoy!
 nce, in aeons past, the children of Prajapati the Creator – gods, humans

O and demons – lived with him as his students. When they came to the end
of their education, they each went to him, seeking a final piece of advice.
‘Venerable One,’ said the gods, ‘What advice do you have for us?’
‘Da,’ said the Supreme Father. And then he asked them, ‘Have you
understood?’
‘We have, Father,’ they said. ‘Da is for Damyata (say daam-yata). You are
telling us to exercise self-restraint.’
‘You have understood,’ said Prajapati, and he was well pleased, for his sons,
the gods, were unruly and given to excess, and indulged too often and prodigally
in the pleasures of the flesh.
Then it was the turn of the humans.
‘Father,’ said the humans. ‘What advice do you have for us?’
‘Da,’ said he. And then he asked them, ‘Have you understood?’
‘We have,’ his human sons answered. ‘Da is for Datta. You are asking us to
give, and give generously.’
‘You have understood,’ said Prajapati, and he was well pleased, for his sons,
the humans, were inclined to be selfish and greedy, hoarding more than they
needed, never letting go of what they considered their own.
 Then it was the turn of the demons.
‘Most respected sir,’ said the demons. ‘What advice do you have for us?’
‘Da,’ said the Creator. And then he asked them, ‘Have you understood?’
‘We have, sir,’ his demon sons answered. ‘Da is for Dayadhvam. You are
telling us to be compassionate.’
‘You have understood,’ said Prajapati, and he was well pleased, for his sons,
the demons, had a cruel streak, and did not hesitate to harm and kill in the
pursuit of their own ends.
Each stormy night, so that Prajapati’s children never forget, the divine voice
of Thunder repeats the supreme teaching – ‘Da-Da-Da! Damyata! Datta!
Dayadhvam!’

Aum Shantih Shantih Shantih ||

***
Da-da-da! Bet you are never going to be able to hear the voice of thunder again
without going – Umm, what were those teachings again?
And that’s great, for all three teachings are really meant only for us, humans!
You see, each of us contains in ourselves both god and demon – for are we not
all, at different times, given to indiscipline, excess, selfishness, greed and even
cruelty – in thought, word and deed?
When we live life king-size, going overboard with food, fizzy drinks, money,
laughter, device-time, we are displaying the god side of our personalities – we
are generous at that point, unlike humans, and perhaps even compassionate,
unlike the demons, for we ourselves are so full of joy. But there is such a thing
as ‘too much of a good thing’ – excess drains us in ways we do not immediately
realize. When you feel you are overdoing something, therefore, pause, gather
yourself, and pull back, remembering the teaching – Da! Damyata!
When we get all petty and possessive about what we consider ‘ours’, we are
displaying the human side of our personalities. We could be practising severe
self-restraint, which makes us godlike, at the same time, and being
compassionate too, thus keeping our demons at bay, but our small-mindedness
will give us away and reveal us to be mostly human. When you catch yourself
being too human, remember the teaching – Da! Datta! – and let go.
When we are unnecessarily mean to someone, or fly into a rage, we are
displaying the demon side of our personalities. Even if we are being highly
disciplined at that time – as Prajapati asked the gods to be – or being generous
with our time or money – as Prajapati asked the humans to be – the fact that we
are essentially being cruel outs us as demons and brings about our downfall. The
next time you are about to say or do something that could hurt someone,
remember the teaching – Da! Dayadhvam! – and check yourself.

One two – da-da-da

Let’s do – da-da-da
Me and you – da-da-da
Doo-roooo...
[Sung to the tune of Usha Uthup’s ‘Cha-cha-cha’ from the film Shalimar (1978).]
Cool theme song for life, wot?
 AND, IN CONCLUSION
There. We have now wrapped up a first, brief and by no means exhaustive exploration of some of the most
ancient philosophical texts in the world. If you have read this far, what are you feeling just now? A sense of:
• Achievement (‘Well done, me! I never thought I’d last!’)?
• Empowerment (‘Ha! I can totally bluff my way through any conversation on the Vedas and Upanishads
now – try me!’?)?
• Wonder (‘Man, those ancients figured out some pretty cool things about life, the universe, and
everything, hanh?’)?
• Surprise and delight (‘Heyyy, several bits and pieces of the Vedas and Upanishads [V&U] were already
familiar to me – mantras, stories, characters, concepts... Who knew?)?
• Confusion (‘Umm, I still don’t get any of it, sorry!’)?
• Validation (‘I always suspected that the ancient Indian texts were wise, wonderful, relevant, secular,
liberal, egalitarian/random, pointless, irrelevant, narrow, divisive, patriarchal – and this confirms it.’)?
You may be feeling one or more of these emotions, or something entirely else, but here’s the thing –
whatever it is you are feeling, you are completely entitled to it; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! What
you can, and should, be happy about is that your opinion comes from having put in the time and effort to
explore something (in this case, the V&U) by yourself – you are not echoing someone else’s opinion, or
taking someone else’s word for what they are about.
What if it turns out that your opinion (about the V&U or anything else) is different from that of your
friends or family? That’s perfectly fine – don’t doubt yourself or go against what you feel just to hang with
the herd. Each of us processes and understands things based on our individual nature, upbringing, exposure,
level of understanding, phase of development and past experiences, and that is as it should be. It would be a
boring world if everyone understood or reacted to things in exactly the same way.
And if you feel a little divided in your own mind? That there are parts of the V&U that you love and
others that you don’t feel comfortable with at all? Why, that’s easy! Just take from them the lessons that you
think are useful and illuminating, and set the rest aside. To reject the whole simply because there are bits of
it you don’t like or agree with seems a little shortsighted, especially because no one, least of all the sages of
the V&U, is asking you to believe everything they have said.
Only make sure you approach every new field of study – and event, and situation – with a mind as open
and non-judgemental as possible. Only make sure you understand that just as you are entitled to your
opinion, so is everyone else. Only make sure never to stop seeking the truth, and to review, at regular
intervals, what you believe to be the truth.
Only make sure you never forget that you are not small or insignificant or irrelevant, but that you carry
within you the potential to be – that you can choose to be – luminous, glorious, MAGNIFICENT!
Have a fabulous life!
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
‘The divine force that lives within you, just as it lives in every other
being, will turn you around like a puppet on a stick, and make you follow
your nature – don’t ever doubt that. Why do you fight it, Arjuna?’ –
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18

fter my book The Gita for Children was published in 2015, everyone I

A knew – and dozens I didn’t – urged me to write more books in the same
vein. I baulked. Determined not to be ‘typecast’, I busied myself writing
other books for children – on exciting topics like economics, life skills, history,
maths – enjoying myself thoroughly in the bargain. But I realized in a while that
I was fighting a losing battle. When my editor Vatsala Kaul Banerjee brought up
the matter of a book on the Vedas and Upanishads for children for the 57th time
– Krishna’s quote above might just as well be attributed to her – I capitulated,
feeling a huge sense of lightness, gratitude and joy as I returned to push a teeny
bit further into a landscape I had come to love so much.
It wasn’t easy. If I had had very little exposure to the Bhagavad Gita before I
wrote The Gita for Children, I had even less to the V&U. Unlike the Gita, which
is contained in a compact 700 verses, the V&U are huge, sprawling and abstract,
a brihad aranya that felt at first far too intimidating to negotiate. I would not
have had the courage to skirt even the outermost edge of that metaphysical
forest, as I have now, if not for the guidance, encouragement and support of a
great many wise and wonderful people, and many thanks are due to them.
– As always, to Vatsala Kaul Banerjee, mentor, friend and fine human being,
who not only believes, generously and unconditionally, but also puts in the
punishing toil that keeping that faith entails – I owe you more than you will
 know,
– To Sayan Mukherjee, who cheerfully came on board again for this book,
even though he was in the middle of moving homes between continents, and
produced all the imaginative artwork – God knows illustrating abstract
concepts isn’t easy – that you see, including the dazzling cover,
– To all the intellectual and spiritual giants – Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,
Ralph Griffith, Eknath Eswaran, Patrick Olivelle, Swami Chinmayananda, Sri
M, Wendy Doniger, and so many more – whose decades of finely honed
erudition and immersion in the ancient texts I greedily feasted on; and to the
World Wide Web, which makes so much of it accessible to anyone with a
smartphone,
– To Swami Sarvapriyananda, Resident Swami of the Vedanta Society, New
York, not only for the grace, lightness, wisdom and humour that mark his
luminous discourses on the Vedanta that this book has so greatly benefitted
from, but for actually taking the time to write me a personal message of
encouragement in response to an unsolicited email,
– To Prof. Bibek Debroy for his extraordinary generosity, once again, in
agreeing to review the manuscript of this book despite his insane work
schedule, for shining the light of his immense scholarship into its every nook
and cranny to ruthlessly call out biases and errors, and for always being
available to promptly resolve thorny issues related to the scriptures, and
beyond,
– To my aunt-in-law Tara Kini, whose own immersion in and love of the
Principal Upanishads has led to three beautifully crafted stage and musical
performances based on them, which I have had the pleasure and privilege to
watch, enjoy and learn from,
– To Anando Banerjee, who also reviewed the manuscript (and was horrified
that there was no mention of The Matrix Trilogy in its first draft), for enjoying
it so much and being so gung-ho about the need for it to exist;
– To my long-suffering family and friends, who, as my sounding boards, were
 particularly battered this past year, for having borne their burdens so
cheerfully; my children, I hope, will eventually recover from their scars, and
maybe even read the book some day,
– And always, always, a deep and most heartfelt debt of gratitude and love to
the land that so long ago spawned the universal truths that sustain her children
still, and to the thousands of nameless sages who, once they had seen beyond
the walls, spared no effort to make that glorious, edifying and empowering
vision available to all seekers.

Aum Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Debroy, Bibek and Debroy, Dipavali: The Holy Vedas: Rig Veda, Yajur Veda,
Sama Veda and Atharva Veda, BR Publishing Corporation, 1994
Doniger, Wendy: The Rig Veda, Penguin Classics, 2005
Griffith, Ralph T.H., and Keith, Arthur Berridale: The Vedas – The Samhitas of
the Rig, Yajur (White and Black), Sama and Atharva Vedas, Kshetra Books,
2017
Radhakrishnan, S.: The Hindu View of Life, Harper Element, 2014
Tharoor, Shashi: Why I Am A Hindu, Aleph Book Company, 2018
Zimmer, Heinrich, edited by Campbell, Joseph: Philosophies of India, Princeton
University Press, 1992
Swami Vivekananda, edited by Swami Chetanananda: Vedanta: Voice of
Freedom, Advaita Ashrama, 11th Reprint Edition, 2013
Singh, B.N.: The Creator: Vedic Philosophy through the eyes of a scientist,
Reem Publications, 2010
Sri M: Jewel in the Lotus: Deeper Aspects of Hinduism, Magenta Press, 2011
Eswaran, Eknath: The Upanishads, Jaico, 2010
Olivelle, Patrick: Upanishads, Oxford University Press, 1996
Sri M: Wisdom of the Rishis: The Three Upanishads – Ishavasya, Kena and
Mandukya, Magenta Press, 2012
Sri M: The Upanishads – Katha-Prashna-Mundaka, Magenta Press, 2017
Radhakrishnan, S.: The Principal Upanishads, HarperCollins, 2006
Sagan, Carl: Cosmos, The Random House Publishing Group, USA, 1980
And although they cannot be classified as bibliography in the strictest sense, this
book has been inspired and informed by dozens and dozens of illuminating
discourses on Vedic philosophy and the Upanishads by several wonderful
speakers, thinkers, scientists, philosophers, historians, and men of religion.
 IMAGE COPYRIGHT
INFORMATION
*The following images have been sourced from Wikimedia Commons: Page 55: middle: impression of
Pashupati seal: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication/Ismoon; Page 66: Rig
Veda manuscript: Public Domain/source: http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.20/ms2097.jpg; Page 79:
Bhagavata Purana: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported/ Attribution: Open Access
for Scholarly Content (OASC), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Page 140: top: Dara Shikoh:
Public Domain; middle: A.H. Anquetil–Duperron: Public Domain; bottom: Arthur Schopenhauer:
Public Domain/source: Frankfurt am Main University Library/author: Schäfer, Johann; Page 175: Adi
Shankaracharya by Raja Ravi Varma: Public Domain; Page 226: Plato (Luni marble, copy of the
portrait made by Silanion): Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license/ Attribution: © Marie-Lan
Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY 2.5; U.S. Public Domain tag: published anywhere before 1923
and public domain in the U.S.; Page 259: Indian National Emblem: Public Domain/source:
www.mha.nic.in; Page 301: Matryoshka dolls: Public Domain/ source: Sergiev Posad Museum of Toys,
Russia; Page 373: T.S. Eliot: Public Domain
ROOPA PAI is the author of several books for children, including the much-
acclaimed, award-winning bestseller, The Gita for Children. Her books, on
topics as diverse as history, mathematics, science, economics and sci-fi fantasy,
are enjoyed by adults just as much as they are by children. Of all the
Mahavakyas in the Upanishads, her favourite is ‘Prajnanam Brahma –
Knowledge is God’.

SAYAN MUKHERJEE is an illustrator living in Kolkata and working from his

studio. After working in advertising for almost nine years, he went solo with his
passion – illustrations. He loves children’s books and loves to create art for kids.
Besides Hachette India, he works with publishers like Penguin Random House
India, Juggernaut, Tulika Books, Speaking Tiger and Pratham Books, among
others. He has a number of sketchbooks and carries them wherever he travels, to
preserve some beautiful memories.

Other Books by ROOPA PAI

The Gita for Children

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Teenager (and Almost-Teenager)

THE TARANAUTS SERIES

Taranauts 1: The Quest for the Shyn Emeralds
 Taranauts 2: The Riddle of the Lustr Sapphires
Taranauts 3: The Secret of the Sparkl Amethysts
Taranauts 4: The Race for the Glo Rubies
Taranauts 5: The Mystery of the Syntilla Silvers
Taranauts 6: The Key to the Shimr Citrines
Taranauts 7: The Search for the Glytr Turquoises
Taranauts 8: The Magic of the Dazl Corals
 THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS
FOR CHILDREN
Three thousand years ago, deep inside the forests of India, a great ‘thought
revolution’ was brewing.

In those forest labs, the brightest thinker–philosophers contemplated the

universe, reflected on ancient texts called the Vedas and came up with startling
insights into questions we still don’t have final answers to, like:

What is the universe made of?

How do I know I’m looking at a tree when I see one?
Who am I? My body, my mind, my intelligence, my emotions, or none of the above?

And where did they put those explosive findings?

In a sprawling body of goosebumpy and fascinating oral literature called the

Upanishads! Intimidated? Don’t be! For this joyful, fun guide to some of India’s
longest-lasting secular wisdoms, reinterpreted for first-time explorers by Roopa
Pai, is guaranteed to keep you turning the pages.

Why haven’t you read it yet?

www.hachetteindia.com