Ardor (5 page)

“Janaka of Videha once asked him: ‘Do you know the
agnihotra
, Y
ā
jñavalkya?’ ‘I know it, O king,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ ‘It is milk.’

“‘If there were no milk, with what would you sacrifice?’ ‘With rice and barley.’ ‘If there were no rice and barley, with what would you sacrifice?’ ‘With other grasses that were about.’ ‘If there were no other grasses about, with what would you sacrifice?’ ‘With the plants that I found in the forest.’ ‘And if there were no forest plants, with what would you sacrifice?’ ‘With the fruits of the trees.’ ‘And if there were no fruits of the trees, with what would you sacrifice?’ ‘With water.’ ‘If there were no water, with what would you sacrifice?’

“He said: ‘Then there would be nothing else here, and yet there would be the offering of truth (
satya
) into faith (
ś
raddh
ā
).’ ‘You know the
agnihotra
, Y
ā
jñavalkya: I give you a hundred cows,’ said Janaka.”

That day, King Janaka had pushed Y
ā
jñavalkya to the limit. To do so, he had used the idea of the simplest ritual, the
agnihotra:
the mere act of pouring milk into the fire. He wanted to find out what would be left if even the most basic things disappeared. It was a device for uncovering the relentless process that operates in every offering. Y
ā
jñavalkya immediately separated out the two essential points in every sacrificial act: substitution and the transposition from the visible to the realm of the mind. This in turn was reduced to its ultimate terms, beyond which the substance to be offered and the agent that consumes that substance (the milk and the fire of the
agnihotra
) no longer exist as such. The two ultimate terms were:
satya
, “truth,” something that was not part of people’s lives from the very beginning (“men are the untruth”), but which they had to attain so as to be in a position to offer something; and
ś
raddh
ā
, “faith,” in particular faith in the effectiveness of the ritual, a feeling without which the entire edifice of thought collapses. Only
ś
raddh
ā
can replace fire, since
ś
raddh
ā
is
fire.
Ś
raddh
ā
is the Vedic axiom: the firm belief, which cannot be demonstrated but is implied in every act, that the visible acts on the invisible and, above all, that the invisible acts on the visible—that the realm of the mind and the realm of the tangible are in continual communication. They had no need for
faith
, except in this sense. Everything else followed from that. It required Y
ā
jñavalkya to say it with such incisiveness.

*   *   *

Janaka, a king famous for his magnanimity and learning, was pleased with Y
ā
jñavalkya’s answers on the
agnihotra.
To such an extent that, according to the version in the
Jaimin
ī
ya Br
ā
hma
ṇ
a
, “he became his disciple.” Humbly, he said to Y
ā
jñavalkya: “Teach me.” The situation was reversed. Now it would be Y
ā
jñavalkya who asked the questions, who wanted to work, like a surgeon, precisely on the weak joints in Janaka’s knowledge. Yet that knowledge was impressive. With great benevolence, Y
ā
jñavalkya described Janaka as someone who, before setting off on a long journey, “finds for himself a chariot or a boat.” These, for him, were the
upani
ṣ
ads
, the “secret connections” that he had gathered together to enable him to pursue the long journey of knowledge. Y
ā
jñavalkya, it seems, paid no similar homage to anyone else. But though so laden with power and knowledge, Janaka had reached a point where the “secret connections” no longer helped him. Y
ā
jñavalkya sought to question him on that very point. Abruptly—as was his style—he asked: “When you are freed from this world, where will you go?” With equal frankness, Janaka answered: “I don’t know where I will go, my lord.”

It is an exchange that disposes once and for all of every bigoted vision of Vedic India. Here the wise king, Janaka, acknowledges being lost and ignorant, like everyone, at the moment when one leaves the world, from which it is possible to
release
oneself (an Indian obsession, like “salvation” will be for Christians), but without necessarily knowing
where one is going.
At this point Y
ā
jñavalkya, in an Upani
ṣ
ad, offers an insight that goes
beyond
the
upani
ṣ
ads
(in the sense of “secret connections”).

In order to explain
where we go
after death, Y
ā
jñavalkya mentions neither life nor death. He has the temerity to say, as if his words were a detailed reply: “Indha [the Flaming One] is the name of that person (
puru
ṣ
a
) in the right eye; in truth he is
indha
, but he is called Indra to hide his real name. The gods love what is secret and abhor what is obvious.” The last sentence appears countless times in the Br
ā
hma
ṇ
as, as a warning that we are crossing into esoteric territory. And the esoteric is such, above all, because the gods love it, whereas they don’t like what is clear at first sight. This is the Indian response—many centuries ahead—to that “hatred of what is secret” on which, according to Guénon, the West would be based. Here Y
ā
jñavalkya gives us a lightning demonstration of what might be the secret. In declaring what happens after death, he does not describe an earth or a heaven of everlasting life. But he speaks of physiology. He speaks of that minuscule figure we see reflected in the pupil of another’s eye. And he calls it a “person,”
puru
ṣ
a
, a being about which the
B
ṛ
had
ā
ra
ṇ
yaka Upani
ṣ
ad
itself said: “The
ā
tman
, the Self, existed alone in the beginning in the form of Puru
ṣ
a.” In this case the king of the gods, Indra, is a cover for another figure, the mysterious Indha, the Flaming One, who has a female companion, Vir
ā
j (the name of a meter but also the consort of Puru
ṣ
a). But why should these two minuscule reflected figures reveal to us what happens after death? Because they are linked together in an extremely long and continually renewed coitus in the space inside the heart: a protective cavern. And what do they live on? “Their food is the red mass inside the heart.” Here, like a cusp, metaphysics penetrates physiology. The coitus between Indra and Vir
ā
j is wakefulness—and the state that reigns at the end of coitus is sleep: “For, as here, when human coitus comes to an end the man becomes, as it were, insensible, so then he becomes insensible; because this is a divine union, and this is the supreme happiness.” The two figures reflected in the two eyes enabled Y
ā
jñavalkya to enter the cavity of the Self and surprise it in its constant and double erotic activity, which is the mind itself. And from here Y
ā
jñavalkya rises straightaway to the peak of negative theology: “As for the
ā
tman
, the Self, it can only be expressed in the negative: ungraspable, because it cannot be grasped; indestructible, because it cannot be destroyed; detached, because it doesn’t become attached; without ties, nothing stirs it, nothing wounds it. In truth, Janaka, you have attained non-fear (
abhaya
).” And here is an echo of the speech that will denote the
mudr
ā
of the hand raised to shoulder height: the most typical gesture of the Buddha.

The boldness of Y
ā
jñavalkya’s reply should be stressed. He is speaking to someone who already knows much, but whose knowledge lacks one final step. He does not think it appropriate to use words of reassurance, nor to make any promises. Y
ā
jñavalkya needs only to refer to one physiological fact—the figure reflected in the pupil—in order to produce the revelation of something that encapsulates everything: the Self as an unshakable power that acts unremittingly in every living being, even if it is not perceived. Nothing else is needed to attain “non-fear,” which is the only form of peace. As soon as he had heard him, Janaka said to Y
ā
jñavalkya: “May
abhaya
, non-fear, peace, be with you, Y
ā
jñavalkya.”

*   *   *

In two boundless Indian works, the presumed author is also a character in the work itself. As Vy
ā
sa is for the
Mah
ā
bh
ā
rata
, so Y
ā
jñavalkya is for the
Ś
atapatha Br
ā
hma
ṇ
a.
In the case of Vy
ā
sa it is impossible to give any historical identity to him; in the case of Y
ā
jñavalkya it is almost impossible. But their appearance as characters is equally necessary. The author is an actor who appears on the scene and then disappears, like so many others. And at the same time he is the eye behind which there is none other, the eye that allows everything to unfold before the eye of that nameless being who listens, who reads.

*   *   *

How did Janaka react when Y
ā
jñavalkya showed him, in just a few words, what happens after death—and with reference only to the figure we see reflected in the pupil? The
B
ṛ
had
ā
ra
ṇ
yaka Upani
ṣ
ad
tells us immediately after: “At that time Y
ā
jñavalkya went to Janaka of Videha, with the intention not to speak.” A magnificent
incipit
, once again in keeping with the stern character of Y
ā
jñavalkya. But Janaka remembered that on another occasion, when he had argued on the
agnihotra
, Y
ā
jñavalkya had granted him a
vara
, a “boon”: the chance to make a wish that he had to fulfill (Indian stories—above all the
Mah
ā
bh
ā
rata
—tend to be stories that interweave boons and curses, as in Wagner’s
Ring
). Now was the moment to make that wish—which was to continue questioning Y
ā
jñavalkya.

Then something surprising happened: the
ṛṣ
i
who hadn’t wanted to say anything, the
ṛṣ
i
who regularly spoke with sharp, cutting jibes, before immediately passing on, withdrawing into silence, this time spoke at length, with brilliant eloquence, as if yielding to an uncontrollable impulse. And finally he explained in detail the doctrine of the
ā
tman
, in the most intense and beguiling terms. Never again in Indian literature, not even in K
ṛṣṇ
a’s teaching of Arjuna in the
Bhagavad G
ī
t
ā
, would doctrine find such luminous words. There was also a moment when Y
ā
jñavalkya had the impression he had gone too far. He thought then: “The king is clever, he has taken all my highest doctrines from me.”

*   *   *

If Y
ā
jñavalkya wanted to grant a “boon” to Janaka of Videha after his disputation on the
agnihotra
, he had good reason. For on that occasion Janaka had shown himself to be finer than three brahmins, one of whom was Y
ā
jñavalkya himself. After having questioned them he had left on his chariot: proud, scornful, dissatisfied. The three brahmins knew they hadn’t been up to the task. “They said: ‘This king has beaten us: come, let us challenge him in a disputation.’” Then Y
ā
jñavalkya had come forward and stopped them, with well-picked words. If they had in fact won, he said, the incident would have left no impression. It is normal for brahmins to defeat a king in a theological argument. It is almost their raison d’être. But if Janaka happened to win? Better not to think about it … The world would have been turned upside down. So Y
ā
jñavalkya preferred to go to Janaka alone and humbly asked him what he knew about the
agnihotra.
He discovered that Janaka knew much. It was then that he granted him a “boon”—and Janaka asked to question him further. “Janaka, from then on, was a brahmin.”