Cover Story

Bhartruhari’s Social Mirror-Indira Seshadri

Bhartruhari was a great poet, mystic, and king who hailed from the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh about the 6th century A.D. In his work Niti Satakam (Verse 74), he analyzes the different types of people in human society – any society irrespective of its geographical location. The beauty of this verse is that even after 14 centuries, this yardstick is still perfectly relevant and helps us to understand the anatomy and pathology of our society.

The verse runs thus:

Eke sat-purushah parartha

ghatakah

Svarthan parityajya ye

Samanyastu pararthamu- dyamabhdtah

Svarthavirodhana ye;

Te mi manava-rakshasah

Para-hitam

Svartaya nignanti ye,

Ye ghnanti nirarthakam para-hitam

Te ke na janimahe.

"There are satpurushas or noble souls who sacrifice their own self-interest to work for the welfare of other people; the samanyas who form the majority who work for the welfare of the others without sacrificing their own self interest; the manava rakshasa who destroy other peoples’ welfare for their own self-interest. But what am I to say about those who sacrifice others’ welfare without gaining any good for themselves?"

According to Bhartrihari these four types of people are to be found everywhere. Only the ratios change from society to society.

First Category

The first is the satpurusha, the noble people who are always working for the welfare of others and the poet calls them parartha ghatakah. But that alone does not make them satpurushas. They sacrifice their own self-interest to advance society’s welfare. This is what separates them from the samanyas and they form a minority of any given society at any given time.

Jesus called them ‘the salt of the earth’. They do not gather any honors from the government, but the people lovingly call them "Mahatma", one who can go beyond his genetic limitations and feels one with the millions, denoting the highest of human excellence. Such was Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Second Category

Then comes the second category – the majority and the most important category called the samanyas who wok for the good of others without sacrificing their own self interest – svartha avhirodhena.

This eminent category has been termed by the British political, economical and ethical thought as the "enlightened self-interest" type. They do not forsake their own interests, but whatever surplus time, money or energy they have spend it on the community they live in. He is basically the grahastha who has developed a sense of national responsibility thus achieving a new psychological and spiritual maturity. Family responsibility expands into social and national responsibility.

This concern for the less fortunate is absolutely essential if the world is not to be torn apart with bitter conflicts between the haves and the have-nots within a nation and between nations. This philosophy of enlightened self interest is a practical philosophy operating at the international level in this post World War II era – the developed nations reaching out to help the developing and under-developed countries, since the former know that if the latter perish, they cannot survive.

The uneducated masses will make the educated ones suffer, the poor will make the rich pay a heavy price and hence the majority of the people must belong to this category of samanyas to make a nation healthy. This class must, in turn, be inspired and sustained by the satpurushas.

Third Category

The people belonging to the third category are termed as manava-rakshasas by the poet – human in appearance but demoniacal in nature. They are bereft of the social sense and human values, they are the parasites of society preying upon the other sections of society for achieving their own selfish goals. People indulging in smuggling, bribery, corruption, substandard work, adulteration of food and drugs and manufacturing spurious goods, all fall into this category.

There is no compassion in the hearts of these manava-rakshasas. It is the lack of compassion that characterizes the demon. A human has both intelligence and compassion, but a demon has only intelligence and no compassion.

If there is compassion, people will still work for their own welfare but will not destroy the others in the process. This compassion is the fruit of ethical attitude and humanistic impulse. The lack of this characterizes the manava-rakshasas.

Fourth Category

Then comes the fourth and the lowest category and Bhartruhari is at a loss to define this category – "te ke na janimahe".

This is the vandalistic type who take pleasure in riots, arson, looting, mindless killings, the destruction of public properties in the name of religion or nation or just for the pleasure of it. The tragedy of this category is that they destroy others’ welfare without gaining anything for themselves.

One finds these four types everywhere but the ratio differs from society to society and from nation to nation. The tragedy is that though the percentage of satpurushas remains constant, a large percentage of samanyas slowly and inexorably slips into the third and the fourth categories.

Need of the Hour

The need of the hour is to reduce and contain the formidable majority of the third and fourth categories to a manageable minority, since it is impossible to eliminate them altogether. To transform India from the largest democracy to the greatest democracy, one needs to have a passion both humanistic and patriotic to initiate such educational, cultural and spiritual steps as will raise the level of human life to excellence.

Just as we are battling to eliminate environmental pollution, we must toil to eliminate the mental and spiritual pollution that are stifling society. We Indians are lucky that we have our spiritual literature and teachers to guide us, inspire us and transform us.

Swami Vivekananda asserts that once one wakes up the sleeping giant of the soul within oneself, glory, excellence, purity and goodness will follow. To quote Prof. Arnold Toynbee: "The transitional chapter of the world history which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending, if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race."

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