The Fear of Life and Death - J M Macfie

 

"Do that today which you would keep for tomorrow. Do that in the forenoon which you would keep for the afternoon. Death does not wait for any one to see whether he has or has not performed his task."–– Mahabharata, xii. 322. 73.

WHEN the battle between the Pandus and Kurus, which is described earlier, was over, Yudhisthira was so overwhelmed with sorrow at the thought of having been the cause of the deaths of so many brave men, that he announced his intention of retiring to the forest. He declared that the whole warrior caste was accused. Might and valor and wrath had always been their bane. They had fought like dogs over a piece of meat, and now as the victorious dog he had no pleasure in what he had won. This lust for earthly things could only be crushed out by a life of renunciation, by fasts and sacrifices and vows, in the forest. There, freed from action and desire, he would purify his soul. His brothers protested violently, asking why they had fought if this was to be the result. He was like a man who begins to dig a well and stops just before he gets to the water. He was neglecting the duties of his order, which were to fight with other kings and protect his own subjects. They told him a story about Indra appearing in the guise of a bird and sending back to their homes some young men who had gone to the forest, with the words that the life of a householder was the truest renunciation. They quoted the Vedas also to the same effect, that the householder’s mode of life was equal to the other three put together, on the condition, of course, that a man gave away the wealth he had acquired to the Brahmins1. As for killing one’s enemies, it was no sin to kill them. The gods had killed the Asuras, their elder brothers. The beasts were constantly killing one another. Even ascetics could not live without killing some living creature. Some animals were so minute that the moving of the eyelids killed them. The gods that were most worshipped were all destroyers, and remorseless. Time came to all and carried all away. So let him fight his foes as other warriors did. Worship the gods and offer sacrifices with many gifts to the Brahmins. That was the teaching of the wise. Besides, it was not possible to kill the soul. So one could not be said to kill anybody. The soul passed from body to body like a man moving to a new house. They told him, too, of a king whose wife, by her wise words, persuaded him from becoming a forest-dweller. She said it was only a poor man, abandoned by his friends, who could find happiness in the shaven head and the brown robe of the ascetic. It was not for a king who had fed thousands of Brahmins to go and ask these very men for a handful of grain. If all men became beggars, who would be left to feed them? Men thought they became free from desire because they wandered about with the beggar’s bowl, but they were still in bondage to desire; were it desire for a handful of barley and nothing more, it would still be desire. He could remain a king, and yet break the fetters of the world. If he did that, he would really be a liberated man, and in the end reach the regions of the blessed.

Yudhisthira was not persuaded. He admitted that the Vedas were conflicting in their teaching. Sometimes they preached action, sometimes they bade men refrain from acts. For himself, he thought their praise of wealth was quite wrong, and he was certain that men reached a higher state of bliss by way of renunciation. The practice of yoga, without a doubt procured salvation, though in these days, he confessed, there were men going about giving lectures to large numbers of people, denying the existence of the soul, and speaking against the doctrine of liberation. They were very learned men, well versed in logic, but they were wicked men and fools for all that.

Certain sages then took part in the discussion. They advised him to do his duty as a king for the present, and afterwards he could go to the forest. The four modes of life should be followed in turn. What would happen to the sacrifices if there were no wealth? He must not speak so disparagingly of wealth. Let him give gifts, and rule the earth righteously for the good of Brahmins and cows, and he would be rewarded in the end. It was the business of Brahmins to indulge in penance, sacrifice, forgiveness, living in solitude and contentment. A fourth part only of a Brahmin’s virtue was expected from a member of the warrior caste, and the life of a good householder was really the most difficult of all, especially for a king, who had to bear the burden of his kingdom. One of the rishis in particular urged him not to indulge in useless grief. There was a mean in all things. It was only the fool who was ever really happy and content; the fool and the man with all his passions under control. But to be ever thinking about others’ sorrows, would rob him of happiness entirely. Let him remember that Time carried all men away. We met with one another, even our dearest, like travelers meeting at an inn. There was nothing we could call our own. Our fathers were dead and we too would die. Death and Disease, like a pair or wolves, were ceaselessly devouring all. Destiny was a wonderful thing. The rich man died in his strength and youth; the poor man dragged on his miserable life for a hundred years. The rich had no appetite, while the poor were able to digest pieces of wood. People asked if the Supreme Being was responsible, or man. Some spoke of chance, and others of destiny. If one man suffered for the sins due to another’s action, then we should put all the responsibility on God. On the other hand, if a man was the real agent of all his acts, good, and evil, he did not think there was room for God at all, and what a man had done could bring no evil effects upon him. What happened, in his opinion, happened because it was ordained, and from destiny no one could escape. Destiny was the result of one’s deeds in a former life, and for that no sin attached as far as this life was concerned. Man’s acts, be they good or bad, were revolving unceasingly as on a wheel, and the fruits of these acts man unceasingly reaped. The sum of the whole matter was, to do his duty as a member of the warrior caste, and at the same time perform those acts of expiration and sacrifice which would cleanse him of all his sins1.

Yudhisthira, however, was not content, and when he visited his dying friend, the illustrious Bhishma, and asked his counsel on these and other matters, the aged hero showed by his replies that many had begun to doubt it sacrifice and other religious rites conferred any lasting benefit on the soul.  By way of an illustration, he gave an account of a discussion which had taken place between an old man and his son.  The father was an orthodox believer, putting his trust in the teaching and rites of the Vedas, while the son had adopted the doctrines of Liberation.  "Tell me, father," said the yound man, "what I ought to do.  Life is passing very quickly.  Tell me what is the best way to acquire virtue."  The father replied in the usual fashion.  "You know what has been appointed.  The four stages through which we must all travel.  There is first the life of the student, when you read the Vedas and practice the duties connected therewith.  When that stage is over, you must become a householder, marry and have children.  If you don't do that, your ancestors cannot hope to escape from hell.  Having fulfilled the duties of a householder, lighted the family fire and performed the sacrifices which belong to that mode of life, you will spend the rest of your days, first as a forest-dweller, and last of all as a religious mendicant."

To the father’s amazement, the youth had nothing but scorn for such an easy-going scheme. He was deeply impressed by the sorrow of life, and he could not understand how his father could talk so calmly, when he knew that the world was surrounded on all sides by implacable foes. When he said this, the father intervened: "I don’t understand what you are saying, my son. Are you trying to frighten me? Who is attacking the world? Who has surrounded it on every side?" "Have you never heard of Death, father? How can you be so happy," said the youth, "when you think of Disease, old age and Death". And then he began to dwell on the universality of Disease, old age and Death; and on how Death comes to all, the wise and the ignorant, the weak and the strong, the happy and the sad; came, too, when they did not expect him, breaking in upon their schemes and hopes and joys, like a tiger carrying off a sleeping deer. It was truth alone that could conquer Death. Immortality dwelt with Truth. With Truth in his possession, he would escape from Death, and become like one of the immortals. By controlling his senses and refraining from injury to all creatures in thought, word and deed, he would perform the sacrifice of peace. He could not possibly take part in an animal sacrifice. It was not only full of cruelty, but it produced very uncertain rewards. Nor did he need children to rescue him from hell2. He would rest on his own self. There was no reward like knowledge; no penance like truth; no sorrow like attachment to the world; no happiness except in renunciation.

Bhishma continued the discussion by quoting the teaching of various eminent sages, all of which went to show that life itself was the root of all sorrow, and that man’s one desire was to be freed from the burden of rebirth. "The river of life," he said, "is full of dread, and the soul has to pass endless ages of time before it can be set free. As a goldsmith purifies gold of its dross, so has the individual soul to purify itself by means of countless rebirths. Think of thousands of lakes and of immense size; think of men trying to dry them up by taking out each day as much water as would cling to a single hair, and you will realize the length of time required by one created soul to pass from its beginning to the hour when it ceases to be. During its many million stages of existence, the soul may have to suffer in hell for many thousands of Kalpas, and a Kalpa lasts for 4320 million years. On the other hand, the soul may go to the upper world and live as a god. But until the soul is emancipated, heaven is just a sort of hell. Because, even in heaven, no one can live for ever. Time after time the soul has to come back to earth. Time after time it will have to revisit either heaven or hell. When the dissolution of all things takes place at the end of a Kalpa, it is only the man who has been able to destroy his gross body by means of yoga discipline, who enters Brahm. But all others, be they gods of men, with an unspent capital of merit, take the position in the new universe that they occupied in the old. The gods who have nothing to their credit, must descend to earth and be born as men. It is only when a man’s soul becomes white that he does not return."

In another passage, Bhishma, by drawing on his stock of wise saws and instances, showed how some people had foolishly imagined that liberation was the same as annihilation. It was the consummation, not the another passage, Bhishma, by drawing on his stock of wise saws and instances, showed how some people had foolishly imagined that liberation was the same as annihilation. It was the consummation, not the extinction, of life. Just as smaller rivers fall into larger rivers and lose their old forms and names; just as these larger rivers again fall into the ocean and lose their separate existence in the sea, in the same way takes place that form of extinction which is called liberation, when the individual soul is lost in Brahm.

1. There is a curious list given of the sins that require expiation. They are set down together, as if on the same level. The student who rises before the sun; the man with a rotten nail or black teeth; the man who marries before his elder brother; the man who kills a Brahmin; the man who speaks evil of others, etc.
2.  A son is necessary to offer sacrifices to his deceased ancestors. They cannot escape from hell otherwise.

 

© "Myths and Legends of India" by J M Macfie, published (2001) by Rupa & Co., 7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002. Reprinted with permission.

 

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