Authors: Wendy Doniger
The Hindus (31 page)
The people who reach
brahman
have lived in the wilderness, the jungle, either permanently as some sort of forest ascetics or merely on the occasions when they held their religious rituals there. By contrast, the sacrificers, who follow the Vedic path of generosity (to gods and priests or to people more generally) or engage in the ritual practices that generate internal heat (
tapas
), go to heaven but do not stay there; they die again and are reborn. This text does not tell us where these people have lived but a parallel passage in the
Chandogya Upanishad
(5.10.1-8) tells us that the people who devote themselves to giving gifts to gods and to priests (this text specifies the recipients, where the other did not) live in villages. This group no longer generates internal heat as the sacrificers did in the
Brihadaranyaka
, an activity that the
Chandogya
assigns to the people in the wilderness, who venerate (in place of truth, in the
Brihadaranyaka
) internal heat as faith.
Tapas
therefore can belong to either group, for it is a transitional power: For sacrificers, it is the heat that the priest generates in the sacrifice, while for people of the wilderness, it becomes detached from the sacrifice and internalized, just as the sacrifice itself is internalized; now
tapas
is the heat that an individual ascetic generates within himself. The only criterion that marks the sacrificers in both texts is their generosity, and the only criterion that marks the people of the wilderness is their life in the wilderness.
brahman
have lived in the wilderness, the jungle, either permanently as some sort of forest ascetics or merely on the occasions when they held their religious rituals there. By contrast, the sacrificers, who follow the Vedic path of generosity (to gods and priests or to people more generally) or engage in the ritual practices that generate internal heat (
tapas
), go to heaven but do not stay there; they die again and are reborn. This text does not tell us where these people have lived but a parallel passage in the
Chandogya Upanishad
(5.10.1-8) tells us that the people who devote themselves to giving gifts to gods and to priests (this text specifies the recipients, where the other did not) live in villages. This group no longer generates internal heat as the sacrificers did in the
Brihadaranyaka
, an activity that the
Chandogya
assigns to the people in the wilderness, who venerate (in place of truth, in the
Brihadaranyaka
) internal heat as faith.
Tapas
therefore can belong to either group, for it is a transitional power: For sacrificers, it is the heat that the priest generates in the sacrifice, while for people of the wilderness, it becomes detached from the sacrifice and internalized, just as the sacrifice itself is internalized; now
tapas
is the heat that an individual ascetic generates within himself. The only criterion that marks the sacrificers in both texts is their generosity, and the only criterion that marks the people of the wilderness is their life in the wilderness.
The people who reach the moon in the
Brihadaranyaka
are eaten by the gods (as they were eaten by animals in the Other World in the Brahmanas), but the gods in the
Chandogya
merely eat the moon, a more direct way to account for its waning. The
Chandogya
also has a slightly different ending for the second group, the sacrificers who pass through the smoke:
Brihadaranyaka
are eaten by the gods (as they were eaten by animals in the Other World in the Brahmanas), but the gods in the
Chandogya
merely eat the moon, a more direct way to account for its waning. The
Chandogya
also has a slightly different ending for the second group, the sacrificers who pass through the smoke:
THE THIRD OPTION
They return by the same path by which they came—first to space and to the wind, which turns into smoke and then into a cloud, which then rains down. On earth they grow as rice and barley, plants and trees, sesame and beans, from which it is very difficult to escape. When someone eats that food and sheds his semen, one is born again from him.
Now, people here whose behavior is charming can expect to enter a nice womb, like that of a woman of the Brahmin, Kshatriya, or Vaishya class. But people whose behavior is stinking can expect to enter a nasty womb, like that of a dog, a pig, or a Pariah woman.
And there is a third state, for people who take neither of these paths: They become tiny creatures who go around and around ceaselessly. “Be born! Die!” A person should take measures to avoid that (5.10.1-8).
It is clear from the
Chandogya
, and implicit in the
Brihadaranyaka
, that one does not want to end up in the company of the worms and other tiny creatures in the third state, the place from which no traveler returns. It’s better to be a dog.
Chandogya
, and implicit in the
Brihadaranyaka
, that one does not want to end up in the company of the worms and other tiny creatures in the third state, the place from which no traveler returns. It’s better to be a dog.
But it is not so clear from these texts that the path of Vedic gift giving is undesirable, that
everyone
wants to get off the wheel and onto the path of flame. For renouncers, the very idea of good karma is an oxymoron:
da
Any karma is bad because it binds you to the wheel of rebirth. But the
Chandogya
spells out the belief that for sacrificers, some rebirths are quite pleasant, the reward for good behavior. Their fate corresponds to Yajnavalkya’s statement “A man becomes something good by good karma and something bad by bad karma.” The
Brihadaranyaka
says much the same thing: “What a man turns out to be depends on how he acts. If his actions [karma] are good, he will turn into something good. If his actions are bad, he will turn into something bad.” But then it adds that this applies only to the man who has desires; the man who is freed from desires, whose desires are fulfilled, does not die at all; he goes to
brahman
(BU 4.4.5-6).
db
So too the funeral ceremonies include instructions that ensure that the dead man will not remain in limbo but will move forward, either to a new life or to final Release (
moksha
) from the cycle of transmigration,
18
further evidence of a deeply embedded tension between the desire to assure a good rebirth and the desire to prevent rebirth altogether. The fear of redeath led to the desire for Release (including Release from the values of Vedic Hinduism), but then the ideal of Release was reabsorbed into Vedic Hinduism and reshaped into the desire to be reborn better, in worldly terms: richer, with more sons, and so forth. These two tracks—one for people who want to get off the wheel of redeath and one for those who don’t want to get off the wheel of rebirth—continue as options for South Asians to this day.
everyone
wants to get off the wheel and onto the path of flame. For renouncers, the very idea of good karma is an oxymoron:
da
Any karma is bad because it binds you to the wheel of rebirth. But the
Chandogya
spells out the belief that for sacrificers, some rebirths are quite pleasant, the reward for good behavior. Their fate corresponds to Yajnavalkya’s statement “A man becomes something good by good karma and something bad by bad karma.” The
Brihadaranyaka
says much the same thing: “What a man turns out to be depends on how he acts. If his actions [karma] are good, he will turn into something good. If his actions are bad, he will turn into something bad.” But then it adds that this applies only to the man who has desires; the man who is freed from desires, whose desires are fulfilled, does not die at all; he goes to
brahman
(BU 4.4.5-6).
db
So too the funeral ceremonies include instructions that ensure that the dead man will not remain in limbo but will move forward, either to a new life or to final Release (
moksha
) from the cycle of transmigration,
18
further evidence of a deeply embedded tension between the desire to assure a good rebirth and the desire to prevent rebirth altogether. The fear of redeath led to the desire for Release (including Release from the values of Vedic Hinduism), but then the ideal of Release was reabsorbed into Vedic Hinduism and reshaped into the desire to be reborn better, in worldly terms: richer, with more sons, and so forth. These two tracks—one for people who want to get off the wheel of redeath and one for those who don’t want to get off the wheel of rebirth—continue as options for South Asians to this day.
The
Kaushitaki Upanishad
describes the fork in the road a bit differently:
Kaushitaki Upanishad
describes the fork in the road a bit differently:
THE FINAL EXAM
When people depart from this world, they go to the moon. Those who do not answer the moon’s questions become rain, and rain down here on earth, where they are reborn according to their actions [karma] and knowledge—as a worm, an insect, a fish, a bird, a lion, a boar, a rhinoceros, a tiger, a human, or some other creature. Those who answer the moon’s questions correctly pass to the heavenly world: They go on the path to the gods, to fire, and finally to
brahman
. On the way, he shakes off his good and bad deeds [karma], which fall upon his relatives: the good deeds on the ones he likes and the bad deeds on the ones he dislikes. Freed from his good and bad deeds, this person, who has the knowledge of
brahman,
goes on to
brahman
(1.1-4a).
brahman
. On the way, he shakes off his good and bad deeds [karma], which fall upon his relatives: the good deeds on the ones he likes and the bad deeds on the ones he dislikes. Freed from his good and bad deeds, this person, who has the knowledge of
brahman,
goes on to
brahman
(1.1-4a).
The deciding factor here apparently has nothing to do with the sort of worship the dead person engaged in while alive, or whether he lived in the village or the wilderness; there is just one final postmortem exam (proctored by the rabbit in the moon?) that determines everything.
dc
The good and bad deeds weigh in only later and then only for the man who gets a first on the exam and proceeds on the path to
brahman
(not, as in the
Chandogya
, for the man on the path of rebirth). Nor does this text spell out what deeds are good, and what bad; that will come in later texts. The important doctrine of the transfer of karma from one person to another is harnessed to the trivial human frailty of liking some relatives and disliking others and caring about the disposal of one’s worldly goods (in this case, one’s karma). And the worms and insects no longer form a third place of No Exit, but are simply part of the lesser of the only two paths.
THE PATH OF SMOKE: THE PLEASURES OF SAMSARAdc
The good and bad deeds weigh in only later and then only for the man who gets a first on the exam and proceeds on the path to
brahman
(not, as in the
Chandogya
, for the man on the path of rebirth). Nor does this text spell out what deeds are good, and what bad; that will come in later texts. The important doctrine of the transfer of karma from one person to another is harnessed to the trivial human frailty of liking some relatives and disliking others and caring about the disposal of one’s worldly goods (in this case, one’s karma). And the worms and insects no longer form a third place of No Exit, but are simply part of the lesser of the only two paths.
The path of smoke, of Vedic generosity, of procreation and samsara survives intact the journey from the Vedas to the Upanishads, though the Upanishads provide very little detail about it, perhaps assuming that everyone knew it because it had been around for centuries. The case in favor of samsara, in its positive aspect of passion, family, love, loss (what Nikos Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek called “the whole catastrophe”), is strong. The Upanishads reopen some of the options of the Vedas that the Brahmanas closed down and open up other options. Individual texts, as always, often go against the grain of the general zeitgeist.
There’s some pretty hot stuff in the Upanishads. The paragraph that introduces the description of the two paths refers to the act of progeneration as an offering in the fire of man and a birth in the fire of woman and analogizes a woman’s genitals to the sacrificial fire: Her vulva is the firewood, her pubic hair the smoke, her vagina the flame; the acts of penetration and climax are the embers and the sparks (BU 6.2.13; 6.4.1-3; CU 5.8.1). One text takes the bliss of sexual climax as the closest available approximation to the ineffable experience of deep, dreamless sleep (BU 2.1.19). A woman in her fertile period is described as splendid and auspicious, and her fertility is so important that if she refuses to have sex with her husband at that time, he is advised to bribe her or beat her with a stick or with his fists (BU 6.4.6-7). A more tender attitude is advocated in the mantra that a man should use to make his wife love him, and a more practical one in the mantra for contraception if he does not want her to be pregnant (BU 6.4.9-10), an intention that flies in the face of the dharma texts that insist that the only purpose of sex is procreation.
A remarkably open-minded attitude to women’s infidelity is evident in the mantra recommended to make a sexual rival impotent:
MANTRA AGAINST YOUR WIFE’S LOVER
If a man’s wife has a lover whom he hates, he should place some fire in an unbaked pot, arrange a bed of reeds in reverse order from the usual way, apply ghee to the tips of the reeds, also in reverse order, and offer them in the fire as he recites this mantra: “You (he names the man) have made an offering in my fire! I take away your out-breath and your in-breath, your sons and livestock, your sacrifices and good works [or good karma], your hopes and plans.” If a Brahmin who knows this curses a man, that man will surely leave this world stripped of his virility and his good karma
.
One should therefore never fool around with the wife of a learned Brahmin who knows this (BU 6.4.12).
.
One should therefore never fool around with the wife of a learned Brahmin who knows this (BU 6.4.12).
In contrast with almost all of later Hinduism, which punished a woman extremely severely for adultery, this text punishes only her partner. Moreover, this punishment is intended (only) for a lover of his wife that the husband hates and therefore not necessarily for a lover that he does not hate, a most permissive qualification, suggestive of a Noel Coward drawing room comedy or a French ménage à trois. The men for whom these mantras are intended would have little use for the path of Release. Their primary concerns were Vedic: family, women, offspring, sons, the lineage of the flesh. For them the sacrifice of semen into a womb was a Vedic sacrifice of butter into the fire; the hated lover is cursed for making such an offering in another man’s spousal fire.
THE PATH OF FLAME:MOKSHA
AND RENUNCIATION
On the other hand, one of the later Upanishads mocks the sacrificial path (MU 1.2.10-11), and other passages in the Upanishads assume, like the Brahmanas, that repeated death is a Bad Thing, that the whips and scorns of time make life a nightmare from which one longs for final Release or freedom (
moksha
), a blessed awakening or, perhaps, a subsidence into a dreamless sleep. The cycle of rebirth was another way of being fenced in (
amhas
), a painfully restricting prison, from which one wanted to break out, to be sprung, which is what
moksha
means; the word is used for the release of an arrow from a bow or of a prisoner from a jail. It is sometimes translated as “Freedom.”
moksha
), a blessed awakening or, perhaps, a subsidence into a dreamless sleep. The cycle of rebirth was another way of being fenced in (
amhas
), a painfully restricting prison, from which one wanted to break out, to be sprung, which is what
moksha
means; the word is used for the release of an arrow from a bow or of a prisoner from a jail. It is sometimes translated as “Freedom.”
Brahman
, ineffable, can be described only in the negative: “Not like this, not like that” (
neti, neti
) (BU 4.5.15). Given that the positive goal, what one is going to,
moksha
, is never described, one might at least hope to be told what one was going away from. Precisely what was one freed from? At first,
moksha
meant only freedom from death, a concept firmly grounded within the Vedic sacrificial system that promised the worshiper a kind of immortality. The word appears in the Upanishads in various forms, often as a verb, “to set free.” Through the sacrifice, the patron of the sacrifice
frees
himself from the grip of death, the grip of days and nights, the grip of the waxing moon and climbs up to heaven: “It is freedom, complete freedom (BU 3.1.3-6,34-35). Or: “Shaking off evil, like a horse its hair, and
freeing
myself, like the moon from the jaws of the demon of eclipse, I, the perfected self [atman], cast off the imperfect body and attain the world of
brahman
(CU 8.13.1).”
Moksha
sometimes comes to designate Release not merely from death or evil in general but, more specifically, from samsara, from the cycle of rebirth (SU 6.16,18). And then, in later Upanishads,
moksha
is associated with renunciation (
samnyasa
): “The ascetics who have full knowledge of the Vedanta are purified by the discipline of renunciation. In the worlds of
brahman
, at the time of the final end, they become fully immortal and fully
freed
(MU 3.2.6).” And whoever knows this (
yo evam veda
) will realize that unity with
brahman
upon his death and be freed from redeath.
, ineffable, can be described only in the negative: “Not like this, not like that” (
neti, neti
) (BU 4.5.15). Given that the positive goal, what one is going to,
moksha
, is never described, one might at least hope to be told what one was going away from. Precisely what was one freed from? At first,
moksha
meant only freedom from death, a concept firmly grounded within the Vedic sacrificial system that promised the worshiper a kind of immortality. The word appears in the Upanishads in various forms, often as a verb, “to set free.” Through the sacrifice, the patron of the sacrifice
frees
himself from the grip of death, the grip of days and nights, the grip of the waxing moon and climbs up to heaven: “It is freedom, complete freedom (BU 3.1.3-6,34-35). Or: “Shaking off evil, like a horse its hair, and
freeing
myself, like the moon from the jaws of the demon of eclipse, I, the perfected self [atman], cast off the imperfect body and attain the world of
brahman
(CU 8.13.1).”
Moksha
sometimes comes to designate Release not merely from death or evil in general but, more specifically, from samsara, from the cycle of rebirth (SU 6.16,18). And then, in later Upanishads,
moksha
is associated with renunciation (
samnyasa
): “The ascetics who have full knowledge of the Vedanta are purified by the discipline of renunciation. In the worlds of
brahman
, at the time of the final end, they become fully immortal and fully
freed
(MU 3.2.6).” And whoever knows this (
yo evam veda
) will realize that unity with
brahman
upon his death and be freed from redeath.
The
Brihadaranyaka
promises freedom from the very things that the Vedic path valued—namely, children and family, the whole catastrophe: “It is when they come to know this self that Brahmins give up the desire for sons, the desire for wealth, and the desire for worlds, and undertake the renunciant life. . . . It was when they knew this that men of old did not desire offspring (BU 3.5.1, 4.4.22).” Such a man no longer amasses karma. He does not think, “I did something good” or “I did something bad,” nor is he stained by bad karma/deeds. He is beyond good and evil.
dd
We recognize the confident assurance of the Brahmanas: Even redeath can be fixed, if you know how, but now you do not even have to be a Brahmin to fix it, as long as you have the proper knowledge. This is yet another major innovation.
CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES FROM THE VEDASBrihadaranyaka
promises freedom from the very things that the Vedic path valued—namely, children and family, the whole catastrophe: “It is when they come to know this self that Brahmins give up the desire for sons, the desire for wealth, and the desire for worlds, and undertake the renunciant life. . . . It was when they knew this that men of old did not desire offspring (BU 3.5.1, 4.4.22).” Such a man no longer amasses karma. He does not think, “I did something good” or “I did something bad,” nor is he stained by bad karma/deeds. He is beyond good and evil.
dd
We recognize the confident assurance of the Brahmanas: Even redeath can be fixed, if you know how, but now you do not even have to be a Brahmin to fix it, as long as you have the proper knowledge. This is yet another major innovation.
The belief that souls are reborn for richer or for poorer, sickness or health, according to their conduct in their previous life, has roots in Vedic ideas of heaven and hell, reward and punishment.
19
So too the idea of the identity of the individual soul (atman) with the world soul (
brahman
) is a natural expansion of the Vedic idea that the individual body is overlaid upon the cosmic body, the eye on the sun, the breath on the wind (although now new questions arise about the definition of the self).
20
The initiated Vedic ritual patron practiced a kind of renunciation,
21
and the sacrificer would say a mantra renouncing the fruits of his offerings. Even the idea of the transfer of karma, so central to Buddhism (where it is usually called the transfer of merit), has its roots, as we have seen, in the Vedic poems to the god Varuna (whom the poet asks to forgive him for the sins of his fathers) and in the transfer of evil from gods to humans, in the Brahmanas,
22
though it got an added boost from the growth of a moneyed economy.
19
So too the idea of the identity of the individual soul (atman) with the world soul (
brahman
) is a natural expansion of the Vedic idea that the individual body is overlaid upon the cosmic body, the eye on the sun, the breath on the wind (although now new questions arise about the definition of the self).
20
The initiated Vedic ritual patron practiced a kind of renunciation,
21
and the sacrificer would say a mantra renouncing the fruits of his offerings. Even the idea of the transfer of karma, so central to Buddhism (where it is usually called the transfer of merit), has its roots, as we have seen, in the Vedic poems to the god Varuna (whom the poet asks to forgive him for the sins of his fathers) and in the transfer of evil from gods to humans, in the Brahmanas,
22
though it got an added boost from the growth of a moneyed economy.
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