Philosophy of Indian Pedagogy - Brahmacharins in Search of Knowledge

Appendix

Brahmacharins in Search of Knowledge
(A few selections from the Upanishads)

I

Truthfulness²

"Satyakama Jabālā said to his Mother Jabālā: 'Venerable mother: I wish to join school as a brahmacharin (pupil wishing to learn the true knowledge). Please tell me from what family I hail."
 
She said to him: "My child, I don't know from what family you are. In my youth, I went about in many places as a maid-servant; during that period I begot you; I myself do not know from what family you hail; I am called Jabālā and you are called Satyakama; so call yourself then Satyakama, the son of Jabālā."

Then he went to Haridrumata Gautama and said:
"I wish to join your school, venerable Sir, as a Brahmacharin, if you, venerable Sir, would desire to accept me."

 He said to him;"My dear child, from what family do you hail?" He replied: "Venerable Sir, I do not know from what family I hail; I have asked my mother

2. This passage is taken from the translation by V.M. Bedekar and G.B. Palsule.

who answered me: 'In my youth, I went about in many places as a maid-servant; during that period I begot you. I myself don't know from what family you hail. I am called Jabālā and you are called Satyakama.' Therefore I call myself Satyakama, son of Jabālā, venerable Sir."

He (the preceptor) replied to him: 'Only a Brahmana can speak so candidly. My dear child, bring here the fuel-sticks (which are requisite for the ceremonial rite). I will accept you, because you have not swerved from truthfulness.'
After he had accepted him, he separated from the herd four hundred lean and weak cows and said: 'My dear, go after them and tend them.' Satyakama then drove them forth and said to his teacher: 'Not before they have become one thousand, will I return.' So he lived far away for a number of years.

Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch. IV, Part IV

II

The Good and the Pleasant³

Yama speaks:
"One thing is the good and quite another thing is the pleasant, and both seize upon a man with different meanings. Of these who takes the good, it is well with him; he falls from the aim of life who chooses the pleasant.

"The good and the pleasant come to a man and the thoughtful mind turns all around them and distinguishes. The wise chooses out the good from the pleasant, but the dull soul chooses the pleasant rather than the getting of his good and its having.

"And thou, O Nachiketas, hast looked close at the objects of desire, at pleasant things and beautiful, and thou hast cast them from thee; thou hast not entered into the net of riches in which many men sink to perdition.

"For far apart are these, opposite, divergent, the one that is known as the ignorance and the other the Knowledge. But Nachiketas I deem truly desirous of the knowledge whom so many desirable things could not make to lust after them.

"They who dwell in the ignorance, within it, wise in their own wit and deeming themselves very

2. This passage is taken 'from the translation by V.M. Bedekar and G.B. Palsule.

learned, men bewildered are they who wander about stumbling round and round helplessly like blind men led by the blind.

"The childish wit bewildered and drunken with the illusion of riches cannot open its eyes to see the passage to heaven: for he that thinks this world is and there is no other, comes again and again into Death's thraldom. 

"He that is not easy to be heard of by many, and even of those that have heard, they are many who have not known Him, — a miracle is the man that can speak of Him wisely or is skillful to win Him, and when one is found, a miracle is the listener who can know Him even when taught of Him by the knower. 

"An inferior man cannot tell you of Him; for thus told thou canst not truly know Him, since He is thought of in many aspects. Yet unless told of Him by another thou canst not find thy way to Him; for He is subtler than subtlety and that which logic cannot reach. 

"This wisdom is not to be had by reasoning, O beloved Nachiketas; only when told thee by another it brings real knowledge, — the wisdom which thou hast gotten. Truly thou art steadfast in the Truth! Even such a questioner as thou art may I meet with always."

Nachiketas speaks: 
"I know of treasure that it is not for ever; for not by things unstable shall one attain That One which is stable; therefore I heaped the fire of Nachiketas, and by the sacrifice of momentary things I won the Eternal.”

Katha Upanishad, First Cycle: Ch.II, 1-10

III

    What is it Knowing Which 
Everything is Known?⁴

Svetaketu was the son of (Uddalaka) Aruni. His father said to him: 'Svetaketu! Move and go to study the true Knowledge, because, my dear one, none of our family used to be unlearned and remain a mere appendage of Brahmanhood (a Brahman only in name).
 
Then he, while twelve years of age, went as a pupil to a teacher and when he was twenty-four  years old, had thoroughly studied all the books 
of Knowledge. He returned haughty in mind, conceited and thinking himself wise. Then his father said to him: 'O dear one! Since you are haughty in mind, conceited and consider yourself wise, have you inquired into that instruction whereby what is even unheard of, becomes 
heard, what is not comprehended becomes comprehended, what is not known becomes known?' 

"Venerable Sir, how is that instruction?"
'Just as, O dear one, through one lump of clay everything that consists of clay is known, modification being a clinging to words, only a name, it is only clay in reality. 

'Just as, O dear one, through a copper pommel,

4. This passage is taken from the translation by V.M. Bedekar and G.B. Palsule 

everything that consists of copper is known, modification being merely a clinging to words, only a name, it is only copper in reality.
 
'Just as, O dear one, through a nail-parer, everything that consists of iron is known, modification being merely a clinging to words, only a name, it is only iron in reality thus, my dear, is this instruction.' 

'Certainly my venerable teachers must not have known this teaching; because if they had known it, why would they not have communicated it to me? But venerable Sir, you will now please explain it to me!'
'So be it, my dear!'
Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch.VI, Part I 

'When, O dear one, the bees prepare honey, they gather the juice of manifold trees and assemble the juice into a unity. 

'So also, in that juice of these, no distinction is preserved as that of a particular tree whose juices they are; so also, indeed, O dear one, all these creatures, when they enter into the Being (in deep sleep and death), have no consciousness thereof, that they enter into the Being.
 
'Whatever they may be here — a tiger, a lion or a wolf, or a bear, or a worm or a bird or a gadfly or a gnat, they are again born in these forms. 

'This universe consists of what that finest essence is,

it is the real, it is the soul, that thou art, Svetaketu!' 

'Venerable Sir, teach me still further,' he (Svetaketu) said. 'So be it,' (Aruni) replied. 
Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch.VI, Part IX 

'When one, O dear one, cuts this big tree here at the root, it trickles sap, because it lives; when one cuts it in the middle, it trickles sap, because it lives; when one cuts it at the top, it trickles sap, because it lives; thus it stands, penetrated through by the living self, prolific and rejoicing. 

'Now if life departs from one branch, that branch withers; if life departs from the second branch, that also withers; if life departs from the third branch, that also withers; if life departs from the whole tree, the whole tree withers or dries up. Therefore, O dear one, you should mark this he (Aruni) said. 

'This body indeed dies if it is deserted by life; but this life does not die. This universe consists of what that finest essence is; it is the real, it is the soul, that thou art, O Svetaketu.'
'Venerable Sir, teach me still further,' he (Svetaketu) said. 
'So be it,' he (Aruni) replied. 
Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch.VI, Part XI 

'Fetch me a fruit of that Nyagrodha (banyan) tree there.
'Here it is, venerable Sir' 
'Split it.'
'It is split, venerable Sir.' 

'What do you see therein?' 
'I see here, venerable Sir, very fine seeds.'
'Split one of them.'
'It is split, venerable Sir!' 
'What do you see therein?' 
'Nothing at all, venerable Sir!' 

Then he (Aruni) spoke: 'That finest essence which you do not perceive, O dear one—out of this finest essence, indeed, this great Nyagrodha tree has arisen. 

'Believe, my dear, the universe consists of what that finest essence is; it is the real, it is the soul, that thou art, O Svetaketu!' 
'Teach me still further, venerable Sir,' 'So be it,' he (Aruni) said.
Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch.VI, Part XII 

'Put this piece of salt, here, in water and come again tomorrow to me.' He did it. Then he (Aruni) said: 'Bring me the salt which you had put into the water last evening.' He groped, feeling after it and found nothing of it, because it was completely dissolved. 

'Taste that water from this side! How does it taste?' 
'Saltish.'
'Taste it from the middle! How does it taste?' 
'Saltish.'
'Taste it from that side! How does it taste?' 
'Saltish.'
'Let it be there; seat yourself by my side.' 
He did it and said: 'It (salt in water) is always present.' Then the other one (Aruni said): 'Indeed,

you do not perceive the Being here in the body but it is, nevertheless, therein.' 

'This universe consists of what that finest essence is, it is the real, it is the soul, that thou art, O Svetaketu!' 'Venerable Sir, instruct me still further!'  'So be it,' he (Aruni) said. 

Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch.VI, Part XIII 

'Just as, O dear one, a man who, with eyes bandaged, is led away out of the region of Gandhara and then forsaken in a deserted place, will grope breathlessly towards the north or towards the south, because he has been led away with bandaged eyes and has been left in an uninhabited place. 

'But thereafter somebody had removed the bandage from him and said to him: 'there lie the Gandhara regions beyond; go thither from here.' He reaches home in the Gandhara region, inquiring further from village to village, instructed by others and now quite sensible; in the same way man, who has here found a teacher, attains knowledge: 'I would belong to this drift of worldly existence until I have been released; thereafter I shall reach my home.' 

'This universe consists of what that finest essence is; it is the real, it is the soul, that thou art, O Svetaketu!' 

Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch.VI, Part XIV 

IV

    Learning and the Knowledge of the Self⁵

'Teach me, venerable Sir!' With these words Nārada approached Sanatkumara. He (Sanat-kumara) said to him: 'Tell me what you already know; then I will impart to you what lies outside it.'

And the other (Nārada) said, 'I have, O venerable Sir, learnt the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, the Atharvaveda as the fourth, the epic and mythological poems as the fifth Veda, grammar, the ritual concerning the Manes, arithmetic, mantik, counting or reckoning of time, dialectic, politics, divine lore, the lore of the prayer, the lore of the ghosts, the science of warfare, astronomy, spell against serpents, the art of the muse [literally, of demigods, deva-jana]. This it is, O venerable Sir, that I have learnt. 

'And thus I am, O venerable Sir, no doubt learned in scriptures but not in the lore of the Atman. Because I have heard from such as are like you that he who knows the Atman, overcomes sorrow; but venerable Sir, I am afflicted with sorrow; that is why you will carry me, O Sir, to that yonder beach beyond sorrow!'     And he (Sanatkumara) said to him: 'Everything that you have studied is mere name (naman). 

'The Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, the Atharva-veda as the fourth, the epic and mythological poems as the fifth Veda, grammar, the ritual of the

Manes, arithmetic, mantik, reckoning of time, dialectic, politics, the divine lore, the lore of prayer, the lore of the ghosts, the science of warfare, astronomy, spell against serpents and the art of the muse—all these are a name, everything of this is a name. You may adore the name! 

'He who adores the name as Brahman — so far as the name extends itself that far, over that extent, he will be entitled to move about according to his liking, that is why he adores the name as Brahman.’
'Is there, O venerable Sir, anything greater than the name?' 'Well there is one greater than the name.' 

Chhandogya Upanishad, Ch.VII, Part I 

5. This passage is taken from the translation by V.M. Bedekar and G.B. Palsule.