Ardor (6 page)

If ancient Indian history as a whole is one of rivalry, bullying, and deceit between brahmins and
k
ṣ
atriyas
, the story of Y
ā
jñavalkya and Janaka can be seen as the opposite, as an example of a harmonious relationship. Janaka remains drawn to Y
ā
jñavalkya, he knows that the brahmin possesses a superior knowledge—and is ready to yield everything to him. But at the same time Janaka is the warrior who can compete with the brahmins not just on equal terms, but sometimes surpassing them in learning, as happens in the case of the
agnihotra.
Only then will Y
ā
jñavalkya acknowledge that the balance has shifted, and grant him a boon. And only when he has to fulfill that boon will he agree to set out the doctrine with a magnanimity that he has never shown before, proceeding in a state of lucid rapture, passing from prose to verse and from verse to prose, adding more and more detail and lavish imagery. That teaching will turn Janaka into a brahmin. The only convincing picture of a happy, and therefore effective, relationship between a philosopher and a man of power is not that between Plato and Dionysius—which was tense and ill-fated from the very beginning—but the relationship between Y
ā
jñavalkya and Janaka.

*   *   *

The rituals gave constant cause for disputation—and thus it happened that Y
ā
jñavalkya’s guidance was sought. Some disputations could be at the same time metaphysical, psychological, and sexual. For example: where to place the ghee used for the offering to the wives of the gods? If the ghee was placed on the altar, the wives of the gods found themselves being separated from the gods themselves, who were squatting, absorbed in thought,
around
the altar. The prudent sacrificer, who did not wish to create ill-feeling between the divine couples, took pains therefore to place the ghee a little to the north of the altar, on a line traced with a wooden sword, so that the gods’ wives remained beside their husbands. But some ritualists were less timorous, more cursory, concerned more about metaphysics than the marital harmony of the gods. Most notable among them was Y
ā
jñavalkya. Each time, his words were aimed straight at their target. He was rather like certain Zen masters in Chinese painting who seemed to emanate a barely contained physical power and looked upon the world as if it were a dry leaf.

Several ritualists had long plagued Y
ā
jñavalkya, asking him where the ghee should be placed, so as not to create friction between the gods and their wives. Y
ā
jñavalkya was well aware that the sacrificers were concerned not so much about the gods but about their own wives, who would have also felt
excluded
, in obvious imitation of the gods’ wives. A wife who feels excluded is always dangerous. She begins to feel dissatisfied with her husband. And then, who knows, she may take advantage of that estrangement to go looking for other men. Y
ā
jñavalkya knew all this. And his answer was intentionally insolent, touching on the sore point: “What does it matter if his [the sacrificer’s] wife goes off with other men?” Why so curt? As always happened with Y
ā
jñavalkya, his bluntness served to get straight to the metaphysical point, his only real interest. The ghee must be placed on the altar because the sacrifice must be edified by the sacrifice itself. If it were placed outside, the sacrifice would have to apply to something external, whereas it is essential for the sacrifice to be self-sufficient and self-generating, with all the paradoxes and contradictions that this implies. This was the supreme precept. And it certainly couldn’t be compromised by any concern for the marital harmony of a sacrificer. On that matter there was no turning back. Y
ā
jñavalkya spoke in this tone.

*   *   *

One day Y
ā
jñavalkya said he had to choose a place of worship for V
ā
r
ṣṇ
ya, who wished to celebrate a sacrifice. So S
ā
tyayajña (about whom we know nothing, except that his name means “Descendant of True Sacrifice”) said: “In truth the whole earth is divine: a place of sacrifice is anywhere where a sacrifice can be made after having marked out the place with the appropriate formula.” Once again Y
ā
jñavalkya stepped in where there was a point of theology to be resolved. His interlocutor’s statement was enough to end any excessive geomantic concern. And it touched on a crucial question: all is decided when a sacrificial formula is imprinted on a place, like a seal, and so transforms it. But the text of the
Ś
atapatha Br
ā
hma
ṇ
a
goes further and says—without it being clear whether it is still a doctrine of S
ā
tyayajña or has been added by Y
ā
jñavalkya—“the officiants are the place of sacrifice: the brahmins who perform the sacrifice are stability, being experts in doctrine, able to recite it, men of wisdom: we consider that to be the greatest proximity [to the gods], so to speak.” Wherever we find a perfect brahmin, that is the place of sacrifice. These words have a distant resonance in Thomas Mann when he said that, wherever he was, there too was the German language.

*   *   *

Janaka wanted to celebrate a sacrifice with large ritual fees. Large ritual fees meant many officiants. He assembled a thousand cows. On the horns of every cow he strung pieces of gold. Janaka wanted to understand which of the brahmins had attained the greatest knowledge; who was the
brahmi
ṣṭ
ha
, “the wisest in
brahman
” (the whole of India has been a question of
brahman
). The cows would be presented to him. Y
ā
jñavalkya then told his disciple S
ā
ma
ś
ravas: “Lead them away.” The brahmins were shocked: “How can he say who has gone further in
brahman
?” The king’s priest, A
ś
vala, then stepped forward and asked Y
ā
jñavalkya: “Are you the one who went further than anybody else in
brahman
?” Y
ā
jñavalkya replied: “Let us pay homage to the
brahmi
ṣṭ
ha
, but I wish to have the cows.” At this point A
ś
vala dared to question him.

It was a long exchange. Y
ā
jñavalkya answered the questions of seven brahmins and a woman. The brahmins were A
ś
vala, J
ā
ratk
ā
rava
Ā
rtabh
ā
ga, Bhujyu L
ā
hy
ā
yani, U
ṣ
asta C
ā
kr
ā
ya
ṇ
a, Kahola Kau
ṣī
takeya, Udd
ā
laka
Ā
ru
ṇ
i, and Vidagdha
Śā
kalya. The woman was G
ā
rg
ī
V
ā
caknav
ī
, the weaver.

What did they want to know? First was A
ś
vala, a priest in the king’s household, a
hot
ṛ
, who was accustomed to reciting hymns and formulas as well as pouring oblations. He wanted to begin with what is most certain, with what forms the basis of everything: the ritual. He had to find out if that arrogant Y
ā
jñavalkya really knew the basics of the ceremonies.

But he also wanted to find out whether Y
ā
jñavalkya was able to connect ritual with what was the first and final question: death.
Ritual
and
death
: anyone able to give an explanation about these two words can say that he is knowledgeable in
brahman
, that he is intimately versed in it. He began with death: “Everything here is in the hold of death, everything is subject to death: in what way can a sacrificer escape from the grip of death?”

Talking about the “sacrificer” was the same as talking about what, from Descartes onward, is the “subject”: the generic, sentient being who observes the world and encounters death. Implicit in the question was this: even before trying to say what it is, thought must serve as an escape from death, which is a “grip.” Man is the animal who attempts to escape from the predator. But how? Through ritual, which involves—very often—the killing of animals. This is what A
ś
vala thought, this is what he did every day. But was it right? Was it enough? And how would Y
ā
jñavalkya now respond? He would have known that behind his question was another: “What do I, an officiant, a
hot
ṛ
, do to escape death?”

Y
ā
jñavalkya understood—and replied with supreme subtlety: “By way of the
hot
ṛ
, of fire, of speech. For the
hot
ṛ
of the sacrifice is speech. What this speech is, is fire. It is the
hot
ṛ
, it is liberation, it is total liberation.” Words which meant: “A
ś
vala, you will escape death by doing what you do every day.” After this reply, every further question would seem superfluous.

Deeply thrilled, A
ś
vala did not show it, but sought to continue with equal delicacy. Y
ā
jñavalkya’s reply had solved the problem that had always worried A
ś
vala in his work as officiant. But Y
ā
jñavalkya was an officiant too. Not a
hot
ṛ
but an
adhvaryu
, one of those concerned with gestures, who busied themselves in the ritual operations, murmuring the formulas in a sort of continual hum. If he did not have full speech, which enabled the
hot
ṛ
s
to save themselves, how could he escape death? This is what A
ś
vala now sought to ask, with a respectful show of interest: “‘Y
ā
jñavalkya, all of this is reached by night and day, is subject to night and day; by what means can a sacrificer free himself from this grip?’ ‘Through the
adhvaryu
, through sight, through the sun: in fact sight is the
adhvaryu
of the sacri
fi
ce, this sight is the sun yonder, it is the
adhvaryu
, it is release, it is total release.’”

Like two accomplices in a recursive exchange, both A
ś
vala and Y
ā
jñavalkya had maintained the same formulaic structure in the question and answer. And revealing themselves as allies in the same enterprise: the sacrifice. If the sacrifice could free a certain type of officiant, it would have acted in just the same way for the other, indeed for all the others, including the
udg
ā
t
ṛ
s
, the “chanters”—and in the end for the brahmins, a passive and silent presence in the ceremonies, but who were the invisible chamber where everything happened instantaneously. If Y
ā
jñavalkya’s answers were correct, the very lives of those who were questioning him could be considered saved, freed:
s
ā
mukti
ḥ
,
s
ā
timukti
ḥ
. Ati
, “the other side from,” “beyond.” Released “beyond” everything.

*   *   *

Ida
ṃ
sarvam
, “this all”: that is what they called the world and all that exists. And “this all” was prey to death—or rather to Death, a figure, male. This was A
ś
vala’s first thought—and his first question for Y
ā
jñavalkya. Did the “sacrificer,”
yajam
ā
na—
therefore mankind in general, for whom the officiants operated each day (and A
ś
vala was one of them)—have some means of escaping death? Did the rites have the power of acting on death, against death? It was not a question of overcoming or eliminating death. That would have been a foolish demand. It was a matter of indicating a way by which someone “is totally released (
atimucyate
)” from the grip of death. It wasn’t enough to be released, you had to be released “beyond.” To be released from “this all,” from the whole world.

No question was more elementary and primordial. And Y
ā
jñavalkya also gave the most elementary answer: all A
ś
vala had to do was what he did every day. All he had to do was act as a
hot
ṛ
, as an officiant at the sacrifice who utters the right formulas, it was enough for him to use speech and fire. The unity of the
hot
ṛ
’s gestures, of his voice and the fire on which the oblation was burned, were enough, according to Y
ā
jñavalkya, for death to come no more, for Death to strike no more.