Bharata and Jaḍabharata

Bharata was the eldest son of Ṛshabhadeva and the great king of Bhārata-varsha. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa follows him through three births. In the first he is a righteous king who loses his meditation to an orphaned fawn. In the second he is a deer. In the third he is the brāhmaṇa Jaḍabharata, who pretends to be dull, is saved from being offered to a devī, and teaches King Rahūgaṇa one of the great discourses of the Bhāgavatam.

The account is in the fifth skanda, chapters 7 to 14.

First birth: King Bharata

Bharata was the eldest of the hundred sons of Ṛshabhadeva. He was the supreme ruler of Bhārata-varsha, the holy southern varsha (division of the land) of Jambū-dvīpa. He married Pañcajanī, the daughter of Viśvarūpa, and had five sons: Sumati, Rāshṭrabṛta, Sudarśana, Āvaraṇa and Dhūmraketu.

Bharata ruled for many thousands of years with full integrity in dharma. He performed one hundred aśvamedha-yajñas and many other yajñas as acts of naishkarmya (action without desire), offered to Bhagavān Vishṇu. He gave away great wealth without attachment. His people were happy and the kingdom thrived. The land has been called Bhārata-varsha after his name ever since.

When he had set his sons on the throne, Bharata gave up the kingdom. He went to the āśrama of Pulaha Maharshi on the bank of the Gaṇḍakī river, at Cakranāda. There he offered pūjā to Bhagavān Vāsudeva with flowers, fruits, leaves, water and shoots gathered in the forest. His devotion was so deep that he wept as he chanted the names of Bhagavān Vāsudeva, stood with his hair on end in the joy of bhakti, and fell flat on the ground in worship. His heart became clear as crystal and reflected only Bhagavān Vāsudeva. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapter 7)

The fawn and the fall

One day Bharata sat in deep meditation beside the Gaṇḍakī. A doe was drinking at the river, giving birth, when a lion’s roar startled her. She leapt across the river in fear and died. Her newborn fawn, left without a mother, fell into the water. Bharata was moved by pity and saved it.

In time his kind care became personal attachment. The fawn filled his mind where Bhagavān Vāsudeva had filled it before. At the moment of death his last thought was the face of the fawn. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapter 8)

Second birth: the deer

The last thought at the moment of death decides the next birth, so Bharata was born again as a deer. But the power of his stored tapas (austerity) was so great that he kept full jāti-smṛti, the memory of his past lives. As a deer he understood why he had fallen and he grieved deeply. He avoided the company of other deer and lived near sādhus and āśramas. He ate only dry leaves and fallen fruit. He spent his life as a deer in regret and in turning his mind to Bhagavān Vāsudeva, waiting for that birth to end. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapter 8)

Third birth: the brāhmaṇa Jaḍabharata

In his third birth Bharata was born as the son of a learned and pious brāhmaṇa ṛshi. Again he remembered all his earlier lives. He wished to guard himself from the ties of social life and from the subtle attachment that had ruined his earlier sādhanā. So he behaved like a plain simpleton. He did not answer when taught, did not do the tasks given to him, did not bathe properly, and ate whatever was given or did not eat. His father and family decided that he was dull of mind and stopped trying to teach him.

After his father died, his step-brothers treated him harshly and gave him lowly work. He took all of it without complaint. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapter 9)

Bhadrakālī saves him

A band of thieves seized Jaḍabharata to offer him as a human victim to the devī Bhadrakālī. They bathed him, dressed him, adorned him, and brought him before the image of the devī. Then they raised the sword.

At that moment the devī herself burst out of the stone image, blazing with anger and followed by her gaṇas. She killed the whole band of thieves with the very sword they had raised, and drank their blood. Jaḍabharata stayed unmoved throughout, and his calm was not shaken. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapter 9)

The meeting with Rahūgaṇa

King Rahūgaṇa of Sauvīra was travelling to meet Kapila Maharshi. His palanquin-bearers needed one more man and took Jaḍabharata. Jaḍabharata walked with great care so as not to step on any living creature, and this made the palanquin move unevenly. The king was annoyed and spoke sarcastically about the new bearer’s seeming tiredness.

Jaḍabharata’s reply was a full Vedāntic discourse. The body is not the self. Tiredness belongs to the body. The Ātman neither tires nor carries. All the differences of “king” and “servant” are made by the manas (mind). The earth carries the mountains without complaint. Then who is carrying whom?

The king got down from his palanquin at once, bowed flat before Jaḍabharata, and begged to be taught. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapters 10 and 11)

The teaching on the mind and liberation

The talk between Jaḍabharata and Rahūgaṇa is one of the great passages of the Bhāgavatam. Jaḍabharata told the king who he was across his three births and gave these teachings.

The manas as the root of bondage. Through its sense of being the body, made by ahaṃkāra (the “I-maker”), the manas becomes the source of all karma and so of all suffering. The manas takes what is not the Self for the Self, and what does not last for what lasts. This is the root ignorance.

The manas as the path to liberation. The same manas, when it is turned toward Paramātman through sādhu-saṅga (company of sādhus) and śravaṇa (hearing), becomes the means of liberation. The manas must be changed, not destroyed.

Sādhu-saṅga as the highest remedy. The company of sādhus who have realised the truth is the most powerful way to purify the manas. Even a moment of true contact with a jñānī (one who knows the Self) can do what years of struggle alone cannot.

Paramātman as the only reality. All differences of name and form, of king and servant, are thrown onto the one, undivided, self-shining Brahman by the manas. To realise this is liberation.

The forest of saṃsāra. Jaḍabharata described the life of the householder who does not discern, as a merchant wandering in a dangerous forest. He is surrounded by beasts of prey (the senses and their objects), by thieves (karma), by false companions (worldly relations) and by false shelters. Only the guidance of a true guru who knows the way leads out of the forest. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapters 12 to 14)

Liberation

At the end of his third birth Jaḍabharata had used up all his remaining karma. Through all his life as a brāhmaṇa he had stayed in the state of the pure witnessing Ātman: through the humiliations, the near-offering and the meeting with the king. He left the body without further bondage, and the account of his three births was complete.

King Rahūgaṇa heard these truths from a perfected jñānī and became a jīvanmukta (one liberated while living) even in the body of a king.

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapters 7 to 14