Brāhmaṇa Kāśyapa Saṃvāda: the Anugītā

The Brāhmaṇa Kāśyapa Saṃvāda is the itihāsa (account of past events) that opens the Anugītā Parva of the Mahābhārata. It comes straight after the Aśvamedhika Parva proper ends. Arjuna tells Kṛshṇa that the teaching he received at Kurukshetra has slipped from his memory, and he asks to hear it again.

Kṛshṇa says he cannot repeat the Bhagavad Gītā word for word. He spoke it when he was established in yoga (union with the Self). So he gives its essence through an old itihāsa. A great siddha-brāhmaṇa once visited Kṛshṇa and Arjuna and told them how the ṛshi (seer) Kāśyapa questioned a wandering siddha about death, rebirth, karma (action and its fruit), the garbha (womb), sadācāra (good conduct) and the marks of the one who is freed. The teaching ends with the yoga practice of khecarī-mudrā, and Dattātreya is quoted as an authority. At the end Kṛshṇa says that this is the same teaching Arjuna heard on the battlefield. This itihāsa is the Anugītā, “the song sung after” the Gītā.

The frame: Arjuna’s forgetting (Chapter 16)

Janamejaya asks Vaiśampāyana whether anything worth noting passed between Keśava and Arjuna as they lived, their enemies destroyed, in the Maya-sabhā. Vaiśampāyana answers that the two mahātmās (great souls) were rejoicing together in a place like svarga (heaven). Then Arjuna turned to Kṛshṇa and said:

“O mahābāhu! Devakīnandana! When the battle was near, your greatness and your form as Īśvara became fully clear to me. Keśava! But all that you told me then, as Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, out of friendship for me, has slipped from me. My mind has fallen (bhrashṭa-citta). I have great eagerness to hear it again, Mādhava, yet you are soon to leave for Dvārakā.”

Kṛshṇa embraced Arjuna. He was skilled in speech (vāgviśārada), and he replied: “Pārtha! I told you then a supreme secret. I called to your mind the form of sanātana dharma (eternal dharma). I told you of all the eternal lokas (worlds). Yet you did not hold on to it, because you lacked buddhi (understanding), and this is very displeasing to me. Even I cannot now recall that same smṛti (memory) again. Truly, Dhanañjaya, you are without śraddhā (faith) and your buddhi is spoiled. To repeat it all again, exactly as before and without anything left out, is not possible even for me. To understand the pada (state) of Brahman is a very wide dharma. At that time I spoke of the para-Brahman (supreme Brahman) itself, established in yoga. With that same meaning I shall now tell you an ancient itihāsa. Hold this buddhi firmly, and you will reach the best gati (destination).

“Dharmajña-śreshṭha, best of those who know dharma, listen! Śatru-saṃhāraka, destroyer of enemies! Once a brāhmaṇa of great śakti (power) came to us, and he received our honour. It is not certain whether he came from Svargaloka or from Brahmaloka. Bharatarshabha! Pārtha! We questioned him fully. He was well pleased and spoke to us in a divine manner. Now listen to it with śraddhā, and do not stop to ponder.”

The brāhmaṇa begins: Kāśyapa and the siddha

The brāhmaṇa spoke to Kṛshṇa: “Kṛshṇa Vibhu! Out of compassion for beings, you asked me about mokshadharma, the dharma of freedom, which wipes away moha (delusion). Madhusūdana! Mādhava! Listen carefully while I tell it exactly.”

He then told of Kāśyapa. Kāśyapa was a brāhmaṇa full of tapas (austerity), foremost among those who know dharma, and deeply learned. He met a certain cultured brāhmaṇa who knew every secret of the dharmas. This brāhmaṇa had reached the far shore of jñāna and vijñāna (knowledge and its realisation) about death and saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death). He was skilled in the truth of the worlds. He knew the truth of sukha (happiness) and duḥkha (sorrow), and the truth of birth and death. He was a paṇḍita in the knowledge of puṇya (merit) and pāpa (sin). He saw the rising and falling gati that embodied beings obtain through their karmas.

He moved about as if bound, but in truth he was a siddha. He was tranquil and fully in control of his indriyas (senses), and he shone with a brahma-like tejas (radiance). He roamed everywhere. He knew the way of vanishing (antardhāna-gati), and he moved unseen like the wind, which touches nothing. He kept company with Siddhas who bear the cakra.

Kāśyapa heard of this brāhmaṇa by chance, and went to him. He touched his feet and bowed (praṇāma). Seeing this great wonder, Kāśyapa served him with devotion, took him as his guru in his heart, and pleased him. The great one was pleased with his disciple. He had in mind a great siddhi (accomplishment) to give him, and he began to speak.

The siddha’s own journey (Chapter 16, continued)

The siddha first told his own path, before he answered Kāśyapa’s questions. Through many yajñas (fire rituals) and pure puṇya-karmas, men reach the fair state of devaloka, the world of the devas. But nowhere in it is there complete sukha, and nowhere a lasting footing. Even a station won with the greatest effort is seen to slip away again and again.

The siddha himself had once come to unlucky gatis. This came through pāpa-karmas, through kāma (desire) and krodha (anger) surrounding him, and through unchecked tṛshṇā (thirst for things). He died again and again, and was born again and again. He fed at many different breasts and saw many different mothers and fathers of every kind of nature. He tasted wondrous sukhas and equally wondrous duḥkhas. He was parted again and again from those he loved, and bound to those he did not love. He lost wealth that he had gained with the greatest labour. He suffered the harshest insults from kings and from his own people. He bore dreadful pains of body and mind, mental anguish, cruel blows and bonds. He fell into naraka (hell), suffered the torments of Yama’s house, and bore old age, disease and every affliction born of the dvandvas (pairs of opposites).

Then, through nirveda (a turning away born of disillusionment, a form of vairāgya, or detachment), he became fit for grief. He became established in the formless advaita (non-duality), and he gave up the loka-tantra (dvaita, the world of two, and its workings) altogether. He practised this path in the yoga-mārga (the way of yoga). He gained the powers of antardhāna and of jñāna-vijñāna. Then he said:

“Through the prasāda (grace) of my own mind, I have gained this siddhi in this very world. I shall not return here again. I shall not look again upon these lokas. Good gatis alone remain for me until I attain full siddhi, and until this creation itself endures. O foremost brāhmaṇa! Such is the excellent siddhi I have now attained. Beyond it I go on to a station that is greater still, the pada of the avyakta (unmanifest) Brahman. In this, O parantapa, have no doubt: I do not return to the world of mortals again.”

The siddha was pleased that Kāśyapa had known him even while he was in antardhāna-gati. He said: “Kāśyapa, I honour you greatly, and I praise your buddhi, for you knew me, and you are a man of true medhā (wisdom). Tell me quickly what purpose brought you to me. The time for my leaving is close.”

Kāśyapa’s seven questions (Chapter 17)

Kāśyapa fell at his feet and asked questions that are not easy to put into words. The siddha answered them in order. Kāśyapa asked:

How does the body slip away at death?
How is it formed again?
How does the jīva (the embodied being), wandering in saṃsāra, become free from this world full of duḥkha?
How does the jīva leave the body formed from prakṛti (nature), which comes from mūla-avidyā (the root of ignorance)?
Having left it, how does that jīva enter another body?
How does a man feel the fruit of the śubha (good) and aśubha (bad) karmas he has done?
When he has no body, where does his karma stay?

The way of death (Chapter 17)

The siddha answered in turn. A man does deeds in this world that lengthen his āyus (life span), and by them the body is formed. As those karmas slowly run out, his āyus runs out with them. In that season his buddhi fails him. He still knows courage (dhairya), strength (bala) and what the season needs, yet he is no longer master of his own mind, and he begins to act against himself. He eats what harms him. Sometimes he eats too much, and sometimes he fasts completely. He takes spoiled meat, grain or water, and mixes foods that do not go together. He loads the body before the last meal is digested. He goes beyond all limits in effort and in union. Under the press of business he holds back the urgent calls of the body. Through rich, over-flavoured food, sleep in the day, and unripe fruit eaten out of season, a man himself drives the doshas of vāta (wind) and the others beyond their measure.

From the excess of kapha, vāta and pitta comes the disease that ends in death. Or death may come by some sudden, contrary act. By many such causes the body of every living being perishes. This is what is called jīvitam (life). Understand it rightly.

The heat of the body, driven by a violent vāta, spreads everywhere and stops all the prāṇas (life breaths). Then the very strong pitta rages through the body and breaks the seats of āyus. At that hour the suffering jīva slips at once out of the body, which is now still, and its vital knots are broken. The being leaves the deha (body). Every creature is wrapped in suffering in this way. All beings alike burn in this cycle of birth and death.

At the moment of garbha-saṅkramaṇa, when the jīva leaves its body of the other world to enter the garbha of this world, the jīva suffers a like anguish. At death the joints of the body come apart. At birth the child is pressed down and stifled in the waters of the womb. This alone is the difference between the two passages. A different vāta then arises. In a great convulsion it scatters the vāta that had gathered at the seats of prāṇa and apāna among the pañcabhūtas (five elements). This vāta finally destroys the gathering of the five elements. With great difficulty that vāta leaves the embodied being and goes up to the higher worlds.

So the jīva leaves the body. It is without breath, without heat, without form and without consciousness. Having left Brahma in this way, such a jīva is called mṛta (dead).

While embodied, the jīva knows rūpa (form), rasa (taste) and the other objects of the senses through the indriyas. But it cannot know through those same indriyas the prāṇa that arises from food. The sanātana (eternal) jīva alone does these works from within the body. In certain parts of the body the limbs meet in a special way. These places are called marma, as the śāstra teaches. When the marmas come apart, the vāta rises and enters the heart and blocks the buddhi. Until then the jīva was conscious. Now it knows nothing at all, because the marma-sthānas (vital places) close and jñāna is covered over by tamas (darkness). Then the vāta, finding the jīva now without any support, moves it from its place. The jīvātma takes one great and terrible breath and leaves the body, shaking it hard as it goes. The body becomes still.

The moment the jīva has fully slipped from the body, all the puṇya and pāpa karmas it has done seize hold of it at once. Brāhmaṇas who have rightly understood the meaning of the Veda-śāstras, and who are full of jñāna, can tell from the signs whether the dead one was a doer of puṇya or a pāpātma (one whose self is given to pāpa). Men with clear eyes see a firefly darting here and there even in the deepest dark. In the same way the siddhas, whose eyes are jñāna itself, see with divine sight the jīva slipping from a body, reaching a body, and entering a mother’s garbha.

By the śāstra, three stations appear for such a jīva: martyaloka (the world of mortals), svarga and naraka. This earth, where beings live in many forms, is itself the karma-bhūmi (the land of action). Here, in this karma-bhūmi, all jīvas do śubha and aśubha karmas and reap their fruit, good and bad, right here. Men who commit pāpa in this world go to naraka, each according to his karma. Naraka is the adhogati (downward way) of the jīva, and there they are cooked by the fruits of their pāpa. From that state, moreover, moksha becomes very hard to reach. To avoid such a fate, a man must guard himself with the greatest care.

Above lies the vast gathering of stars called the candra-maṇḍala. The loka where Sūrya shines in his own radiance is the sūrya-maṇḍala. These are the stations of those who have done puṇya-karma. When the fruit of their karma is used up, all such beings fall back downward, and this happens again and again. Among them there is a difference of low (nīca), high (ucca) and middle (madhyama) gati. In such a fall, the falling jīva sees another’s prosperity still blazing, and finds no joy in it. In this way the various gatis of the jīva have all been set out.

Karma-phala and garbha (Chapter 18)

The siddha went on: “Kāśyapa! Śubha and aśubha karmas are never destroyed without bearing fruit. Jīvas get their fruits again and again, in the bodies fitted for them (kshetras), and those karmas give their fruit right there. A fruit tree gives plenty of fruit when its season comes. In the same way puṇya done with a pure mind gives plenty of fruit. Equally, pāpa done with a mind bent on pāpa gives the same plenty of fruit of its own kind. It is the mind that a jīva puts first that governs how it goes forward in karma.

“A man, overtaken by karmas and surrounded by kāma and krodha, enters the garbha. I shall tell you this too. The śukra (seed) that enters the woman’s garbha joins with rajas. After that the jīva takes on a body according to its karma, a good one or a bad one as the case may be.

“The jīva enters a body according to its karma. Yet in its subtle (sūkshma) and unmanifest nature it is never truly bound anywhere. For it is in truth the eternal form of Parabrahman itself. So the knower of Brahman stays asakta (unattached). Three doubts may arise here, and I settle each in turn. First: a craftsman pours molten gold, even a small amount, over a copper image, and the whole image becomes golden. In the same way, although caitanya (consciousness) is subtle, its spread (vyāpti) fills the whole body once the jīva enters the garbha. Understand that the jīva, entering the garbha, takes the form proper to its jāti (kind of birth), just as melted metal takes the shape of the mould. Second: fire has no form of its own, yet it becomes visible by taking hold of wood or metal. In just this way the jīva takes on rūpa and the rest by taking hold of the body. Fire entering a lump of metal makes the whole lump very hot. Understand that the jīva’s taking of form in the garbha is of this same kind. Third: a lamp burning inside a house fills the whole house with its light. In just this way caitanya, entering within, lights the whole body, gross and subtle alike.

“In truth this caitanya, like the lamp, has no attachment of its own. Yet duḥkha and its kin seem to belong to it, and the reason is this. Light itself has no shape. But it follows the shape of the fingers and other things that block it, and so it looks straight or bent. In the same way, duḥkha born of karma has no true home in the caitanya that lights it. What is seen is only the appearance that duḥkha has a form. In truth it is not there at all, exactly as the śruti says:”

asaṅgo hy ayaṁ purushaḥ

This purusha (person, the Self) is without any saṅga (attachment).

“Whatever śubha or aśubha karma a jīva does, the karma done in a former body must certainly be experienced. Only through such experience does that store grow less, even as new karma piles up afresh. This cycle goes on without end until a man comes to know the dharma that belongs to mokshayoga.

“Uttama! I shall now tell you what a jīva, wandering through many births in many jātis, must practise in order to reach sukha. It is dāna (giving), vrata (vows), brahmacarya (celibacy and study), holding fast to one’s own prescribed Veda-śākhā (branch of the Veda), dama (self-control), praśānti (deep peace), dayā (kindness) toward all beings, indriya-nigraha (holding the senses in check), freedom from cruelty, not touching the wealth of others, never even thinking of harm to any being, service to one’s parents, pūjā of devas, atithis (guests) and gurus, purity, unbroken control of the indriyas, and the practice of śubha karmas. This whole gathering of conduct is called sajjana-nadavadi (the way of the good). From it dharma is born, and that dharma always protects the people.

“Such practice of dharma is always seen firmly set and unshaken among the sat-purushas (good people). This is called sadācāra, and those whose minds are at peace (śāntacitta) hold to it firmly. In such people the karma spoken of before stays firmly set. This is sanātana dharma, and those who rely on it well never fall into an evil state.

“And yet, as a snake’s bite does not harm a physician skilled in poison, the tangle of karma does not afflict the yogin. He stands above ordinary men, and being a yogin he is, by that very fact, mukta (free). For this reason those who fall away from the paths of dharma are punished. The yogin who is mukta stands above even those who faithfully follow sadācāra. For the path of karma brings mukti (freedom) only after much time. The man of dharma reaps a fair fruit wherever he is, and crosses beyond saṃsāra only after a long time through such conduct.

“This very ātman has become changed (vikṛta) and has taken on jīvatva (the state of a jīva). In truth it is Brahman itself. The jīva gets the karma of its former life again and again, and that karma alone is the cause of its coming here in this changed state.

“A doubt now arises in the world: who first devised the cause by which the ātman comes to hold a body? For many caitanyas are wholly independent. Are they not, then, free of any change of Brahman? I now settle this doubt as well, up to the verse called pauravikī śrutiḥ.

“The Pitāmaha (grandfather) of the whole jagat (world), Brahmā himself, first made a body for himself. With it he created all three lokas entire, both the unmoving (sthāvara) and the moving (jaṅgama). After that Brahmā created pradhāna. This is called the prakṛti of embodied beings, and by it the whole jagat is filled. In the world it is also called parama.

“That which is formed in this way is called kshara, the jaḍa (lifeless), this whole jagat. Beyond it lies the amṛta (deathless) akshara, the caitanya bound up with lifeless bodies, which has taken on the state of jīva and Īśa (jīva-īśa-bhāva). Beyond both of these is pure Brahma itself. Of these three, kshara, akshara and pure Brahma, the mithuna (pair) of kshara and akshara exists separately for each and every purusha. When each such purusha reaches mukti, that particular made pair vanishes. It vanishes exactly as a snake imagined in a rope vanishes once the rope is seen for what it is.

“This is no invention of mine. It is established by the ancient veda-vākya (Vedic word). At the beginning of creation, that same Prajāpati who existed before creation created all beings, sthāvara and jaṅgama alike. As the śruti has it:”

sad eva somyedam agra āsīt ekam evādvitīyam

“In the beginning, dear one, this was Being alone, one without a second.” So the purāṇa veda-vākya declares.

“Yet if the jīva’s being a change of Brahman (vikāratva) were itself eternal, no sādhana (practice) at all would be needed. So I now explain that this vikāratva is not eternal. I do this by describing the jīva’s kāla-parimāṇa (its bound length of time) and its wandering (parivṛtti) through the bodies of devas, nāgas, and animals and birds. That very Pitāmaha set for the jīva both this measured span of time and this wandering among the various bhūtas (beings), together with the state of being born again.

“I shall now speak as a medhāvī (wise one) who has seen the ātman in a former birth would speak, for the words I now give you agree exactly with that vision. Whoever clearly sees that the sukha and duḥkha that come to him are anitya (not lasting), that the body, a gathering of many limbs, is a heap of many malas (impurities), that even mṛtyu (death) is only the fruit of karma (karma-phala), and that whatever he takes to be sukha is truly duḥkha, such a person crosses over this dreadful ocean of saṃsāra that cannot be forded.

“A person beset by birth, death and many diseases knows the pradhāna-tattva. He sees that the caitanya present in all living bodies is ekarūpa, one and the same everywhere. He then reaches vairāgya in this world, and after that he seeks the parama-pada (highest state) in all things. For such a person of vairāgya there is a helpful teaching (upadeśa). I now tell it to you exactly as it is. I give you the jñāna of that eternal, unchanging Paramātman, the most excellent of all. I ask you to grasp it well, down to its very root.”

The marks of the one who is freed (Chapter 19)

The siddha had earlier told of the body’s origin and its dissolving. Now he set out the way of mukti. He followed the śruti’s teaching that all waters find their one resting-place in the ocean:

tad yathā sarvāsām apāṁ samudra ekāyanam

“As the ocean is the one resting-place (ekāyana) of all waters.” The seat of universal dissolving is Brahman itself. Then he gave the second image:

sa yathā saindhava-khilya udake prāptaḥ udakam evānu vilīyate

“As a lump of rock-salt dropped in water dissolves wholly into that water.” In the same way, one who is dissolved in that Brahman becomes one with it. He holds not even the thought “I am this” and has no trace of asmi-bhāva (the sense “I am”) left.

A man gives up each earlier body in turn: the gross (sthūla), then the subtle (sūkshma), then the causal (kāraṇa). He does not dwell on anything with his mind. He becomes dissolved in the Paramātman, who is the refuge of all beings, and he crosses beyond the bond of saṃsāra.

The marks of such a mukta were then given. He is sarvamitra, a friend to every being, and does harm to none. He is sarvasaha, patient with all. He is devoted to śama (calm) and master of his indriyas. He is free of bhaya (fear) and free of manyu, which here means the dejection or the resentment that comes when yoga is slow. He is ātmavān, with full mastery over his own mind. He sees all beings as himself. He is pure within and without, holds to his niyamas (rules of life), wants no honour, and has no thought “I am someone”. He is free of every bandha (bond). Such a man reaches mukti.

He is even-minded in life and death, in sukha and duḥkha, in gain and loss, towards the loved and the hated. He is mukta. He has no kāṅksha (craving), insults no one, is free of the tangle of the dvandvas, and has torn out rāga (attachment) by its very root. Such a man is mukta in every way. He has no enemy, no kin and no children. He has given up dharma, artha and kāma, and holds not the least wish anywhere. Such a being is freed from bondage.

The fruit of this jñāna is then told. He is neither dharmī nor adharmī, and is unconcerned with either as a category. He sheds the prārabdha karma (karma already begun) stored from before. His ātman is stilled by the using up of the body’s constituents (dhātu-kshaya). He is free of dvandva, that is, established in advaita-bhāvana (the practice of non-duality), as the śruti says:

yatra tv asya sarvam ātmaivābhūt tat kena kaṁ paśyati

“When all has become the ātman itself for him, by what does he see what?” Such a one reaches mukti from saṃsāra.

An akarmavān is a sannyāsī who has no work to do. He is free of all kāṅkshā and sees this jagat as impermanent as the aśvattha tree, marked by birth, death and old age. He reaches mukti. One whose buddhi is fixed in vairāgya, and who watches without rest for the doshas of his own citta (mind), is freed most swiftly from the bond of the ātman.

That ātman has no gandha (smell), no rasa, no sparśa (touch) and no śabda (sound). It cannot be grasped. It has no rūpa. It cannot be reached by any path of jñāna. One who sees it so reaches mukti. That ātman is without the guṇas of the five bhūtas, which denies the gross body (sthūla-deha). It is amūrta (formless), which denies the subtle body (sūkshma-deha). It is ahetuka (uncaused), which denies the causal body (kāraṇa-deha). It is aguṇa (without qualities), and yet it is the very bhoktā (enjoyer) of the guṇas. One who sees it so reaches mukti.

Through careful thought of the buddhi, he gives up every saṅkalpa (will) of body and mind. He reaches nirvāṇa gently, as a fire goes out for want of fuel. He is fully freed of every vāsanā (lingering impression), without dvandva or grasping. Through tapas he has brought the whole gathering of indriyas under his own control. Such a man is mukta. Freed wholly from all saṃskāras (impressions), he gains as his fruit that Brahman which is sanātana, supremely tranquil, unmoving, eternal and unfading.

The yogaśāstra and khecarī-mudrā

The siddha then offered to teach the yogaśāstra, by which yogīs see the siddha ātman within. It teaches the “gateways” (dvāras) by which one turns the mind inward within the body and sees the eternal. First, the indriyas must be drawn back and the manas (mind) fixed on the ātman. The sādhaka (practitioner) must first take up severe tapas. This tapas is nothing other than the steady doing of one’s own svadharma (own duty). Only then does he take up the practice of mokshayoga. The wise sādhaka who stays always fixed in tapas, and follows the rule (vidhi) of the yogaśāstra, comes in this way to know the ātma-tattva (truth of the Self) within his own manas. The sādhu who lives apart (ekānta-śīla) and succeeds in uniting his manas with the ātman will surely see the Paramātman within his own buddhi. The yogin who is always established in yoga, and who has conquered his manas and his indriyas, gains ātma-preraṇa (the Self’s own prompting). Through the power of buddhi he reaches ātma-sākshātkāra (direct sight of the Self).

A man in a dream sees a person he has never seen before. Usha once saw Aniruddha in this way. On waking, the man knows that very person when he sees him, and says “this is he.” In the same way the yogin has seen the Ātman in its form as the whole universe (viśva-rūpa) in samādhi. After he comes out of samādhi, he goes on seeing this whole universe as the very form of that Ātman. A man draws out a single blade of grass (kāḍa) from a whole tussock. In the same way the yogin separates the ātma-tattva from the deha and sees it clearly. The knowers of yoga say that the grass-tussock stands for the śarīra (body). The māyā that rises from within the Ātman and shines forth in the very shape of the jagat is the stalk drawn out. This is held to be a great and telling illustration.

When the embodied jīva clearly sees the pratyagātman (the inner Self) through the yoga-mārga, even Īśvara, master of the three worlds, is no longer his master. Such a yogin takes, by his own will, many bodies, deva, gandharva and the rest, and becomes kāmarūpī (one who takes any form he wishes). He removes old age and death, and he neither grieves nor rejoices. The yogin who has mastered his indriyas may reach even mastery over the devas. This Īśvaratva (state of Īśvara) has videha-kaivalya (complete freedom without a body) as its final limit. Giving up the impermanent body, he reaches the unfading Brahman. Though all bhūtas perish, he knows no fear. Though bhūtas suffer, none can bring him distress. Even while he still has a body, the kleśas (afflictions) born of attachment and affection do not touch him. No weapon can cut him, and mṛtyu has no claim on him. There is no greater sukha than his. He merges his mind in the ātman and stays firmly set there. He casts old age and sorrow far away and sleeps in happiness. Such a yogin takes up many bodies at will after leaving the human one. He must never fall into nirveda, weariness or disillusionment, about the bhogas (enjoyments) that yoga itself gives. For one who is steady in yoga and has reached ātma-sākshātkāra within himself no longer wishes even for Indra’s own station.

The technique itself was then given. The mind of the sādhaka who lives apart must stay within the inside of the pura (city), which is the body, and must never be allowed outward. He must recall the upadeśa first given by the śruti. He must find out the exact seat within the body where the jīva lives, and hold the mind unmoving there. He must allow it no outward wandering. He thinks on the ātma-vastu (the thing that is the Self) with one point of mind at that seat, and his mind holds nothing else as its object. He should go to a place where other people do not disturb him and no sound comes. There he holds back the whole gathering of indriyas. He should think fully and completely on the parabrahma-tattva, the truth of Parabrahman, which is present whole in every limb of the body, within and without alike.

The specific aids to this dhyāna (meditation) were then given, using these terms:

dantān: the teeth. This means the food chewed by them. The purity of this food is the very base of the discipline, according to the saying quoted as proof (pramāṇa-vacana).
tālu and jihvā: the palate and the tongue. Together they make up the khecarī-mudrā.
gala (the throat), grīvā (the neck), hṛdaya (the heart) and hṛdaya-bandhana (the nāḍī path of the heart). This path includes one hundred and one nāḍīs and is itself a seat of dhyāna.

The saying on food is:

āhāra-śuddhau sattva-śuddhiḥ, sattva-śuddhau dhruvā smṛtiḥ, smṛti-lambhe sarva-granthīnāṁ vipramokshaḥ

From purity of food comes purity of sattva (clear mind). From that comes a firm memory. From that memory comes the untying of every knot.

On khecarī-mudrā, the yogaśāstra spoken by Īśvara was quoted directly:

lambikorddhve sthite ga rasanāṁ viparītagām saṁyojayet prayatnena, mudrā sā khecarī smṛtā

The tongue, turned backward, is to be joined with effort to the opening above the uvula. This mudrā is remembered as khecarī.

And Dattātreya himself is quoted as an authority on the same practice:

antaḥ kapāla-vivare jihvāṁ vyāvṛtya cārpayet, bhrūmadhya dṛshṭir hy eshā mudrā bhavati khecarī

The tip of the tongue is to be turned back and fixed within the hollow of the skull, with the gaze fastened between the eyebrows. This is the khecarī-mudrā. The same method is noted to lie under the Bhagavad Gītā’s own teaching:

bhruvor madhye prāṇam āveśya

This means fixing the prāṇa between the eyebrows, and making the prāṇa and apāna equal at the nostrils.

Dhāraṇā (holding the mind) at the kaṇṭhakūpa, the hollow of the throat below the neck, was said to give its fruit quickly and without delay, according to the yoga-sūtra:

kaṇṭhakūpe kshut-pipāsā-nivṛttiḥ

Dhāraṇā there removes hunger and thirst. This fruit is meant here as a confirmation that builds a sādhaka’s śraddhā in the whole discipline, and not as a goal in itself.

The disciple’s further questions and the storehouse image

The wise disciple had grasped this teaching, which was given in a roundabout way through the terms teeth, palate and the rest. He put further questions that are hard to answer without direct instruction. How does food, chewed in many ways, become rasa and then rakta (blood) when it enters the belly? How, in a woman’s garbha, do māṃsa (flesh), medas (fat), snāyu (sinew) and asthi (bone) come to be formed as the body? How does the growing garbha gain its bala? How do the body’s various malas find their way out in spite of every blockage? By what means, and from where, does the jīva draw its breath in and let it out? What place in the body does the jīva take as its seat? By what nāḍī path, and of what colour, does the jīva carry and hold up this body?

The siddha answered with the image of a storehouse. A man puts something valuable in a secure room and goes far away, yet keeps his attention fixed on it. He comes back again and again to make sure of it. In the same way the sādhaka should hold back the ever-wandering indriyas, fix the mind within the body and seek the ātman there. He should give up pramāda (carelessness) completely. By such unceasing effort at dhyāna, the citta quickly becomes calm (prasanna). Through the paramātma-sākshātkāra (direct sight of the Paramātman) that follows, one becomes a knower of the pradhāna-tattva. That Paramātman cannot be seen by the eye or grasped by any other indriya. Only by the manas, the great lamp, can he be rightly known. That Paramātman has hands and feet everywhere, eyes, heads and faces everywhere, and ears everywhere. He fills all that is.

The closing vision

The sādhaka sets aside even this cosmic idea of the Paramātman with limbs everywhere. He holds his own svarūpa (true nature) steady within the body, and he sees the kevala nirguṇa Brahman (Brahman alone, without qualities). So the wise one who knows the truth (tattva-jña vidvān) rises above this very bodily difference. He gains in this very world all that may be wished for and becomes amṛta. He casts away the bheda (division) born of deha-abhimāna (pride in the body) and stays in kaivalya (oneness).

The tattva-jña jīva, as he leaves the body, sees himself in the very act of leaving. He holds the ātma-tattva that lives within his own body, sets the deha aside, and reaches ātma-sākshātkāra. In that moment he seems almost to smile at his own former self, as one who wonders: “Alas, I was whirled about for nothing in this saṃsāra, no truer than the water of a mirage.”

“Turning to such an ātma-tattva,” the siddha said, “one such as myself reaches moksha. Brāhmaṇa-śreshṭha, best of brāhmaṇas! Here is the whole secret, complete, that I have told you. I go now. Go you too, happily, to your own āśrama.” And the great tapasvin disciple, keeper of the fiercest vratas, left then at his own will.

Kṛshṇa’s closing words to Arjuna

Vāsudeva resumed, now speaking to Arjuna: “Arjuna! That siddha-purusha, resting on the mokshadharmas, spoke to me in this way and then became invisible. Pṛthā-putra, son of Pṛthā! Did you listen to this with a gathered mind? What you heard that day on the battlefield, seated in your ratha (chariot), was this not the very same thing?”

Kṛshṇa names the two teachings as one. This itihāsa, the Anugītā, carries the same essence as the Bhagavad Gītā that he gave Arjuna at Kurukshetra. He warned, however, that a person of scattered mind, without the teaching of a guru, cannot properly grasp it. Only one whose antaḥkaraṇa (inner instrument of mind) is purified can hold it. He said:

“Bharataśreshṭha! I have taught you something that is very secret even to the devas. Pārtha! No man has ever heard this before. No man but you is fit to hear it. No man of unsettled mind can grasp it rightly, even now. Kuntīkumāra! Devaloka is full even now of śraddhāvān purushas (people of faith). For the devas themselves do not want mortals to give up their mortal state and reach the highest state directly, since karmas alone give only svarga. Pārtha! Sanātana Brahman alone is the parama-gati (highest destination) of the jīva. The jñānavantuḍu (one who has jñāna) leaves the body, reaches amṛtatva (deathlessness) in that Brahman itself, and knows sukha without end. Even women, vaiśyas and śūdras, who have bodies gained through pāpa, reach the parama-gati if they practise this dharma well. How much more then the brāhmaṇas and kshatriyas who have heard much jñāna-bodhana (teaching of knowledge), who delight in the practice of their own dharma, and who hold great śraddhā towards Brahmaloka!

“So I have taught you mokshadharma together with its yuktis (reasons): the upāyas (means) of its sādhana, its siddhi, its fruit (phala), moksha itself, and the true nature of duḥkha. Arjuna! There is no sukha greater than this. Pāṇḍava! A man with buddhi and śraddhā, who can drive with a steady mind toward this one goal, sees that all that is prized in this world as wealth has no sāra (essence). He gives it up and quickly reaches the parama-gati by these very means. This much alone need be said. There is nothing beyond it. For one who practises this without a break for six months, this yoga bears its fruit.”

The Kāśyapa of this account

The text names the one who questions the siddha only as Kāśyapa. He is a brāhmaṇa rich in tapas and learned in dharma. The siddha-brāhmaṇa who teaches Kāśyapa is not named. The brāhmaṇa of great śakti who visited Kṛshṇa and Arjuna and told them this itihāsa is not named either. After telling it, he left.

Sources

Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva (Anugītā Parva), Chapter 16
Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva (Anugītā Parva), Chapter 17
Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva (Anugītā Parva), Chapter 18
Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva (Anugītā Parva), Chapter 19
Bhagavad Gītā, quoted at the end of the khecarī-mudrā teaching
Yoga-sūtra, quoted on the kaṇṭhakūpa
Dattātreya, quoted on khecarī-mudrā