Brāhmaṇa Senajit Saṃvāda
The Brāhmaṇa Senajit Saṃvāda is a talk on saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death) told in the Mahābhārata, in the Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 174. An unnamed brāhmaṇa teaches King Senajit of Mithilā, who is deep in grief. He shows the king the nature of saṃsāra and why mourning is useless. Inside this teaching is the well-known gāthā (teaching-song) of Piṅgalā, who reaches vairāgya (detachment) in a single night. She does this by turning her desire away from other people and toward the Paramātman within her.
Context
Bhīshma tells this ancient itihāsa to Yudhishṭhira while lying on his bed of arrows at Kurukshetra. It is part of the Mokshadharma Parva, the section of the Śānti Parva about the dharmas of moksha (freedom). In this chapter the teaching of śoka-nivāraṇa (the removal of grief) is shown through Senajit’s meeting with a wise brāhmaṇa friend.
Senajit’s grief
Senajit, a king of Mithilā, fell into deep śoka (grief) when his son died. He was overwhelmed and wept without comfort in his inner rooms. A brāhmaṇa friend, who was also a jñānin (knower), came to see him and found the king in this state.
The brāhmaṇa’s teaching
The brāhmaṇa spoke plainly and did not soften the truth.
On the foolishness of mourning
“O king, you weep for others, but you yourself are worthy of being wept for. You mourn for those who have departed, while you too are caught in the same stream of saṃsāra. Who among us is secure?”
The image of logs in the ocean
The brāhmaṇa compared saṃsāra to a vast ocean. All beings are like floating logs tossed about in that ocean. Sometimes two logs strike each other and drift together for a while, and then the waves part them again. The meeting of kin is brief, like the meeting of logs on water. This holds for father and son, husband and wife, and friend and friend. To mourn their parting is like a log weeping because the other log has floated away.
All come from the avyakta and return to it
All beings rise from the avyakta (the unmanifest) and in time go back to the avyakta. The son whom Senajit mourns came from the unseen and has gone back to the unseen. This is the nature of all embodied life. Neither the coming into the seen world nor the return to the unseen world belongs to the one who grieves. It belongs to the ceaseless movement of time and karma (action and its fruit).
The Piṅgalā gāthā
Within this teaching the brāhmaṇa recites the ancient gāthā of Piṅgalā. He gives it as an example of vairāgya that comes in an instant. Piṅgalā was a gaṇikā (courtesan). In a single night she reached the understanding that broke her bond to saṃsāra.
One evening Piṅgalā dressed herself and stood at her door. She was waiting for a rich patron who, she expected, would come and give her great gifts. He did not come. As the night grew deep, she went to the door again and again. Each time she went with hope, and each time she came back disappointed. At last, in the depths of that night, something broke open within her. She saw with sudden clearness the whole shape of her life: desire pointed outward, endless waiting, endless disappointment. And beneath it all she saw the Paramātman dwelling quietly within her as the ātman, the true inner beloved who had always been there.
She sang what she had understood:
“What a fool I have been! I have been running after these wretched men who cannot give anything lasting, while the supreme beloved, the Paramātman, the giver of all joy, has been within me all along. Tonight I cut this āśā (hope for things). I will seek only him.”
With this she turned inward and let go of all outer hope. That night she knew a peace she had never known before. The gāthā ends with its teaching: āśā alone is the greatest duḥkha (sorrow); the cutting of āśā is the greatest sukha (happiness). The brāhmaṇa gives this to Senajit as the heart of vairāgya.
Senajit’s change
Senajit heard the brāhmaṇa’s teaching and the gāthā of Piṅgalā, and he let go of his grief. The king saw that to cling to the dead was to cling to what had already gone back to the avyakta. He saw that his own life too would soon finish the same journey. With this understanding the śoka left him, and he turned toward the path of viveka (discernment).
Piṅgalā in the Bhāgavata
The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa also tells of Piṅgalā, at greater length. In Skandha 11, Chapter 8, Dattātreya names Piṅgalā as one of his twenty-four gurus.
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 174
- Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 8