Gautama and the Elephant: Indra's Test

This is an itihāsa (an account from the old history) that Bhīshma tells Yudhishṭhira in the Anuśāsana Parva. A gentle brāhmaṇa named Gautama raised an orphaned elephant calf in the forest. When the elephant was full-grown, Indra came disguised as a king named Dhṛtarāshṭra to take it as his mount. Gautama would not give it up, and the long talk that followed ended with Indra showing who he was and leading Gautama to Brahmaloka.

The question of graded puṇya

Yudhishṭhira asks whether all who do puṇya (merit) reach one single loka (world). Or are there differences of degree among good deeds, just as there are among pāpa (sins), and so different lokas for different degrees of merit?

Bhīshma answers that people reach many different lokas by their karma. Those who do good reach the puṇya lokas, and evildoers reach the pāpa lokas. To show this he tells the old itihāsa of the saṃvāda (dialogue) between the ṛshi Gautama and Indra.

Gautama raises the elephant

Gautama was a gentle brāhmaṇa with full mastery over his mind and senses. Deep in a great forest he found a motherless, starving elephant calf. He felt pity, took it in and raised it with care. In time it grew strong and huge, mountain-like, and flowing with mada (the fluid of an elephant in full vigour).

Indra comes as King Dhṛtarāshṭra

Devendra Indra took the form of a king named Dhṛtarāshṭra. This king is a different person from the Kaurava king Dhṛtarāshṭra of the main narrative. Indra came to seize the great elephant as his own mount.

Gautama was a tapasvin (one who practises tapas) of firm vows. He saw the elephant being led away and spoke to the king:

“O Dhṛtarāshṭra! You do not see the good this creature has done me. Do not take away my child, whom I raised with so much hardship. It is said that friendship is sealed within seven steps. May the pāpa of betraying a friend never touch you, O king! This elephant brings fuel and water for my fire. It guards my āśrama when no one else is there. It is humble, useful in the great tasks of the community of teachers, obedient, free of pride and grateful, and it is always dear to me. I beg you, do not take it away.”

Dhṛtarāshṭra offered payment instead: a thousand cows, a hundred maidservants, five hundred gold coins and much more. He asked, “What use has a brāhmaṇa for an elephant?”

Gautama refused it all: “Keep your cows, maidservants and gold. What use has a brāhmaṇa for wealth here?”

Dhṛtarāshṭra said that elephants belong to kings and that he commits no adharma in leading away his own mount. He told Gautama to stand aside.

The threat and the lokas

Gautama then said he would drag the king and the elephant to the house of Yama, “where the doer of puṇya rejoices and the doer of pāpa grieves.”

In the long exchange that follows, Gautama names loka after loka. To each one Dhṛtarāshṭra replies that he will never go there. He has taken another person’s property by force, and that loka belongs to a different kind of virtuous person. The lokas named, in order, are these.

Saṃyamanī, the city of Yama, “where none speak falsehood, all speak only truth, and even the powerless there overpower the powerful.” It is kept for the truthful.
The Mandākinī of Vaiśravaṇa (Kubera), for those of great puṇya who enjoy bhoga (pleasures), served by gandharvas, yakshas and apsarasas.
The loka of those who honour guests (atithi) with strict vrata (vows), who keep their promised gifts to brāhmaṇas, and who eat only what is left after guests and the yajña have been served.
The forest of Meru, with its lovely groves full of kinnara song and the wide, beautiful Jambū river. It is for the gentle, truthful, learned and universally loved, who know the itihāsa-purāṇa and the Veda and who offer honeyed oblations to brāhmaṇas.
A forest dear to Nārada, full of flowering trees, the home of gandharvas and apsarasas and visited by kinnara kings. It is for those skilled in music and dance, who ask nothing of anyone and act for the good of all.
Uttarakuru, the lovely land where beings born of fire, water and mountains live with the devas, where Śatakratu rains down every desire, where women move as they please and there is no jealousy between man and woman.
The loka of the nishkāma (those without desire). They keep from meat, do not punish, harm neither the moving nor the unmoving, see the same self in all beings, and hold gain and loss, praise and blame alike.
The eternal, sweet-smelling, sorrowless lokas in the abode of Candra, for those free of pāpa and śoka (sorrow).
The loka of those always honoured for their giving and good conduct, who take nothing from others, turn no one away, treat everyone as a guest and are kind of mind toward all. They are forgiving and never speak ill of others.
The eternal, sorrowless, unchanging lokas of the great Āditya (Sūrya).
The loka of those devoted to svādhyāya (study of the Veda), service to the guru and tapas, firm in good vrata and satya (truth), who never contradict their ācāryas (teachers), are always ready to serve without being asked, and are pure and controlled in speech.
The eternal, sorrowless lokas, free of pāpa, in the abode of the great king Varuṇa.
The loka of those who honour the devas with the cāturāsya (four-mouthed) rites, who perform a thousand yajñas, who kindle the agnihotra with śraddhā (faith), and of brāhmaṇas who study the Veda for three years. All of them stand firm on the razor’s edge of dharma.
Indraloka itself, wanted by all and hard to reach, free of pāpa and śoka, and of surpassing tejas (radiance).
The loka of those who live a hundred years, are heroic, study the Veda, perform yajñas and never err. These are the people of Indraloka.
The highest Prājāpatya lokas, beyond even svarga, full of plenty and free of śoka.
The loka of those consecrated at the rājasūya, the righteous protectors of their subjects, and those whose limbs are still wet from the avabhṛtha (closing bath) of the aśvamedha.
The rare, hard-to-reach, eternal loka of the cows (Go-loka), sweet with great puṇya and free of pāpa and śoka. It is for those who give away a hundred cows when they own a thousand, and a tenth part according to their means when they own a hundred. It is also for brahmacārins who reach old age in celibacy, for protectors of Vedic speech, and for devoted pilgrims to the great tīrthas named in order: Prabhāsa, Mānasa-tīrtha, Pushkara, the great lake Naimisha, Bāhudā, Karatoyinī, Gayā, Gayā-śiras, Sthūlavāluka, Kṛshṇā, Gaṅgā, Pañcanada, Mahāhrada, Gomatī, Kauśikī, Pampā, Sarasvatī, Dṛshadvatī and Yamunā.
Brahmaloka itself. There is no hunger or thirst there, no tiredness, no sorrow or joy, no hatred, no beloved or foe, no kin or enemy, no old age or death, no puṇya or pāpa. It is the loka of those free of even the least pāpa, who stand firm in prajñā (wisdom) and sattva.

To every one of these, Dhṛtarāshṭra answers that it is not his goal, for he has done no such good. Gautama is not discouraged and goes on to name the next.

Indra shows himself

When Gautama describes Brahmaloka, Dhṛtarāshṭra answers that only those who have cast off all bonds, who are firm of mind, steady in their vrata, joined to adhyātma-yoga and already established in svarga, reach that puṇya Brahmaloka. He says, “There, O great muni, you shall not see Dhṛtarāshṭra.”

Gautama then speaks to the king: “I know you as the deva of a hundred yajñas, the slayer of Vṛtra, who has gone beyond all the lokas. I have done no wrong against you in mind, speech or deed.”

Śatakratu (Indra) then shows himself: “I am Indra. Through the matter of this elephant I have shown the people the way of the lokas. So command me, I bow before you. I shall do all you say.”

Gautama asks only for the return of his “son,” the white elephant he raised from the age of ten years and who was his companion in the forest. Śatakratu gives the elephant back. It now gently touches Gautama’s feet with its trunk. Indra says that Gautama alone, among the wise, truthful and great-souled who keep the Vedas hidden in the cave of the heart, has won his special love that day. He tells Gautama to set out at once with his son, the elephant, to reach swiftly, and for a long time, the most auspicious of the lokas.

Indra himself put Gautama and the elephant before him and led them to a Brahmaloka that even the virtuous cannot ordinarily reach.

The fruit of hearing

Bhīshma ends with the phala-śruti (the fruit of hearing). Whoever hears this upākhyāna (episode) daily, with the senses under control, or recites it, goes to Brahmaloka as the brāhmaṇa Gautama did.

The two Dhṛtarāshṭras

The king in this episode has the same name as the blind Kuru king Dhṛtarāshṭra of the main Mahābhārata narrative, but he is a different person. This Dhṛtarāshṭra is a form Indra himself took for this teaching. He is not the son of Ambikā and Vichitravīrya.

Sources

Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 102