Pañcaśikha and Janaka on the Ātmā

In the Śānti Parva of the Mahābhārata, in the Mokshadharma Parva (Chapters 218–219), Pañcaśikha Kāpileya comes to the court of King Janaka of Mithilā. Janaka had put his question on moksha (liberation) to one hundred ācāryas (teachers) and was not satisfied with their answers. Pañcaśikha first states the Lokāyata (Cārvāka) view of matter alone and the Bauddha (Saugata) view of skandhas (aggregates). He then answers both. He ends with sarvātyāga, the full giving up of the sense of “mine”, as the highest path to moksha.

Setting

Bhīshma tells this dialogue to Yudhishṭhira. King Janaka of Mithilā is known throughout the Mokshadharma Parva as the ideal rāja-ṛshi (king and seer), who has mastered both worldly life (saṃsāra) and renunciation. He had asked one hundred great ācāryas about moksha, and none gave him an answer that satisfied him. Then Pañcaśikha came to the court. He is called Kāpileya, the son or disciple of Kapila, the founder of Sāṃkhya. (Chapter 218)

Janaka’s question

Janaka was not content with one hundred teachers. He was not looking for a first teaching on yajña or dharma. He wanted a direct answer to the question of the ātman, from a teacher who could meet every kind of challenge, including those of the nāstikas (those who reject the Veda). (Chapter 218)

The Lokāyata view

Pañcaśikha begins by stating the Lokāyata (Cārvāka, materialist) view in full. He does not state it to agree with it but to know what has to be answered. The Lokāyata view is this:

• Consciousness is not a separate thing from the pañcabhūtas (five elements). Intoxication comes from the fermenting of rice and water, though neither rice nor water is intoxicating in itself. In the same way, consciousness comes from the joining of the five elements.
• The ātman that we call “I” is only the working of the body and mind made of the five elements. There is no separate jīva that passes from birth to birth.
• At death the elements come apart. No conscious being goes on after this.

This is the Cārvāka position, the most direct form of materialism in the Indian tradition. (Chapter 218)

Pañcaśikha answers the Lokāyata view

Pañcaśikha answers the Lokāyata view with three arguments.

The pratyaya at death. At the moment of death a conscious being still has awareness. There is a particular pratyaya (cognition) of passing away. This cognition belongs to a witness. The dissolving elements cannot account for it, because the dissolving elements have no knowledge of themselves.

Appeal to the devas (devatā-upāyācana). People everywhere ask devas, ancestors and cosmic powers for help. This presupposes that there are conscious beings beyond the material realm who can answer. If consciousness were wholly material and limited to the body, such appeals would have no ground. That such appeals have been made everywhere and confirmed through tradition is indirect proof of conscious beings who are not material.

The working of karma (karma-nivṛtti). If the jīva were only the body, the whole structure of karma-phala (the fruit of action), with puṇya (merit), pāpa (sin) and their fruits across births, could not be understood. Beings are born in unequal conditions that their actions in this life cannot explain. This points to something that passes from birth to birth and carries its karma-saṃskāras (impressions of action). (Chapter 218)

Pañcaśikha answers the Bauddha view

In Chapter 219 Pañcaśikha turns to the Bauddha (Saugata) teaching. This is the anātmavāda (the teaching of no self), shown through the skandha theory.

The Bauddha view is this. There is no lasting self (ātman). What we call the “self” is a momentary stream of eighteen dhātus, which are the Bauddha list of the sense faculties, sense objects and sense consciousnesses. They arise and pass away in quick order. Consciousness is momentary (kshaṇika). There is nothing underneath. The feeling of continuity is an illusion made by the quick succession of momentary mental events.

Pañcaśikha’s answer is this. If consciousness is wholly momentary and there is nothing underneath, then the very recognition of impermanence, the centre of the Bauddha teaching, becomes impossible. To recognise impermanence one needs someone who can compare the earlier moment with the later one. A purely momentary consciousness has access to nothing but the present moment. It cannot know “this is passing” unless something has seen both the “before” and the “after”. To recognise change there must be a witness that does not change.

He adds that the wish for moksha, or nirvāṇa as the Bauddhas call it, presupposes someone who wishes and who will be freed. If there is no self, for whom is there moksha? A momentary stream cannot hold a wish that lasts through time, still less a steady aim toward a goal. (Chapter 219)

The positive teaching: sarvātyāga

After clearing away both the Lokāyata and the Bauddha objections, Pañcaśikha comes to the positive teaching, the path of sarvātyāga.

What is seen is not the self (dṛśyam is anātmā). Everything that can be seen is anātmā (not the self): the body, the senses, the objects, the thoughts. The kshetrajña is the pure witness-consciousness, which cannot itself be made an object. Any experience of “I am this body” or “I am this mind” is already a mistake, because the “I” that is aware of the body and mind cannot itself be the body or the mind.

Ahaṃkāra is mithyā. The sense of being the doer, “I did this” and “I am the agent”, is false (mithyā). It is the laying of the notion of self on what is really a process without a self. When ahaṃkāra is clearly seen as mithyā through viveka (discrimination), it loses its hold.

The support of duḥkha. All suffering (duḥkha) needs an ādhāra (support), a self that suffers. When ahaṃkāra is seen as mithyā, there is no support for duḥkha. The suffering does not vanish, but the one who identifies with the suffering is seen to be absent. Moksha is not the making of a new state but the removal of the false identification that caused the seeming bondage.

Sarvātyāga. The full giving up is not of objects but of the notion of “mine” toward any object at all. This includes the subtle body, the intellect, the sense of being the doer, and even the wish for moksha. This total giving up, sarvātyāga, is moksha. (Chapters 218–219)

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 218 (setting, Janaka’s question, the Lokāyata view and the answer to it)
• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 219 (the answer to the Bauddha view)
• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapters 218–219 (sarvātyāga)