Pitā-Putra Saṃvāda
The Pitā-Putra Saṃvāda (dialogue of father and son) is in the Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 175. A wise son asks his father to go beyond the usual path of the āśramas (the stages of life) and to take up moksha (liberation) at once. He points to the steady approach of mṛtyu (death) as the reason that nothing can be put off. The father answers with the usual order of the āśramas. The son’s reply goes beyond that order and says that firm devotion to the ātman here and now is the only true path.
The setting
This teaching follows straight after the Brāhmaṇa-Senajit Saṃvāda in Chapter 174 of the Mokshadharma Parva. Bhīshma tells it to Yudhishṭhira as another example of how a person of viveka (discernment) goes after śreyas (the highest good) with urgency and not with comfortable slowness.
The son’s question
The son opens by asking his father, with urgency and with respect:
“Father, a person’s āyus (life-span) is getting shorter every moment. In such a time, what should the wise person do? Tell me the right course, the one I should follow in order to accomplish dharma.”
The father gives the usual answer. Study the Vedas in brahmacarya (the student stage). Then get sons so that the offering to the ancestors (pitṛ-tarpaṇa) can be made. Set up the sacred fires and perform yajñas. At last go to the forest and become a muni. This is the gradual order of the āśramas.
The son is not satisfied. He answers with strong pictures of how short life is and how quickly death comes:
“The world is being struck down by mṛtyu on all sides. Old age has surrounded it. The nights pass, never failing to eat up life, and still you speak with the calm of one who is untouched by all this. Why do you speak like a hero when things are so grave?”
He gives many images of death’s certainty. A fish in shallow water cannot feel safe. A wolf creeps up on a goat that is busy picking flowers. In the same way mṛtyu comes near at every moment. No unfinished state will make mṛtyu wait:
“Do today what is good. Do not let time run past you. Mṛtyu will carry you off before your works are complete.”
He sets two people side by side: one who gains every pleasure he wants, and one who gives up all desires at the root. Giving up all kāma (desire) is greater than filling it, because desire can never be filled, and not even the whole world can fill it.
The son’s view of dharma
The son says what the true wealth of a brāhmaṇa is. It is not the wealth of yajña, of kin or of property. It is this:
“Ekatā (solitude, oneness), samatā (evenness of mind), satyatā (truthfulness), śīla (good character), dhṛti (steadiness), ahiṃsā (not harming), ārjava (straightness), nishkramaṇa (withdrawal from action). These are the wealth of the brāhmaṇa. There is no wealth equal to these.”
He challenges his father directly:
“Brāhmaṇa, what use is wealth, or kin, or a wife, when you yourself are going to die? Enter brahman, which lives in the cave of the intellect (buddhi-guhā). Where have your forefathers gone? Where has your own father gone?”
The son says that he was born in the ātman, by the ātman, and not through a father in a mother. He is firm in the ātman (ātma-nishṭha) and has no children, and he will be born again only in the ātman.
He will practise five yajñas:
- Śānti-yajña: the offering of stillness.
- Brahma-yajña: constant thought on the Upanishats.
- Vāk-yajña: japa of the praṇava (Oṃ).
- Mano-yajña: joining the parts of aum into one another.
- Karma-yajña: the required acts of purification.
He aims for the devayāna-mārga (the path of the devas). Animal yajñas, which involve hiṃsā (harm), and kshetra-yajñas (bodily offerings made for results in this world) he cannot perform. One who sees clearly cannot bring about the destruction of the body of another, which is the form the ātman takes.
Truth alone wins over mṛtyu:
“Mṛtyu‘s army, which no one can stop, is stopped only by satya. So give up asatya. In satya, amṛta (deathlessness) lives.”
Bhīshma’s closing words
Bhīshma tells Yudhishṭhira: whatever the father did after hearing his son’s words, you should do the same. The plain meaning is that the son’s teaching is right, and that the father, having heard it, turned toward the path of firm devotion to the ātman.
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 175
- Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 174 (the Brāhmaṇa-Senajit Saṃvāda, named as the dialogue just before)