Ṛshabha Gītā

The Ṛshabha Gītā is a teaching on āśā (hope, expectation, longing). The muni Ṛshabha gives it through a story within a story, with three kings and a silent, wasted-thin ṛshi. Bhīshma tells it to Yudhishṭhira, who is in anguish at having hoped in Duryodhana. The Gītā teaches that āśā placed in the ungrateful, the cruel or the hopelessly unworthy is the most wretched and thin thing there is, thinner than the body of the thinnest ascetic.

The frame: Yudhishṭhira’s grief

Yudhishṭhira begins with a lament about āśā. Of all things he can imagine, a mountain of trees, the sky, the ocean at its deepest, he says āśā is greater and more without limit than any of them. His own greatest āśā had been in Duryodhana. He had hoped that Duryodhana would come to his senses, give up the kingdom he held unjustly, and allow peace. That hope was wholly betrayed. It led to the war and to the terrible loss of kin.

Yudhishṭhira asks Bhīshma: what is harder to obtain than āśā? What is thinner (kṛśa) than the most wretched of beings?

Bhīshma answers with the Ṛshabha Gītā, which he gives as an ancient itihāsa (history).

The outer account: Sumitrā and the ṛshis

Sumitrā, a king of the Haihaya dynasty, went hunting one day and wounded a deer with a curved arrow. Even wounded, the deer ran with great speed. It drew away and then showed itself close by, again and again, and drew the king deeper and deeper into the forest. After a long chase across rivers, ravines and thick woods, Sumitrā was worn out and had lost his followers. He came to the āśrama of a group of tapasvins (ascetics).

The ṛshis welcomed him with the usual kindness of the forest. His hope of catching the deer was at last gone and his pride as a hunter was gone with it. He said to them: “I thought I would catch that deer at every turn, and at every turn it escaped me. My hope is dead and my strength is spent. Tapodhanāḥ (you who are rich in tapas), which is greater, a man with āśā or the sky itself? I have chased āśā to its end and found only emptiness.”

Among the ṛshis was Ṛshabha. He smiled and said he would tell a story from his own life.

The middle account: Ṛshabha at the Nara-Nārāyaṇa Āśrama

On his tīrtha-yātrā (pilgrimage), Ṛshabha once visited the āśrama of Nara-Nārāyaṇa at the holy Badarī. There the celestial Gaṅgā, as the Mandākinī, flows. There Aśvaśiras chants the Vedas without end, and the ṛshis live in constant contemplation.

At a nearby āśrama, Ṛshabha saw a remarkable figure, a muni of unusual build. He was very tall, eight times the height of ordinary men, yet worn down to extreme thinness. His body was no thicker than a little finger. His neck, shoulders, legs and hair were all strangely long and thin. His speech and movements were measured and calm. Ṛshabha was amazed and moved. He offered namaskāra (a respectful greeting), gave his name and gotra (family line), and sat down with respect.

This muni was called Kṛśa, “the thin one”. He was teaching dharmic accounts to the gathered ṛshis when a king arrived.

The inner account: Vīradyumna and the lost son

The king was Vīradyumna, a righteous ruler famed in every direction. He came with his royal company of horsemen, elephants and antahpura (the women of the palace). His face had the colour of a lotus, but his eyes were full of grief.

Vīradyumna had one son, Bhūridyumna. The son had gone into the forest and had not come back. Vīradyumna was wandering in the forest looking for him in desperation. At one moment he hoped to find him close by, and at the next he grieved over every empty path. He fell at the āśrama, worn out, and cried:

“My son, the virtuous Bhūridyumna, I cannot see him. I cannot find him. Āśā is so vast. What could match it? I am tied to this body only by this āśā. I would rather die than live while this hope goes unanswered. Is there anything harder to bear than the hope of a father looking for his only son?”

Kṛśa’s silence and what lay behind it

Kṛśa heard the king’s words but said nothing. He turned away.

Ṛshabha then told the ṛshis at Sumitrā’s āśrama why Kṛśa had been silent. Kṛśa had himself been wounded in his hope by the royal house of Vīradyumna. When Bhūridyumna was young, a revered maharshi came to him and asked for a golden kalaśa (vessel) and fine clothes. The brāhmaṇa-ṛshi waited in hope, but Bhūridyumna did not give what was asked. The ṛshi was shamed and left empty-handed, with his āśā wounded. He then resolved: “I will never again take anything from kings, or from anyone else. The wound of āśā is too deep.” He practised tapas for a long time to pull out even the last trace of expectation.

Yet: “The āśā that sits in the heart will make even a fool get up and run.” Even Kṛśa, who had vowed to take nothing from kings, felt āśā stir in him again when Vīradyumna spoke of his lost son.

Kṛśa’s teaching on āśā

At last Vīradyumna asked again, speaking to Kṛśa directly: “Revered one, tell me of āśā. What is the nature of its thinness (kṛśatā)? What is harder to obtain in this world?”

Kṛśa called to mind what he knew and had lived through, and spoke:

“O king, nothing in this world is thinner than a person of āśā. The thinness of my body is nothing beside the thinness of āśā. It was because of āśā that I was forced to beg from kings.

“These are thinner than my body:”

• The āśā placed in an ungrateful person (kṛtaghna), who has forgotten the good done to him.
• The āśā placed in cruel persons (krūra).
• The āśā placed in the weak (durbala).
• The āśā placed in those who have wronged you.
• The hope of a father for his only son lost in the forest. This is the thinnest of all āśās.

“The āśā of an old woman who hopes to have sons at her age is also most wretched. The āśā of a rich man who wants more than he has is just as thin. The āśā of a girl waiting to be given in marriage, hearing of weddings, is deeply thin.

“O king, all these kinds of āśā are thinner than even my frame.”

The ending

King Vīradyumna heard this teaching and fell at Kṛśa’s feet. He begged: “Revered one, please help me meet my son.” He accepted the truth of Kṛśa’s teaching. His own āśā for his son was perhaps the most wretched hope of all those named.

Kṛśa had kept his vow to take nothing from kings. He laughed gently and said he would make an exception. By his tapas and his learning (pāṇḍitya) he called Bhūridyumna from wherever he was, and the prince came.

Kṛśa gently reproved the king for his house’s old dishonouring of the brāhmaṇa’s request. Then he showed his true nature as dharma itself (dharmasvarūpa) and went away into the forest, without anger and without further attachment.

Back to the frame: Sumitrā lets go of his hope

Ṛshabha ended his account and spoke to Sumitrā: “I myself saw this and heard these words. So give up your āśā for that deer. It is even smaller than a father’s hope for a lost son.”

Sumitrā, king of the Haihaya dynasty, at once gave up his hope of catching the deer.

Bhīshma then spoke to Yudhishṭhira: “You have heard and borne so much. Be firm as the Himālaya mountain. Listen, without grief, to the teachings that I go on giving you.”

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva (Rājadharmānuśāsana Parva), Chapters 125–128 (Ṛshabha Gītā)