Śṛgāla Vānara Saṃvāda

In the Anuśāsana Parva, Yudhishṭhira asks Bhīshma what becomes of people who promise a gift to a brāhmaṇa and then fail to give it. Bhīshma answers with an itihāsa (an account of the past) called the Śṛgāla Vānara Saṃvāda, the conversation of a jackal and a monkey. Two men who had been friends in a past life were reborn as a jackal and a monkey, and each confessed the pāpa (sin) of his former life. Bhīshma ends with a long teaching on keeping a pledge made to a brāhmaṇa.

Yudhishṭhira’s question

Yudhishṭhira asked his grandfather what becomes of those who vow before brāhmaṇas to give a gift but fail, out of moha (delusion), to give it, and to which lokas (worlds) they go. He asked the same of those who resolve to give dāna and then do not give it.

Bhīshma’s answer: the fruit of a broken vow

Bhīshma said that whoever promises to give even a little and then does not give finds all his hopes made fruitless. They are like the hope of children in a napuṃsaka (an impotent man). Between the night of a living being’s birth and the night of his death, all the puṇya (merit) he has earned in that life by homas, dānas and tapas is destroyed by one broken pratijñā (pledge). This, Bhīshma said, is what the wise, who know the dharmaśāstra, have found by their own yogic understanding (yoga-buddhi). The pāpa of a broken pledge is so heavy that it could be removed only by the gift of a thousand moon-white horses, each with one black ear (śyāma-karṇa).

The jackal and the monkey

To show this, Bhīshma told the itihāsa of the Śṛgāla Vānara Saṃvāda. Long ago two men were friends. In their next birth they were born as a jackal (śṛgāla) and a monkey (vānara).

One day the monkey, who remembered his past birth (pūrva-janma), saw the jackal eating dead bodies in a cremation ground. He asked: “What very terrible pāpa did you do in your former birth, that you now eat these foul and vile bodies in this śmaśāna (cremation ground)?”

The jackal answered: “In my former birth I promised a gift to a brāhmaṇa and did not give it. Because of that I have this birth that comes of pāpa, and now, driven by hunger in this life, I eat such vile bodies.” The jackal then asked the monkey what pāpa had brought him to be born a vānara.

The monkey confessed: “I used to steal and eat the fruits of brāhmaṇas. So let no wise man ever take a brāhmaṇa’s wealth or quarrel with a brāhmaṇa. And whatever is promised must be given without fail.”

Where Bhīshma heard the account

Bhīshma said that he heard this old story first from the mouth of a teacher, a brāhmaṇa who knew dharma (dharma-jña), who told it as an ancient itihāsa. He said that he heard the very same story again, told by Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa himself to a brāhmaṇa.

The teaching: a brāhmaṇa’s wealth and hope

From this Bhīshma drew a long teaching.

A brāhmaṇa’s wealth must never be taken, even if he does wrong. Such wrongs should be forgiven. Brāhmaṇas must never be insulted, whether they are children, poor or in need. The best of brāhmaṇas (brāhmaṇottamas) taught Bhīshma the same lesson: whatever is promised must be given. One must never treat a promised thing as if it might not be honoured, and a brāhmaṇa’s hope must never be allowed to go to waste.

If hope is raised in a brāhmaṇa and then left unmet, he becomes like a blazing fire. If, in his anger at that unmet hope, he looks at someone, that person is burned to ashes, as dry wood is burned by fire. But if that hope is met and the brāhmaṇa, glad, praises the giver with good words, his speech acts on the kingdom like the words of a physician and brings peace and well-being. Such words of blessing fill the giver with sons, grandsons, cattle, kinsmen, villages and kingdom, and give every kind of good fortune. Bhīshma said that the tejas (radiance) of a brāhmaṇa on this earth is like the tejas of Bhagavān Sūrya with his thousand rays.

So Bhīshma ended: one who wants a good birth must give, without fail, what he has promised. Giving dāna to a brāhmaṇa makes sure of svarga for the giver, and dāna is itself among the greatest puṇya-karmas (acts of merit). Giving to a brāhmaṇa satisfies both the devas and the pitṛ-devatās. A brāhmaṇa is called a great tīrtha (holy place) in himself, and a man should never leave any gathering without having honoured a brāhmaṇa who is there.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 9