Aila Gītā
The Aila Gītā is a song of Purūravas, a king of the Candra line and the son of Ilā. It is told in the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skandha, Chapter 26. For years Purūravas lived in the company of the apsarā Urvaśī and forgot his royal duty. When she left, he ran after her like a madman. In the middle of his shame he saw the truth, sang this song of vairāgya (turning away from the world), and was freed by knowing the ātman within him. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa tells this to Uddhava.
Purūravas and Urvaśī
Purūravas was the son of Ilā, so he is called Aila. He ruled the whole earth. He was handsome, strong and famous. He won the love of the apsarā Urvaśī and kept her with him in his palace for years. He was so taken with her that he did not see time pass. Days became months and months became years, while he stayed lost in her company. He forgot his royal duties, his yajñas and his dealings with his kingdom.
He did not know when the sun rose or set. He did not notice the seasons change. In his heart there was only one thing: Urvaśī.
Urvaśī leaves
The time came when Urvaśī was called back to Indraloka. Such is the way of apsarās. They come and go by the will of Indra and by the laws of svarga (heaven). Their stay in the world of mortals never lasts.
When she rose to go, Purūravas could not accept it. He had tied her presence so closely to his own life that her going felt like the end of his world. He ran out of the palace after her, without his royal clothes, without calm and without any trace of his old dignity. He called after her and begged her to stay.
She did not turn back. She kept going. He ran farther, crying out her name, more and more out of his mind.
“Cruel woman! Wait! You promised—” But she was already beyond the reach of his voice.
The flash of viveka
Somewhere in this running and weeping the king stopped. He looked at himself: a great emperor, standing naked on the road and howling after a woman who had simply gone home.
Something broke. It was not new grief but new clarity. He saw suddenly and fully what he had become. He sat down on the earth.
His mind had been full of Urvaśī. For one moment it was empty. Into that emptiness a great truth came:
This is what I allowed to happen. I had rule over the earth, and I gave away rule over my own mind to a woman I could never keep.
This understanding was the beginning of the Aila Gītā.
The Aila Gītā
Purūravas sang. First he blamed himself, then he spoke with clear thought, and last he came to a freeing understanding:
“Urvaśī left, and I ran after her naked like a madman. What happened to my learning? What happened to my tapas? What happened to the dignity of a king? All of it melted in the pleasure of her arms. This is what being drunk on the senses does: it hollows out the greatest of men and makes them beggars.
Who is more foolish? The man who was never taught and falls? Or the taught man, who knew better and fell anyway? At least let my fall be an example. I carried the title of a great emperor, and a pair of eyes and a set of bangles made a puppet of me.
Years passed and I thought they were moments. Years! My kingdoms had no ruler. My yajñas were stopped. My ancestors sat waiting for tarpaṇa (the water offering). My people sat waiting for justice. And I was counting the ornaments in Urvaśī’s hair.
What are women, what are their embraces, what are their sweet words? They are tools of the māyā of Parameśvara. It is not their own fault. It is the plan of the One who tests the steadiness of those who call themselves sādhakas (seekers).
The five senses and the mind (manas) are six untrustworthy advisers. Even the wise cannot fully trust them. How much less can someone like me trust them, I who let my mind be carried off and still called myself a king?
O Paramātmā, you are the ātman, the inner witness of all this. You alone are real. Urvaśī was a dream. Her embrace was as real as the embrace of one you hold in sleep. When sleep ends, the embrace was never there. When jñāna (knowledge) rises, the world of saṃsāra is seen to be a dream as well.
I will not look for another Urvaśī. I will look for you, the Paramātmā who was always within me, who was present through all those years and watched my foolishness without judging, waiting for me to turn around.”
The freedom of Purūravas
After he sang, Purūravas sat in deep thought. He knew the ātman within himself: the unchanging witness behind the changing states. The māyā of Urvaśī had done its work as a teacher and dissolved.
He went back to his kingdom, but as a changed man. He did his royal duties while staying free inside. He was a jīvanmukta (one freed while living), moving through the life set for him without being bound by it.
Bhagavān Kṛshṇa told this to Uddhava and drew the lesson. The company of the wise can show what long years of foolishness could not. Purūravas found freedom not in spite of his fall but through the self-knowledge that the fall made possible.
Kṛshṇa on the danger of company with those under māyā
After the Aila Gītā, Bhagavān Kṛshṇa gave Uddhava a teaching for daily practice:
“The sādhaka should not keep company with those who are lost in the pleasures of the senses and have no turn of mind towards moksha. This is not because those people are bad. It is because the mind takes on what surrounds it, as fire takes on the nature of what it burns. One who stands in smoke is filled with smoke.
The great ṛshis who have known the ātman are the counter-force. Even a short time near such a one cuts through the attachments that years of sādhana alone cannot loosen. This is the highest worth of satsaṅga (the company of the good).”
Sources
- Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 11th Skandha, Chapter 26