Ajagara and Prahlāda

This is a dialogue in the Mahābhārata, in the Mokshadharma Parva of the Śānti Parva. Prahlāda Mahārāja, the king of the dānavas, meets a brāhmaṇa who lives by ajagara-vṛtti, the way of the python. The brāhmaṇa is not named. He explains why he lives without any striving. He eats only what comes to him unasked. He sleeps wherever he finds himself. Grief and joy do not touch him, because he has seen that all births, growth and deaths arise without any separate cause from the One alone. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 179)

How the dialogue begins

Yudhishṭhira asks Bhīshma how a person may move through the world without śoka (grief), and what leads to the highest gati (goal). Bhīshma answers with this ancient itihāsa of Prahlāda and the brāhmaṇa of ajagara-vṛtti. He says it is well known among those who know dharma. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 179)

Prahlāda’s question

Prahlāda Mahārāja meets a remarkable brāhmaṇa walking the earth. The brāhmaṇa has all the marks of wisdom and inner attainment:

  • svasthatā (calm contentment)
  • śakti (inner strength)
  • mṛdutā (gentleness)
  • jitendriya (mastery of the senses)
  • nirvitsatā (freedom from busy activity)
  • anasūyā (freedom from envy)
  • truthful speech
  • insight
  • direct knowledge of tattva (the real nature of things)

Yet he goes through the world as easily as a child, and makes no effort to get food, shelter or anything else.

Prahlāda sees that all creatures are swept along like floods by the currents of dharma, artha and kāma. This brāhmaṇa stands unmoved, like a kūṭastha (a firm peak). He does not chase dharma or kāma. He pays no attention to the movements of the world. He moves as a pure witness, a sākshī. Prahlāda asks him: what is your jñāna (knowledge), what is your śruta (learning), what is your practice? How do you stay in such śānti (peace)? (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 179)

The brāhmaṇa’s answer: why he lives so

The brāhmaṇa explains what he has understood.

All arising comes without a separate cause from the One. The birth, growth, decay and death of all beings happen animittataḥ, without a separately assignable cause. They arise from the one undivided reality. Seeing this clearly, the brāhmaṇa has no reason to rejoice at growth or to grieve at decay.

“Look, O Prahlāda, the birth, increase, decrease and destruction of all beings I see occurring without a specific cause. Therefore I neither rejoice nor grieve.”

Every meeting ends in parting. All samāgama (unions) end in separation. All that is gathered is in the end destroyed. Knowing this, the brāhmaṇa does not fix his mind on anything. To fix the mind on a thing is to invite grief when it changes or goes.

Impermanence is in the great and the small. In the great ocean, beings of huge bodies and beings too small to see are all in turn subject to birth and death. On earth no creature, moving or still, strong or weak, escapes mṛtyu (death). Even the stars and planets in the sky, great and small, fall in their time. Seeing that everything is alike subject to change, the brāhmaṇa has gained sarvā-sāmānya, the knowing that all is equally subject to change, and he rests in the knowledge of tattva. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 179)

The way of the python

The brāhmaṇa describes his way of life, which is modelled on the ajagara, the great python.

  • He eats whatever food comes without being sought. Sometimes it is a great deal, sometimes a tiny morsel, and sometimes nothing at all for many days.
  • He sleeps wherever he is. Sometimes it is a fine bed and sometimes the bare earth.
  • He wears whatever clothing reaches him: bark garments, coarse cloth, or fine silk when it is offered.
  • He accepts what comes by right means and does not seek what does not come of itself.
  • He does not rejoice when he is well fed, and he does not grieve when he has had no food for long.

He says this in so many words:

“That which is stable, undecaying, auspicious, free of śoka, pure, incomparable, known in the understanding of the wise — this ajagara-vrata I practise with purity. It is the path to brahman.”

He keeps this vrata (vow) with the quality of a viveka-jñānin (one whose knowledge is clear discernment). His manas (mind) is held in ātma-nishṭhā (steadiness in the ātman). He has seen that all that seems apart from the ātman, the whole seeming world of difference, arises from avidyā (ignorance) like a dream. The text calls the world seen as apart from the ātman viprāpāta (a great fall). It is the deepest error, and all suffering follows from it. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 179)

Bhīshma’s closing teaching

Bhīshma ends the chapter with the teaching in brief. The mahātman (great person) who has brought krodha and the rest under control, who is free from bhaya (fear), lobha (greed), moha (delusion) and kopa (anger), and who follows ajagara-vṛtti in this spirit, reaches great sukha (happiness). (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 179)

Prahlāda in Chapter 222

Prahlāda appears again in Chapter 222 of the Śānti Parva, in a dialogue with Śakra (Indra) on the nature of śānti. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 222)

Sources

  • Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva (Mokshadharma Parva), Chapter 179
  • Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Chapter 222