Kṛshṇa Dharma Saṃvāda: Ātmayuddha and Kāmagīta

In the Aśvamedhika Parva of the Mahābhārata, King Yudhishṭhira is crushed by grief after the great war. Bhagavān Vyāsa has already spoken to him. Now Vāsudeva Kṛshṇa takes up the task. Over three chapters he gives Yudhishṭhira one long teaching. It has three parts: the Indra-Vṛtra account read as a teaching of jñāna (knowledge of the self), the Ātmayuddha or battle within the mind, and the Kāmagīta, the song of Kāma (desire) himself. At the end Kṛshṇa turns Yudhishṭhira away from grief and toward the great Aśvamedha yajña.

Setting

Bhagavān Vyāsa had already spoken to the king. Now the radiant Vāsudeva Kṛshṇa looked at Dharmarāja Yudhishṭhira. The king had lost his kinsmen and relatives. His mind drifted, “like the sun seized by Rāhu, like Agni smothered in smoke.” Kṛshṇa began to speak for his true good. (Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 11)

The Indra-Vṛtra account as a teaching of jñāna

Vāsudeva began with a hard teaching. Śoka (grief) is destroyed by brahma-jñāna (knowledge of Brahman) alone. It is not destroyed by the words of elders, however many, nor by a thousand yajñas.

Whatever is jihma (crooked, meaning kāma and the qualities near it) leads to the mṛtyu-pada, the place of death, which means saṃsāra. Whatever is ārjava (straight, meaning śama, dama and the qualities near them) leads to the brahma-pada, the place of Brahman. “This much alone,” Kṛshṇa said, “is the whole subject of jñāna. What use are many kinds of lament?”

He pressed further. Yudhishṭhira had not truly done the deed that was needed. He had not truly beaten his real enemies. How could a man claim to have won anything while he did not know the enemy of the ātmā (self) living in this very body?

To make this clear, Kṛshṇa told, “following dharma and the Veda”, how the battle of Indra and Vṛtra once took place. He read it as a picture of the inner life.

Indra stands for the ātma-tattva (the truth of the self), which is knowing by nature.
Vṛtra stands for the tangled knot of kāma and the qualities that go with it. This is the first confusion of cit (what knows) and acit (what does not know), which is ahaṅkāra (the sense of “I”).

Vṛtra first spread through pṛthivī (earth). In this reading pṛthivī means the sthūla-deha, the gross body itself, as the śruti says: “yac charīraṃ sā pṛthivī” (“that which is the body is the earth”). As Vṛtra spread through it, the object of gandha (smell, the quality of earth) was seized. The very act of taking one part of the whole as “I” gave rise to durgandha, a bad smell. This is the born world that is not the self, the brahmāṇḍa.

Indra was angry at this loss and threw his vajra. In this reading the vajra is viveka, discrimination between the self and the not-self. Struck by it, Vṛtra fled from one place to the next.

He fled into jala (water). This is the subtle body that enjoys soma, ghee and milk in Candraloka, as the śruti says “āpaḥ purusha-vacasaḥ” (the waters stand for the purusha). There he seized rasa (taste).
He fled into agni (fire). This is the shining world that is seen, held with a trace of mamatā (the feeling of “mine”). There he seized rūpa (form).
He fled into vāyu (air). This is the samashṭi-liṅga, the subtle body of the whole creation, as the śruti says “vāyureva vyashṭir vāyuḥ samashṭiḥ”. There he seized sparśa (touch), the mind’s contact with objects.
He fled into ākāśa (space). This is avyākṛta sushupti, the undivided dullness of deep sleep. There he seized śabda (sound).
Finally he fled into Indra himself, Śatakratu. There he seized Indra’s own aiśvarya (power). The knowing self became confused by moha (delusion) and caught in abhimāna (pride) over its own glory.

At this darkest point Vasishṭha woke Indra by singing the Rathantara sāman. In this reading Vasishṭha is the guru, and the Rathantara is the great saying “Aham Brahmāsmi” (“I am Brahman”). Through it the guru cancelled the very sight of two things (dvaita), as the śruti says:

dvitīyād vai bhayaṃ bhavati

“From a second thing, fear arises.”

Then the seeker (sādhaka) was lifted clear of both what is seen and what is not seen, and was set firmly in parānanda (the highest bliss). Only then did Indra kill the Vṛtra who had entered his own being, with the vajra now become unseen. (Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 11)

Kṛshṇa says that Indra himself spoke this secret, which rests on dharma, among the assembled great ṛshis, and that they passed it on. Kṛshṇa said: “Rāja! Know this, and awake.”

This reading of the Indra-Vṛtra battle is given as a secret teaching about jñāna. The Mahābhārata gives two other accounts of the battle. The Udyoga Parva tells how Vṛtra was born from Tvashṭā’s yajña and was killed by ocean-foam. The Śānti Parva, in the Mokshadharma, tells of the great battle in which Bhagavān Śiva’s Rudra-jvara, Bhagavān Vishṇu’s presence in the vajra, and Vasishṭha’s Rathantara sāman together bring about Vṛtra’s fall. In both the Mokshadharma account and this Aśvamedhika account, Vasishṭha wakes Indra with the Rathantara sāman. Here the sāman is read as the great saying of non-dual jñāna.

The Ātmayuddha: the battle within the mind

Kṛshṇa went on, now speaking straight to Yudhishṭhira’s own state. (Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 12)

Illness is of two kinds, śārīra (of the body) and mānasa (of the mind), and the two are never wholly apart. In the body the three doshas, śleshma (kapha), pitta and vāyu, are the ground of health when they are in balance (svāsthya). Heat lessens cold, and cold lessens heat, and so the balance returns.

In the same way sattva, rajas and tamas are the ātma-guṇas, the qualities of the liṅga-śarīra (the subtle body). Their balance is the true sign of health (svastha-lakshaṇa). As heat and cold correct each other, so harsha (joy, born of sattva) and śoka (grief, born of rajas) correct each other. In grief a man remembers a joy that is past. In joy he remembers a sorrow that is past.

Kṛshṇa told Yudhishṭhira plainly: you are not bound to pure sukha (happiness) or pure duḥkha (sorrow), so you should dwell on neither. Remember only that Brahman which is beyond both kāma and śoka.

Yet Yudhishṭhira dwelt on exactly what should not be dwelt on.

The disrobing of Draupadī (Kṛshṇā) in the full assembly while all the Pāṇḍavas looked on.
The exile from the city.
The years in bark and skins in the wilderness.
The attack by Jaṭāsura.
The battle with Citrasena.
The torment by Saindhava.
Kīcaka’s kick to Draupadī during the year of hiding (ajñātavāsa).

Then Kṛshṇa named the true field of battle. “O destroyer of foes! The battle you once fought with Droṇa and Bhīshma must now be fought with your own mind. It has come even now.” He told Yudhishṭhira to stand ready for that battle. By yukti (yoga) and by karma (the yajñas and rites that purify the mind) he should reach the para (the highest), beyond the unmanifest mind, which is Brahman itself.

In this war, Kṛshṇa said, there is no need of weapons, helpers or kinsmen. The mind alone is enough, and the mind alone is the enemy. “Know to what state you will come if you cannot win this battle of the mind, son of Kuntī, and by winning it become kṛtakṛtya, one whose work is done.”

He closed by urging Yudhishṭhira to take up this firm resolve and to rule the kingdom rightly by the settled custom, following the path of his fathers and forefathers. (Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 12)

The Kāmagīta

Kṛshṇa knew what Yudhishṭhira would ask. “If only giving up kāma (kāma-tyāga) gives moksha, why do you now tell me to rule, and not let me go to the forest as I once asked?” Kṛshṇa answered it directly. (Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 13)

Giving up outer things, such as a kingdom, does not make a man a true renunciant, he said. Only giving up the kāma that is born inside the body brings siddhi (success). Even that may fail for a man who only pretends to vairāgya (dispassion), the śushka-vairāgya (dry dispassion). For a person who has no outer wealth but still clings to the pleasures of the body, what passes for dharma is truly adharma, and what passes for sukha is truly duḥkha. The mauḍhya (delusion) beneath has not left. Kṛshṇa said such a state might as well belong to one’s enemy.

Then he gave the teaching in its shortest form. The word of two syllables, mama (“mine”), is mṛtyu (death). The word of three syllables, na-mama (“not mine”), is the eternal Brahman. Both Brahmā and Mṛtyu live hidden and unseen inside the citta (the mind) itself, and from there they drive all beings. “In this there is no doubt,” said Kṛshṇa. A man who has put away mamatā is not touched by battles, even though he fights them like an ordinary man. He is like one who has staked nothing.

Kṛshṇa drew out the meaning with the teaching of the Gītā. The being (sattva) of this world cannot truly be destroyed, because its ground is nitya (eternal) and has not fallen from its own base. So even a man who believes he is the doer of a deed of pāpa (sin), and who seems to kill all these beings, remains truly ahiṃsaka (one who does no harm). It is said:

hatvāpi sa imān lokān na hanti na nibadhyate

“Even having killed these worlds, he does not kill and is not bound.”

Take a man who has taken the whole earth with everything that moves and stands on it, yet holds no mamakāra (the feeling of “mine”) at all. What can the earth do to him? But a man who lives in the forest on roots and fruits alone, if he holds even the least mamatā for those humble things, walks always in the very mouth of Mṛtyu.

Kṛshṇa taught that one should see one’s own svabhāva, the māyā-nature of the self, through dhyāna (meditation), as the śruti says:

tad-dhyāna-yogānugatā apaśyan devātmaśaktiṃ svaguṇair nigūḍham

“Following the path of meditation, they saw the power of the divine self hidden by its own qualities.” Whoever sees that even this svabhāva, with the enemies outside and inside, is only a bhūta, a thing that has arisen and is not ultimately real, is freed from mahābhaya, the great fear that is saṃsāra.

Kṛshṇa then met a further doubt: “If aiśvarya (power) alone is worth wanting, then a moksha like deep sleep would serve no purpose.” He answered with the śruti:

yatrānyat paśyati tad alpam

Whatever is seen as other than oneself is hīna (low). So even aiśvarya is small, and the sat-purushas (good people) do not praise it. From the manas (mind) kāma is born. From kāma comes pravṛtti (the drive to act). From pravṛtti comes duḥkha. Therefore the manas alone must be held back.

No action in this world, Kṛshṇa said, is wholly free of kāma. All the kāmas are limbs of the mind itself. Yet a person whose buddhi (understanding) is fixed on kāma earns no praise among the wise. Only the jñānī (knower) who, after careful thought, destroys those very kāmas deserves to be called paṇḍita.

For the jīva (the living being) who is born again and again, a pure citta comes through abhyāsa-yoga, which is practised as a discipline. By fixing the mind firmly on the sāra-mārga, the essential path to liberation, one destroys the kāmas tied even to dāna (giving), Vedādhyayana (study of the Veda), tapas and the kāmya Vedic rites (rites done for a wish). One understands that these acts serve only citta-śuddhi (purity of mind) and are to be given up once that purpose is met. Whatever is done with kāma as its motive is not dharma. The very root (mūla) of dharma is niyama (restraint). Restraint checks kāma, and that restraint is itself the root of moksha.

The song of Kāma

“In this matter,” Kṛshṇa told Yudhishṭhira, “the ancient knowers of tattva (the truth) have told the account called the Kāmagītas in full. I now tell it to you completely.” What follows is Kāma’s own declaration, as Kṛshṇa tells it.

“No one can kill me by any single means. Whoever knows only the force of his own blow and tries to kill me, in that very blow I am born again.”

A man may fight kāma with yajñas of many dakshiṇās (gifts to the priests), seeking his own glory as the greatest performer. Then kāma is born again as pride inside that very act. Another man, by the cold reasoning of the burning ground (śmashāna-vairāgya-nyāya), decides he has “conquered kāma” and takes up sannyāsa. Kāma is born again in that very thought. This is why, Kāma says, the jñānīs see that even sannyāsīs of careless mind, who dwell on outer things, become greedy and quarrelsome, spoiled by fate itself.

“Whoever tries to kill me with yajñas rich in dakshiṇā, I am born again in the being that is born, unseen, among the immovable things (sthāvaras).” Kāma is born again, though more subtly, even in a man whose whole discipline is yajña. A variant reading names this one as dharmātmā.

“Whoever tries to kill me through the Vedas that establish Vedānta, in him too I am born again, as the unseen being among the immovable things. He cannot know me.”

“Whoever tries to kill me through dhṛti (steadiness) in satya (truth), in his very feeling, in the pride ‘I can win this world and the next by my own steadiness’, I am born. He cannot know me, because that very pride is my own form.”

“Whoever holds the fiercest vratas (vows) and tries to kill me through tapas, in his very tapas, in the longing for the wealth and realms, such as Madhumatī, that tapas gives, I am born again.”

“Whoever is firmly set in jñāna and tries to destroy me by turning to moksha, in his very longing for moksha I dance, I laugh.”

“Therefore, Mahārāja,” Kṛshṇa ended in Kāma’s name, “you too should place that Kāma within dharma, through yajñas rich in dakshiṇā. There he will arise.”

Then Kṛshṇa instructed Yudhishṭhira directly. Perform the great Aśvamedha yajña according to the rule (vidhi), together with many other yajñas of rich dakshiṇā. Do not grieve again and again by dwelling on dead kinsmen, for the fallen of this great battlefield can never be seen again in this world. “Undertake great yajñas rich in wealth, in goods and in dakshiṇā. Win the highest kīrti (fame) in the world, and at last reach the most excellent gati (goal).” (Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 13)

Sources

Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 11 (the setting and the Indra-Vṛtra account)
Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 12 (the Ātmayuddha)
Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapter 13 (the Kāmagīta)
Mahābhārata, Udyoga Parva, and Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma (named for the other accounts of Vṛtra’s death)