Manu Bṛhaspati Saṃvāda

The Manu Bṛhaspati Saṃvāda is a long teaching dialogue in the Mahābhārata, in the Mokshadharma Parva of the Śānti Parva, Chapters 201 to 206. Manu Svāyambhuva questions Bṛhaspati, the teacher (guru) of the devas, about the highest dharma and about moksha (liberation). Bṛhaspati teaches the path of moksha through jñāna (knowledge) joined with vairāgya (freedom from craving). He explains the three guṇas and how to go beyond them, and the difference between the Sāṃkhya and Yoga paths. He ends by teaching the paramātmā (the supreme Self) as the last refuge, beyond all the guṇas of prakṛti (nature).

Context

Bhīshma tells this dialogue to Yudhishṭhira. It comes after the Jāpakopākhyāna. Manu Svāyambhuva is the first Manu, the father of humankind, and himself a great knower of dharma. He goes to Bṛhaspati with a deep wish to learn the highest good. (Śānti Parva, Chapter 201)

In the Śānti Parva the dialogue comes after the Bhṛgu Bharadvāja dialogue (Chapters 182–194) and before the Vārshṇeya adhyātma section (Chapters 210–217).

Manu’s questions

Manu asks Bṛhaspati a series of basic questions:

• What is the highest dharma for a person of knowledge?
• What is the path that leads to the highest good (paramaśreyas)?
• What is the nature of the paramātmā?
• How does moksha (liberation) come to the jīva (the living being)?
• What is the difference between Sāṃkhya and Yoga as paths?

Bṛhaspati’s teaching

The nature of bondage. Bṛhaspati teaches that the jīva is bound by avidyā (ignorance of the true nature of the ātmā). This ignorance makes the jīva take itself to be the body and mind, which are made of the three guṇas: sattva, rajas and tamas. As long as this wrong idea lasts, the jīva makes karma and keeps turning in saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death).

The three guṇas. All action in the visible world is the play of the three guṇas of prakṛti. Sattva is the guṇa of clearness, lightness and light. Rajas is the guṇa of action, passion and restlessness. Tamas is the guṇa of dullness, covering and heaviness. The jīva bound by these guṇas wrongly thinks that it is the doer and the enjoyer of all the changes they bring.

Beyond the guṇas. Moksha needs the knowing of the kshetrajña, the pure witness-awareness, as fully apart from the three guṇas and untouched by them. This is the state called guṇātīta. The liberated person is not sāttvika: such a person has gone beyond even attachment to the lightness and light of sattva. The liberated person rests in the paramātmā, which lies under all three guṇas and lights them without being any of them.

Sāṃkhya and Yoga. Bṛhaspati says that Sāṃkhya and Yoga are not two different goals. They are two ways to the same knowing. Sāṃkhya reaches moksha through viveka-jñāna (the knowledge that tells apart). Step by step it separates the conscious purusha from all 24 tattvas of prakṛti. Yoga reaches it through dhyāna (meditation), prāṇāyāma (breath control), pratyāhāra (drawing the senses in), dhāraṇā (steady focus) and samādhi (deep absorption). It calms the movements of the mind directly, until the purusha shines in its own clear light. Both paths lead to the same paramātmā.

The paramātmā. The last teaching is that the paramātmā is the ground of everything. It is the awareness in which even the avyakta (unmanifest prakṛti) is held. It is described as akshara (never perishing), avyaya (without decrease) and ananta (without limit), and it is beyond the reach of the guṇas. One who knows this directly does not return to birth. (Śānti Parva, Chapters 201–206)

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapters 201–206