Śṛgāla-Kāśyapa Saṃvāda

Indra once took the form of a jackal (śṛgāla) to teach a despairing brāhmaṇa named Kāśyapa. Kāśyapa was ready to give up his life because he was poor. The jackal showed him how rare and precious his human birth, his birth as a brāhmaṇa and his knowledge of the Veda really were. At the end, Kāśyapa saw who his teacher was, and Indra blessed him.

The Mahābhārata tells this in the Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, chapter 180.

Why Bhīshma tells it

Yudhishṭhira asks Bhīshma a question. Among relatives, karma (action), wealth and prajñā (wisdom), which gives a person true pratishṭhā (a firm footing)? Bhīshma answers that prajñā is the root and shelter of all living beings. Prajñā alone brings the highest lābha (gain) and śreyas (the highest good) in the world.

To show that the loss of prajñā, and not the loss of things, is the true ruin, and that prajñā can rise again even from the lowest state, Bhīshma tells the account of Indra and Kāśyapa. The text also calls it the Indra-Kāśyapa-saṃvāda.

Kāśyapa’s despair

A rich and proud vaiśya was travelling in his vehicle. A brāhmaṇa named Kāśyapa happened to be on the same road. Kāśyapa was a ṛshi-kumāra (the son of a great ṛshi) and a tapasvin (one who practises tapas) with firm vratas (vows). In his pride and carelessness, the vaiśya drove his vehicle straight over Kāśyapa and knocked him to the ground.

Kāśyapa fell hard. He was hurt and ashamed, and he was overcome by krodha (anger) and despair. He cried out:

“I will die! What is the use of living without wealth? A life without wealth has no purpose!”

He lay there, hopeless and hardly able to speak, ready to give up his life.

Indra comes as a jackal

Indra saw the state Kāśyapa was in. He took the form of a jackal and went to him. The jackal said:

“O Kāśyapa, all living beings, even the devas, long to be born as human beings. Among all human births, birth as a brāhmaṇa is held the highest by everyone. You are a manushya (human being), a brāhmaṇa, and a śrotriya (one who has studied the Vedas). You have won this threefold condition, which is very hard to win. You must not throw it away through foolishness.”

Then the jackal spoke from his own condition. He named the great harms of being a creature without hands:

• He could not pull out the thorns and insects that bit into his body.
• He could not guard himself from rain, frost or heat.
• He could not ride animals or travel in comfort.
• He could not husk grain, make a bed, or do any of the hundred things that human hands make possible.
• Even small insects and wild animals bit and stung him freely, and he could do nothing against them.

He said:

“O brāhmaṇa, look at me. Insects are eating me even now, and I cannot pick them off. I was not born as a human, and so I bear all this. You, on the other hand, were not born as a jackal, nor as an insect, nor as a frog, nor as a serpent, nor as any other creature of low birth. Be content with this alone.”

The jackal then told Kāśyapa that the Veda says all gains are coloured with abhimāna (pride and attachment). But the form Kāśyapa had received was truly the highest form, and through greed he was dishonouring it.

The jackal’s teaching on desire and karma

The jackal also spoke about desire and despair. He said:

• Kāśyapa had not gained wealth because of his karma and his daiva (fate), not because he had failed.
• All the pleasures of the human world, and all the pleasures of the devalokas (the worlds of the devas), are not equal to even the sixteenth part of the sukha (happiness) that comes when āśā (hope and craving) has fully ceased.
• A person who holds kāma (desire), the root of all action, in check with prajñā has no fear. Such a person holds the buddhi (intellect) and the whole group of the indriyas (senses) firmly, like birds in a cage.

The jackal also made a quiet point about desire. Rasa-jñatā (the knowing of a taste or pleasure) is what gives birth to kāma. For what a person has never tasted, kāma does not arise. Kāśyapa is a brāhmaṇa and has never tasted wine or certain meats, so he does not crave them. In the same way, craving arises only where there is a memory of enjoyment. In the light of brahma-jñāna (knowledge of Brahman), even the craving for wealth loses its hold.

The jackal then urged Kāśyapa to return to his duties. These are:

• vedādhyayana (the study of the Vedas)
• agni-saṃskāra (keeping the sacred fires)
• satya (truth)
• indriya-nigraha (restraint of the senses)
• dāna (giving)

These alone, he said, lead to the highest good.

The jackal also told something about himself. In an earlier birth he had been a haituka (a person who relies on reasoning alone), who laughed at scripture, argued against the śruti (the revealed texts), and rejected karma-phala (the fruit of action). Because of this he was born as a jackal.

Kāśyapa knows his teacher

When the teaching was over, Kāśyapa rose up from his despair. With his jñāna-netra (eye of wisdom), he saw through the jackal’s form. He knew his teacher to be Hari-vāhana, the king of the devas, Indra Śacīpati himself. Kāśyapa did pūjā to Indra. Indra gave his leave, and Kāśyapa went back to his home, blessed.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, chapter 180