Vṛtra Gītā

The Vṛtra Gītā is the song of Vṛtrāsura, the great dānava (a son of Danu, a kind of asura). He sang it just before his battle with Indra. It stands in the Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapters 279–280. It is one of the highest teachings on vairāgya (detachment) joined with bhakti (devotion) in the whole epic.

Vṛtrāsura had the body of an asura, yet the Gītā shows him as a mahātmā (a great soul) with true knowledge and love for Bhagavān Vishṇu. His calm in the face of certain death shows that liberation does not belong to one form, one family or one āśrama (stage of life). It is the fruit of real wisdom and devotion. Bhīshma tells it to Yudhishṭhira, who had asked how Indra could kill a Vṛtra who was said to be dharmic.

Yudhishṭhira’s question

Yudhishṭhira was puzzled by the account of Vṛtra. If Vṛtrāsura was truly dharmic, a true devotee of Bhagavān Vishṇu and a jñānī (a knower), how could Indra kill him? Can a realized being be killed? And what does it mean to be a devotee of Bhagavān Vishṇu in the body of an asura?

Bhīshma answered that the killing of the body and the liberation of the jīva (the living soul) are two different events, and they can happen together. Vṛtra’s body was slain. Vṛtra’s ātmā (soul) was set free. The moment his body died was the moment of his mukti (freedom), because he came to that moment in perfect samādhi (steady, collected mind) and in constant smaraṇa (remembrance) of Bhagavān Vishṇu.

Vṛtrāsura’s detachment

The Gītā opens with Vṛtrāsura’s own words, spoken before the battle began. He saw that people call each other “blessed” without knowing what blessing really is. He himself had once ruled the three worlds. In the longer account of the tradition, he had now been reduced to his present state: the body of an asura, doomed to be slain. Yet he felt none of the suffering one would expect.

The reason was that he had understood that nothing he seemed to own had ever been his: not the kingdom, not the rule, not the armies. They had only appeared in the movement of time (kāla) and karma. So their loss was not a loss. It only corrected a false idea of ownership. The wisdom (prajñā) that sees this is itself liberation, and later changes in outer life do not matter to it.

The thirty-eight bonds

Vṛtrāsura spoke of thirty-eight tattvas (principles) that bind the ordinary jīva:

  • The seventeen: the five jñānendriyas (senses of knowing), the five karmendriyas (organs of action), the five prāṇas (life-breaths), manas (the mind) and buddhi (the intellect).
  • Five inner drives (saṃskāras): kāma (desire), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), bhaya (fear) and svapna (sleep or dream).
  • Five vishayas (objects of the senses): śabda (sound), sparśa (touch), rūpa (form), rasa (taste) and gandha (smell).
  • The three guṇas: sattva, rajas and tamas.
  • The five bhūtas (elements).
  • Avidyā (ignorance), ahaṃkāra (the sense of “I”) and karma.

Together they make thirty-eight. The muni (silent seer) who does intense tapas (austerity) and frees himself from all thirty-eight does not return to saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death). Bhīshma noted that Yudhishṭhira himself could hope to leave his kingdom and reach this freedom. Vṛtra had reached it while living in an asura body, through his steady bhakti to Bhagavān Vishṇu and his freedom from all thirty-eight.

Bhakti to Bhagavān Vishṇu

The best known teaching of the Vṛtra Gītā is why bhakti to Bhagavān Vishṇu is enough for liberation, whatever the form of the devotee. In the longer tradition, Vṛtrāsura had been taught by Sanatkumāra that Bhagavān Vishṇu is the paramātmā (Supreme Soul) living in all beings. All forms rise from him and return to him. An asura’s body does not block this realization, just as a brāhmaṇa’s body does not give it. What matters is the inner turn of the heart: smaraṇa (remembering), bhāvanā (steady contemplation) and surrender.

Vṛtrāsura asked for one thing only. In whatever birth he takes after this one, he wished to have:

  • The company of bhāgavatas (devotees of Bhagavān Vishṇu).
  • Constant remembrance of the name of Bhagavān Vishṇu.
  • A heart that turns by nature towards Bhagavān Vishṇu.

He did not ask for a higher body, for svarga, for power or for any worldly fruit. By asking only for the conditions in which bhakti can go on, he showed how deep his realization was.

Calm before death

When Indra’s army came near, Vṛtrāsura watched it without fear. The text says he felt no saṃbhrama (agitation), no bhī (fear) and no āsthā (eager welcome). For one who has dissolved the line between life and death, the coming of death is neither frightening nor welcome. It is only the next movement in the unbroken flow of the ātmā.

This calm did not come from holding back his feelings or from an argument made at that moment. It is shown as the steady result of his sādhanā (spiritual practice) and realization. It is the living proof of the teaching of the Śukānupraśna: the jīva that has conquered all thirty-eight tattvas does not come to death. Death comes to the body, and the jīva goes on undisturbed.

Why it matters

The Vṛtra Gītā is one of the clearest teachings in the Mahābhārata that bhakti is open to all. In the Purāṇas, Prahlāda and Vibhīshaṇa also show that a being’s rank, whether deva or asura, does not decide its spiritual standing. Complete surrender (śaraṇāgati) of the jīva to Bhagavān Vishṇu is open in any form, and its fruit is liberation in that very life.

Sources

  • Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapters 279–280