Aitareya and His Mother

Aitareya was a brāhmaṇa born at the Mahīsāgara Saṃgama, in the family of Hārīta. His father was Māṇḍūki and his mother was Itarā. From his childhood he repeated only the twelve-syllable mantra of Bhagavān Vāsudeva, which he had practised in his earlier birth, and he stayed silent about everything else. His father thought him an imbecile and married again, and his second wife bore him learned sons. When his mother, in despair, said she would drown herself, Aitareya spoke to her with a laugh. He gave a deep teaching on the dirtiness of the body and on the importance of inner purity over every outer means.

This Aitareya is a different person from the Vedic ṛshi Aitareya, to whom the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa and the Āraṇyaka are attributed.

Birth and silence

At the holy place set up by Nārada at the Mahīsāgara Saṃgama, in the family of Hārīta, there was a leading brāhmaṇa named Māṇḍūki. He was a master of the Vedas and their limbs (vedāṅgas). His wife Itarā gave birth to a son who was called Aitareya.

From his earliest childhood Aitareya muttered only the twelve-syllable mantra. He had learned it and practised it in his earlier birth:

Oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

This means: “Oṃ, I bow to Bhagavān Vāsudeva.” Aitareya never heard, spoke or thought of anything else. His father decided that the child was an imbecile, and he married a second wife named Piṅgā. Four sons were born to Piṅgā. All of them were learned in the Vedas and Vedāṅgas, and brāhmaṇas everywhere honoured them at yajñas (fire rituals) and at the Śānti Homas (fire rites for peace).

Aitareya went on muttering the great mantra three times every day in the temple of Hari. He did not strive at anything else.

The mother’s despair

Aitareya’s mother saw the sons of her co-wife Piṅgā honoured everywhere, and she was torn with grief. She said to her son:

“You were born only to cause me pain. Shame on my birth and my life! If a husband insults his wife, and the son has no good qualities, it would be better if the woman had never been born. This Piṅgā is a woman of puṇya (merit), because her sons have great good qualities. They know the Vedas and Vedāṅgas, and they are honoured everywhere. So, my son, unlucky as I am, I will drown myself at the place where the Mahī meets the ocean. Death is far better. What use is life to me! You too are a great keeper of silence and a devotee of Hari for a long time. Be happy.”

Aitareya’s teaching

Aitareya heard his mother’s words and meditated for a short while. He knew what is right. He bowed down to her first, and then he spoke with a laugh:

“O mother, what is unreal and false has overwhelmed you. You have knowledge, but you are caught in ignorance. You mourn what should not be mourned, and you do not grieve for what should be grieved. Why are you so taken with this body in this unreal world? This is plain foolishness.

If you think the body is essential, hear how worthless it is. Human birth brings pain from the moment of conception. The householder named Jīva lives in a house. The frame of its bones is its supporting beam. It is tied with sinews and smeared with blood, flesh and fat. It holds faeces and urine. It is covered with hair like grass and spread over with a skin of good colour. Its only big entrance is the mouth, and it is decorated with six windows. The two lips are the panels of the door, and the teeth do the work of bolts. Sweat runs through its vessels. It stands in the fire of the jaws of Death.

As streams flow without end from a mountain, so phlegm, urine and other fluids flow without end from this body. There is not one clean spot in the body. It is the storehouse of every kind of dirt. It looks like a leather bag full of faeces and urine.

Purity of the mind is the greatest śauca (cleanliness). By it all holy rites and ordinary acts are to be judged. The bad smell of avidyā (ignorance) and rāga (attachment) is washed away by the pure water of knowledge and the clay of true detachment.

If a wise person knows that the body is flawed, and becomes unattached and cut off from it, he goes out and is freed. The person who holds to it tightly stays in the world.

A traveller surrounded by huge mountains stands still and helpless. In the same way the embodied ātmā (self), wrapped in the outer skin of the embryo, stays in a miserable state. In the womb the ātmā remembers all its earlier births and decides: ‘As soon as I am born, I will be consecrated. I will perform great holy rites so that I do not enter a womb again. I will learn and gain the wisdom of Hari, which stops worldly existence.’ So the ātmā thinks of the means to moksha (liberation). But the forgetting that comes with birth wipes away all that decision.”

Aitareya gains siddhi

Aitareya had gained siddhi (perfection) through the grace of Bhagavān Vāsudeva, by the power of the twelve-syllable mantra. It was the same mantra he had carried from birth and had practised since his earlier life.

Sources

• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārika Khaṇḍa, Chapter 42