Sulabhā
Sulabhā, simply known as Sulabha, Sanskrit: सुलभा, Telugu: సులభ, Hindi: सुलभा.
Sulabhā is a woman sannyāsinī (renunciate) in the Mokshadharma Parva of the Śānti Parva of the Mahābhārata (Chapter 320). She was perfect in yoga and walked the world freely without any fixed āśrama. She heard that King Dharmadhvaja Janaka was famous for his jñāna (knowledge), and she went to Mithilā to test how deep it was. By yoga she entered his mind. A great exchange followed. In it, she answered each of Janaka’s objections and showed what firm jñāna-nishṭhā (standing in knowledge) is. In this dialogue, a woman renunciate is the better teacher, and the king famous for his jñāna is the one taught.
Who she is
Sulabhā is a bhikshukī (a woman who lives on alms, a renunciate). She is a tridaṇḍa-dhāriṇī (one who carries the three staffs of formal sannyāsa). She is a yoga-siddha (one who has gained the powers of yoga). She walks the earth ekākī (alone), with no fixed home and no companion.
She is a full sannyāsinī. She is a perfected being who took the path of renunciation and reached its fruit. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320)
Why she went to Janaka
Wandering sannyāsīs and learned men told Sulabhā that Janaka, though he lived as a king and householder (gṛhastha), had gained the full fruit of jñāna. She decided to check this for herself. She did it by cetaḥpraveśa, which is entering his mind by yoga. She did not talk to the outer man. She looked directly at his inner state by entering his consciousness. This sets her apart from other visitors to Janaka. She did not depend on his answers to her questions. She looked into his mind directly. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320)
Cetaḥpraveśa
By her yoga-bala (power of yoga), Sulabhā entered Janaka’s mind directly, through the field of his consciousness. In the Mahābhārata there are few cases where a named yoga-siddha, and a woman, does this. She did it to look into his state. Her aim was the good of Janaka (parahita), and not any gain of her own. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320)
What she found
Through the cetaḥpraveśa, Sulabhā found that Janaka, in spite of his well-known and true knowledge, still held a subtle ahaṃkāra (sense of “I”) of being the king who knows. His real knowledge of Brahman was mixed with the pride of being known as the one who has it. He had the knowledge, but he was still lightly bound to the idea of himself as a knower. His reaction to her cetaḥpraveśa shows this. A fully realised jñānī would have no sense of a guarded inner place that another could enter. Janaka felt her presence as an intrusion, and that showed that he still had a light sense of “mine” about his own mind. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320)
Her answer to Janaka’s objections
When Janaka became aware of her in his mind, he raised four objections: (1) it was improper, (2) her family was unknown, (3) her order of āśramas was unclear, and (4) he might be made impure by the contact. Sulabhā answered each at length.
On family line. The ātman (self) has no gotra. A jñānī who asks about another’s family line is acting from ahaṃkāra and not from realisation of Brahman.
On what is proper. The ātman has no sex. Janaka’s discomfort at her presence showed that he took his inner space to be “male”, and so open to a wrong done by a “female” presence. This too is a form of subtle ahaṃkāra.
On the āśramas. The Śruti permits renunciation at once, in the words:
yad ahar eva virajet, tad ahar eva pravrajet
This means: on the very day one becomes free of desire, on that very day one may go forth as a renunciate. A person in whom vairāgya (detachment) and jñāna arise together, from ripeness gained in an earlier life, need not follow the āśramas one after another.
On purity. One who has no rāga (attachment) cannot make another impure. The idea of stain applies only where there is attachment on at least one side. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320)
Her teaching on kshetra and kshetrajña
The positive teaching of Sulabhā in the dialogue rests on the difference between kshetra (the field, meaning the body, mind and ego) and kshetrajña (the knower of the field, the ātman). She shows that Janaka’s claim of ownership over his “inner space” mixes him up with the kshetra, and does not set him in the kshetrajña. The kshetrajña owns nothing, belongs to no family line, has no sex, and cannot be “entered” by another consciousness. It is the very ground of consciousness, beyond the difference of inner and outer. (Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320)
Her place among the figures of the Mahābhārata
Sulabhā is one of the most important women in the philosophy of the Mahābhārata. She is not a devī, not a wife and not an apsarā, and she is not described through her tie to any man. She is a fully realised sannyāsinī and a teacher in her own right. In the Mokshadharma Parva she shows that a woman who chooses the path of renunciation can reach the highest yoga-siddhis and the highest knowledge.
The Sulabhā-Janaka Saṃvāda (the dialogue of Sulabhā and Janaka) also speaks to the question of sex and role. Sulabhā does not accept the idea that roles or the right to philosophical ground depend on being male or female. She teaches that the ātman is beyond all such divisions. Anyone who still stands inside them, even with great knowledge, has not yet realised what he claims to know.
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320