Yavakrīta
Yavakrīta · yava-krīta
Bharadvāja has other meanings too: see all meanings of Bharadvāja.
Yavakrīta was the son of the ṛshi Bharadvāja. He did not want to spend long years in study under teachers to learn the Vedas. Instead he practised hard tapas (austerity) to Indra, to receive the Vedas as a gift. Indra warned him that knowledge got without the bond of teacher and student would lead to ruin, but Yavakrīta kept on and received it. Proud and without the self-control that study builds, he later did a grave wrong to the daughter-in-law of Raibhya, a ṛshi who lived nearby and was his father’s friend. Raibhya’s anger brought forth a rākshasa, and it killed Yavakrīta. Raibhya himself was later killed.
The Mahābhārata tells this in the Vana Parva, chapters 135 to 138. The ṛshi Lomaśa tells the account to Yudhishṭhira.
Bharadvāja and Raibhya, the two friends
Two great ṛshis, Bharadvāja and Raibhya, were close friends and lived in neighbouring āśramas (hermitages) in the forest. This Bharadvāja is not the more famous Bharadvāja who taught Droṇa. Raibhya had two sons, Arvāvasu and Parāvasu, both learned and devoted. Bharadvāja had one son, Yavakrīta, who was clever by nature but burned with impatience at the long path of Vedic study.
(Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 135)
The shortcut to the Vedas
Yavakrīta grew up watching Raibhya’s sons, Arvāvasu and Parāvasu, become fine Vedic scholars through years of devoted study under proper teachers. He was eaten up by the wish to equal them or pass them, but he would not spend the long years as a disciple that real mastery needed. He decided instead to do severe tapas to Indra and receive the Vedas as a direct divine gift, without a teacher and a disciple’s training at all, leaving out the bond between guru and student. He went into the forest and did hard tapas.
(Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 135)
Indra appeared and warned him. The Vedas can indeed be given directly, Indra said, but knowledge received in this way, without the work of a student under a teacher, is unstable. It lacks the discipline of student and teacher and the change that comes from years at the feet of one who has himself been changed. The gift would turn into harm: in the hands of one who is not ripe enough to use it, it becomes a weapon. But Yavakrīta kept on, and in the end Indra gave way. He gave Yavakrīta mastery of the Vedas as a direct gift.
The wrong at Raibhya’s āśrama
The gift worked, and Yavakrīta had the knowledge of the Vedas. But the change in him that study would have brought was missing. His pride grew without any real self-discipline under it, without the inner base that proper study would have built. One day he came to Raibhya’s āśrama while Raibhya was away and found Raibhya’s beautiful daughter-in-law alone. He was overcome by desire, the very thing that years of brahmacarya (self-control) in study would have tamed, and he violated her.
(Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 136)
Raibhya’s rite and Yavakrīta’s death
When Raibhya came back and learned what had happened, his anger was complete, and his power matched his anger. He performed a rite with his own matted locks and made two figures, a woman of beauty beyond this world and a rākshasa. He sent them against Yavakrīta. The beautiful woman went up to Yavakrīta and drew his attention, and the rākshasa attacked. In the confusion the rākshasa killed Yavakrīta.
Bharadvāja’s grief and his own end
Bharadvāja learned that his son was dead, and his grief was great. He gave a śāpa (a curse) to Raibhya: Raibhya would be killed by his own son.
(Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 137)
Then Bharadvāja himself, unable to bear the grief of outliving his son, entered the fire and died.
Parāvasu kills Raibhya by mistake
Raibhya’s son Parāvasu had gone with his brother Arvāvasu to help at a great yajña (fire ritual) held elsewhere. On the way home, travelling at night through the dark forest, Parāvasu saw a shape moving. He thought it was a wild animal and killed it. When daylight came, he found that he had killed Raibhya, his own father, who had been moving through the forest in the skin of a deer. Bharadvāja’s śāpa had come true.
(Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 137)
Arvāvasu and the end of the account
Parāvasu was shaken by what he had done. He asked his brother Arvāvasu to perform the cleansing rites for the killing of their father by mistake, and Arvāvasu agreed. But Parāvasu, to protect himself, went to the yajña and told the assembly falsely that Arvāvasu had killed their father, and not he himself. Arvāvasu was driven out of the yajña in disgrace.
(Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 138)
Arvāvasu, driven out unjustly and wrongly blamed, did not seek revenge. He went and did hard tapas to Indra. Indra was pleased with Arvāvasu’s patience and righteousness in the face of wrong, and offered him a vara (a boon). Arvāvasu did not ask for himself to be cleared. He asked that all who had died be brought back: his father Raibhya, Yavakrīta and Bharadvāja. All three were brought back to life. The truth of Parāvasu’s guilt came out, and Arvāvasu was honoured.
What Lomaśa teaches
Lomaśa tells this episode to Yudhishṭhira to show the danger of wanting the fruits of discipline without the discipline. Yavakrīta received the Vedas but not the wisdom that proper study builds. That gap between knowledge and wisdom was his ruin. The ruin spread outward: his father died, his teacher’s household was broken, and innocent people were harmed. In this way Yavakrīta’s first shortcut led on to the deaths of several people who were not themselves to blame. The order of learning is there not to block knowledge but to build the inner strength that can hold knowledge without being destroyed by it.
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapters 135–138
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 135 (Bharadvāja and Raibhya, Yavakrīta’s tapas and Indra’s warning)
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 136 (the wrong at Raibhya’s āśrama)
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 137 (Bharadvāja’s śāpa and Parāvasu’s mistake)
- Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, chapter 138 (Arvāvasu and the end)