Guru-Śishya Sāṅkhya Saṃvāda in the Aśvamedhika Parva

Guru-Śishya Sāṅkhya Saṃvāda, simply known as Guru-Shishya Sankhya Samvada, Sanskrit: गुरु-शिष्य साङ्ख्य संवाद, Telugu: గురు-శిష్య సాంఖ్య సంవాదం, Hindi: गुरु-शिष्य सांख्य संवाद.

The Guru-Śishya Saṃvāda (“dialogue of the teacher and the student”) is a long teaching on moksha-dharma, the path to liberation. It is found in the Anugītā, part of the Aśvamedhika Parva (the fourteenth book of the Mahābhārata), and is traditionally known as the Brāhmaṇa-Gītā. Bhagavān Vāsudeva (Śrī Kṛshṇa) tells it to Arjuna as an ancient itihāsa (a traditional account from the past).

Inside that story, an unnamed guru answers an unnamed student by retelling how Prajāpati Brahmā once answered the very same questions. The great ṛshis Aṅgiras, Daksha, Bharadvāja, Gautama, Śukra, Vasishṭha, Kaśyapa, Viśvāmitra and Atri had come to him at Brahmaloka, tired out from wandering the paths of karma. From Chapter 36 onward the voice of the text is Brahmā’s own. Here we cover the setting of the teaching (Chapter 35) and its opening teaching on the tattvas (basic principles of existence): the three guṇas, tamas, rajas and sattva, taken one by one, and then brought together as the single, inseparable field of prakṛti (nature) made of the three guṇas (Chapters 36–39).

The Setting of the Teaching (Chapter 35)

Arjuna asks Vāsudeva to explain the true nature of the Paramātman (the Supreme Self). Vāsudeva does not answer directly but tells an ancient itihāsa. Once a teacher who knew Brahman was sitting at rest when an intelligent student came, bowed at his feet and asked a set of questions that frame the whole teaching:

• Where have I come from, where have you come from, and where have the moving and unmoving beings of the world come from?
• What is the highest reality, called satya (truth)?
• What is tapas (austerity)?
• What qualities have good people praised?
• What path leads to śreyas (the highest good)?
• What is the highest happiness?
• What is called pāpa?

The guru replies that Brahmā had already answered exactly these questions, relying on the knowledge of the Veda and not on any guesswork of his own. The great ṛshis Daksha, Bharadvāja, Gautama, Śukra (son of Bhṛgu), Vasishṭha, Kaśyapa, Viśvāmitra and Atri had walked every path of karma and grown weary. They gathered together, put the eldest, Aṅgiras, at their head, and went to Brahmaloka. There they bowed to the pure, great-souled and contented Brahmā and asked him the same questions, with two more: what are the two paths of karma (the southern and the northern), and what are pralaya (dissolution of the universe), apavarga (moksha, liberation), and the birth and death of beings?

The Guru’s Opening Teaching

Before retelling Brahmā’s words, the guru gives his own summary:

• Jñāna (true knowledge) alone is the Parabrahman; sannyāsa (renunciation) is the highest tapas.
• One who has directly realised the unshakeable truth of knowledge, and who sees himself filling all beings, is called sarvagata, “all-pervading”, and moves freely through all worlds.
• One who knows union and separation, oneness and manyness, as they truly are, is freed from sorrow.
• One who neither desires (na kāmayate) nor claims things as his own through ahaṅkāra (ego) (na abhimanyate) is a jīvanmukta, free while still living in this world.
• One who has understood māyā, the nature of the guṇas that is the cause of all beings, and who is free of “I” and “mine”, is liberated without doubt.

The Body as a Great Tree

The guru gives a picture that comes back again and again in the teaching, and is repeated word for word in Chapter 47. This body is like a mahāvṛksha, a great tree:

This tree grows as an endless flow from a seed that is Brahman itself, and it is the life-support of every being. Whoever knows its true nature and cuts it down with the great sword of jñāna gains immortality and is freed from the bondage of birth and death.

The Twenty-Five Tattvas and the Five Truths

Brahmā’s answer, as the guru retells it, teaches that all moving and unmoving beings arise from Satya, the Paramātman untouched by past, present and future. They keep themselves going through tapas (karma), even though they have forgotten their own source and wander in the cycle of coming and going. Because truth joined with the guṇas can be seen in five ways, Brahmā teaches the satya-pañcaka, the “five truths”:

1. Brahman is truth
2. Tapas is truth
3. Prajāpati (here meaning the jīva, the individual soul) is truth
4. The bhūtas (space and the other elements) are truth
5. Even the everyday world born of the guṇas is truth

Truth, compassion, tapas and dharma are called the four feet of the bull of dharma, so tapas here is understood to mean dharma. The brāhmaṇas who serve dharma and practise restraint towards one another receive four kinds of knowledge, matching the four varṇas (social orders) and āśramas (stages of life). This is because wise scholars describe dharma as having four feet and being eternal.

Brahmā then sets out the eternal framework of the twenty-five tattvas:

• Avyakta-prakṛti (unmanifest nature)
• Mahat-tattva (cosmic intelligence)
• Ahaṅkāra (ego)
• The ten indriyas (five senses of knowing and five organs of action)
• Manas (mind)
• The five mahābhūtas together with their special qualities, sound and the rest

These make twenty-four. The jīvātma (individual Self) is the twenty-fifth. Whoever knows how all these tattvas arise and dissolve becomes a steady, wise person among beings and is never again overcome by delusion. His pāpas are destroyed, he is freed from bondage, he enjoys the divine worlds, and he becomes one with the Self of all. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s Sāṅkhya and the Mokshadharma Parva of the Mahābhārata present the same structure of twenty-five or twenty-six tattvas.

Tamas Examined (Chapter 36)

Brahmā now begins his step-by-step teaching on the guṇas. When the three guṇas are in perfect balance (sāmyāvasthā), this state is called avyakta-prakṛti. It is eternal, unchanging and present in everything that nature produces. When the balance is disturbed, the guṇas take the form of the five mahābhūtas. From these elements arises the nava-dvāra-pura, the city of nine gates, which is the body. In it lives the jīvātma, pushed towards sense objects by eleven drivers: the ten senses and the mind. Buddhi is the ruling queen of this city, and the mind is the first of the eleven.

Three currents (srotas) flow in the citta (the mind-stuff):

• Śukla (white): ruled by ahiṃsā (non-harming), wholly dharma
• Kṛshṇa (black): ruled by hiṃsā (harming)
• Śukla-kṛshṇa (mixed): a mixture in which dharma of worldly activity is strongest

Each is fed again and again by the saṃskāras (impressions) of its matching guṇa. The three guṇas, sattva, rajas and tamas, are rivals of one another. Tamas is opposed by sattva, sattva by rajas, and rajas in turn by sattva. When one guṇa is pushed down, its rival rises.

The Marks of Tamas

Tamas has the nature of darkness. It is also called moha (delusion), it marks adharma (what is against dharma), and it is always found in those given to wrong actions. Brahmā lists its effects at length. They include:

• Delusion, ignorance, and the inability to let go
• Inability to decide what should or should not be done
• Sleep, arrogance, fear and greed
• Looking down on one’s own good deeds
• Loss of memory and not thinking of consequences
• Nāstikatva (denying the Veda and dharma) and bad conduct
• Not telling good from bad
• Dull senses and a leaning towards harm
• Mistaking the wrong for the right, and ignorance for knowledge
• False pride in things not achieved
• Lack of friendship, and grudging, unwilling work
• Lack of śraddhā (faith), foolish thinking, crookedness and dull-wittedness
• Wrongdoing, laziness and endless delay
• Lack of bhakti (devotion), and attachment to low deeds
• Constant criticism of the devas, brāhmaṇas and the Vedas
• Not giving, conceit, delusion, anger, intolerance, and jealousy towards beings
• Useless undertakings, useless gifts given without regard to place, time and a worthy receiver, and useless eating, without first serving the devas and guests
• Too much talk, unforgiveness, envy and pride

Tamas and the Births It Leads To

Beings sunk in tamas are called arvāk-srotas, “those whose current flows downward”. Brahmā lists the kinds of birth they take: unmoving beings (trees, mountains), animals, beasts of burden (horses, elephants, donkeys, camels), flesh-eating rākshasas, serpents, small creatures (scorpions, centipedes, ants, mosquitoes), birds, fish, frogs, four-footed animals, and humans born blind, deaf, mute or with serious illness. All of them live in constant sorrow.

Yet beings rise even from these births. Through the Vedic rites performed by kind brāhmaṇas, as when creatures are offered in the agnihotra and other yajñas, they rise step by step to birth as brāhmaṇas and finally to svarga. But those who follow dharma with desire and attachment come back to human birth once their time as devas is used up. Some of them fall back into birth as a caṇḍāla, or as mute or deaf, to use up the pāpa that remains, before rising again varṇa by varṇa. Even one who has risen from a śūdra birth to a vaiśya birth may be overtaken by the qualities of tamas and swept back into its current. So we are urged to guard ourselves against tamas at every stage.

Too much clinging (abhishvaṅga) to women, wealth and similar things is called mahāmoha, “great delusion”. Even ṛshis, munis and devas have been overpowered by it. Brahmā names the five forms of tamas:

This fivefold list closely matches the five kleśas (afflictions) taught in the Yoga tradition of Patañjali.

Rajas Examined (Chapter 37)

The essential form of rajas is santāpa, burning distress. Its effects include:

• Strain, pleasure and pain, cold and heat, lordship, control, making alliances, arguing from reasons, a restless mind, and endurance
• Strength, bravery, intoxication with pride, fury, effort, quarrels, jealousy, wanting, slander, making war, the sense of “mine”, and supporting a family
• Killing, binding, trouble, buying and selling, cutting, splitting, and prying into others’ secrets
• Harshness, shouting, weeping, exposing others’ faults, worldly worry, regret, envy, and being coloured by every kind of worldly feeling
• False speech, false gifts, doubtful thinking, scornful speech, praise and blame, forceful self-assertion, nursing the sick for one’s own gain, serving elders for profit, craving, depending on others, worldly cleverness, carelessness, fault-finding, and the urge to acquire

Even the saṃskāras (rites) done for women, men, beings, objects and houses count, in this analysis, as fruits of rajas.

Rajas also produces restless distress, mistrust, keeping vratas (vows) for personal gain, rites done for desired results, public works such as step-wells and tanks, the ritual calls svāhā, svadhā, namaḥ and vashaṭ, and conducting yajñas for others, teaching, performing yajñas, studying, giving, receiving gifts, prāyaścitta (atonement) and auspicious rites. Other qualities of rajas are betrayal, trickery, cunning, deceit, theft, harm, disgust, distress on behalf of relatives, staying up at night in the wrong way, hypocrisy, arrogance, attachment, devotion with selfish motives, attachment to sense objects, indulgence, every kind of gambling, quarrelling, arguing, entanglement with women, and absorption in dance, song and music.

People steeped in rajas dwell on past, present and future. They are devoted to the three worldly aims of dharma, artha (wealth) and kāma (pleasure), follow their own will, and delight in plenty of enjoyment. They are born again and again in this very world. Even in future births they seek worldly happiness, giving and receiving gifts and performing offerings to the ancestors and yajñas, still with desire attached.

Sattva Examined (Chapter 38)

Sattva, the third and highest guṇa, benefits every being, and the best of people praise it as the highest dharma. Its marks include joy, clarity of mind, uplift, radiance, happiness, freedom from meanness, fearlessness, fullness, contentment, śraddhā, forgiveness, steadiness, ahiṃsā, evenness, truthfulness, straightforwardness, freedom from anger, anasūyā (not looking for faults in others), purity, ability, and skill in pursuing good ends with courage.

A person may see that worldly knowledge, and dealings, service and effort done for selfish ends, are in the end useless, and set their heart on the means to the highest good. Such a person gains unending happiness in the Paramātman or in the world beyond. Freedom from “I” and “mine”, freedom from craving, seeing all equally, and freedom from every desire are the eternal dharma of good people. Further effects of sattva are trust, modesty, patience, giving up, purity, freedom from laziness, gentleness, freedom from delusion, compassion for beings, not speaking ill of others, delight, contentment, lack of pride, humility, good conduct, a pure attitude in rites for peace, a higher intellect, non-attachment, indifference to worldly enjoyment, brahmacarya (self-restraint), renunciation in every form, freedom from “mine”, lack of interest in the fruits of action, and constant keeping of dharma.

Some brāhmaṇas see that giving, yajña, study, vows, possessions, dharma and tapas are all useless when done with desire. They take refuge in sattva alone and are established in the Parabrahman-Paramātman, the source of the Vedas. Only they are truly wise and see as the good see; others are not. Having shed all pāpa and grown free of grief, these great souls rise to svarga. There, by the power of yoga, they create and live in many bodies to enjoy its pleasures. They are called ūrdhva-srotas (“those whose current flows upward”) or vaikārika devatās. They do not hold back the mind but create freely through it. When their minds become altered by the impressions of enjoyment, they obtain whatever they wish and share it freely.

How the Three Guṇas Work Together (Chapter 39)

Brahmā now teaches that sattva, rajas and tamas can never truly be described apart. They are always found mixed together, giving life to one another, depending on one another, each following the other. Sattva lasts only as long as rajas lasts, and tamas lasts only as long as sattva and rajas last; this, Brahmā says, is beyond doubt. The guṇas travel together (saṃghacāriṇaḥ), always living in the same body, but which one is strongest keeps changing.

The Three Currents of Existence

Brahmā arranges all embodied life into three currents, according to which guṇa is strongest:

Sattva is the true cause of the senses coming into being, so it is called the vaikārika cause: it lights up the senses and their objects. No cause of dharma taught in the śāstras (scriptures) is greater than sattva. Beings in whom sattva is strongest reach the higher worlds. Those in whom rajas is strongest live in the human world. Those given over to the tamas effects of sleep, laziness and carelessness sink to low births or to naraka. Among the varṇas, tamas is strongest in the śūdra, rajas in the kshatriya and sattva in the brāhmaṇa. Yet even here all three guṇas travel together, for they are never found wholly apart.

Brahmā shows how inseparable they are with the example of Sūrya, the sun. The sun is mainly sattva, since it shines by its own light. Yet the rising sun makes thieves afraid (an effect of tamas) and makes travellers hot and weary (an effect of rajas). So, even within the sun, light is sattva, heat is rajas and eclipse is tamas. All the lights of the sky show the three guṇas in this way, as they appear and fade in turn. In unmoving beings tamas is strongest, their growth is rajas, and their solidity and firmness are sattva.

In the same threefold way, the day, night, month, fortnight, year, season and the twilight junctions are each threefold. Giving, yajñas, worlds, devatās, kinds of knowledge and destinations after death are each threefold. Past, future and present; dharma and adharma; and prāṇa, apāna and udāna (the life-breaths) are each threefold. Every object in the universe, wherever it is seen, is made of the three guṇas, which form an eternal, ever-flowing creation.

The Twenty-Two Names of Unmanifest Nature

Brahmā ends by giving twenty-two names of avyakta-prakṛti, which those who reflect on the inner Self need to know: tamas, vyakta, śiva, dhāma, rajas, yoni, sanātana, prakṛti, vikāra, pralaya, pradhāna, prabhava, apyaya, anudrikta, anūna, akampa, acala, dhruva, sattva (sat), asat, avyakta and triguṇātmaka. Whoever understands these names of prakṛti, together with the guṇas and the pure paths, is not troubled by the sorrows of saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death). When the body falls away, such a person is freed from every bond of the guṇas.

How the Teaching Continues

Only the setting (Chapter 35) and the teaching on the guṇas (Chapters 36–39) are covered here. The teaching then continues without a break:

• Chapters 40–42 teach mahat-tattva, ahaṅkāra-tattva and the five elements.
• Chapters 43–44 teach the divine powers (vibhūti) and the qualities of the elements.
• Chapters 45–46 give the picture of the wheel of time and the codes of conduct for the householder, the brahmacārī, the vānaprastha (forest-dweller) and the sannyāsī.
• Chapters 47–50 teach going beyond the guṇas, the picture of the two birds, liberation through prāṇāyāma (breath control), the debate about sattva and purusha, the great ṛshis’ survey of competing schools of thought, and Brahmā’s teaching on ahiṃsā that settles the matter.
• Chapter 51 brings the whole Guru-Śishya Saṃvāda, the Brāhmaṇa-Gītā, to its close within the Anugītā.

This Guru-Śishya Saṃvāda (Chapters 35–51) is the second of two teaching cycles that Vāsudeva tells Arjuna in the Anugītā. It follows directly after the dialogue of the brāhmaṇa and the Brāhmaṇī (Chapters 20–34), a separate itihāsa in which a householder couple discuss the knowledge of the inner Self.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapters 35–39 (the wider teaching continues through Chapter 50)