Tāpatraya

Tāpatraya · tāpa-traya, “the three afflictions”

Grammar: neuter noun; a compound of tāpa (heat, affliction) and traya (a group of three): “the three afflictions”.

Meaning: the three kinds of suffering that bind a being to saṃsāra: ādhyātmika (arising from oneself, in body and mind), ādhibhautika (from other beings) and ādhidaivika (from the devatās and the powers of nature).

In the scriptures: the Agni Purāṇa teaches the three tāpas in these places.

  • The way to jñāna: Agnideva begins his account of the ātyantika pralaya, the final dissolution, which comes about through jñāna. Knowing the suffering (santāpa) that begins with the ādhyātmika, a man should gain vairāgya (dispassion) toward his own self; then jñāna arises. The ādhyātmika santāpa is of two kinds, śārīra (of the body) and mānasa (of the mind), and that of the body is of many kinds. Agnideva then tells how the jīva leaves the body and is born again according to its karma (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 369).
  • The three named: at the end of his account of the narakas and of the births that follow from each wrong deed, Agnideva says: “This is the description of the ādhyātmika tāpa.” The tāpa caused by weapons and the like is ādhibhautika; that caused by the grahas, fire, the devatās and the like is ādhidaivika. A man should cross this saṃsāra, bound up with the three tāpas, by jñāna-yoga, by hard vratas, by dāna and the like, and by the pūjā of Vishṇu (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 371).

In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The three are named in the Purāṇa’s opening: the Bhāgavata sets forth Brahman, which removes the three sorrows, ādhyātmika, ādhidaivika and ādhibhautika (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 1). Nārada tells Vyāsa that the remedy for the three tāpas is the offering of karma to Bhagavān Śrī Hari (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 5), and Sūta praises Nārada as blessed, singing the glory of Śrī Hari, the bearer of Śārṅga, and delighting a world burned by the three tāpas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 6). In the kingdom of Yudhishṭhira, the Ajātaśatru, there were no diseases of body or mind and none of the three tāpas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 10).

Maitreya tells Vidura that Svāyambhuva Manu conquered the three tāpas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 22). Kapila tells Devahūti that the glance of Śrī Hari, full of dayā and growing with his loving smile, gives his bhaktas peace from the three tāpas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 28). Nārada tells Prācīnabarhi that the jīva, its viveka covered by ajñāna and taking the body as the self, suffers the three duḥkhas for a hundred years. There is no full release from any of them: their remedies are temporary and incomplete, like shifting a load from the head to the shoulders, for the carrying does not end (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 29).

Prahlāda tells his schoolfellows that the mind of the heedless man suffers the three tāpas everywhere (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 6). After Akrūra left Dvārakā, ill omens and the three tāpas were said to come upon the city again and again (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 57). Mārkaṇḍeya Maharshi, praising Nara-Nārāyaṇa, says that their two mūrtis remove the three tāpas and give well-being and moksha (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 8).

In the Brahma Purāṇa. Vyāsa teaches the munis that the discerning jīva, seeing the suffering and the fault that come from the three tāpas, ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika and ādhidaivika, gains jñāna through vairāgya and so attains the ātyantika laya, which is moksha. The ādhyātmika tāpa is of two kinds, bodily and mental; “ātmā” here means the body, and what is connected with the body of five elements is ādhyātmika. The bodily tāpas begin with disease of the head, pratiśyāya (catarrh), jvara (fever), śūla (colic), bhagandara (fistula), gulma (abdominal tumour), arśas (piles), śvayathu (swelling), śvāsa (breathing disease), chardi (vomiting), diseases of the eyes, atisāra (dysentery), kushṭha (skin disease) and diseases of the limbs; their details are to be known from Āyurveda and the other śāstras. The mental tāpas begin with kāma, krodha, bhaya, dvesha, lobha, moha, vishāda (dejection), śoka, asūyā (envy), avamāna (dishonour), īrshyā (jealousy), matsara (rivalry) and tiraskāra (contempt). The ādhibhautika tāpas come from beasts, birds, men, piśācas, snakes, rākshasas and creeping creatures; the ādhidaivika from cold, heat, wind, rain, water and lightning.

The sorrows that come from the womb, birth, ignorance, old age, death and naraka are of thousands of kinds, and Vyāsa describes each. In the womb the jīva lies bent in impurity, scorched by the mother’s sharp and salty food, remembering its hundreds of past births. At birth it comes out turned head downwards, pained as if cut with a saw, and lies helpless, unable even to drive off the insects that bite it. Covered by ignorance, which is the nature of tamo-guṇa, man does not know where he came from, who he is or what is dharma, and strives like cattle only for food and coupling. In old age the limbs grow slack, the teeth fall, the skin wrinkles, sight and hearing fail, the back bends, food does not digest, cough and breathlessness take his sleep, servants, wife and sons neglect him, his attendants mock him, and he remembers the deeds of his youth as if they were done in some former birth. At death worry for wife, children and wealth cuts him like saws, and in naraka the servants of Yama torment the yātanā-deha according to the pāpa done. Even in svarga there is the fear of falling when the puṇya is spent. So, not increasing attachment to wife, sons and wealth, seeing the faults of the three tāpas and striving for mukti is the only medicine that removes this pain (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 234).

In the Gautamī Māhātmya, Kaśyapa praises Bhagavān Śiva as the one alone able to dispel the misery of all beings, moving and unmoving, who are scorched by the sun of the tāpatraya (Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 30). The Gautamī, to whom Sarasvatī went in fear of Brahmā‘s śāpa, is the suppressor of the tāpatraya and the giver of enjoyments here and hereafter (Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 31). In her stotra Ilā takes refuge in Śaṅkarī and Śaṅkara: embodied beings scorched by the forest fire of the tāpatraya attain the highest bliss at once by meditating on these two (Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 38).

Related terms: Saṃsāra · Vairāgya · Jñāna · Pralaya · Naraka

Sources

  • Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 369, 371
  • Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 1, 5–6, 10; Skandha 3, Chapters 22, 28; Skandha 4, Chapter 29; Skandha 7, Chapter 6; Skandha 10, Chapter 57; Skandha 12, Chapter 8
  • Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 234; Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapters 30–31, 38