It’s
819 AD. Indian mystics have laid the foundation of systematization of thought
about the unknown. With open arms Vedas welcome the infinite manifestations of
universal goodwill. These are the outpours of awe, wonder, obedience, surrender
and love for the unknown.
Human
mind is fertile with imagination. One more step has been taken. Vedanta
literature has shown man the next step in Indian philosophical thought. It’s no
longer about feelings of awe. Now it’s not just plain surrender to the gaping
unknowns. There is an effort to interpret the forces of nature. There is
cultivation of thought and logic. There is an effort to understand the process
of humans grasping the reality.
Brahma
Sutras of Sage Badarayana Vyasa have set up a platform for human thought and
logic to take the next stride. Human mind looks within to understand the ways
and means of interpreting the messages sent by our sense organs.
Philosopher
and theologian Adi Shankara is taking human mind further by integrating main
thoughts in Hinduism. He has a huge collection of commentaries on Vedic texts.
He has thrown more light on Upanishads. He is slaying the rituals and founding
the concepts of Advaita Vedanta, unity of the soul and attributelesss supreme
identity. Ritualism has eaten the vitality of Indian thought and philosophy. He
is travelling across India to revive the spirit of Hinduism. For self
realization. To be a master of one's own destiny, not be a helpless beggar
before deities. Wherever he goes he challenges those who oppose his thinking.
Clubs down their logic to overpower them with his logical interpretations of
our thought processes and natural phenomena around. It's a blizzard of logic
sweeping the length and breadth of India. And here he comes to Mithila state in
northern Gangetic plains near the frontier between modern day India and Nepal.
The
great scholar has reached Tharhi village. It’s autumn. There is mystique
restfulness spread around. A perfectly pensive evening is building up. The
great thatched hall in the hermitage premises is softly abuzz with scholarly
excitement. Shankaracharya has arrived only a couple of hours ago and is ready
to take logical potshots at rival theologians.
His
shaven head and calm eyes don’t give any sign of the long, arduous travel. But
he has much ground to cover. They start immediately. Adi is on a spiritual
rollercoaster and easily prevails upon daunting bearded rishis. A young student, having holy thread criss-crossing his
torso and wearing white cotton dhoti is lost in the great philosopher’s
persuasive logic. He has a question.
“The
words of your logic fail to take me to the exact picture of reality. Does it
mean there is no specific plane of reality? And we just reach a level, given
our understanding of the words involved in the sentences, that we infer. Is it
like a person with good eyesight can watch distant objects in comparison to
somebody with a bad one?”
Adi
smiles at the question. His calm eyes bore straight into the young student’s handsome
face. The penetrating focus in those eyes is very attractive.
“Study
hard for each word in books of theology. Work for the meaning of each and every
word. Focus your senses to grasp the maximum a word has to offer. You will see
the farthest one can see!” it appears like a blessing.
There
is something extraordinary about this boy. Next morning, before setting out
again on his mission, Shankaracharya calls the boy. He again looks into the
deep, reflective pools of his eyes. The philosopher smiles. There is the
stability of an undisturbed ocean in the young student’s eyes.
“He
can take very deep dives to take out the gems of reality from the mysterious
depths,” the sage softly told himself.
Adi
hands him a palm leaf compilation of Brahma Sutra of Badarayana. The text is a
famous systematization of the philosophical ideas of Upanishads. Brahma Sutras
explore the nature of human existence and absolute reality and the importance
and need of attaining spiritually liberating knowledge.
It
is a blessing. Just the ownership of the text containing the apex of Indian
philosophical though is a matter of pride. He walks back to his house holding
the cloth bag containing the precious text. He has been exceptionally hungry
for the knowledge and words of holy Sanskrit texts. He has mastered Vedas,
Upvedas and Upanishads. Now he possesses the cream of all that knowledge, the
gist. He wants to go further, to see further, break the frontier of all human
thought reached thus far. He is holding the text even more dearly than his
life.
“Vachaspati
Vachaspati come out. O God what has possessed this boy. That book has a magic
spell. I have to call babaji to break
it!” Vatsala is anxious.
Her
neighbors are standing near her. They face the hut he has locked himself in.
She is a widow and he the only son. They have sympathy for her.
“He
hasn’t come out for the last two days. These books can turn a young man mad,”
she is sobbing.
More
sympathy for the widow struggling to raise her son, who is all concerned about
Vedic knowledge and now this book.
They
raise a chorus. There is a pandemonium. He is drawn out of his eerie. He hasn’t
opened the book even once. It is precious. It has priceless meaning to each and
every word written in it. He has been looking at it and taken away into a
trance. He can hear his mother’s lamentation outside and words of sympathy
floating around. He opens the grass and reed thatch door of the hut and steps
out. The sun is too bright. He squints and looks deep into the blue sky. They
hold him with empathy taking him to be sick.
The
proximity of the precious manuscript carries the effect of thunderbolt. He is
in a delirium. The young man has fever. He mumbles strange meaningless words
about the ultimate reality. His mother gets scared and even thinks of throwing
the book away. But then stops from doing this, herself being scared of the
powers in the book.
Vachaspati
regains his footing from the jolt after a week. He carefully starts touching
the book, afraid like touching fire, familiarizes himself with the smell and
feel of the palm leaves and the Sanskrit words. He is as cautious as if he is
walking on a rope and fire is burning below. And he has miles to go along the
rope to reach the destination. And Brahma Sutras are the bamboo, supporting
him, balancing him, preventing his fall into the fire.
The
world than ceases to exist for him. It is just the Brahma Sutras, the
beginning. And the end? He wants his awakened self to be that end. Aham Brahmasmi. I am the all potent
supreme entity. But he has to prove it to himself. He has to break that
delusional veil that filters the supreme knowledge from barging fully into the
compartment of our being leaving us angry, ignorant and frustrated. He has to
understand why and how we see the perceived reality. Can the reality be changed
for the better? Is it fixed? Is it pliable, to be molded into better shape by
our heightened awareness? Endless questions.
He
has now cut himself off from the society. A secluded grove is the safe house
with the precious book. It has been eight years since the book landed in his
hands. And there has been just one routine, reaching the grove in the morning
with a time’s meal and water. He goes back to his hut late at night. Slowly
opens his hut’s door, finds the rice and cooked lentils on his bed. Eats and
goes to sleep. His mother’s tears have dried up. She has accepted her fate.
He
has forgotten the number of times he has read the book. Each time he reads, it
has a new meaning. He rises higher with each jump into the air to see beyond
the fence. He just cannot overcome this feeling that there is limitless joy to
be harnessed through learning.
His
mother is not keeping well these days. She struggles to catch her breath while
she struggles hard to earn two meals a day for herself and her son. She is
worried what would happen to him after she is gone. Marriage as an institution
is supposed to guarantee hope and care in future. She has been thinking of
getting him married. But who would give his daughter to somebody who doesn’t
seem to act and behave like a common householder? The world is but full of
people bound by conditions that would force them to settle for the minimum. Like
while most of the parents try to ensure a life-long security for their
daughter, looking at the groom’s prospects from multiple angles, there are still
some who are placed so tightly that just getting their daughter married somehow
to anybody gives them the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty. There is one such
family in a neighboring village. The father consents to Vachaspati’s mother’s
proposal.
“It
is our good luck to get our daughter married to such an avid scholar!” he even
smiles.
Vachaspati
is so lost in the questions raised by reads and rereading of the Brahma Sutra
that he hardly knows what goes on in the world around him. He is so full of
ever-persistent questions about the finality, the ultimate reality that there
is hardly any scope for the sense organs to do their work and break his spell.
He
is in a reverie, like he is most of the time, when his mother informs him about
his marriage. He doesn’t seem to react in any way. His nonchalance is taken as his
consent and the marriage is fixed. He is married to Bhamati on Guru Prnima
(Vyasa Purnima) in the month of Asadha. It is an auspicious conjugal day when
many others start their marital innings. For him but it is the night to start
on his real quest.
His
hut is decorated for the bridal night. A full moon has lit up the stage
outside. Shyly his bride is ushered in with a big tumbler of hot milk in her
hand. She raises her eyes to sneak a look at him. In the light of the oil lamp
a new world opens.
Vachaspati
is sitting erect on a reed mattress on the floor. A sheaf of clean palm leaves
by his side. On the small wooden writing desk a palm leaf waiting for the first
word. His hand is on the feather quill still in the brass ink pot. Time seems
to have been suspended. The lamp is burning almost steadily. It’s a frozen
moment, like it will remain for the next 12 years.
She
moves slowly and sits on the edge of the bridal bed. There are flowers on the
clean white sheet. The sheet will remain as such. Time has stopped. It’s not
before the dawn that he opens his eyes slowly. His hand frozen on the writing
quill moves and the first Sanskrit word of his historical commentary on Brahma
Sutra is written. There is a force. She can feel it. She knows she has no
choice apart from being a part in this creative stillness.
And
the days pass, as easily as the weeks, which pass like months, who in turn pass
with the ease of years.
He
is in a cocoon. He is breaking the walls of disillusions to see the light of
logic to take Indian metaphysical thought to a new level after the Brahma
Sutras. Brahma Sutras have given him the tools to dig the mammoth mountain of
mysteries. He is busy with his spadework.
Bhamati
knows the duties of a wife to her husband. She lives her duties. She has to
keep his cocoon safe for him to continue working. She is the silent nurturer of
his cocoon. She is invisible. But manages everything. It’s her duty.
She
moves so slowly as if afraid to shift even the air particles as she cleans the
floor, puts food plate in front of him, takes it away, fills the ink pot, gets
fresh pair of writing quills, safely stashes the worked upon sheaves of palm
leaves, arranges new palm leaves, lights the lamp as it starts getting dark,
pours oil in the lamp through the night, takes his dhoti to wash and puts
afresh one nearby. In between she lovingly looks at his picture, for he is just
a picture, unchanging except the quill moving on the paper.
The
picture is broken only twice or thrice a day when he gets up for bathing and
toilet. But this also is merely an extension of the picture.
Initially
during the long drawn out spells of night she would feel cravings for his touch
as she watched him from the corner of the hut where she sleeps on the ground on
a simple grass mattress. Then she felt guilty even in that lest she should be
polluting the air with desire. Now just looking at his pensive, absorbed face
gives her all the gratification she needs as a woman from her man.
She
is a mother now. There is a child in her womb. She has to nurture it at the
cost of the major portion of her own life, her own share in this world. Her
pregnancy has lasted years and she is the same smiling, uncomplaining mother,
keeping her hands safely around her bulging tummy as the world moves on.
Well
that’s basically a woman is, a mother. A man is just the instrument of her
reaching her status of being a mother. To be a mother she has to cut a major
portion of her own self to help life thrive in a new unit, in a new human
being.
It
has been twelve years since their marriage and twelve years of his working on his
commentary on Brahma Sutras. It is a stormy night. Squalls of rain beat on the
thatched hut. Wind beats down hard. There is no risk to this hut at least. She
has been working on making it sturdier and stronger over the years during her
spare time. This is exactly this type of weather she has had in mind while
working on it.
His
face bears a strange expression. Like you have been running for a long time,
and then you see the destination, you want to run harder but the body is
keeping you within limits. During the latter half of the night the storm
started to abate. His face also eased up. Even a smile at the corner of his
lips. It makes her world, that smile. He seems to be walking slowly now, with
destination just nearby. And then he stops.
It’s
a bright dawn. The storm has spent its fury. Calmness, as it’s supposed to, has
spread its aura. He has written the concluding word. A journey has been
accomplished. He stands up and stretches his arms. It’s like a stone statue
coming to life. He looks around and sees the world as it is after so many
years. There is a woman in the hut. Her uncared and untended beauty shines like
moon’s corner over the edge of a dark speck of cloud.
The
mother, the donator, the giver. Her pregnancy has lasted all storms. The
delivery has been painful. She is shy again. She melts under his gaze. He is
curious.
“Who
are you and what are you doing in my hut?” he asks politely, words coming with
huge effort after so long a spell of silence.
“I’m
your wife. We were married 12 years back,” she tries to remind him very softly.
He
was on another plane of reality so doesn’t remember anything. He looks at her
hands and realization strikes him. He remembers these. Even in that astral
plane these hands have been the root of his support. These hands that bathed
him, fed him, kept everything away that would break his mystical spell. He has
been feeling that the task at hand has been as much of these hands as he
himself. This pair of hands had melted into his veritable being. His quest had
been with four hands. He always had this feeling, but had taken it as some
divine support.
But
can there be a bigger divinity than a mother’s efforts?
“You
have been serving me for 12 years and never told me!” he has tears in his eyes.
She
just smiles and has tears. Unable to speak she just looks at him.
“Why
didn’t you tell me earlier? I had taken a vow that I will renounce this world
after completing this work!” tears are streaming down his bearded face.
“I
always knew the importance of your cause. So just served you. It is my wifely
duty,” she speaks very sweetly, as if it was never about her, like her life did
not and doesn’t matter.
“But
this is injustice to you. All this service and pain. With my vow I have to
leave for the Himalayas for penance. What becomes of your efforts? Where is the
fruit of all that you did,” he is agonized.
There
is a flood of tears. A sage who has busted the secrets of reality to make human
thought further capable of deciphering more about the ultimate is crying.
She
comes closer and again assuages his pain, frees him from guilt.
Wiping
his tears she says with a calm smile, “Your tears, your acceptance, your
realization, this work, all these are my rewards. Like I didn’t stop you
earlier, even in your vow of penance I will not be a hindrance. It will give me
happiness if I still help you in seeking further truth as a recluse by allowing
you to go. By freeing you of any duty that you might think as a husband may
prevent you. Please go guilt-free.”
He
hasn’t yet given a title to his commentary. Wiping his tears he moves towards
the collection, picks out a fresh palm leaf and writes Bhamati on it. The
title. And puts it on top of the work.
“You
are the love and guiding spirit behind all this. This world may forget me but
not you,” he prepares to leave.
Bhamati.
She
watches him go to the hills. Bhamati, the masterwork, is there for the world to
dive into to fetch out more gems of metaphysical thoughts.
A
man might take rounds of earth to search his destiny, a woman realizes hers just
by being there with her love and care.
A
man might break mountains with the raw power of hammer, a woman is the air that
fills his lungs to fuel his determination.
A
man might aim to crack the ultimate secret, a woman normally does it just by
being a mother, by allowing a life to thrive parasitically inside her, at her
cost, gobbling her share of food, blood and flesh.
And
no thought can be beyond love. And nobody more suitable than manifesting love
than a woman.
