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Stories

To Treasure Old Teachings, Don't Be too Hasty

A rich man said to his servant: "Take this diamond to the market and let me know how different people price it. Take it first to the egg-plant seller."

The servant took the diamond to the egg-plant seller. He examined it, turning it over in the palm of his hand, and said, "Well, I can give nine seers of egg-plants for it."

"Friend, "said the servant, "a little more, say, ten seers."

The egg-plant seller replied: "No, I have already quoted above the market price. You may give it to me if that price suits you."

The servant laughed. He went back to his master and said: "Sir, he would give me only nine seers of egg-plants and not one more. He said he had offered more than the market price."

The master smiled and said: "Now take it to the cloth dealer. Let us see how much he offers for it."

The servant went to the clothdealer and said: "Will you buy this? How much will you pay for it?"

The merchant said: "Yes, it is a good thing. I can make a nice ornament out of it. I will give you nine hundred rupees for it."

"Brother," said the servant, "offer a little more and I will sell it to you. Give me at least a thousand rupees."

The cloth-dealer said: "Ahh, don't press me for more. I have offered more than the market price. I cannot give a rupee more. Suit yourself."

Laughing, the servant returned to his master and said: "He won't give a rupee more than nine hundred. He too said he had quoted above the market price."

The master said with a laugh: "Now take it to a jeweller."

The servant went to the jeweller. The jeweller inspected the diamond for a few minutes and said, "I will give you one hundred thousand rupees for it."

Said Ramakrishna: "One offers a price for an article according to one's capital. Can all comprehend the Indivisible Sat-Chit-Ananda? . . . All cannot recognise an Incarnation of God. Some take him for an ordinary man, some for a holy person, and only a few recognise him as an Incarnation."

Modern man may be quite henpecked

The following tale is adapted from a tale by Ramakrishna.

Someone insisted,

"I know what sort the carefully "unresolved family-man" of the present day is! If a poor prince comes to beg of this master of the house, he - being a quite privileged and uncontaminated family-man and having no gross concern with money handling, for it is his wife who manages such things while she's around - says to the begging prince,

"Sir, I never touch money, why waste time in begging of me?"

The prince, however, entreats the man so relentlessly that he thinks within himself that the prince should be paid a dollar, and tells him openly:

"Well, well, come to our door tomorrow morning, and I'll see what I can do for you."

Going in, he tells his wife,

"Look here, dear. I've seen the light. A poor prince is in great distress; let us give him a dollar."

Hearing the word "dollar", his wife gets out of temper and says tauntingly,

"What a generous fellow you are! Are dollars like leaves and straws to be thrown away without the least thought?"

"Well, my dear," replies the man in an apologetic tone, "the prince is very poor and we shouldn't give him less."

"No," says his wife, "I cannot spare so much. I feel two cents will do. You can give him that, if you like."

As the man is a family-man quite uncontaminated by worldliness, he takes what his wife gives him, and next day a beggar gets two cent.

Thus, uncontaminated family-men are hardly true masters of themselves, but quite like hen-pecked husbands. If so, they can be very poor specimens of the human race. [Cf. Tas: "Modern Janakas"]

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Book Study into Old and New Hinduism

Vedas

The Vedas are said to be eternal. In Eternity they are. During exalted states of spiritual realisation, ancient sages uttered and transmitted them and maybe committed them to writing themselves. According to Hindu tradition, one can verify the possible truths of the Vedas [metaphorical issues are possible] through his own experiences under qualified guidance.

There are four Vedas:

1. Rigveda (on-line): (translated by Wilson and by Griffith) The work is reputedly very old, and older than the other three vedas too. Its language is closer to ancient Persian than to later Sanskrit. [Zai] Rikveda needs interpretations to be of interest in modern life, presumably.
2. White and Black Yajurveda: (Griffith has translated the White, and Devichand the Black and White) The Yajurveda in its two recensions contains formulas and directions.
3. Samaveda: Most of the verses of the Samaveda are taken from the Rikveda but arranged in different sequence.
4. Atharva Veda: These hymns reflect religious practices. Many hymns are supplications for health and success, protection, and blessings. Others are concerned with funerals and holy men.

The Vedas can be divided into four categories:

1. The Samhitas, hymns to various deities.
2. The Brahmanas, directions for the performance of sacrifice;
3. The Aranyakas, interpretations of the sacrifices - analogical, perhaps allegorical.
4. The Upanishads, the philosophical or knowledge portion.

The Upanishads

The Upanishads are concluding parts of the Vedas, and their philosophy is called Vedanta, which is the basis of all Hindu systems of religious thought, both dualistic and nondualistic [See Upanishads Online]

There are over a hundred Upanishads. The body of Upanishads originated in part hundreds, in part thousands of years BC. They are thought to encompass mystical experiences of saints and sages. In Vedanta God immanent is called the Atman, or Self, and God transcendent is called Brahman (from the root brih, expand). It is also held that Atman (individual self) and Brahman (cosmic self) are identical, and that meditation opens the way for this to be experienced.

Paul Deussen's Sixty Upanishads of the Veda includes the well-known twelve principal Upanishads and many others. Also, Nikhilananda's two translations with with explanatory notes based on the commentary of Shankara, may be mentioned. Max Müller translated the best known Upanishads too in his day [Major Upanishads]. A new translation of such Upanishads is made by Vernon Katz Extracts of several minor Upanishads are here: [Minor Upanishads]. There are many other Upanishad translations - collections of samples with or without comments, and single Upanishads with comments.

Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita has quite misleadingly been called the Gospel of Vedanta, and is also claimed to be the best loved of all Indian scriptures. It's aim is to describe ways to achieve benefits by religious worship in the middle of interests in conflict. The work is a book (kanda) embedded in the long epic poem Mahabharata in the first place. And it is is formed as a dialogue: deep thinking is put in the mouth of Krishna and his friend Arjuna who is perplexed and confused. Obviously, parts of the teaching is not much relevant in contemporary life. [Sivananda's Bhagavad Gita translation]

During a pilgrimage through the southern parts of India, the Hindu reformer Chaitanya came across a man who was in tears while a pundit was reading from the Bhagavad Gita. On being asked why he shed tears, the man replied,

"I didn't know a word of the Gita in advance. While it was being read, I couldn't help seeing with my inner eye how Highest God was made use of as a mere charioteer by Arjuna on in the field of Kurukshetra. The strangeness of this filled my eyes with many tears."

Uddhava Gita

Chapter 11 of the Srimad Bhagavatam contains similar teachings as the Bhagavad Gita. They are told by Krishna to his friend and look-alike Uddhava, and called Uddhava Gita. Aldous Huxley: "- a teaching that expresses the essence of Indian religion almost as forcefully as does the Bhagavad Gita." [Uddhava Gita]

Epics and Puranas

The Hindu epics and puranas (tale collections etc) popularise ideals and mythos of the Vedas and Upanishads by insights into lives of certain godmen, saints, kings and devotees.

Ramayana (The Way of Rama) is the most ancient Sanskrit epic poem. It is estimated to have been composed by the sage and former highway robber Valmiki about 500 BC. it has helped in forming a uniform enough structure of pan-Indian ideals and half-norms to live up to. A new translation is by Linda Egenes and Kumuda Reddy, The Ramayana: A Retelling of Valmiki's Ancient Epic - Complete and Comprehensive (2016). A more voluminous version is Hari Prasad Shastri's translation, The Ramayana of Valmiki in three volumes.

The Concise Yoga Vasistha, translated by Venkatesananda, is a much abridged translation of the original, which is said to present the inner aspects of Ramayana, Rama's way. The translation is clear, without sacrificing philosophical depth. The Yoga Vasistha, a book of extracts translated by the same author, is good too.

The Mahabharata is the largest old poem we know of; it consists of 110,000 couplets, and contains the Bhagavad Gita and material with many other interspersed philosophical and religious outlooks. Its codes for living and speculative philosophy are Aryan. The Mahabharata by Kamala Subramaniam is a nice retelling; it is a highly readable, condensed version focuses on the activity, not much on the sermonising. And the many-volumed Mahabharata translated by K. M. Ganguli is a complete translation. Johannes Adrianus Bernardus van Buitenen translated parts of it before he passed away.

There is well over a dozen Puranas handed down from centiries past.

The Srimad Bhagavatam contains a life of Krishna, and in the eleventh book of the work, Krishna gives instructions to his disciple Uddhava. That part of the work is thus called Uddhava Gita. Very soon after delivering this much interesting instruction, Krishna is killed by a poisoned arrow by mistake Raghunathan's two-volumed translation is good. Besides there is a condensed version by Nikhilananda, called The Wisdom of God.

The Srimad Devi Bhagawatam in Vijnananananda's translation is fair. The work was probably written in the 1000s or 1100s, and is influenced by works on Tantra. There is stress on devotion to the shakti (force aspect of divinity, alias Devi), and many words on realization, and hymns.

The Markandeya Purana (Pargiter's translation) is an interesting work. It contains the Devi Mahatmyam (Glory of the Divine Mother, here in the shape of Durga, and the Chandi). This hymn to the Mother is one of the oldest and most venerated scriptures in India; it is taken to be allegorical, sublime and is much chanted by Hindus.

The Siva Purana is a traditional treatise where mythological stories mingle with methods of meditation, and ritualistic worship of Shiva. J. L. Shastri's 4-volumed translation is fine.

The Vishnu Purana is a Vishnu-advocating work. It tells of how the world was made, Krishna's life, gods and other beings, and contains discourses on yoga by which one can realise Being, which is thought of as the Supreme Being too.

Traditional Law and Customs

Hindus of old were steered by criptural instructions and injuctions. Two of the foremost works are:

The Institutes of Vishnu as translated by Julius Jolly, details the laws for all the four castes, promising that faithful observance of these laws will sustain the earth. The Laws of Manu (Manu Samhita), translated and commented by Georg Bühler, enumerates rules, rituals and purports to show how man an evolve to God-realisation.

Tantra

Human relationships can be lifted, and one may learn to go beyond through power properly harnessed. A person must start from where he is and put high and not so high methods of perfectioning into use.

There is an extensive body of texts on the subject. Some of them are:

Gems from the Tantras, first and second series, collected and commented by Mahdev Pandit, give clues on spiritual practices. Siva Sutras translated by Jaiadeva Singh. The Srimad Devi Bhagawatam (see above). The Serpent Power is an important work translated by Sir John Woodroffe, describes centres of consciousness and kundalini awakening. Tantra of the Great Liberation, translated by Sir John Woodroffe, outlines tantric ritual in detail.

Writings on Tantra, in addition: Lights on the Tantra by M. P. Pandit, The Serpent Power and The Garland of Letters, by Sir John Woodroofe. The two last ones outline uses of mantras (vibratory words and sounds).

Shankara

Shankara bases much of his philosophy on tenets found in the Upanishads, and apparently also on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. He has commented on ancient Hindu works like major Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras, and the Brahma Sutras. He has also composed works of his own, including devotional poetry. One such work: Shankara's dialogue Crest-Jewel of Discrimination.

Nikhilananda gives gloss from Shankara's comments in his translations of Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. Trevett has recently published a commentary by Shankara on the Yoga Sutras. Swami Gambhirananda has translated the Brahma Sutras and included Shankara's commentary.

A biography among others is Swami Apurvananda's Acharya Shankara.

At the beginning Sankara didn't have the total faith that everything in the world is Brahman. One day as he was coming out of the Ganges after his bath, he saw an untouchable, a butcher, carrying a load of meat. Inadvertently the butcher touched his body. Sankara shouted angrily, "Hey there! How dare you touch me?"

"Revered sir", said the butcher, "I have not touched you, nor have you touched me. The pure Self cannot be the body nor the five elements nor the twenty-four cosmic principles."

Then Sankara came to his senses.

- Ramakrishna. [From Tas No. 162]

Some other texts

THE Brahma Sutras is one of the three works which all Indian philosophies are based on. The work tries to systematise and elaborates on Upanishadic teachings. Vireswarananda's translation links it to teachings of Shankara.

Dattatreya's Avadhuta Gita is credited a sage who lived three thousand years ago, and "breathes" Brahman outlooks.

Nikhilananda's translation of Shankara's Drg-Drsya-Viveka, An Inquiry Into The Nature of the 'Seer' and the 'Seen', Sri Ramakrishna Sharama, Mysore, India, 1976.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is online. Two of the better translations in book form: How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. [sth] Vivekananda's Raja Yoga contains his translation and comments on many of the aphorisms too. [Via].

Facets of Brahman or the Hindu Gods (1974) by Swami Chidbhavananda lays bare methods of worship and symbology of various aspects of gods.

An Introduction to Indian Philosophy by Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta is a thorough overview of the six orthodix systems of Hindu philosophy. The authors also expose three other main systems, including Buddhism.

A Survey of Hinduism by Klaus Klostermeyer is comprehensive and sympathetic. Hinduism by R. C. Zaehner is much briefer.

The Spiritual Heritage of India by Prabhavananda is thought to be an authoritative text. It is in part a condensation of a larger work, namely the Cultural Heritage of India, now in five volumes.

Vedic Religion and Philosophy by Prabhavananda brings some general thought in a short book.

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Works in Focus

Once there was a ceremony in a guru's house. His disciples volunteered to supply the different articles of food according to their powers. He had one disciple, a very poor widow, who owned a cow. She milked it and brought the guru a jar of milk. He had thought she would take charge of all the milk and curd for the festival. Angry at her poor offering, he threw the milk away and said to her, "Go and drown yourself."

The widow accepted this as his command and went to the river to drown herself. But God was pleased with her guileless faith and, appearing before her, said: "Take this pot of curd. You will never be able to empty it. The more curd you pour out, the more will come from the pot. This will satisfy your teacher."

The guru was speechless with amazement when the pot was given to him. After hearing from the widow the story of the pot, he went to the river, saying to her, "I shall drown myself if you cannot show God to me."

God appeared then and there, but the guru couldn't see him. Addressing God, the widow said, "If my teacher gives up his body because You don't reveal Yourself to him, then I too shall die."

So God appeared to the guru - but only once.

- Told by Sri Ramakrishna [Tas, No. 62]

One More Man of God

In a deep forest a man practised corpse-sadhana: he sat on a corpse, sava, while he meditated. He worshipped the Divine Mother in that way. First he saw many terrible visions. Finally a tiger attacked and killed him.

Another man, happening to pass by and seeing the approach of the tiger, had climbed a tree. Afterwards he got down and found all the arrangements for worship at hand. He performed some purifying ceremonies and seated himself on the corpse. No sooner had he done a little japa (mantra-meditation) than the Divine Mother appeared before him and said:

"My child, I am very much pleased with you. Accept a boon from me."

He bowed low to the goddess and said:

"May I ask you one question? I am speechless with amazement at your action. The other man worked so hard to get the ingredients for Your worship and tried to propitiate You for such a long time, but You didn't condescend to show him Your favour. And I, who don't know anything of worship, who have done nothing, who have neither devotion nor knowledge nor love, and who haven't practised any austerities, am receiving so much of Your grace?"

The Divine Mother said with a smile,

"My child you don't remember your previous births. As a result of many previous lives of austerities all these things have come to hand, and you have been blessed with my vision. Now ask me a big boon."