India's Ancient Culture

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 5: Introduction to the Epics

In an earlier session we discussed the foundations of Indian culture and the inner contents and classification of the Vedas. Next we moved further on to a consideration of the special emphases laid in the course of history on the different sections of the Vedas, with some groups or communities laying emphasis on the Samhitas, others on the Brahmanas, and others on the Aranyakas and the Upanishads.

Orthodox Vedic pundits who are available to us even today in small numbers in India study the Veda Samhitas by rote, by heart, and they make it a profession. Study of the Veda Samhitas requires the capacity to recite the Samhitas. Emphasis is laid on the Brahmanas in the form of the Mimamsa doctrine of ritualism, karma-kanda as it is known in Sanskrit, and the externalised form of the application of the Veda mantras. The mantras of the Vedas were originally intended as prayers to the gods who, in the beginning, were conceived as a group superintending over all the powers of nature, and were later on clubbed into different categories of ruling powers, culminating with a monotheistic concept of the one God and the Absolute. This aspect of the Veda mantras was taken up for meditational purposes in the Aranyakas and the Upanishads.

The ethical and the moral side, the sociological side, became the study of the Smritis, eighteen in number, of which the Manusmriti, the Yajnavalkya Smriti and the Parashara Smriti are the most important. What is it that the Smritis tell us? I am repeating what I said in an earlier session. The aims of existence conceived as material needs, emotional needs, ethical needs and moral needs centred round the final aim of life, which is moksha, liberation of the spirit, which achievement was attempted through an internal educational process of actual living in the world through the stages of brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa. All this we have already observed in some detail.

Thus, the aim of life, which is the liberation of the spirit, is the conditioning factor of ethical and moral living in the world—righteousness and justice. Even the permission to have material comforts and emotional satisfactions in our life is determined by the law of the universal salvation of the soul.

It is very difficult to imagine how, in India, every aspect of life has been interpreted in terms of the highest aim, which is the principal occupation of all mankind. These days, this widespread, well thought-out, precise pattern of living laid down for us by our ancients through the Smritis is forgotten. We do not seem to be living for the sake of the ultimate liberation of the spirit. The very idea of it has been brushed aside from our brains on account of intense pressure laid on us by economic factors, physical needs, political conditions and community values. We live in communities, we have national barriers, we have political limitations of various kinds, and today our needs are, principally, wrongly conceived as economic and material. We have come down far from the ancient ideal, looking to the effect and the fruit only, which we want to reap and enjoy without knowing that the fruit will not come unless there is a tree which is well planted.

How would we expect material comfort, emotional satisfaction and security of any kind unless there is a law that operates permitting us to have these perquisites? From where will we get our material needs? How will we have mental satisfaction, peace of mind and emotional security? How can we be guarded from the onslaughts of nature and other people in the world? Where comes the necessity for setting up a set of regulations and a system of law and order? On what ground will we contemplate the system of the management of human society unless there is a basic, universally acceptable principle? This principle on which every other consideration is based, and has to be based, is the principle of the universal liberation of the spirit—not merely of mankind, but of creation as a whole. Here is the forte, the strong point of India's culture, which has been misunderstood by modern historians as an otherworldly consideration, which it is not. Liberation of the spirit is not something that is to take place after the death of the body. This is a misguided, modern interpretation of wrongly written history. Religion is not a guideline or a map which will take us to the other world. Religion is a consideration of this world itself.

Actually, this so-called moksha is not outside the world; it is inside the world in the same way as our soul is not outside our body. It is inside us. It is us. What we call liberation of the spirit is nothing but the realisation of the Self of the whole cosmos, the Soul of the universe, and if we consider the Soul of the universe to be somewhere far off outside the universe, it will be like thinking that our soul is outside the body, and in order to reach our soul we have to move geographically from our body to the soul. What is the distance between our body and our soul? That is the distance between life in this world and life in moksha. There is no distance. This subtlety is not properly grasped by modern theologians, philosophers, historians and leaders of mankind who say that India is a religious country and it thinks only of the other world. Especially Christian bigots and evangelists who try to throw dust upon Hinduism are very much interested in emphasising this aspect of a wrongly interpreted so-called otherworldly aspect of Hinduism, which Hinduism does not have. And modern education in colleges and universities, being practically Christian-oriented and Western-oriented, has thrust this wrong notion into the brains of modern youth who even now incorrectly think that the Hindu religion is an otherworldly affair and that it has no concern with modern physical, material, down-to-earth life.

Other doctrines such as communism, socialism, etc., which rebut the very idea of religion, also have a wrong notion of what religion actually means because they think that religion does not feed the stomach of a person, that it only promises an otherworldly goal to the soul, if it all there is a soul. These are the two errors of laying excess emphasis on the economic and the physical side of life, without proper understanding of the relation between matter and spirit. Communism, socialism, anti-God and atheistic religions, which are also a kind of religion, arise not because they say something wrong, but because whatever they say is based on wrong foundations.

The relation between this world and the other world, the relation between matter and spirit, the relation between religion and political existence, is like the relation between your body and your soul, so you cannot emphasise the body aspect of your life too much and forget that you have a soul and a consciousness. I am telling you all these things in order to remove from your mind any idea that religion is connected with life in the other world and it is a temple worship of gods who are not in this world. Religion is the worship of gods who are in this world—not only in this world, but who are the guiding principles of this world. In the same way as the soul is permeating every cell of your body, religious spirit is to permeate every activity of your life. Even your kitchen and bathroom are to be conditioned by this great goal of moksha because nothing that belongs to your body is outside the activity of the spirit, or the soul, which you really are. This is something very intricate, and though all the implications of much of it might not have entered your mind, it is good for you to think over this aspect of it.

Thus, these are some of the conclusions that we wisely draw from the contents of the Vedas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, the Upanishads and the Smritis, which laid down for us the pattern of the concept of the aims of existence—dharma, artha, kama, moksha—in connection with which it was necessary to tell you something more as to what moksha is. Moksha is not something that will take place in the future; it is an eternity that is operating. Moksha is identical with timeless eternity, and inasmuch as moksha is not in time, it is not a question of tomorrow. Moksha is not an after-death affair. There is no question of 'after' because there is no time there. It is a just now, here. That is moksha. This is a hard nut to crack. Ordinary minds cannot grasp this subtlety of the very concept of freedom of the spirit, which is not tomorrow's matter; it is a matter concerning just this moment, at this place where you are seated. It is a question of here and now, as they say. So much about the basic scriptures, the foundations of Indian culture, which are recorded for us in the Vedas, or the Srutis as they are called, and the Smritis.

Though the essentials of the practice of religion, the practice of these injunctions of the Vedas and the Smritis, which I tried to delineate in these few sessions, appear to be clear to some extent, they did not become clear to every mind of every person for all time. Even those who are well-educated and clear-headed are not in a position to keep this in their minds for a long time. After hearing all this, they will again think that God is outside the world, that God is above in heaven, and moksha is after death. These ideas will persist in them wherever they go, and if such educated persons can find it hard to maintain the true spirit of what culture in the sense of the freedom of the spirit is, what to speak of common folk, rustics, farmers, tillers who are more body-oriented than intellectuals or the spirit-oriented? But to them religion had to give sufficient attention.

The culture of India is not only for intellectuals, it is not only for students in a university, it is not only for Brahmins or pundits, it is not only for Kshatriyas or rulers and administrators, it is not only for traders, but it is also for the lowest, the downtrodden. The very purpose of the culture of India is to see that the spirit of freedom is inculcated into the minds of even those who do not know what freedom is. Even if a person does not know what freedom is, it is necessary for him to be free. People are so very untutored in the art of living that they do not even know that they are bound. Merely because they have no consciousness of there being such a thing called freedom, it is not proper for those who have such consciousness to exploit them.

Indian culture is a broad-based, charitable action of enlightened ones for the purpose of bringing the very same enlightenment even to those who do not know that they are bound. Even to the lowest and the most unlettered, this spirit of the freedom of the soul has to be introduced gradually by a process of education. Cultural values are actually processes of education. Today we have education, but the subjects are compartmentalised, departmentalised specialisations in certain sciences and the humanities, as they are called. But culture, which is inseparable from true education, is so inclusive that it has not ignored the operation of any aspect of human nature.

Therefore, it became necessary for the promulgators of India's culture, especially in ancient times, to find some way or means to drive into the minds of those who are not academically qualified, those who are not pundits, what religion is. When I use the word 'religion', please be cautious to keep in mind that it is not used in the sense of anything that is not of this world; it is always used in the sense of an enlightening scientific operation taking place on this very earth itself, in your very body. Religion is an imminence, and not merely a transcendence.

The work of introducing the spirit of true culture, spirituality and religion, bringing it down to the earth, to the streets and to the marketplace, to the fields and to the shops, was attempted by experts such as the writers of our great epics, especially the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are known as stories of something that happened years back. In the same way as there are wrong notions of religion, spirituality and moksha, there are wrong notions about the intention behind the Ramayana and the Mahabharata epics. These epics were not written merely to tell us some stories. They are not Aesop's or Grimm's fairy tales. They are a modus operandi of telling us the very same truth that has been more precisely and scientifically laid down in the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Smritis.

The Srutis and the Smritis are difficult because they are down to earth and mathematically pinpointed in their teachings. In mathematics there is no story, and there is no emotion in the calculation of equations, etc., yet it rules the world, as we know. Mathematics is an exact science, and logic is also an exact science. Hence, logic and mathematics, as it were, became the foundations of a precise way of thinking which is at the back of the Veda Samhitas, the Srutis and the Smritis. But we are not always logicians and mathematicians, and exact, precise, calculated thinking is not accessible to every mind everywhere. So the epics tell us what the groundings of the Vedas and the Smritis are in a more satisfying and considerate way by recounting to us what happened in this connection in ancient times, in historical days. There was the time of Rama, and there was the time of the Pandavas and the Kauravas during the time of Bhagavan Sri Krishna.

We do not merely want to understand things; we also wish to see these things that we are understanding. Calculus is very clear indeed, and the intellect, the reason, is able to appreciate it, but the heart has a reason which the reason does not know, as they say. Sometimes the heart says something which the intellect does not say. The intellect accepts everything that is logically presented, but the heart has some problem with logically acceptable truth because it wants a peculiar kind of satisfaction which only the emotion can understand.

Spiritual seekers, students of culture in its practical aspect, should also be psychologists to some extent. It is not that you are mugging up something that you read in textbooks or is told to you in colleges by your teachers and professors. It is necessary for you to know what you are seeking as a student in a college or a university. When you try to find out what it is that you require, you must know something about yourself. What are your needs? For that you must know something about yourself. A good student of culture or an educationist should also be a good psychologist. You have to know something about your mind, and when you go into the depths of these needs of your personality, you will realise that your emotions are as strong as your intellect, and your emotional needs are as important and urgent as your intellectual requirements. Intellectual education is as important as emotional education, and vice versa, emotional education is as important as intellectual education. The Vedas, the Srutis and the Smritis, to which we made reference earlier, spoke principally to the intellectual and rational side of human nature, and not so much to the emotional side. The emotion has to be paid sufficient attention, and this work has been attempted by the epics: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and some of the Puranas.

An epic, or an Itihasa as it is called in the Sanskrit language, is basically a history of events that took place some centuries back. There are epics everywhere in the world. There are Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey written by Homer, which delineate the story of the Trojan War and such things, and the achievements of Ulysses, Achilles, and heroes of that kind in the Greek world. Epics are heroic poems. In the epics there is always a spirit of valour, chivalry, a warlike spirit and action, and that we find in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, as we have in the Iliad and the Odyssey. There is another important epic in the Latin language, written by Virgil, and that epic is called Aeneid, which refers to Roman history. Then we have the great epic of Dante, called Divine Comedy in three books, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, worth reading indeed. It is a wonderful epic of the ascent of the soul from hell to heaven through the purgation of suffering which it has to undergo on the way. Then we have Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, an English epic, and we have the stories of Edda in Iceland culture, and epics of Nordic culture, etc.

Likewise, we have heroic poems in India, principally the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, written in Sanskrit. Actually, India's culture is not only in Sanskrit. Indian culture is also in some other languages, for example, Tamil. The Tamil language is a very ancient cultural foundation, and modern English-educated youth have very little access to this culture of the Tamils. As we have great kavyas or literature in Sanskrit, such as that written by Kalidasa, etc., we have great epics in Tamil which are as profound, I should say sometimes more profound, than in those in Sanskrit verse, such as Cilappatikaram, Manimekalai, Valayapathi, Kundalakesi and Civaka Cintamani. These are the five great Tamil epics. Only those who are capable of understanding classical Tamil, not the ordinary workaday Tamil, may be able to appreciate these masterly expositions of the wondrous secrets of human life. We have epics in the Kannada language, in the Telugu language, etc., also adding to the cultural value of the entire country.

But the origin of the concept of the epic arose from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are translated into other languages also, in poetic style, by great experts. The idea behind these epics is to instil into our mind an emotional appreciation of the very same truths of the Srutis and the Smritis, the Vedas and the Dharma Shastras.

I again repeat to you to read these books: The Foundations of Indian Culture and The Human Cycle by Aurobindo, Eastern Religions and Western Thought by Dr. Radhakrishnan, and other introductory books such  as The Spiritual Heritage of India by Swami Prabhananda, and I added one more: Vedic Religion and Philosophy by Swami Prabhavananda. If you read these books, you will have some idea of what is actually the implication of what I am saying to you.

When you read the epics, the glorious Ramayana and Mahabharata, you will always feel that you are stimulated from inside, as if you are drinking a cup of strong coffee. You are stirred up. After reading some passages of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, you will not be the same person that you were before you took up the book. And these epics are so impressive, so catching, so enlightening and absorbing, that you will not like to put the book down. Some of the plays of Shakespeare are also like that. When you start reading some of Shakespeare's plays, you will not like to put the book down until you complete the whole thing because they are so absorbing, and so very interesting and practical. They are emotionally attractive, and therefore it is that you feel the need to study them right from the beginning to the end. Like attractive novels, they will catch you from the very root of your soul, and you would not like to put them down until you go through the whole book, so absorbing they are.

Therefore, the spirit of a novel, the spirit of a literature, the spirit of a heroic poem and the spirit of a spiritual teaching are all found clubbed together in these great epics. Masterly literatures are these Ramayana and Mahabharata epics—the Ramayana written by Valmiki and the Mahabharata written by Sage Vyasa.

In the Ramayana, the literary aspect of Sanskrit is lyrically oriented, mellifluous, smoothly flowing, calming the spirit, calming the emotions, stilling your passions like the slow, steady, calm and quiet movement of the Ganga in the wintertime. It is not the tumultuous movement of the Ganga during the rainy season; that is the Mahabharata. If you want to know how the Ramayana story moves smoothly, as if it is not moving at all and yet moving, you can see the Ganga moving in winter. It is moving, yet it does not appear to be moving at all. Calm and quiet, leisurely and majestically, royally, the Ganga moves during the winter season. But see the Ganga during the month of July and August; that is the Mahabharata. Great things are coming; huge waves dash over one another. A cataclysm of thoughts, an avalanche of ideas descend on your head when you read the Mahabharata, and you are stirred into a spirit of intense activity and doing something in some way or the other for some purpose. This spirit is instilled in you by the Mahabharata of Vyasa, whereas when you read the Ramayana you are calm, quiet, subdued, and feel sober and restful. Militant language is used in the Sanskrit of the Mahabharata. Virile poetry is the Mahabharata, whereas the Ramayana may be said to be a feminine type of poetry, calm, quiet, sober, leisurely, not roughly yelling out. Rough and rue poetry is sometimes seen in the Mahabharata, whereas calm and quiet, beautiful poetry is in the Ramayana.

I shall tell you something about the origin of the Ramayana epic and the Mahabharata epic as a kind of interesting information which you will be happy to know.

Sage Valmiki was walking in the woods, and he saw a hunter shooting a bird, a male bird which was with its consort on a tree. The male and female birds were krouncha and krounchi, a variety of birds. The couple were on a tree, and the hunter shot an arrow at the male bird. The poet, Sage Valmiki, was looking at it, feeling grieved and struck to the quick. He uttered an imprecation, cursing the hunter, and this Sanskrit verse is the beginning of the Ramayana. Mā niṣāda pratiṣṭhāṁ tvamagamaḥ śāśvatīḥ samāḥ, yat krauñcamithunādekam avadhīḥ kāmamohitam: “Wretched man! Eagerly, affectionately the couple were seated on the tree; the lover and the beloved were sitting with great joy inwardly. Cruelly you struck one of them. Therefore, I utter this word: May you not live long. May also you die as you made the poor bird die.”

Brahma, the Creator, upon hearing these words of the great Sage Valmiki, immediately came down and said, “In this series of words that you have uttered, you have glorified Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu. I ask you to write the whole story of Rama.”

The sage was stunned. “When did I utter words in praise of Rama? I cursed the hunter; that's all I said. I never took the name of Rama, I don't know anything about Vishnu's incarnation, and I was not in a mood to glorify anyone. I was, rather, in a mood to curse.”

“No, it is not so. You thought it is a curse but actually, inadvertently, you uttered not merely prose, you spoke poetry,” said Brahma.

“Poetry? I uttered poetry in cursing?” replied Valmiki.

It is said that this is the first verse of a type of a poem in Sanskrit, and so Valmiki is called the original Sanskrit poet of India.

Now, if you want to know how a curse could be construed as a prayer or a glorification of God in the words of this verse, you must know something of Sanskrit; otherwise, my attempt to explain this intricacy is a waste of time because it is a grammatical peculiarity, due to which a curse has become a blessing and a prayer. There is a grammatical peculiarity in the words of the verse which suddenly converts the curse, internally, into a prayer to God Almighty, especially in the form of Rama. This is about the origin of the Ramayana, and on the order received from Brahma, the Creator, Valmiki wrote the epic during the time of Rama himself, not after the passing away of Rama. Valmiki was a contemporary of Rama, and as events took place, he wrote. Some people say that Valmiki wrote the Ramayana even before the events took place on account of his omniscience. So this is the beginning of the Ramayana in Sanskrit poetry.

How did the Mahabharata start? Vyasa Krishna Dvaipayana, as he is called, one of the Avataras of Vishnu, wrote the Mahabharata. He prayed to Brahma: “I require a clerical assistant to take down the verses of the great epic that I am thinking of in my mind. Can you suggest somebody?”

“Why, no problem; Ganesha is there,” Brahma replied. “Ganesha will be your clerk. He will take down whatever you say. Let the epic, the Mahabharata, come. I bless you with success.”

Then Brahma requested Ganesha, “You please help Vyasa. He will dictate, and you take it down.”

Ganesha came and sat before the great Vyasa and said, “I shall do your work, but on the condition that my pen should not stop. If you start thinking in the middle, scratching your head and making me wait for the next word that you speak, I will get up and go away from this place. So you must speak continuously so that my pen should not stop. On that condition I will do this work of writing.”

Vyasa thought, “This is a very great condition you are putting on me.” So he thought of a peculiar tactic which would put Ganesha to a little difficulty. So Vyasa said, “I also put one condition, that without understanding what I say, you should not write.”

Then purposely, to make Ganesha think a little while as to what Vyasa is saying, here and there he put such hard-nut verses that it is not easy to make out their meaning. If Ganesha, the Lord of Wisdom, requires time to think of the meaning of some of the verses, you can imagine what they could be. In the whole of the Mahabharata, one hundred thousand verses, there are eight thousand verses of this kind. They are called knots of Vyasa, eight thousand, and when he uttered those words, Ganesha would think about them. By that time Vyasa would go to the next verse. This is an interesting relationship between the wondrous Vyasa and the more wonderful Ganesha.

The Mahabharata was written by Vyasa as the story of the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and the Ramayana was written by Valmiki as the story of Rama on the one hand and Ravana on the other hand. A great wonder is this set of epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata; and if you want to read a shortened form, or an abridged form of these great epics, you can read the beautiful English rendering of them by Sri Rajagopalachari. Sri Rajagopalachari's rendering of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, and he brings the true spirit of the whole of each epic, though in a very abridged form, about two hundred and fifty pages each. You will know what these great epics are. Rajagopalachari thought our modern youth do not know what the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are. They have not even heard the names of these epics. Knowing that even modern youth who are so-called educated are not acquainted with even the basic knowledge of the epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Rajagopalachari took them up. He originally wrote them in Tamil, and then he put them into English. So you can read these two books, Rajagopalachari's rendering of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. I am not asking you to read bigger volumes as they are very confusing, so these two are good enough. Here we close with this brief consideration.