Sanatani
Opening your Sanatani workspace
Skandha 5, adhyayas 9-13 · Saptah day 3
Reborn as a silent brahmana who plays the fool, Bharata is forced to carry a king's palanquin — and shatters the king's pride.
Continuing his narration to King Parikshit on the bank of the Ganga, the sage Shukadeva Goswami recounts the third and final birth of **Emperor Bharata** (`5.9–13`). Having given up his kingdom for the forest of Pulahashrama in his first life, fallen into attachment to a motherless fawn, and lived out his second birth in the body of a remorseful deer on the Gandaki river, Bharata was born a third time as the youngest son of an elderly, self-controlled **brahmana of the Angiras lineage** (`Angirasa-pravara`, `5.9.1–2`).
That brahmana had nine sons by his first wife—all well-versed in Vedic ritual, virtue, austerity, and learning—and by his second wife (`shamya`) a pair of twins: a boy (Bharata) and a girl (`5.9.2`). Because by the grace of the Lord Bharata still remembered his previous births in full detail (`5.9.3`), he dreaded any praise, honor, or family affection that might trap his mind a second time. To guard his inner absorption until the end of his karma, he resolved to play the **fool**—acting deaf, mute, dull, and half-mad (`jada-unmatta-badhira-muka`), which earned him the name **Jada Bharata** (`5.9.3`). Across these five chapters, his silent disguise is tested first by his father and stepbrothers, next at the blood-altar of the dacoits' goddess **Bhadrakali** (`5.9`), and finally under the palanquin pole of **King Rahugana** of Sindhu and Sauvira (`5.10–13`).
Seeing his youngest son acting slow and simple-minded, the affectionate brahmana father set his heart on educating the boy (`5.9.4–5`). Investing him with the sacred thread (`upanayana`), he spent years trying to teach him the rules of purity (`shaucha`), sipping water (`achamana`), service to the guru, and the three-footed Vedic `Gayatri` (`Savitri`) mantra (`5.9.5`). Yet because Bharata deliberately pronounced every syllable crookedly (`na samyag jagraha`), the father's fond wish remained unfulfilled when Death took him away after the rainy season (`5.9.5–6`).
His younger mother entrusted her twins to the first wife and followed her husband to the next world (`5.9.7`). The nine elder stepbrothers—who knew only the literal ritualism of the three Vedas (`trayi-vidya`) and knew nothing of the inner science of the Supreme Brahman (`para-avara-tattva-avijnanah`)—gave up all effort to teach their "dull" younger brother (`5.9.7`). Unaware of his spiritual greatness, they put him to manual labor like an ox (`5.9.8–11`).
Whatever anyone ordered him to do—whether someone grabbed him by the arm or paid him only a mouthful of food—Jada Bharata did it without the slightest resistance (`5.9.8–10`): guarding the rice fields against deer and birds, leveling rough ground (`vishama-samikarana`), carrying heavy loads. His body remained stout and strong like a solid gem (`samhata-kayah`), though unwashed, smeared with dirt, and wrapped strictly in a dirty rag (`ku-chela`) with a soiled sacred thread across his chest (`5.9.9–10`). When his brothers mocked him as a "brahmana in name only" (`brahmana-bandhu`), he paid no heed; whatever they tossed into his bowl—stale rice husks (`kana`), sour gruel (`pinya`), worm-eaten beans (`ghuna-jagdha-kulattha`), or scorched pot-scrapings (`thali-purisha`)—he chewed as if it were celestial nectar (`amritavad`), completely free of desire or complaint (`5.9.11`).
One night, while Jada Bharata sat on a raised platform (`mrigapitha`) guarding the fields against deer and wild boars, a chieftain of Shudra dacoits (`vrishala-pati`) was preparing a human sacrifice (`purusha-pashu`) to propitiate **Goddess Bhadrakali** so that he might obtain a son (`5.9.12`). The prisoner originally bound for the altar broke free and escaped in the dark (`5.9.13`). Searching desperately through the midnight frost (`nihara`) for their runaway victim, the dacoit guards spotted the sturdy, heavy-limbed brahmana youth sitting alone on the watch-platform (`5.9.14`).
Rejoicing that this "defective beast" (`khala-pashu`) would serve their master's purpose, they bound Jada Bharata with ropes and led him to the temple of the goddess (`5.9.15`). Following their dark tantric rites (`sva-vidhina`), the thieves bathed him, dressed him in new clothes, decked him with ornaments, perfumes, garlands, and a protective vermilion mark (`tilaka`), fed him a sumptuous meal, and seated him with bowed head right before the image of Bhadrakali amid blazing lamps, incense, grain, fruits, conches, and thunderous kettle-drums (`5.9.16`).
Then the dacoit priest seized a terrifying, razor-sharp sword consecrated with mantras and raised it with both hands to sever Jada Bharata's neck and offer his warm blood-liquor (`asrig-asava`) to Bhadrakali (`5.9.17`).
Bharata neither flinched nor spoke. But Goddess Bhadrakali herself—whose body flashed with unbearable heat at the wicked arrogance of these cruel criminals (`vrishalanam`) daring to raise a blade against an embodied form of the Supreme Brahman (`brahma-bhutam`), a fearless son of an Angirasa rishi who harbored hostility toward no creature in the universe—could not endure the outrage (`5.9.18`). Instantly, **Bhadrakali burst right out of her stone idol (`archam vidarya`)** with wide-flaring nostrils, bulging eyes, fanged laughter, and blazing face (`5.9.18`)! Seizing the very sword they had consecrated, she sliced off the heads of all those wicked dacoits on the spot (`shiramsi achchhinat`), drank the hot blood gushing from their severed necks along with her retinue of fierce spirits, and danced in drunken fury while her attendants tossed the robbers' heads back and forth like playground balls (`kanduka-lilaya`, `5.9.18`)!
When a mortal commits treachery against great souls (`mahat-atikrama`), Shukadeva remarks (`5.9.19`), the deadly noose of his own transgression recoils upon him without fail. And for souls like Jada Bharata—who have cut the knot of the heart (`hridaya-granthi`), who see the benign Lord (`Suhrid-atman`) in every creature, and who stand untouched by fear or hostility—not only does the Lord protect them directly with His Sudarshana wheel, even the forms of Death and Kali bow to guard them (`5.9.20`).
Some time later (`5.10.1`), **King Rahugana**, ruler of the Sindhu and Sauvira kingdoms, was traveling in a royal palanquin (`shibika`) on his way to seek spiritual instruction from Sage Kapila. When his procession reached the bank of the **Ikshumati** river, the chief of his palanquin bearers (`ikshu-gandhi-adhyaksha`) needed an extra man to balance the team (`5.10.1`). Looking around, the head bearer spotted Jada Bharata standing nearby—young, stout, with limbs strong as an ox or mule (`go-khara-vad`)—and forced him under the palanquin pole alongside the other bearers (`5.10.2`).
Though the great soul did not deserve such treatment, he lifted the pole in silence to exhaust the final trace of his prarabdha karma (`5.10.3`). Yet as he walked, Jada Bharata kept his eyes fixed on the ground **one arrow's length ahead** (`ishu-matra-avaloki`) so that his feet would not crush the tiny ants and worms crawling on the path (`5.10.4`). Because he paused or stepped aside whenever he saw a living creature, his pace failed to match the other three bearers, and the royal palanquin lurched up and down (`vishamam agat`).
Jolted inside the cabin, King Rahugana yelled at his bearers (`5.10.4`): "Hey bearers! Walk evenly (`sadhu atikramata`)! Why are you carrying this palanquin so unevenly?" Terrified of the king's wrath, the other three bearers answered (`5.10.5`): "O Lord, it is not we who are slacking off—we are marching strictly by rule! It is this newly recruited fourth man (`adhuna eva niyukta`) who will not keep pace with us, and we cannot walk smoothly with him!"
Hearing that a single bearer was causing the trouble—and failing to recognize that a hidden fire of Brahma-knowledge stood beneath the pole covered like embers under ashes (`bhasma-achchhadita-agni`)—King Rahugana spoke with biting, royal sarcasm (`5.10.6–7`):
**"Alas, my poor brother (`aho kashtam bhratah`)! Clearly you are completely exhausted! All by yourself you have carried this palanquin for such a long distance and such a long time! Look at you—your limbs are not the least bit stout or sturdy (`natidridhani`), and old age (`jara`), my friend, has miserably worn you out while these other three coworkers give you no help at all (`5.10.6`)!**
Though pierced by that sarcastic mockery (`5.10.7`), the knower of Brahman—who had dropped all identification with the bodily elements and the false ego of being a warrior or ruler—simply smiled gently without a ripple of pride and **spoke for the very first time in that lifetime** (`5.10.8–13`):
"What you have said by way of reproach (`tvaya abhihitam`), O Hero, is no mockery at all—it is literally true (`vyaktam`), if only it applied to me (`5.10.9`)! Indeed, every burden has a body that bears it (`bharasya deha`), and every journey has a traveler's body (`adhvano 'pi`); **being fat (`sthaulyam`) and being thin (`karshyam`), mental anxiety and bodily disease, hunger, thirst, fear, quarrel, desire, sleep, love, anger, pride, and exhaustion belong only to the earthen cage formed after birth—never to me, the living Self (`na me`, `5.10.9–10`)!**
"As for being alive or dead (`jivan-mritvam`), O King, that rule applies evenly to everything that undergoes change with a beginning and an end (`adi-antavatsu`, `5.10.11`). Where there appears to be a master (`svami`) and a servant (`bhritya`), only passing worldly convention (`vyavahara`) gives rise to the distinction (`5.10.12`). Tell me, O Prince, apart from conventional usage, what fixed difference exists between a king and a bearer when **in truth one sees only the one pure Consciousness (`tattvena-atmana`)?** And even if you believed yourself the master, what will you achieve by threatening to punish (`shasana`) a man who acts like a deaf, mad fool? **That would be like grinding flour that has already been ground (`pishta-peshana`, `5.10.13`)!**"
Having uttered those words, the silent muni calmly lifted the palanquin pole back onto his shoulder and resumed walking (`5.10.14`).
But King Rahugana, whose heart was deeply pious and eager for truth, was struck as if by lightning (`5.10.15`). Recognizing that these words carried the unmistakable imprint of the Upanishads (`brahma-maya-girah`) and cut straight through the knot of the heart, the king **leaped right down from his palanquin** and fell flat on the ground with his head at Jada Bharata's feet (`shirasa pada-mule nipatya`, `5.10.15`).
"Who are you, O Brahmana, roaming in hidden disguise wearing this sacred thread (`5.10.16–25`)? Are you **Dattatreya** or another of the great `avadhutas`, or are you **Lord Kapila** Himself, whom I was traveling to meet (`5.10.16`)? I am not afraid of Indra's thunderbolt, nor of Shiva's trident, nor of Yama's rod, nor of fire, sun, moon, wind, or Varuna's weapons—**what terrifies me to the core is insulting the family of a brahmana (`brahma-kulapamanat`, `5.10.17`)!** Look upon me with mercy, O Master of Yoga, so that I may burn away the sin of offending a great soul (`sadhu-avajnana-bava-apaha`), and explain your mysterious words: how can what happens to the body not touch the soul, when rice boiled in a pot with water over fire gets cooked along with the pot (`5.10.19–25`)?"
Across chapters 11 and 12 (`5.11–12`), Jada Bharata answered King Rahugana with radiant clarity. First (`5.10.20–21`; `5.12.5–10`), your example of cooking rice in a pot proves my exact point: when a clay pot is placed on a stove (`adhisrayana`), fire heats the pot, the pot heats the water inside, and the water cooks the rice grains through sequential contact (`samsarga`); in the same way, the physical body, senses, life-air, and mind undergo fatigue and change because they are made of material gunas, whereas the pure Atman (`Purusha`) has no material contact (`asanga`) and remains the unblemished witness (`5.11.1–17`). It is the unbridled **mind** (`manah`), saturated with impressions (`vasana`) and rotating like an oil-press ox (`go-valam`), that binds the soul to samsara when attached to sense objects and liberates the soul when turned toward Mukunda (`5.11.4–17`). Look at your own title of "King" and my title of "Palanquin Bearer" (`5.12.5–11`): palanquin is just wooden planks fashioned from a tree; the tree is just transformations of earth; and earth itself, broken down into atoms (`paramanu`), is merely an imagination (`kalpana`) superimposed by the mind upon the one undivided **Vasudeva**, the sole reality of all causes and effects (`5.12.8–11`).
Then Jada Bharata proclaimed the golden verse of the fifth book (`5.12.12`): **"O Rahugana! This supreme truth of the Self can never be attained through severe austerity (`tapasa`), nor through Vedic sacrifices (`ijyaya`), nor through distributing charity (`nirvapanat`), nor through hospitable household duties (`grihad`), nor through Vedic study (`chhandasa`), nor through worshipping water, fire, and the sun (`jala-agni-suryaih`)—WITHOUT bathing one's head in the dust of the lotus feet of the great devotees (`vina mahat-pada-rajo-'bhishekam`)! For where the great devotees gather, there alone are the pure glories of Lord Uttamashloka sung (`5.12.12–13`)!"**
"Listen, O King (`5.12.14–16`): in my first birth I was **Emperor Bharata**, who gave up everything for Lord Hari and yet became a deer (`mrigah`) because of fond attachment to a single fawn! Remembering that fall by Krishna's grace in this brahmana birth, I walk unseen and silent, terrified of worldly company!"
Finally, in chapter 13 (`5.13.1–26`), Jada Bharata painted for the king the famous allegory of the **Forest of Material Existence (`Bhava-atavi`)**. Into this perilous wilderness wanders a **caravan of merchants** (souls seeking sense pleasure), only to be ambushed by **six ruthless bandits** (the five senses and the mind) who plunder their hard-earned wealth (`artha`, `5.13.2–3`). Inside the dark thickets, **ferocious jackals and wolves** (grasping wife and children) snatch away the traveler's goods like lambs (`5.13.3–4`), while swarms of **mosquitoes and gnats** (petty, thieving relatives and rivals) suck his blood and disturb his sleep (`5.13.5`). Blinded by the dust of passion, he chases **gleaming mirages** (houses and gold, `5.13.6`), mistakes **fireflies** (heretical teachers) for real lamps (`5.13.7`), climbs into thorny **creeper-vines** (women's embraces) listening to chirping baby birds (`5.13.9–13`), falls into blind wells (`5.13.14`), and steals **forest honey** (stolen pleasures) while rivals strip each other bare (`5.13.15–20`).
"Giving up that treacherous path, O Rahugana," Jada Bharata concluded (`5.13.20–22`), "lay down the rod of violence (`nyasta-dandah`), become the gentle friend of all beings (`bhuta-priyah`), take up the sharp sword of knowledge forged by service to Lord Hari's lotus feet, and cross clean out of this wilderness!" Hearing that ocean of wisdom from the man he had once mocked as a tired bearer, King Rahugana wept in gratitude, bowed at Jada Bharata's feet, shed his royal conceit (`rajya-garva`), and walked away awakened (`5.13.23–26`).
Opening your Sanatani workspace