Who they are

Sukesha Bharadvaja is the first name the Prashna Upanishad gives when it lists the six seekers who come to the sage Pippalada, and he is the last of the six to ask. That arrangement frames the whole Upanishad. He stands at its door, then waits through five other questions — on the origin of creatures, the powers of the body, the life-breath, sleep and dream, and the syllable Om — before he puts his own. His is the question the book ends on.

His name places him in the line of the Bharadvajas, one of the old priestly families of the Veda. Beyond that, the text gives him one thing none of the other five has: a story of his own, which he tells about himself. It is a story of failure, and he tells it plainly. A prince of Kosala, Hiranyanabha, once asked him whether he knew the person of sixteen parts. Sukesha told him he did not. If he knew, he said, he would surely tell; but one who speaks untruth withers to the root, and so he would not speak it. The prince left in silence. Sukesha brings that unanswered question to Pippalada.

The weight of the episode lies in what he could have done. A Brahmin before a prince, asked a question in his own field, had every reason to say something. Reputation was at stake, and perhaps patronage, though the text does not say so. He chose not to bluff. The image he uses is a plant drying from its root. A lie, on this picture, is not a stain on the surface of a person but damage at the source of his life. An honest "I do not know" leaves the root alive, and with it the possibility of growth.

He also did not let the question go. The prince drove off without another word, and Sukesha could have counted the matter closed. Instead he carried it. He came with the others to Pippalada with fuel in his hands, lived the year of discipline the sage asked of them, and waited for his turn. His admission of ignorance was not the end of his seeking but its beginning. He is the Upanishads' clearest portrait of a learned man who knows the edge of his learning and keeps walking towards it.

The answer he receives fits the man who asked. Pippalada tells him that the person he seeks is not far off but here, within the body, and that in him the sixteen parts arise. As rivers flowing to the sea lose their names and forms when they reach it, the parts come to rest in the person and he stands without parts, beyond death. The question Sukesha could not answer for a prince turns out to point to the questioner himself. It is fitting that the one who refused to pretend is the one through whom the Upanishad reaches its last word.

Key dialogues

• Six Seekers with Fuel in Hand
• Sleep, Om, and the Person of Sixteen Parts

Questions to explore

• Why does Sukesha say that one who speaks untruth withers to the root?
• What makes an honest 'I do not know' the beginning of seeking rather than its end?