Chapter 12 - Inquiry into the Right Conduct

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

[Full title: Inquiry into the Right Conduct (Duties of Brahmacārins and Vānaprasthas)]

Nārada continued:

1. A Brahmacārin should dwell in the house of his preceptor. He should be self-controlled and comply with what is agreeable to the preceptor. He should behave humbly like a servant, and entertain very strong affection to his teacher.

2. In the morning and in the evening, he should wait upon the preceptor and worship the Fire-god, the Sun-god and other prominent deities. Observing perfect silence at both the twilights (and in the mid-day), he should repeat the Gāyatrī mantra with concentrated mind (while performing Sandhyā).

3. If (and when) called by his preceptor, he should study the Vedas (at his feet) with a perfect concentration and disciplined manner. He should bow down to his (teacher’s) feet with his head, both at the beginning and the completion of the lesson.

4. With his hair braided, he should wear a mekhalā (a girdle of muñja grass), the deer-skin and (two pieces of) cloth, the sacred thread (yajñopavīta) and carry with him a staff and a kamaṇḍalu (water-pot of gourd) and a handful of darbha grass as prescribed (in the Śāstras^[1]).

5. He should beg alms both in the morning and in the evening, and offer it to his teacher. If permitted, he should partake of the food, if not (as a test or a punishment or as occasionally required on days of observing fast), he should fast.

6. He should be of a good character, moderate in eating, alert and prompt (in work), of reverential faith in Śāstras and self-controlled. It is only when absolutely necessary and to that much extent only (e.g. getting alms) that he should deal with women or with those who are influenced (lit. enslaved) by women.

7. A person other than a householder, who has taken the great vow of celibacy, should avoid all talk with young women. For the senses are (by nature) so powerful and violent that they carry away the mind of even a recluse (Yati who is expected to be perfectly self-controlled).

8. A youthful Brahmacārin (student) should not allow a personal service, e.g. combing his hair, massaging, bathing and anointing his person, done by women from his teacher’s family, especially if they are young.

9. For verily a young woman is (like) a fire and a man like pot containing clarified butter. One should avoid (the company of) one’s daughter in a secluded place, and at other times he should remain with her so long as the work or duty demands it (even in public places).

10.^[2] So long as by self-realization one has not firmly determined that his body, senses or the universe etc. are illusory and the jīva has not attained perfect mastery over himself by identifying himself with the Supreme Lord, the notion of duality (between a man and woman) will continue to persist (provoking thereby the desire to enjoy) through false attribution of guṇas.

11. All these (instructions contained from verses 6 to 10) are laid down for the householder, and much more so, even in the case of Saṃnyāsin (a recluse). A householder who is expected to be with his wife at particular period of time, may optionally stay with his preceptor.

12. Those who have taken the vow of Brahmcarya [Brahmcharya] (celibacy) should avoid the use of collyrium, unguents, massage of the body, dealings with women, painting or viewing pictures of women, meat, spirituous liquor (in the case of those who are permitted to drink, honey in the case of Brāhmaṇas), garlands, sandal pigment and ornaments.

13. In this way, having stayed in the preceptor’s house, a dvija (a twice-born-Arya) should study and understand to the best of his ability and to the extent of his requirements, the meaning of three Vedas (Ṛk, Sāman and Yajus), along with their (six) auxiliaries^[3] and the Upaniṣads (Vedānta, philosophical treatises).

14. Having presented, if at all he can afford to do so, with what is desired by his preceptor (as “fee for the course”) and having obtained his permission, he (the student) should enter the householder’s life, or retire to the forest (for performing penance etc.), or renounce the world to wander as a Yati (recluse), or stay with his preceptor (as a lifelong Brahmacārin).

15. He should look upon (conceive) Lord Viṣṇu as if having entered into the fire, the preceptor, himself and the elements (e.g. the earth, the fire) together with all creatures sheltered in Him; for He is their Inner Controller, even though the Lord (having already pervaded these from within and without) does not actually enter.

16. A person belonging to the order of Brahmacharya, Vānaprastha (an anchorite), a saṃnyāsin (a recluse) or a householder who contemplates thus (the omnipresence of the Lord), and follows the course of duties ordained for his particular āśrama (stage of life), realizes what is required to be known, and attains to the Supreme Brahman.

17. I shall now explain to you the code of conduct approved by the sages and prescribed for Vānaprasthas (anchorites), by observing which, a sage easily attains Maharloka, the heaven of sages.

18. An anchorite should not eat the product of cultivation (e.g. rice, wheat) or anything (like fruits, roots etc.), which though not a product of tillage, ripened before time. He should not partake of food cooked on fire. He should subsist on what is ripe or cooked by rays of the Sun.

19. He should prepare caru^[4] and puroḍāśa^[5] of corn wild growth (Nīvāra) and of a permanent nature. When he procures new and fresh eatables, he should reject the old ones (stored by him).

20. It is just for the preservation of the (sacred) fire that he should take shelter in a house or cottage or a cave in mountains. He himself should bear exposure to snow, wind, fire, rain and heat of the Sun.

21-22. The anchorite with matted hair (on the head) should wear (without shaving) the hair on his body, moustaches, beard and nails and dirt (not properly washed). He should take with him kamaṇḍalu (a pot of water), deer-skin, staff, bark-garments and utensils of fire worship. The sage should thus wander in the forest for twelve, eight, four, two or one year, i.e. to that length of time which the mind does not get perverted through the (severity of) austerities.

23. If (after the period of stay in the forest) he finds that, owing to ill health (diseases) or old age, he is incapable of pursuing his courses of duties (as a Vānaprastha) or prosecuting his studies in philosophy, he should adopt the vow of fasting etc. (If he is capable, he should become a saṃnyāsin—a recluse).

24. (Before beginning the fast) he should withdraw and deposit the sacred fires (e.g. āhavanīya and others) within his Self. He should renounce the notions of ‘I’ and ‘Mine’, and should merge the constituents of his body in their own causes (viz. the sky, the air and other three elements).

25. A self-controlled man should merge the cavities in his body (e.g. eyes, ears, nostrils) into the sky (the element—the mahābhūta called ākāśa), his exhalations (vital-breaths) into the air, the temperature of his body into the fire, (fluids like) blood, phlegm and pus into the water and the rest (hard substances like bones, muscles etc.) into the earth—thus assigning them each to its respective origin. (Thus he should merge his gross body).

26. He should consign his speech along with the organ of speech to the Fire, even his hands and handicraft to Indra, his feet along with (the power of) locomotion to Viṣṇu, the organ of pleasure (along with the power of procreation) to Prajāpati (deity presiding over procreation).

27. (He should merge) the organ of defecation and act of excretion in Mṛtyu (the god of death) directing these organs to their proper places (viz. the deities presiding over those particular organs); his auditory sense along with (its object), sound into (deities presiding over) cardinal points; and his tactual organ along with its tactility to the ātman or wind-god).

28. Oh King, he should deposit his eyes (eye-sight) and the colours and forms (the objects of the eye) with the Sun-god, the tongue or its objects of taste such as sweet, bitter etc. in water (or god Varuṇa), and the olifactory sense along with its objects i.e. various smells, with the Earth.

29. He should merge his mind along with its desires and objects in the Moon-god, the intelligence and the objects to be grasped by it in the highest god Brahmā. He should consign actions with self-consciousness to god Rudra through whose instrumentality the activities actuated by the notions of ‘I-ness’ and ‘Mine-ness’ proceed. He should merge his chitta (reason, heart) along with Sattva in Kṣetrajña (Hiraṇya- garbha) and Vaikārika ahaṃkāra along with guṇas in the Supreme Brahman).

30. He should then dissolve the earth into water, absorb water into fire, fire into the air and the air into the ether. The ether or Ākāśa is to be merged into the principle called ego (aham), and that into Mahat (the principle of cosmic Intelligence), and that into the unmanifested Prakṛti and that unmanifest Pradhāna into Paramātman (the Supreme Soul).

31. Having thus realized the Soul as identical with Para- mātman, and nothing but indestructible consciousness and becoming free from the notion of duality^[6], he should cease to function like fire that has consumed its own source (fuel).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

According to Śāstras, a Brāmaṇa pupil should carry a staff of Palāśa tree, a Kṣattriya of a Bilva tree and a Vaiśya of the Audumbara (Indian fig) tree.

[2]:

Bhāgavata Candrikā (ii): (So long as Īśvara keeps this body (which is the illusion of the Soul) capable of doing work, the notion of duality (viz. one is a god or a man or a Brāhmaṇa) is found to persist and leads to illusions, he should not give up the duties laid down in Śāstras.

Or

(ii) Even though one realizes that his Self is distinct from his body, he, so long as he persists to live in his body, should not give up the duties prescribed for him in the Śāstras so long as he is able to discharge them.

Padaratnāvalī states that the world is real and so long as God keeps the jīva in a worldly knowledge which is unreal and not true, the perverse notions shall persist and bondage of the world due to ignorance shall continue.

VC.: What danger is there to self-controlled man who has abandoned the company of relatives? (The reply:) Even though one has renounced worldly objects, so long as one has not completely wiped out one’s affinity to them from the mind, the notion of duality shall not cease to persist.

Bālaprabodhini: Even though a man is an aṃśa (a part) of the blissful Lord, he experiences the contrarity viz. miseries of hell etc.

Bhaktamanorañjanī: So long as the notion oṛ duality persists one should not give up the duties laid down in the Śāstras.

[3]:

These are intended as aids for the correct pronunciation, and interpretation of the Vedic texts and the correct applications of the Mantras in the religious rites. The aṅgas are six innumber, viz. 1. Śikṣā—‘Phonetics, the science of proper articulation and pronunciation, 2. Kalpa (application) ritual or ceremonial, 3. Vyākaraṇa ‘Grammar’ 4. Nirukta ‘Etymological explanation of difficult Vedic words’. 5. Chandas—‘Science of prosody’, 6. Jyotiṣa—astronomy.

[4]:

caru—An oblation of rice, barley and pulse boiled for presentation to the gods and the manis. ASD.. p. 204.

[5]:

puroḍāśa— Boiled rice rounded into a cake and usually divided into parts which are kept in separate receptacles for offering to different deities.

[6]:

advaya—with the faith that there is no independent absolute thing other than Hari.