Chapter 53 - Rules of Conduct for a Celibate Student

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Vyāsa said:

1-22. Thus endowed with a staff etc. and with purity and (proper) conduct, when called he should study looking at the face of the preceptor. He should always have his hands raised (i.e. should be ready), and should be well-controlled having good conduct. When told by the teacher ‘sit down’, he should sit facing him. He should not lie, so also should be seated or be eating food, while listening to or talking (with his preceptor). So also he should not remain with his face turned away (from his preceptor). His bed or seat should always be near his teacher (but) downwards (i.e. at a low level). When within the range of the preceptor's sight, he should not sit on a seat as he likes. Even in the absence of his preceptor he should not utter his name. He should not imitate his gait, speech or movement. He should cover his ears, or go to another place from the place where the preceptor is being censured or blamed. Remaining away (i.e. from a distance) he should not honour him, so also when angry he should not honour him, nor when he is near a woman. Being seated he should not give a reply to him; nor should he sit near him. He should always bring for him a jar with water (in it), kuśas, flowers and sacrificial sticks. He should cleanse his body and apply unguents to it. He should never cross over the remains of (flowers etc. used by) him, his bed, wooden sandals or shoes, so also his seat or shadow. He should secure pieces of wood used as a toothbrush etc. and report to him whatever is obtained by him. Without asking him (i.e. his permission) he should not go anywhere, and should be devoted to his well-being and what is liked by him. In the presence of the preceptor he should always avoid yawning, laughing, covering his neck or cracking (the limbs of) his body. He should study at the proper time, when the preceptor is not depressed. He should sit on a seat lower than that of the preceptor or by his side, and with concentration (offer him) service. He should never remain (i.e. sit) on his seat or bed. He should run after the preceptor when he is running; should go (i.e. walk) after when he is going. On kuśa seats or on a bull, a horse or a camel, so also on a slab or a plank or (while travelling) in boats, he should sit with (i.e. by) the preceptor. He should always control his senses, should control his mind, should be free from anger and pure. He should always use sweet and wholesome words. He should carefully avoid perfumes, flowers, drinks, (other) preparations, pearls, or harm to creatures, so also rubbing his body with unctuous substances, applying pigment to his body, or rubbing it, so also holding (i.e. using) an umbrella. (He should avoid) lust, greed, fear, sleep, singing or playing upon musical instruments, dancing, threatening, abuse, looking at or securing a woman, assaulting another person or wickedness. He should fetch a jar full of water, flowers, cowdung, clay, kuśas (for his preceptor). Everyday he should bring food and alms. Ghee, salt and all that is stale should be avoided. He should never witness dances, and should not long for (listening to) songs. He should not look at the sun, nor should he clean his teeth. Remaining in a lonely place with women is impure, so also talking with śūdras etc. He should not voluntarily take medicine or food left by his preceptor, so also should not excrete or bathe at his will.

23-34. He should never think of leaving his preceptor. If he leaves him through infatuation or greed, he would fall. He should never have malice against him from whom he would get worldly, Vedic or metaphysical knowledge. Manu has said that a preceptor, even though he is arrogant, he does not know what ought and what ought not to be done, he has gone astray, should not be abandoned. A man should behave towards his preceptor’s preceptor as he behaves with his own preceptor. Having saluted and being allowed by the preceptor, he should salute his preceptors. Thus he should behave with his preceptor who gives him knowledge; so also with meditating saints, who prohibit him from unrighteous acts and who advise what is beneficial to him. It is excellent for him always to behave in the same way as he behaves with his preceptor, with the preceptor’s sons, wife and kinsmen. A wise man should honour respectable persons (even though they are) young. The son of a teacher who teaches deserves respect like the teacher. He should not clean the limbs of the teacher’s son, should not bathe him, should not eat what is left by him, so also should not wash his feet. The preceptor’s wife belonging to the same caste, should be honoured like the preceptor. The one not belonging to the same caste should be honoured by getting up (when she comes) and saluting her. He should not apply unguents to the body of the preceptor’s wife, or give her bath, or clean the limbs of her body; so also he should not dress her hair. The young wife of the preceptor is not to be saluted by touching her feet. He should salute her (by putting his hands) on the ground, saying, ‘I am so and so’.

35-39. Remembering the course of conduct of the good, he should honour his mother’s sister, his maternal uncle’s wife, his mother-in-law, his father’s sister as (he would honour) his preceptor's wife. They are like his preceptor’s wife to him. Everyday he should also kindly receive his brother’s wife of the same caste. Women related to him through caste should be honoured by staying away from them. He should behave as he behaves with his mother, towards his father’s sister, mother’s sister, and his elder sister. (Yet) the mother is superior to them. A preceptor should teach the Vedas to a disciple who is thus endowed with good conduct, who is prudent and not deceitful; so also he should everyday teach him religious texts, Purāṇas and Vedāṅgas. A preceptor who does not teach the disciple who has stayed with him for a year, takes the sin of the disciple living with him.

40-44. These ten should be taught (by the preceptor) according to the rule: the son of his preceptor, one who serves him, one who gives him (some other) knowledge, one who is righteous, one who is pure, one who is capable, one who gives him food, one who gives him water and one who is good. These six of the brāhmaṇa-caste, viz. one who has learnt (the Vedas) by heart, one who is not deceitful, one who is very intelligent, one who takes to his teacher, one who is trustworthy, and dear should be taught according to the rule. To these and other brāhmaṇas gifts should be given duly. Having sipped water and being restrained, he should, facing the north, study. Having seized the feet of (i.e. having saluted) the preceptor and looking at his face, he should say: ‘O (sir, please) teach me.’ He should stop when (the teacher says:) ‘Let there be a stop (now).’ Purifying himself and having the points (of the kuśas) turned towards the east, he should, with blades of kuśa grass, wait upon (a deity etc.). Purified by the three (kinds of) prāṇāyāma, he deserves (to pronounce) Oṃkāra.

45-49. O brāhmaṇas, at the beginning and the end (of a rite) a brāhmaṇa should duly honour Oṃkāra. Having first offered respectful offering with the palms of his hands joined, he should undertake instruction daily. The ancient Veda is the eye of all creatures. He should study it daily. Otherwise he loses his status as a brāhmaṇa. He should study the hymns from the Ṛgvda [Ṛgveda?]. He (thereby) offers an oblation of milk. When he offers oblations of desired objects to the deities, he pleases them along with gods. (If) he always studies the yajus-formulae, he pleases the deities with (an offering of) curd. (If) he studies sāmans everyday, he pleases the deities with (an offering of) ghee. If he studies (hymns from) the Atharvāṅgirasa (Veda) daily, he pleases the deities with honey. (If he studies) the Purāṇas, religious texts, he pleases the gods with the flesh (-like parts of fruits).

50-58. Resorting to the daily rites in the morning and the evening, after being controlled, he should, being calm, go to a forest and properly study (the) Gāyatrī (hymn). He should daily mutter the Gāyatrī (hymn). (Repeating it) a thousand (times) is best, a hundred (times (is) middle (i.e. next to it), and ten (times is) the lowest. It is called the sacrifice of muttering prayers. The lord (once) weighed Gāyatrī and the Vedas with a scale. The four Vedas were on one side, and Gāyatrī on the other (i.e. both weighed equally). Having first uttered Oṃkāra, then the vyāhṛtis,^[1] he should, with concentration and faith, study (i.e. recite) the Gāyatrī (hymn). In the former kalpa, the three ancient, great vyāhṛtis, viz. Bhūr, Bhuvas and Svaḥ, destroying all inauspicious (things), sprang up. Pradhāna (or Prakṛti), Puruṣa, Kāla, Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Śiva, the three (constituents of the Prakṛti viz.) Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, are said to be the vyāhṛtis in succession. Oṃkāra is that highest Brahman, and Sāvitrī would be next to it. The hymn has a great propriety, and is said to be the essence of essences. He, who, being restrained, everyday studies this Gāyatrī, the mother of the Vedas, along with its meaning, goes to (i.e. gets) the highest position. Gāyatrī is the mother of the Vedas; Gāyatrī purifies the worlds. There is nothing greater to be muttered than Gāyatrī. Knowing this one is liberated.

59-62. Commencement of reading the Veda is said (to take place) on the full moon day of Śrāvaṇa, or the full moon day of Āṣāḍha or of Bhādrapada, O best brāhmaṇas. A man, being controlled and calm, should study (the Vedas) at a pure spot for five months and a half, when the sun proceeds to the south. A brāhmaṇa should suspend the Vedic studies in Pauṣa. A brāhmaṇa should study the Vedas in the morning of the first day of the bright fortnight of the month. A man should study the Vedāṅgas and the Purāṇas in the dark fortnight of the month.

63-70a. One who studies (i.e. the student) and so also one who teaches, studying (the sacred texts) carefully, should always avoid these intermissions of study: When the wind blows audibly at night, when a mass of dust (moves) by day, when there is lightning, or when it rains with thundering, or when there is a surge of great meteors. Prajāpati has prescribed untimely intermission on these occasions. When fires break out, one should know that they have come up. (So also) one should know that there is suspension of study when clouds are seen out of season, when there is a hurricane, when the earth quakes, and when the luminaries are eclipsed. These should be looked upon as (times of) the suspension of study, even when it is the season of study. (So also) when fires break out, when there is lightning or thundering. If there is thundering, there would be suspension of study during the remaining night or day. There should certainly be suspension of study in the villages or cities. For those who desire skill in religion, there should always be suspension of study when there is stinking smell, when there is a corpse in the village, and in the presence of a cāṇḍāla, when someone is weeping; so also when it is the time of the cloud.

70b-72a. A learned brāhmaṇa should not even mentally think of urinating or excreting in water or at midnight; or when he has not washed his hands etc. after taking food, or after eating at a śrāddha, or after having received the fees at a śrāddha or funeral rite performed for one definite individual^[2]. He should not study the Vedas for three days during the mourning period of the king or impurity (due to eclipse caused) by Rāhu.

72b- 85a. As long as he has partaken of food at one place and there is the presence of oiliness on the body of the learned brāhmaṇa, he should not study the Vedas. He should not study while lying or with his legs stretched or with a cloth girt round his legs and knees^[3]; so also after having eaten flesh or the food at the śrāddha of a śūdra. Impurity for three nights is declared at the time of (fall of) mist, sound of an arrow, and at the time of both the twilights; so also on the new moon day and the fourteenth day; so also on the full moon day and the eighth day, for commencement or suspension of Vedic studies; so also the collection of three nights at the end of the season, beginning from the seventh day after the full moon. The wise have declared the collection of three days (7th, 8th and 9th) in the months of Pauṣa and Māgha and in the dark fortnights. A man should never study in the shadow of the ślaṣmātaka tree, so also of śālmali or madhūka; so also in the shadow of kovidāra and kapittha. When one who is his student-friend or co-student has expired, or his preceptor is dead, impurity is said to be there for three nights. These flaws are said to be (the occasions for) suspension of study for the brāhmaṇas. During them the demons harm (men). Therefore (a brāhmaṇa) should avoid them. There is no suspension of the obligatory rites or offering the sandhyā-prayers. During the collection of the three days (7th, 8th, 9th) etc., or when the wind is blowing, he should not study a ṛc, or a yājus or sāmans at the beginning of Vedic studies, or at the end of a sacrifice or in the middle of it. There is no suspension of studies of the Vedāṅgas, Itihāsa, Purāṇas, and other religious texts. One should avoid these. This in brief is declared to be the course of conduct for a celibate (i.e. a religious student); it was formerly told by Brahmā to the sages who had purified their souls. A twice-born who, not studying the scriptures, strives for something else, is a fool. He is out of the Vedic fold and should not be talked to by twice-borns.

85b-90. A twice-born should not be satisfied merely by the recital of the Vedas. Merely ending his study with the recital of the Vedas, he sinks as a cow sinks in mud. He who duly studies (i.e. recites) the Veda, but does not reflect on its meaning, is a fool, almost a śūdra, and is not a worthy person. If he desires to stay permanently with the teacher, he should, being diligent, serve him till death. Going to the forest he should duly offer oblations into fire. In the same way, being devoted to Brahman and being calm, he should study everyday. Always being devoted, and engaged in eating begged food, he should always study the Gāyatrī, Śatarudriya and especially the Upaniṣads. About the Vedic knowledge this is an ancient statement which I have told you now and which the lord Svāyambhuva Manu, when asked by the best sages, told (them).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Vyāhṛti—A mystic word uttered by every Brāhmaṇa in performing his daily sandhyā-adoration. These syllables are three: Bhūr, Bhuvas and Svar, usually repeated after ‘Om’ (See Manu. 2.76). According to some, they are seven.

[2]:

Ekoddiṣṭa—A Śrāddha or funeral rite performed for one definite individual deceased, not including other ancestors.

[3]:

Avasakthikā—A cloth girt round the legs and knees (by a person), when sitting on his hams.