Yajnavalkya
The Incredible Sage of Shukla
Yajur
The name of Yajnavalkya of
Mithila stands distinguished both in the Srutis and in the Smritis.
Yajnavalkya is especially known
for his unsurpassed spiritual wisdom and power. The seer of a Veda
Samhita from Bhagavan Surya, the
revealer of Brahma Jnana to Janaka, Maitreyi and others. He is the
famed author of the Shukla
Yajurveda Samhita.
Yajnavalkya hails supreme among
sages of sacred memory.
Yajnavalkya was the son of the
sister of Mahamuni Vaishampayana, the Vedacharya of the Taittiriya
section. He was studying the
Taittiriya Samhita from Vaishampayana who was also his Guru.
Vaishampayana had many other
disciples too and they all were students of the Taittiriya Shakha.
Vishampayana however was irked
by the independent and outspoken attitude of Yajnavalkya. Over a
period the Guru Sishya relation
became sore to the point of an open confrontation. Vaishampayana
excluded Yajnavalkya from his
student’s team and foreclosed further learning of the compilations of
Taitriya samhita authored by him
(Vaishampayana). He restrained Yajnavalkya from quoting the
Taitriya Samhita, which became
known as the Krishna Yajur.
Yajnavalkya piqued by this
development, determined not to have any human Guru thereafter. Inspired
by the God Surya, he acquird
fresh insights into the vedas; this was developed into what is now
known as the Shukla Yajur. This
is a very important watershed in the history of the Vedic evolution in
India; A Ritual based religious
system becoming credited with profound philosophical thinking.
Yajnavalkya is known by his very
advanced upanishadic philosophy. His masterly expositions in the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the
form of debates and lectures are mind-boggling.
Yajnavalkya married two wives.
One was Maitreyi and the other Katyayani. Of the two, Maitreyi was a
Brahmavadini. There was a time
when Yajnavalkya wished to divide his property between the two
wives and proceed to forest as
an ascetic. While Katyayani, a woman of common intelligence, was
comfortable with this idea and
immediately accepted the property given to her, Maitreyi mused on this
proposal; she wanted to know
from Yajnavalkya, whether she could become immortal through wealth.
Yajnavalkya replied that there
was no hope of immortality through wealth and that she would only
become one among the many who
were well-to-do on earth. On hearing this, Maitreyi requested
Yajnavalkya to teach her what he
considered as the best.
Then Yajnavalkya elaborately
described to her the sole greatness of the Absolute Self, the nature of
its existence, the way of
attaining infinite knowledge and immortality, etc. This immortal conversation
between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi
is recorded in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
The central theme of the
discourse is this: "This Source of knowledge; this source of power; all
these
worlds; all these gods; all
these beings; -- All this is just the Self. This Self alone exists everywhere.
It
cannot be understood or known,
for It alone is the Understander and the Knower. Its nature cannot
be said to be positively as
such. It is realised through endless denials as “not this”, “not this”, a
process of negation in the
philosophical inquiries. The Self is self-luminous, indestructible,
unthinkable".
Yajnavalkya through his other wife
Katyayani, the daughter of Bharadhwaja, had three sons,
”Chandrakanta, Mahamegha and
Vijaya.
Yajnavalkya, though a great
Brahmajnani, was a great Karmakandi too. He caused many Yajnas to be
performed and himself became the
Acharya of those great Yajnas. He was a celebrated Srotriya and a
Brahma-nishtha Guru.
Once King Janaka of Videha
wanted to know from which real Brahmanishtha to receive Brahma Vidya.
In order to find out who was the
real Brahma-nishtha, Janaka performed a huge Bahu-dakshina
sacrifice to which all the
Rishis from far and wide were invited. And he offered one thousand cows
with their calves, all their
horns being decked with enormous gold. Then he proclaimed to the
assembled ones, “Whosoever is
the best Brahmana amongst you may drive these cows home". None
dared to get up and take away
the cows as they were afraid of censure by the others. But
Yajnavalkya stood up and asked
his disciple Samasravas to drive the cows home.
The other Brahmanas got angry at
this and said to one another, “How can he declare himself to be
the best among us?".
Thereupon several Rishis challenged Yajnavalkya with many questions on
transcendental matters to all of
which Yajnavalkya gave prompt reply. There was a great debate in
which Yajnavalkya won over all
the others. Janaka was convinced that Yajnavalkya was the best
Brahma-nishtha and received
Brahma Vidya from him thereafter.
The Verbal combat that ensued in
the court of Janaka on this occassion is very famous. Apart from
the fact that these arguments
are interesting and enlightening, they are also known for its pungency
and tragedy.
Noted among the arguers are a
learned lady called gargi, sage uddalaka, sakalya and many others.
Yajnavalky won over everone very
convincingly. We can find these dabates verbatim in the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
The third and the fourth
chapters of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad abound with the great
philosophical teachings of
Yajnavalkya. Yajnavalkya was also the author of the famous Yajnavalkya
Smriti. His other works are
Yajnavalkya Shakha, Pratijna Sutra, Satapatha Brahmana, and Yoga-
Yajnavalkya.
At the sacrifice of Janaka,
there was an exchange of words between Yajnavalkya and Vaishampayana.
But on hearing that Yajnavalkya
had obtained a fresh Veda from the Sun-God, Vaishampayana was
much pleased and he requested
Yajnavalkya to teach that Veda to his own disciples also. Yajnavalkya
consented and taught his Veda to
the disciples of Vaishampayana.
In the end, Yajnavalkya took Vidvat
Sannyasa (renunciation after the attainment of the knowledge of
Brahman) and retired to the
forest.
Yajnavalkya was one of the
greatest sages ever known. We find him arguing with and overcoming
even his teacher Uddalaka at the
court of Janaka. His precepts as contained in the Upanishads stand
foremost as the crest-jewel of
the highest teachings on Brahma Vidya.
The master who guided thousands
of persons, from King janaka to the commonest students on the
path of enlightenment, was
Yajnavalkya. His was the mastermind that produced ‘Shukla Yajurveda’.
Yajanavalkya was born on the
seventh day of the month of Kartik at an auspicious time. After coming
into the world, Yajanvalkya
regularly worshipped the God of Fire through yajnas and yagas. He had
divine rediance like
Vajneshwara. Therefore he was called yajnavalkya form his childhood.
Yajnavalkya received the great
Gayatri Mantra form his father. He was sent to Gurukula for further
education. He won the love and
admiration of everybody in the ashram, within a few days. Later, he
was imparted knowledge of the
Vedas by various sages. By the blessings of the Sun God he became a
seer blessed with the vision of
mantras, a Maharashi and also Brahmarshi, possessing divine
knowledge, by writing his
experiences in the form of Shukla Yajurveda.
Quoting from His Holiness, Swamy
Krishnanandaji Maharaj, an authority on Yajnavalkya:
Idam brahma, idam kshat ram, ime
lokah, ime devah, imani bhutani , idam sarvam
yad ayam atma.
"This Source of knowledge;
this source of power ; al l these wor lds; al l these gods;
al l these beings; - - Al l this
is just the Sel f ."
This proclamat ion is l ike a
Brahma Ast ra that Sage Yajnavalkya is discharging
against every kind of at
tachment one can conceive in this wor ld. I t is somewhat
easy to accept that God is
everywhere . I t becomes easy because we always
external ise the locat ion of
God, however much we may t ry to universal ise Him. The
idea of locat ion in space does
not leave us so easi ly. God is everywhere, this is
what we general ly bel ieve. The
everywhereness of God impl ies that there is space,
and inasmuch as our mind is
wedded completely to the concept of spat ial
expansion, we feel a l i t t le
bi t comfor ted when we are told that God is everywhere.
Now, here, a thunderbol t is
discharged by Sage Yajnavalkya when he says the
Sel f also is everywhere. Imani
bhutani , idam sarvam yad ayam atma. Al l the
four teen wor lds are the Sel f
. Here we wi l l not f ind i t so easy to accept i t , because
we cannot spat ial ise the
concept of Sel f . Our Sel f cannot be somewhere else, i t
must be wi thin us only. But ,
what does one mean by saying "al l the wor lds, al l the
gods, al l this is the Sel
f". What is this that the Sage is tel l ing us? What exact ly is
the Sel f? Can anyone tel l us
what is the Sel f? What meaning can we at tach to this
word? There is mysel f , yoursel
f , this sel f , that sel f ! The sel f is something which
cannot be external ised, object
i f ied or spat ial ised in any way. The Sel f is the ut ter
subject ivi ty of universal i
ty. The universal concept is rather easy to accept because
we may spat ial ise even the
universal being. But the Sel f cannot be spat ial ised - I
cannot be anywhere else than in
mysel f .
"Mai t reyi , I have told
you everything, I am now depar t ing f rom this place,"
Yajnavalkya said. Al l this
teaching to his consor t Mai t reyi ended wi th this
renunciat ion. This renunciat
ion is of a di f ferent kind. I t is cal led Vidvat Sannyasa.
I t is not the Sannyasa that
people take ordinar i ly for the sake of knowing
something. Here, i t renounces
having al ready known everything. I t is cal led Vidvat
Sannyasa and not Vividisha
Sannyasa. I t is not Karma Sannyasa. What happened to
Yajnavalkya af terwards, no one
knows.
The whole story ends here wi th
this stunning, shaking, ear th-shaking statement .
We cannot say anything more than
this. Nowhere wi l l you f ind statement or
speaking of this kind.
-------- Swamy Krishnanandaji Maharaj in his
lectures on Yajnavalky and Brihadaranyaka Upainishad.
Om Tat Sat
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