Upanishadic Stories and Their Significance

By Swami Tattwananda

In the Upanishads we find, in places the highest abstract truths placed before us through stories and dialogues. These stories are not mere legends. They form part of the book of life. They embody the teachings of the rishis, the ancient sages of India, as imparted on various occasions and under varying circumstances. A selection of these spirituality enlightening stories is given here so that we may understand clearly the deep significance of the Vedas. Life transforming in character, these ancient stories have perennial relevance.

Published by Advaita Ashrama, a publication house of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, India.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Advaita Ashrama (Ramakrishna Math)
• Release date: Aug 24, 2021
• ISBN: 8175054956

Book preview

UPANISHADIC

STORIES

---

AND THEIR

SIGNIFICANCE

Swami Tattwananda

(PUBLICATION HOUSE OF RAMAKRISHNA MATH)

5 DEHI ENTALLY ROAD • KOLKATA 700 014

Published by

The Adhyaksha

Advaita Ashrama

P.O. Mayavati, Dt. Champawat

Uttarakhand -262524, India

from its Publication Department, Kolkata

Email: [e-mail]

Website: www.advaitaashrama.org

© Advaita Ashrama

All rights are reserved and exclusively vested with the right-holder. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored, published, circulated, distributed, communicated, adapted and translated in any material form (by electronic or mechanical means) without the prior written permission of the right-holder. Nothing herein prevents a person from making such uses that are permissible under law.

Fifth Reprint Edition, September 2019

First Ebook Edition, December 2019

ISBN 978-81-7505-495-0 (Paperback)

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The author of the present book, Swami Tattwananda, states, Philosophy is abstract. Few can follow the sub-tleties. But the same truths can be embodied in a song, a story or even a ritual. This is the creative impulse of poets and story-tellers. They make what is abstract into something concrete. Thus spiritual truths can be communicated in the highways and byways of ordinary life itself. In this way, the stories of the Upanishads function and impart imperishable lessons of life.

The Upanishads are a reservoir of perennial spiritual wisdom that is universal, cutting across nations, races, ethnicities, religions, and linguistic groups. They are the oldest extant literature in the world with a relevance that is timeless. As long as there will be the so called the human race, the Upanishads will keep shining like the midday sun, sending its rays of brilliance to dispel the darkness enshrouding the human mind, and blessing it with an experience of peace and fulfilment that defies description.

As stated before, in the Upanishads we find, in places, the highest abstract truths placed before us through stories and dialogues. Swami Tattwananda, the author of the present book, Upanishadic Stories and their Significance, has taken some of the finest stories scattered in the pages of the Upanishads and presented them here, with slight adaptation. This adapted or slightly dramatized version of the stories, with the core message intact, makes it easy for the readers to grasp their significance as well as the central message.

We are pleased to present before our readers this new edition of the book. The author was a disciple of Swami Shivananda. He was ordained into Sannyasa in 1938 and passed away in 1976. The first edition of the book was edited by V. A. Thyagarajan and published by the author himself in 1956 from Calcutta. Two subsequent editions were brought out in 1965 and 1973 respectively. The fourth edition was published by Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama, Kalady, in 2001. We are thankful to Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama, Kalady, for giving us permission to publish the present fifth edition.

This edition has been thoroughly revised and edited by M. Sivaramkrishna. We are sincerely thankful to him for his dedicated and loving labour which has gone into making this book highly readable and gripping. We are sure this book will be a treat for all the students of Vedanta all over the world.

PUBLISHER

August 2019

Kolkata

PREFACE

None can deny the significance of the Upanishads as scriptures of perennial wisdom. The wisdom of the Upanishads is the corner-stone of Hinduism, and yet it goes beyond it embracing the entire human race. It is perceived as the very breath of the eternal Self informing all sentient beings. Moreover, in the Upanishads, the risk of its precepts becoming abstract is neutralized by stories, a narrative which anchor the truths to living contexts. Narrative and dialogue contemporises the Upanishads and prevent them from getting fossilised as relics of an archaic past.

Why stories? One can tell the tenets of the scriptures straightaway as terse Sutras. Of course, they can be. But the sages themselves lived lives embedded in various contexts ranging from family, statehood, nation and, above all, in the context of the recurring riddles of death and immortality. It is from these contexts that texts of the Upanishads speak to us.

In his stimulating study of the story-telling and the Upanishadic experience, Yohanan Grinshpon (Dept. of Indian Studies, Hebreu University, Israel) points to this aspect and notes the various contexts which provoke reflection only to arrive at the truth of Brahman as the abiding presence. He says: the Upanishadic narrative is about the complacent householder awakened to an ascetic’s superiority (and his ‘own’ inferiority); the childless wife (bereft thereby of immortality); the young student afflicted by desires of many kinds; the boy insecure because of his unknown father’s identity; the vain son perplexed by his father’s riddles; the scholar full of scholarly yet important knowledge; the boy insistent on his perception of mortality. (1)

The range of these characters is inclusively holistic and the spectrum of issues they debate surface with as much urgency, if not more, as they did when they were debated by the sages, and their words in environmental conditions conducive to the required reflection. The anecdotal episodes encapsulate almost every issue that we face even today.

Revered Swami Tattwananda’s original edition retained its preeminence and its popularity. It is now being reissued in a more compact form. It has been my privilege to be associated with this reissue. My immense gratitude to Swami Bodhasarananda who suggested that I should do the needful for this reissue.

Finally, there is a fascinating coincidence that the tradition of narrativising of basic spiritual truths has been taken to much more accessible ways of absorption by the enchanting tales and parables of Sri Ramakrishna. The Great Master is a great, masterly storyteller. In their own inimitable way they bring out the issues that the Upanishads narrativise. Teleologically it is appropriate that the book should come under the aegis of Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati.

M. Sivaramkrishna

Dept. of English (retd.)

Osmania University, Hyderabad

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NOTES

[1] Yohanan Grinshpon, Crisis and Knowledge: the Upanishadic Experience and Storytelling (Oxford University Press, 2003), p.viii.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. The Self of All

2. Nachiketa

3. The Quest

4. Bhrigu

5. Pravahana

6. Ushasti

7. The King and the Cartman

8. Satyakama

9. Upakosala

10. A Symposium

11. Thou Art That

12. Narada and Sanatkumara

13. The Akshini Purusha

14. Proud Balaki

15. Yajnavalkya

16. King Janaka

17. Maitreyi

18. What the Thunder Said

19. Pravahana Again

INTRODUCTION

The stories from the Upanishads are not mere legends. They form part of the book of life. They embody the teachings of the rishis, the ancient sages of India, as imparted on various occasions and under varying circumstances. The method of instruction also varies according to the nature of the seeker after truth. A selection of these stories is given here so that we may understand clearly the deep significance of the Vedas.

It would not be out of place to state briefly what the Upanishads are and what they signify. The Vedas are primarily divided into two parts, the Samhitas and the Brahmanas. The hymns as collected together form the Samhita. That part of the Vedas which explains the Samhitas is known as the Brahmanas. They deal primarily with the technique of offering sacrifices. The Aranyakas give us the essence of the Vedas.

The term Aranyaka signifies that it is the message of the forest, as taught in the hermitages to which the sages resorted in order to attune themselves to the infinite. The Upanishads form the concluding part of the Aranyakas. According to Sayanacharya, the word Upanishad means secret knowledge. The Upanishads are secret teachings. Brahmavidya, or the knowledge of the Atman, is imparted through them. The Upanishads form the Jnanakanda, or the knowledge portion of the Vedas. They are the wisdom books, as contrasted with the Karmakanda, which deals with rituals. Thus the Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishad together constitute the Veda. One hundred and eight Upanishads are considered to be authoritative. Shankaracharya has written commentaries on eleven of them.

In the following pages, an attempt has been made to explain the hidden significance of some of the stories given in the Upanishads and to bring to light the philosophy that lies embedded in them.

From these stories, we may come to know much about the social, moral, political and religious condition of Vedic India. They also throw a flood of light on the origin, history and development of Brahmavidya, or the knowledge of the Supreme, together with the method of imparting that knowledge and the effects of its attainment. In addition to laying stress upon life’s highest values, the Upanishads give us an insight into the application of those values as exemplified in the dedicated lives of the sages and the kings who worked for the good of humanity at large.

The Upanishads lay special stress upon leading a pure life. The student of the Vedas was to lead the life of a celibate in the forest hermitage of his spiritual guide. The other ashramas or stages in life were built upon the foundation of this celibate life. Whatever one’s social status might have been, the celibate life was mandatory for everyone. Even the gods were not exempted from it. We read that Indra had to lead a pure life for a hundred and one years in the abode of his spiritual guide in order to attain Self-realization. By leading a pure life, the mind is purified. The Supreme Truth is then revealed in that mind like a flash of lightning that illumines a thousand isles. The impressionable early years of life are especially valuable for the attainment of spiritual knowledge, for at that stage the mind does not need to unlearn many things before it becomes fit to receive spiritual instruction. The weakness of body and mind which comes in the wake of old age is also far away then. The stories of Satyakama, of Shvetaketu and of Varuna may be considered as examples that show how, in the Upanishads, youth is considered to be the best time to prepare oneself for spiritual life.

Every station in life has its attendant duties. It was in order to exemplify and uphold the highest ideals of each one of the