The Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya Dialogue and its Relevance

Authored by . Mukul & Meena

Yajnavalkya wishes to renounce the world and become a sannyasi The Upanishads hold a significant place in the development of Indian philosophical thought. Brahmavidya or the knowledge of Brahman, the ultimate reality has remained the primary concern of Upanishads. The Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue contained in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad too attempts to deconstruct the concepts of atman (self) and Brahman (ultimate reality) through deliberations.

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad portrays Maitreyi as a philosopher who studied metaphysics and engaged in theological dialogues with her husband Yajnavalkya. In the Rigveda, about ten hymns are attributed to her. She explores the concepts of Atman and Brahman and their unity, the core of Advaita philosophy in a dialogue with Yajnavalkya that appears in chapter 2 section 4 and chapter 4 section 5 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (700 BCE).

after he has experienced the first three stages of his life - brahmacharya, grihastha and vanaprastha. He asks Maitreyi for permission and tells her that he wants to divide his worldly assets between her and Katyayani, his first wife which prompts Maitreyi to ask if the worldly assets would make her immortal?

Yajnavalkya replies that immortality cannot be attained through wealth or by dwelling in worldly affairs. Maitreyi, refusing to engage with anything that would not lead her to immortality, asks Yajnavalkya to share his knowledge and enlighten her on immortality. What followed was an elaborate and profound philosophical discourse on the relationship between the eternal and the transient. Yajnavalkya explains that immortality is the eternal life and temporal is what we see with our eyes. Temporal has limitation of time. Time takes away everything that one possesses. Since one cannot possess anything permanently except in thought it cannot bring satisfaction or immortality. Yajnavalkya, telling Maitreyi to meditate upon the thoughts, says:

Verily, not for the sake of the husband, my dear, is the husband loved, but he is loved for the sake of the self which, in its true nature, is one with the Supreme Self. ... Verily, not for the sake of the sons, my dear, are the sons loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self ...Verily, not for the sake of the brahmin, my dear, is the brahmin loved, but he is loved for the sake of the self. ... Verily, not for the sake of the gods, my dear, are the gods loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self... it is the Self that should be realized—should be heard of, reflected on and meditated upon. By the realization of the Self, my dear—through hearing, reflection and meditation—all this is known (Sethumadhavan, 2012).

The dialogue addresses few fundamental questions: What is love? Why do we love? Yajnavalkya says we love anything and everything for our own sake. Yajnavalkya thus tells Maitreyi to reflect on atman (Self) as nothing external can lead to happiness. If that Infinite (Self) is perceived in all external objects and persons, there will be no distinction between the self and the other.

Yajnavalkya elucidates his views through apt examples. He says “As the various particular kinds of notes of a drum, when it is beaten, cannot be grasped by themselves, but are grasped only when the general note of the drum or the general sound produced by different kinds of strokes is grasped ... Similarly, no particular objects are perceived in the waking and dream states apart from Pure Intelligence” (Sethumadhavan, 2012).

Yajnavalkya emphasises that the effect cannot be known unless the cause is known. One cannot understand the nature of any object unless one learns its origin. The inability of the senses to understand the causes behind the visible forms leads to the notion that the causes are completely isolated from the effect. Yajnavalkya further says just as fire is the source of the sparks, embers, and flames, the ultimate truth or pure intelligence is the source of all knowledge - the Vedas, history, mythology, the arts, the Upanishads, verses, aphorisms, elucidations and explanations. He gives another example and says “As a lump of salt dropped into water becomes dissolved in water and cannot be taken out again, but wherever we taste the water it tastes salt, even so, my dear, this great, endless, infinite Reality is Pure Intelligence alone” (Sethumadhavan, 2012). After attaining oneness, the self has no more consciousness.

Maitreyi doesn’t agree to this deduction and says, "Just here you have bewildered me, venerable Sir, by saying that after attaining oneness the self has no more consciousness" (Sethumadhavan, 2012) and questions about the contradictory concepts - ultimate reality/pure intelligence and absence of consciousness.

Yājñavalkya, clarifying her doubt, explains that when the individual existence of the self that is superimposed by ignorance and is connected with the body and organs is destroyed by knowledge of Brahman, the individual consciousness connected with the body consisting of a false notion, is destroyed. Just as while the reflection of the sun disappears when the water on which it is reflected is disturbed or emptied out yet the sun, the reality behind the reflection remains as it is, similarly Brahman (ultimate reality) remains unchanged even when the individual consciousness is destroyed by Knowledge. Yajnavalkya thus explained that nothing exists separately from the self and only awareness of the Parmatma (Supreme Soul) is fundamental for the realisation of ultimate truth.

The Yajnavalkya-Maitreyi dialogue is significant for many reasons. First, the dialogue underlines the Vedic perception of knowledge. Yajnavalkya emphasizes on the three essential practices that lead to true knowledge - Shravana or listening conscientiously, Manan or reflecting on the teachings/ knowledge acquired, and Nidhidyasan or meditating on the truth. Knowledge develops in our inner self. Knowledge, perceived by the senses and processed by the mind and the intellect, exists as our evolved and conscious self. Hence, meditating on the received/perceived knowledge is given primary importance. Kapil Kapoor in “Indian knowledge system: Nature, Philosophy and Character” explains that Indian philosophers are cynical about the possibility of accessing or recognizing the ultimate truth and hence they give importance to meditation and deliberations in acquiring true knowledge. Indian philosophers thus believe in arriving at truth through hypothetical-deductive methodology, give importance to perception and inference as well as tarka (argumentation).The Indian philosophy of ekatvabuddhi (synthesizing intellect) and the belief that “the highest form of knowledge is the knowledge of Oneness of all, abheda (of non-difference), of transcending the opposition between the Self and the Other(s)” (Kapoor & Singh, 2005) is not in opposition to the different points of view.

Indian concept of knowledge is way more inclusive. As Kapil Kapoor, while comparing Indian knowledge system with western tradition, argues that knowledge in the west is perceived as a threat to innocence, and often associated with power that leads to the fall of man. The Western worldview has always been man-centric. Kapoor explains that while in the middle age God was at the centre of study, during Renaissance the focus was shifted to Nature. Man, and his object of study have always been at conflict. As Kapoor puts it “it is almost as if man is always threatened by or is at the least in the presence of an adversary which has to be subdued or neutralized or used in the interest of man. While through the Middle Ages, God entered into this adversarial relationship with man - seeking obedience from him, punishing him, now Nature becomes the great adversary and the new knowledge, Science, is put to service to bend Nature to man's purpose” (Kapoor & Singh, 2005).

Knowledge is thus seen as an instrument of power in this conflict model, a mechanism to deal with the conflict. Kapoor quotes from the Old Testament to explain how man has been given authority over all the earth and treated it as a matter of his right to maintain and extend this power. Knowledge in this paradigm is exteriorized. It is stored outside the mind in the narratives that have acquired societal authority. Thus, an individual becomes a passive recipient and user. Truth is not derived from experience, but from the individual who claims to know. On the contrary in the Indian thought system, the aim of knowledge is not exercising power over others but power over one self, liberation of the self from its own limitations. Though gurus were revered but whatever they taught was not considered as eternal truth.

Second, the dialogue reflects Maitreyi’s inquisitive mind. She not only initiates the philosophical dialogue that explores the knowledge of the atman and the brahman but also engages in argumentation. She is neither a passive listener nor accepts the inferences of Yajnavalkya without questioning. She clearly voices her doubts and asks the right questions. She earns the respect of Yajnavalkya who honours her quest for knowledge and answers her questions through elaborate explanations and illustrative examples. The dialogue thus underlines how women in the Vedic age participated in the intellectual discourse. They didn’t confine themselves within the domestic world; rather searched for superior knowledge. In the Vedic tradition women’s voices were not silenced, their inquisitive mind was not considered as a threat to male supremacy. This reflects that the Vedic era was more evolved and believed in equal rights for women. Prof. Shashi Prabha Kumar in her talk on Vedic Feminism organised by Vivekananda International Foundation on 19 October 2020 states that Vedic tradition has an inherent spiritual outlook which reflects perfect equality between women and men in every aspect of life and existence. She argues that Vedic feminism transcends the concerns of contemporary feminism in the West and reflects a “positive and participatory, constructive and complimentary, and healthy and holistic viewpoint for the needs and aspirations of a gender-just egalitarian society.” In the Samkhya philosophy women is perceived as prakriti (matter) while men as purusa (consciousness). Thus, Vedic culture mirrors the contemporary eco-feminism wherein woman is seen as nature itself. Feminism as a literary and socio-political movement might have started in the West but its true essence was practiced in the Vedic era.

Third, the dialogue underlines certain similarities between the theoretical premises of Plato, a Greek philosopher and the philosophical postulations of Yajnavalkya on true knowledge/ultimate reality. Plato in the Republic address two primary questions: What is justice? Why should we be just? In his attempts to find an answer to these questions through dialogues – in the model of a conversation between a teacher and his students Plato distinguishes between knowledge and ignorance and opines that knowledge is related to truth, whereas ignorance is related to unreality. Plato’s allegory of the cave that explains how humans perceive false notion of reality is akin to Yajnavalkya’s reference to ‘the reflection of the sun’. It is interesting to note that while the Republic was authored around 375 BCE, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad which contains the Maitreyi-Yajnavalkya dialogue is estimated to have been composed about 700 BCE. Yet though Plato and his philosophies are widely read and have found a significant position in the curriculum, Yajnavalkya finds no mention even in Indian academia.

Therefore, Indian knowledge system in the form of Vedas and Upanishads need to be excavated and re-read to decolonise the education system and popularise the Indian philosophers and their philosophies across and outside the country. The Indian philosophers had a different and rational perspective on education. They believed that one cannot gain true understanding if the acquired knowledge is not retained without any distortion or personal prejudice. Thus memorialisation and contemplation were given primary importance. Nidhidhyasan (continuous deliberation) of all acquired knowledge was considered an enduring process. Facts change with time and context; hence they cannot be regarded as eternal truths. Therefore it is important to assess the relevance of any given knowledge regularly. It is necessary to revise what is not relevant. Indian tradition doesn’t believe in blind belief or blind reverence and this is the essence of true knowledge that needs to be incorporated in education system today.

References

1. Kapoor, Kapil & Avadesh Kumar Singh (eds) (2005). Indian knowledge system. Indian Institute Advanced Study. DK Printworld Pvt. Ltd. pdf.

2. Sethumadhavan, T. N. (Translator) (2012). Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: The Flame without a Flicker,Part1:Madhukanda.Esamskriti.https://www.esamskriti.com/essays/docfile/36_946.pdf.