However, the typical ascetic (tapasvin) in the Vedic era is not the dutiful householder-sacrificer or even the exalted seer (rishi), but the ecstatic muni. The muni belongs to what one might call the Vedic counterculture, composed of religious individuals and groups (like the Vrâtyas) who pursued their sacred aspirations at the margins of Vedic society. The muni has frequently been regarded as the prototype of the later yogin. In his ecstatic oblivion he resembles a madman. Many elements in his lifestyle anticipate the unconventional behavior of the later avadhûta, as celebrated in the Avadhûta-Gîtâ and other medieval Sanskrit works.
Tapas continued as an independent tradition alongside Yoga. This parallel development is documented, for instance, in the Mahâbhârata epic. It relates many stories of such renowned tapasvins as Vyâsa, Vishvâmitra, Vashishtha, Cyavana, Bharadvâja, Bhrigu, and Uttanka. Indeed, in many parts of the epic, the tradition of tapas is given preeminence over Yoga which can be taken as an indication of the early age of these passages.
Tapas is generally pursued through the observance of chastity (brahmâcârya) and the subjugation of the senses (indriya-jaya). The frustration of the body- mind’s natural inclinations is held to generate psychophysical effulgence (tejas), radiance (jyotis), great strength (bala), and vitality (vîrya). Another term closely associated with asceticism since Vedic times is ojas (apparently related to the Latin augustus, “majestic”). It stands for a particular kind of numinous energy that charges the entire body-mind. Ojas is generated especially through the practice of chastity, as a result of the sublimation of sexual energy. It is held to be so potent that the ascetic can influence and change his or her destiny and the destiny of others. According to the ancient Atharva-Veda (11.5–19), the deities themselves acquired their state of immortality through the practice of chastity and austerities.
Tapas is typically associated with the acquisition of psychic powers (siddhi), which often proved the downfall of unwise ascetics who abused their extraordinary capabilities. The tradition of tapas, both in the Vedic Age and the Epic Age, unfolded against the backdrop of a magical worldview according to which the cosmos is filled with personalized sources of psychic power. Thus the tapasvins, or tâpasas, are frequently depicted as combating evil spirits or as pitting themselves against various deities to win a boon from them. More often than not, the ascetics emerge as victors, and only pride or sexual profligacy are held to diminish their formidable puissance. To this day, the practitioners of tapas are thought of by the villagers of India as magicians able to accomplish any feat-from reading people’s minds, to predicting the future, to stopping the sun in its course.
Yoga spiritualized the orientation of the earlier tradition of tapas by emphasizing self-transcendence over the acquisition of magical powers. At the same time, the yogins adopted and adapted many of the techniques and practices of the older tradition of tapas. Chastity remained central to its practice, as is clear from the eight-limbed path outlined in the Yoga-Sûtra. In this work, Patanjali states (2.38) that the yogin who is grounded in chastity gains vigor (vîrya). He also mentions (2.32) tapas as one of the five observances or restraints (niyama) and declares (2.43) that through asceticism the body and its senses are perfected. Manifestly, tapas is here relegated to the status of a preparatory practice. The real concern of Yoga is meditation and its intensified form, ecstatic transcendence (samâdhi).
The tradition of tapas flourished alongside the schools of Yoga for centuries, and this is no different today. The remarkable story of a modern tapasvin and saint, who reputedly lived for 185 years, is told in the hagiography Maharaj.9 The hero of the story, known as Tapasviji Maharaj, was born around 1820 into a princely family but left everything behind in his late fifties and girded himself with a loincloth. During his lifetime he was widely hailed as a mighty ascetic and miracle worker. He performed startling feats of endurance, conquering both pain and boredom. For three years he stood on one leg, with one arm stretched upward; for another twenty-four years he never lay down, while also walking many miles every day. In the 1960s, this saint attracted much attention in the United States because of his extreme longevity, which he claimed was the result of undergoing on three different occasions the kâya-kalpa or rejuvenating treatment known to native Indian medicine. The success of this treatment depends largely on the disposition of the individual, who must be able to endure long periods of almost complete isolation. Only a skilled meditator of the stature of Tapasviji Maharaj could possibly cope with the ordeal of self-denial involved. Clearly, Western medicine has much to learn from the tapasvins of ancient and modern India.
III. DELIGHT IN NOTHING-YOGA AND THE WAY OF RENUNCIATION
Tapas, as we have seen, represents a more magical-shamanic type of spirituality. Unlike Yoga, which is primarily concerned with the achievement of contemplative states and self-transcendence, the technology of tapas focuses on the attainment of inner strength, visionary experiences, and magical powers. The cultivation of willpower is crucial to this approach. By contrast, Yoga embodies a more refined orientation to psychospiritual growth. It recognizes, for instance, the need for the transcendence of the will, which is a manifestation of the egoic personality.
Nevertheless, many facets of tapas have found their way into the yogic tradition, and the popular image of the yogin or yoginî is that of a thaumaturgist, or miracle-working ascetic. Yet Yoga is closer in spirit to another tradition, that of renunciation (samnyâsa) of worldly life, which first appeared as an ideal worthy of pursuit in the Post-Vedic Age. Suddenly, or so it appears, a growing number of householders left the villages and cities to live out the rest of their days in the wilderness, often on their own but occasionally also with their spouses.
These renouncers are known as samnyâsins, practitioners of samnyâsa. The word samnyâsa is composed of the prefixes sam (expressing the idea of “union,” similar to the Greek syn- or the Latin com-) and ni (denoting “down”), as well as the verbal root as (meaning “to cast” or “to throw”). Thus, it signifies one’s “casting down” or “laying aside” of all worldly concerns and attachments.
Although renunciation can be identified as a lifestyle, it cannot be performed as one might perform austerities or meditation. It is primarily a fundamental attitude to life. Hence the tradition of renunciation can be said to be counter-technological: It aims at leaving everything behind, including, if it is pursued rigorously enough, all methods of seeking. The German indologist Joachim Friedrich Sprockhoff rightly described renunciation as “a phenomenon at the margin of life,”10 and compared it to other borderline experiences, such as fatal illness or old age.
Renunciation is a response to the insight that human existence, and cosmic existence in general, is either morally inferior or altogether illusory. In either case, the renouncer seeks to realize a higher state of being, which is equated with Reality itself. Depending on whether the world is regarded as illusory or merely morally unworthy (but still rooted in the Divine), renunciation can be expressed in at least two principal ways. On one side is what can be called literal renunciation; on the other is symbolic renunciation. The former position understands renunciation, pure and simple, as the abandonment of ordinary life: The renouncer leaves everything behind-wife, children, property, work, social respectability, worldly ambitions, and any concern for the future. The latter position perceives renunciation in metaphorical terms as primarily an inner act: the voluntary letting go of all attachments and, in the final analysis, of the ego itself.
Both approaches have had their advocates throughout the long history of Indian spirituality. In the Bhagavad-Gîtâ (3.3ff.) we find the earliest record of an attempt to reconcile the two routes. Thus, the God-man Krishna taught Prince Arjuna the distinction between mere abandonment and inner renunciation, clearly favoring the latter. In response to Arjuna, who was confused about the difference between renunciation of actions and renunciation in action, Krishna explained that anciently he taught both paths. One is the path of samnyâsa, which Krishna ident
ifies with the Yoga of Wisdom (jnâna-yoga); the other is the Yoga of Action (karma-yoga). Both, he emphasized, lead to the highest goal, but of the two he deemed the Yoga of Action more excellent. He said:
He who does not hate or desire is forever to be known as a renouncer. (5.3a)
But renunciation, O strong-armed [Arjuna], is difficult to attain without Yoga. The sage (muni) yoked in Yoga approaches the Absolute without delay. (5.6)
Yoked in Yoga, with the self purified, with the self subdued, and the senses conquered-he whose self has become the Self of all beings, even though he is active, is not defiled. (5.7)
“I do nothing whatsoever”-thus reflects the yoked one, the knower of Reality, [even as he is] seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping, breathing, talking, excreting, grasping, opening and closing [his eyes], and thinking “the senses abide in the sense objects.” (5.8–9)
He who acts, assigning [all] actions to the Absolute, and having abandoned attachment (sanga), is not defiled by sin (pâpa), just as a lotus leaf [is not stained] by the water. (5.10)
The symbolic interpretation of renunciation was, understandably, favored by the orthodox Hindu authority, which was greatly concerned about the growing mood of world resignation. If it had only been the older generation that found the eremitic existence in forests or caves attractive, the priestly establishment would have had little cause to worry. But the ideal of flight from the world also appealed strongly to the middle- aged population and even to young men (and, more rarely, women). Their renunciation of worldly life led to abandoned families and fields, as well as kingdoms, we are told. The sociocultural reasons for this trend are ill understood; some scholars have blamed the hot, dry climate of many parts of the peninsula, but this seems reductionistic.
In psychohistorical terms, the ideal of literal relinquishment reflects what I have elsewhere called the “mythical” (verticalist) variant of Yoga.11 In contradistinction, the ideal of life-positive samnyâsa suggests a more integral attitude. Mythic Yoga is founded in a radical and abrupt break with the conventional universe: One either abstains from all mundane activities and thoughts and dedicates one’s life to the contemplation of the supra- mundane Reality, or one engages ordinary life and reaps the doubtful rewards of an earth-bound existence. For the practitioner of Mythic Yoga, there can be no in-between state. He or she must choose either the transcendental Self or the conditional self, God or the world, abiding happiness or daily sorrow. The contrasting idea that the finite cosmos is a manifestation of the Divine and therefore not merely sorrowful but also an abode of joy belongs to the more integral world perception of Tantrism, Sahajayâna, and especially Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga.
In the Maitrâyanîya-Upanishad (1.2ff.), a work in the tradition of mythic Yoga belonging to the centuries just before the beginning of the Common Era, King Brihadratha is portrayed as suffering from excessive existential ennui. He articulated a sentiment that, at one time or another, must have overwhelmed thousands of other ascetics when he said:
In this ill-smelling, pithless body, which is a conglomerate of bone, skin, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen, blood, mucus, tears, rheum, feces, urine, wind, bile, and phlegm-what good is the enjoyment of desires? In this body, which is afflicted with lust, anger, greed, delusion, fear, despondency, jealousy, separation from what is loved, union with what is unloved, hunger, thirst, senility, death, illness, grief, and the like-what good is the enjoyment of desires?
We see that all this is perishable, like these gnats, mosquitoes, and so on, like the grass and the trees that grow and decay. Indeed, what of these? There are the great ones, mighty warriors, some of them rulers of empires like Sudyumna, Bhuridyumna … and kings like Marutta, Bhârata, and others, who, before the eyes of their whole family, surrendered their great wealth and passed on from this world to the next.
Radical relinquishment of conventional existence at times clearly threatened the social fabric and established order. Consequently, the Hindu lawgivers discouraged what they considered premature renunciation and instead proposed the alternative social ideal of the stages of life (âshrama)—studentship (brahmâcârya), householder stage (gârhastya), forest-dweller existence (vâna-prasthya), and finally total renunciation. In this new hierarchical framework, renunciation was fully sanctioned, but only after a person had fulfilled his or her obligations as a householder (grihastha, from griha “house” and sthâ “to abide”).
Two levels of renunciation came to be distinguished. The first, known as vâna-prasthya (“forest- dwelling”), is the stage of the hermit who practices a kind of esoteric ritualism in the seclusion of the forest. He or she is called a “forest-dweller” (vâna-prastha). The second stage, known as samnyâsa, consists in leaving behind even the forest- dweller’s sedentary existence and sacrificial ritualism, taking up a life of constant wandering. These two lifestyles anticipated the modern custom of retirement, though by turning the evening of an individual’s life into a sacred opportunity, the Hindu orthodoxy granted older people-at least in theory-a dignity that they are denied by our own Western society.
“Fasting is better than eating only at night. Unrequested food is better than fasting. Begged food is better than unrequested food. Therefore [the renouncer] should subsist on begged food.”
—Brihat-Samnyâsa-Upanishad
265
The tradition of renunciation has been as persistent a feature of Indian spirituality as has been the tradition of asceticism. Often the two overlapped. Although the word samnyâsa is first mentioned in the Mundaka-Upanishad (3.2.6), which is commonly thought to belong to the third or second century B.C.E. but may be earlier, the idea and ideal is much older. Thus, the Brihad-ranya-ka-Upanishad (4.4.22), which is reckoned as the oldest work of the Upanishadic genre, speaks of the pravrâjin, the person who has “gone forth” (pra + vraj “to wander”), that is, who has left house and home and is wholly intent on Self-realization. In a memorable passage, Yâjnavalkya, the grand old man of Upanishadic wisdom, instructs a disciple as follows:
That which is beyond hunger and thirst, sorrow and delusion, old age and death [is the transcendental Reality]: The brahmins who know That as the very Self overcome the desire for sons, the desire for wealth, the desire for the worlds, and they lead a mendicant’s life. The desire for sons is the desire for wealth, and the desire for wealth is the desire for the worlds; thus both these are merely desires. Therefore let a brahmin despair of scholarship and desire to live [in innocence] as a child. When he has despaired both of scholarship and childlikeness, then he becomes a sage (muni). When he despairs both of sage- hood (mauna)12 and nonsagehood (amauna), then he becomes a [true] brahmin. (3.5.1)
Thus, Yâjnavalkya characterized renunciation as the transcendence of attachment to every conceivable desire, including the desire for renunciation itself. Elsewhere in the same scripture (3.8.10) he is remembered as expressing his doubts about the usefulness of asceticism (tapas). According to him, even a millennium of austerities will be of no avail unless the Absolute is intuited first. This statement enunciates a perennial paradox of the spiritual path: We only seek that which we have, in some sense, found already. To put it differently: To realize the Self, our innermost reality, we must simply stand perfectly still and remember.
Even though the Hindu orthodoxy made provisions for those who felt an irresistible urge to “drop out,” renunciation was always at best condoned, never actively encouraged. And in some quarters renunciation was viewed as unlawful. In the Mahâbhârata (12.10.17ff.), for instance, there is the story of Yudhishthira, who, fatigued from the brutalities of the great Bhârata war, felt moved to embrace the life of a forest eremite. His teacher Bhîshma reminded him, as Krishna had reminded Arjuna, that renunciation was inappropriate for a warrior. Bhîshma also aired the cynical opinion (no doubt based in part on reality) that only those assailed by misfortune adopt such a lifestyle.
That renouncers were not all of the same sort becomes readily apparent when one delves into
the various Sanskrit scriptures dealing with renunciation, notably the so-called Samnyâsa-Upanishads. The Jâbala-Upanishad, dated c. 300 B.C.E. and thus being one of the oldest works of this genre, differentiates between renouncers who maintain the sacred fire and those who do not-that is, between those who in their retirement continue to engage the Vedic sacrificial ritualism and those God- seekers who simply leave it all behind. This work celebrates the parama-hamsa (“great swan”), who drifts through life unconcerned by any of its problems, as the foremost of all renouncers. Some six hundred years later, the Vaikhânasa-Smârta-Sûtra (chapter 8) furnishes a more detailed picture. It mentions four types of forest anchorites and four types of wandering renouncers. The forest-dwelling ascetics can be married, whereas the wandering renouncers must live on their own, seeking nothing but Self-realization.
An almost identical list is found in the shrama-Upanishad (c. 300 c.E.). This scripture mentions four types of forest eremite:
Vaikhânasas, who perform the traditional fire ritual (agni-hotra) and live on wild grain and vegetables available in their forest environment. The appellation vaikhânasa is derived from the prefix vi (“dis-”) and the word khana (“food”). It hints at the dietary discipline adopted by these renouncers.
Audumbaras, who sustain themselves by eating wild grain and fruit, especially figs (udumbara).
Vâlakhilyas, who get their name from wearing their hair (vâla) in a tuft (khilya). Their diet is as meager as that of the other renouncers, but they gather food for only eight months of the year and basically fast during the remaining months. This ascetical practice is known as catur-mâsya (“the four months”).
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