Mahabharata – 130

by 

Sankar Mukherjee

&

Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
                                   Aadivamsavatarana Parva

King Yayati came back upon earth after his long stay in heaven. And there was a chance meeting between Yayati & the ascetic Ashtaka.

Ashtaka asked -- For lack of virtue, when one falls from heaven, you say s/he is attacked by the terrible and sharp-toothed ogres? How can that be? How do they again enter the womb, furnished with senses?

Yayati answered --The semen or the seed of vitality in the males and the blood of the female mingle like the fruit & the flower & enter into the foetus of the mother in the form of the zygote. After falling from heaven the souls due to their vice, enter into the cloud. And along with the rain they enter into the fruits & paddy. Eating those fruits, the trees, plants, and other vegetables become the semen or the seed of vitality in the males. Then they  enter the mother's womb in the womanly season. It develops gradually into the embryo.

This statement of Yayati is very curious. The fallen souls according to Yayati take shelter in the clouds.And then do the come down upon earth as rains. This reminds us of the Bhagavadgita.It’s says annad vhavanti bhutani parjanyad anna sambhavah. The living organisms derive their life from food. The food in turn springs from rain fall. But who knew that with the rains fallen souls come down upon earth & it is they surely who expedite the growth of food in Nature. Thus our eco system has been deliniated by Yayati in a different way. Next time when we go in rains we should remember that fallen souls are at the heart of the rain waters that are shed.

Ashtaka asked -- Oh tell me! Does a being that has received a human form enter the womb in its own shape or in some other shape? How does it  acquire its distinct and visible shape ------ eyes and ears and consciousness as well? I ask you because I have my doubts on these issues. You are one who is acquainted with  physiology, we presume.

Yayati answered --- the seed or ova of the female after finally mixed with the sperm of the male drops into the uterus during the physiological cycle of the women. This is effected by vayu or a kind of air that is within the body.

How does the ovum from ovary ascend the falopian tube & reach the uterus? Physiology does not have any satisfactory answer to this phenomenon. In fact physiology describes the happenings in the body in terms of the movements of the various organs. But Mahabharata physiology or the ancient Indian physiology sees the action of vayu behind it’s movement. There are five types of vayu aworking in human body.They are prana,apana,udana,vyana & samana.With us they are fantasies as long as not verified in the laboratory.

According to Yayati the aforesaid vayu has another function. It helps the zygote in the embryo to grow  for the purpose of re-birth. The zygote then develops there in course of time.First it becomes the embryo and is next provided with the visible sense organs & mind. Coming out of the mother’s womb in due course of time, it becomes conscious of its existence as man.With her/his ears s/he becomes sensitive to  sound, with her/his eyes,s/he is aware of colour and form.With  nose,s/he is aware of smell. With his/her tongue,s/he beomes aware of  taste.By the whole body, s/he is aware of touch. And by the mind,s/he is aware of ideas.It is thus,that the gross and visible body develops from the fine elements.

Ashtaka asked -- After death, the body is burnt, or buried or otherwise destroyed by the sons or successors. Reduced to nothing because of such disintegration, by what principle is one revived in another form?

Yayati said  -- Oh best among kings! The person that dies assumes a fine form. By retaining the consciousness, as in sleep, of all his acts virtuous or sinful, he enters some other airy form & with a speed quicker than that of air itself enters into the uterus. The virtuous dons a superior,and the vicious an inferior form of existence. The vicious become worms and insects. I have nothing more to say. I have told you how beings are born, after the development of embryo in the mother’s womb. According to the merits of one's acts, the being  in a subtle form inheres the figures such  as four-footed or six-footed creatures and others with more feet. What more will you ask me?

This conversation between Yayati & Ashtaka is very very significant. The Mahabharata pins its faith on the transmigration of the soul.That is the corner stone of Hinduism. Buddhism also puts forward the hypothesis of transmigration. But Buddhism apparently does not believe in the existence of the soul. Buddhism pins its faith on that transmigration of a person. The Jataka tales as narrated by Fausboll dwells on five hundred forty seven life stories of Lord Buddha earlier to his birth as Siddhartha the prince of Kapilavastu. According to Buddhism it is not the soul that transmigrates. What transmigrates is the desire of a person. The desire is called tanha. In fact there is no qualitative difference between the Hindu notion of the transmigration of the soul & the Buddhist notion of the transmigration of tanha. In fact when the desire of a soul or of a person is extinguished the soul or the person exist & yet does not exist.The individual soul according to Hinduism  is not  perennial. When its desires vanish it become one with the cosmic soul or cosmic mind or Brahman. Despite that the individual souls could be invoked. They are numerous gods or the rishis worshiped by the Hindus. According to Buddhism when a person gets rid of it’s desire along a process of births & deaths or in course of it’s journey through countless births & deaths it becomes one with the cosmic mind or Bodhicitta. And despite that as a Buddhist we could invoke different Buddhas. And Buddhism also worship numerous gods such as Hindu do. Now how come that transmigration takes  place? Yayati  gives us a vivid myth regarding the same. It’s speaks of the process of how a child is born in the womb of a mother in the light of the biology of the Mahabharata. Commonly the zygote remains a women in the womb for three/four months. There after sex diffrentiation takes place.Upto this point the Mahabharata biology & modern biology are of the same opinion. But science can describe. It can not delve the cause of any happening. Science can tell us how oxygen & hydrogen unite to bring about water. But science cannot tell us how the waterness of the water with its thirst quenching power spring from the hydrogenness of hydrogen & the oxygenness of oxigen.The approach of science is not qualatitive. Is science a supertition?.The Mahabharata biology however spins a myth as to why sex differentiation takes place on the third/four month in the zygote.The souls with their unfulfilled desires after their demise hover in the space & seek a congenial womb where their desires could be fulfilled.The same notion might apply to the desires of the person in the light of Buddhism.May be this is not verifiable in the laboratory. Therefore we could read  myths as told by Yayati as science fiction.Much of the science fiction written earlier have been proved to be path finders at a latter stage in course of the onward march of the science.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea was written in the past.It’s conjectures led to the discovery of the submarine. And may be genes could reveal the elemrnts of some desire that was nursed before a child is born.By the by it is not out of place to point out to our dear readers that our knowledge of genes is as yet very limited.