Veda29- Do you know God?

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Ask this question to a staunch believer. Probably, he can’t give you a logical answer. But then faith and logic often don’t go together. Faith does not ask questions but merely accepts what is told. In the religious scenario asking questions is even forbidden. So, we just accept the existence of God even when we don’t know what that God is!

 

May be 5000 years ago, there was this King Janaka who dared to ask this question. I am referring to a story that appears in one of the biggest Upanishads namely the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. This Upanishad is part of Yajur Veda.

 

King Janaka wanted to find out whether there was any scholar in his kingdom who could give a satisfactory answer to this question. And this answer should be based on reasoning and not just on faith. So, he organized a big open debate and invited all great scholars of his time. The reward for whoever won the debate was one thousand cows. They were not just ordinary cows. Each cow had 10 gold coins tied to each of its horns. Janaka declared that anyone who can convincingly answer his question can take away these cows along with the gold.

 

Who does not want to win such a big prize! There were several great scholars among the audience. But none dared to claim that they knew what God is. The question was not whether God exists. But it was “Do you know what God is?”. That was a tough question.

 

So, it seemed that there were no takers. But all of a sudden, one of the scholars among them, namely Yajnyavalkya stood up and asked his students to take the cows to his house as if he had already won the debate! The onlookers were quite raged by the arrogance of Yajnyavalkya. Does he really think that he knows what God is?

 

Yajnyavalkya offered himself to be cross examined. The scholars could ask any question relating to God and Yajnyavalkya was confident that he knew the answer.

 

Scholars after scholars confronted Yajnyavalkya and asked him deeply philosophical questions. And Yajnyavalkya had answers to all their questions! It appeared as if there was none among the audience who could really challenge Yajnyavalkya. But who do you think took the courage to summarily defeat such an invincible scholar?

 

It was a young woman! Her name was Gargi. She had the audacity to confront Yajnyavalkya who had already defeated all other great scholars assembled there.

 

 

Several episodes ago, when I said women had a high status in Vedic society, some of my listeners were not very convinced. Even my explanation that there were more than a dozen women who contributed to the Vedas sounded like a lip service.

 

That is but natural. Over thousands of years, the status of women in Indian society had gone through ups and downs. There were phases of suppression and oppression like in all other societies anywhere in the world. Many an equality proponent often quotes from Indian scriptures to show how India was oppressive to women and denied equal status.

 

Even when I quoted this Gargi’s story to one of my Vedic scholar friends, to show that the unequal position that women were relegated to in later Indian society was not as per the ancient Indian tradition, he did not agree. He was trying to convince me that women never had equal status in Vedic society. They were barred from studying the Vedas. He went on to say that Gargi was merely a Brahmavadini and not a Vedic scholar!

 

According to him Gargi knew what God is, but did not know the Vedas! He stuck to the later traditional view that Vedas are out of bound for women. As I explained earlier, this stand of Indians was an aberration forced by circumstances and was not something that existed during Vedic times. Otherwise how could a woman like Gargi not only participate in such a scholarly debate but even challenge a great Vedic scholar like Yajnyavalkya? That means, Gargi was both a Vedic scholar as well as knower of God or Brahmavadini.

 

So, it was Gargi’s turn to interrogate Yajnyavalkya.

 

After preliminary cross examination, Gargi settled for two tricky questions for Yajnyavalkya. If Yajnyavalkya could answer both these questions to her satisfaction, then she was prepared to accept that Yajnyavalkya indeed knew God. What were those two questions that Gargi asked?

 

Question 1: There is something that holds together all the worlds including the earth. That thing is above, below and all over these worlds. And that thing is beyond time. What is that thing?

 

Question 2: What pervades and governs even that?

 

Gargi was hinting at God since Yajnyavalkya claims that he knows God. Since the God of the Upanishads is indescribable, she was trying to trick Yajnyavalkya into saying something about it which cannot be expressed in words. If he says it, then he would be contradicting the fact that it cannot be said in words. If he does not, then he has no answer to her question. Either way, Yajnyavalkya would get defeated. At least that is what Gargi expected.

 

But how did Yajnyavalkya handle Gargi’s question? Let us see that in the next episode.

 

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A series discussing the most ancient of the Indian scriptures, nay the world scriptures namely the Vedas. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2021-22