Intro
Ajagara means python. Ajagara is the story of Bhima and Yudhishthira’s fight with a giant python.
https://crackpot.substack.com/t/ajagara
As It Rhymes
Bhima’s Rescue
1.
Yudhishthira said,
‘Snake, you know Veda, Vedanga, Karma and Fame.
How does one progress in this game?’
2.
Nahusha said,
‘Don’t be uncouth. Don’t get bent on Truth.
O’ Bharata! The nonviolent are heaven sent.’
3.
Yudhishthira said,
‘Charity or truth. Which is best, guru?
And does your opinion on non-violence rest on silent oppression or resist violent aggression?’
4-7.
Nahusha said,
‘What is best depends on the circumstance.
To speak nice to peddlers of vice is inferior advice.
Why should charity give access to heaven if one is giving alms to a demon?
When is giving truth to a stupor king superior to kissing his ring or receiving his blessing?
Mighty bowman, speak clearly of your thinking.
Clouds of doubt are done no more violence by the blaze of truth than darkness is harmed by the sun.
A superior course is one that runs.’
8.
Yudhishthira said,
‘Accomplishments are established on worldly drama.
So how can one enter heaven by fruit and karma?’
9.
Nahusha said,
‘You ask, what is better or best or worse?
By unfinished duty rebirth will recur.
10.
People give to charity.
Practice non-violence and piety.
11.
O’ Indra of Kings! Beware man’s twisty means and crooked posture.
Upside down men get reborn in animal pasture.
12.
Lust. Violence. Greed. Wrath.
From these foul sins souls fall from the human path. To be reborn as a fawn, foal or calf.
13.
A human soul separates lives by identity for clarity.
But bovine and bull may also attain divinity.
14.
So those with many births and deaths go through much push and pull.
Their lives and works come and go leaving only the trace of stain on the eternal soul.
15.
Born and reborn embodiments of sentiment, strength and pleasure.
Each one born is a once in a generational creature.’
16-17.
Yudhishthira said,
‘Sound. Touch. Sight. Smell. Interest. Joy.
Best of snakes, can you explain how spirit inhabits physical form?
Don’t your five senses tell you all at once when it is acrid, bright, loud, bitter and warm?’
18-23.
Nahusha said,
‘The eternal self attains a material body and the body collects possessions.
The sensory organs manifest during gestation.
There follow the experiences of pleasure or pain, writing law, ritual or exercise moral discretion.
O Best of the Bharata! Take note of this section.
The mind, intellect and senses give soul pleasure and expression.
O’ tiger of men that roam the wild wood!
Mind shines a light on the soul’s dark mood.’
24.
Yudhishthira said,
‘How does one recognize intelligence by sight?
Is it better to labor or be right?’
25-27.
Nahusha said,
‘Soul is the producer. Body the shelter.
Discipline a reducer for mind over matter.
Religious fervor and accrued spiritual merit are truth.
Mind and consciousness are like the mouth and tooth.
O’ King! Share your view.’
28-29.
Yudhishthira said,
‘I pass.
Because to tell the truth you could teach a master class.
You are so wise and weighted by auspicious gains.
Just one doubt remains.
If you already know it all, how did you fall?’
30.
Nahusha said,
‘Human, hardship has made you tough and smart.
People in comfort grow faint of heart.
31.
O’ Yudhishthira! Now I remember the pollution.
I became intoxicated by illusion.
32.
What good deed to liberate me, O’ chastiser of the enemy.
Over many ages my piety grew lax.
33.
In heaven, I rode a vimana carried by sages.
I was being carried in my palanquin when I got the ax.
34.
Back then Brahma-rishis, Devas, Gandharvas, Yakshas, Rakshasas and Pannagas paid my tax.
All three worlds tithed wages.
35-36.
Those who fell upon my gaze felt their strength wither.
O’ Lord! One look made the mighty shiver.
37-38.
One day my foot slipped and struck Agastya the sage.
Then Agastya’s spirit blazed with rage.
Agastya’s curse sent me to earth in a snake shape to slither under the sun.
Knocked off the palanquin by Agastya’s spark, down I spun.’
39.
I cried out,
‘O’ Lord! I was loud and proud.
Have mercy on an arrogant lout.’
40.
Agastya said,
‘Respite will come from kin.
Yudhishthira the Dharma King will free you from your self-important sin.’
41.
Agastya’s power of austerity was transcendent.
As my fruits were spent - down, down I went.
42.
This is why I asked you what any of it meant with persistence.
Self-control, non-violence, duty and charity free me from this wretched existence.
43.
Now I see my folly.
Birth circumstance is no restraint to the aspirant.
Your enemies fear brother Bhima’s strength.
I wish them peace at any length.
I will release Bhima and retire.’
44-45.
Vaisampayana said,
‘Having said this, the python expired.
King Nahusha’s spirit rose up toward the sun.
Dharma King Yudhishthira accompanied Bhima and Dhaumya back to the ashram arm in arm.
46-47.
When the three returned they found the Brahman entourage, Draupadi and Pandavas sick from worry.
Then the Brahman and Pandavas with Draupadi listened to Yudhishthira tell the gory story.
48.
The Brahman gave Bhima stinging censure for his rash and reckless adventure.
The Brahman raised Yudhishthira’s fame and singing praise to the Dharma King’s glory in equal measure.
49.
The Pandavas were delighted that Yudhishthira saved Bhima from calamity.
It was fate their foes would fight Bhimasena’s enmity.
Notes
[1] Vedas are scripture.
Vedangas are Vedas organized in disciplines.
Karma are actions that carry over.
'Progress in this game' - as in go to heaven and cease the 'games of life' - cycles of death and rebirth.
The meta-game is also the one Yudhishthira is playing (and losing) with Nahusha - so Yudhishthira is also asking how can he free his brother Bhima from the serpent's grasp? Nahusha already knows everything, so the riddle game seems hopelessly outmatched.
[11] This section is similar in many regards to the Gita in its discussion of the afterlife and earthly life.
According to belief, souls that incarnate as sufficiently sinful humans may be reborn as animals from a lifetime of darkness or sin.
The topic of rebirth is covered in the Gita chapter 14 verse 14-15.
https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/14/verse/14-15
The ‘As It Rhymes’ translation of the Bhagavad Gita is available
[13] Animal born souls may perform sufficient deeds to escape material existence and go to heaven.
In this conception of reincarnation -
It is through the establishment of institutions of faith and knowledge that humans are best able to attain heaven because those institutions carry over many lives.
Without those institutions, humans are left flailing from one life to the next - accruing and working off karmic debt at the same rate - like having to reinvent the wheel many times and from scratch.
[14] The actions of one life will carry over through the soul to the next life.
Thus, we are born with the sins of past lives and are challenged to unwind the energy of the past or try again.
In a similar way the phenomena of remembering past lives point to this idea that the eternal soul is what carries over when the physical life is gone.
In this framing the soul is on its own journey to liberation from its many lives' experiences.
[18] This section - as above - is similar to the Bhagavad Gita's framework of the field of activity, the senses, mind, soul.
The Bhagavad Gita describes the field of activity and framework of subjective experience as follows -
[33] A vimana is a celestial vehicle.
Brahma-rishis are divine rishis.
Devas are divine beings.
Gandharva’s are celestial musicians.
Yakshas are divine spirits - Kubera the lord of treasure is their king.
Rakshasas are man-eaters.
[37] Agastya was one of the sages tasked with carrying Nahusha on his palanquin when Nahusha's foot slipped and struck Agastya.
-=End of Ajagara Parva=-
Commentary
In Ajagara Parva the Pandavas face the karmic weight of their ancestry in the form of a giant python snake.
Ajagara starts with Bhima’s rampage. Bhima may be taking his frustration from not being able to fight his enemies as he desires out on animals - or perhaps fighting wild beasts to hone his killing skills as training - either way Bhima puts on a display. Bringing down herds of hooved and horned beasts. Fighting tigers and mad bull elephants. Finally, Bhima meets his match. The book takes a turn from the hyper-physical to the metaphysical and theological themes. Turns out the massive snake is the reincarnation of a man. Turns out that man is a distant ancestor to the Pandavas.
The snake almost devours Bhima - who is saved by Yudhishthira. What follows in the confrontation is a conversation that sketches the outlines of understanding what it means to be human. We have senses that form sensory objects from the phenomena of the world they are attuned to. The mind forms perceptions from the senses - as well as subjective experience like pleasure or plain. The intellect makes information from the mind’s objects. The infinite soul experiences all of it as an observer.
Yudhishthira overcomes the snake’s riddle by eschewing intellectual contest in favor of truth. Yudhishthira finds that the snake has the mind of a royal sage and cannot be outpointed on doctrine. The snake has been around for ages and cannot be outwitted. So Yudhishthira asks at last, how did such a wise, intelligent being that knows all the answers fall from heaven? This trick question jars the Python into realization. In its games of intellectual cat and mouse with Yudhishthira Nahusha perpetuates his sin of haughty arrogance that caused his fall from heaven - releasing it from the hold. This lesson is mirrored in the dialogue when Nahusha tells Yudhishthira that heaven is open to those who speak dearly to others and quit being absorbed in ‘truth’.
The Pandavas will again face these questions of dharma and the weight of their ancestry in the encounter with Dharma in the form of a crane, who tests Yudhishthira, and Bhima’s dialogue with Hanuman, and Arjuna’s encounter with Indra. But not again do we find Bhima so far up a creek in need of a hand.
References
- Debroy, Bibek. The Mahabharata. Penguin Random House India, 2015.
- Dutt, M.N. The Mahabharata. Sanskrit Text with English Translation. Parimal Publications, 2022.