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Knowing K @mas @stra in The Biblical Sense: S An Kara's Possession of King Amaruka
Knowing K @mas @stra in The Biblical Sense: S An Kara's Possession of King Amaruka
doi:10.1093/jhs/his034
The Self Possessed is a long, broad, and important book. Its purpose is to convince
the reader that deity and spirit possession plays a much more prominent role in
Sanskrit literature than scholars have recognised heretofore. One of the reasons
that is interesting, Frederick M. Smith argues, is because of what it tells us about
notions of the self in South Asian culture, that it is considerably more fluid and
porous than the construct of the self that modern westerners carry around in their
heads.1
In making his case for this complex self, Smith must strip away the thin veneer
of institutional brahman-@tman theological detritus.2 He argues that the notion
that the true self is the @tman, transcending the phenomenal world, eternal and
unchanging, however widely known to Sanskrit authors, was not so normative that
they did not conceive of the human person in many and complex ways.3 The
thinker to whom this notion of the self is most commonly attributed is Sankara.
There certainly is a philosopher who appears in The Self Possessed whose work is
characterised by a remarkably cold abstraction. For example, Smith writes of the
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J. E. Llewellyn
role of sa:sk@ras in Sankaras writing, which appear to have the power to disturb
ones understanding of non-duality. Dalal argues that this idea might have served
as the conceptual basis for the notion that Sankara as Amaruka forgot his saving
knowledge of brahman. Taking these essays together, we can say that there appears
to be a fundamental split over whether the tales of the hagiographies can be
reconciled with the philosophers thought. Since I will confine my analysis to
the hagiography, this article will not engage this debate directly. However, as
the reader will see, I am very interested to sort out how Sankara attains knowledge, and even if he attains knowledge through his possession of King Amaruka.
Sankara is a philosopher who may have lived around the late seventh or early
eighth century C. E.9 He is known as the first and foremost exponent of Advaita
Ved@nta. Ved@nta is the philosophical school that is understood to be based particularly upon the UpaniXads, which come at the end of the Vedic literature
(Ved@nta literally means the end of the Veda). Advaita is often translated
nondualism. Sankara is known for teaching that brahman alone is real, and that
the world of ordinary phenomena is, in some sense, an illusion (in exactly what
sense has been the source of some debate among philosophers). There is a substantial body of literature attributed to Sankara making the case for this position,
including commentaries on the Ved@nta S+tras, on several of the UpaniXads, and the
Bhagavad Gat@. There is at least one independent work (that is, a non-commentary)
widely accepted as a part of Sankaras oeuvre, the Upadesas@hasra. In addition, there
is a considerable literature attributed to the philosopher, which most modern
scholars feel is unlikely to have been his work, such as devotional poems.10
For some centuries, people in South Asia have learned about Sankara not only
from his own writings, but also from books about his life story. According to
Jonathan Baders analysis, the earliest of these biographies extant is the
Sankaravijaya written by Anant@nandagiri, and it is unlikely to date before the
14th century, since it quotes from a work written then.11 This would put a gap
of five centuries or more between this work and the man whose life it purports to
recount, with an even wider gulf for the later biographies. This is one of the
reasons why contemporary historians of South Asian philosophy express some
skepticism about the reliability of these works. A more important problem is
that the biographies often seem to wander far from the teachings of Sankara as
we know them from his most widely accepted works, sometimes even apparently
contradicting him, as Forts essay in this Journal would seem to imply.
Jonathan Bader labels these accounts of Sankaras life hagiographies. They may
not tell us much that is historically reliable about the philosophers experiences,
but, like the lives of the saints in other religions, they do tell us about the religious
ideals of their authors and the audience they were writing to. In this article, I am
The heart of the matter: The encounter with Ubhayabh@rata and her husband
There is good evidence that the central event in the Sankaradigviyaya is the conversion to Advaita of the former Mam@:saka Ma>nana Misra, along with this wife
Ubhayabh@rata. This series of incidents occupies 3 cantos at the heart of the text,
the 8th, 9th, and 10th. The eighth canto is a description of a debate between
Sankara and Ma>nana in quite technical philosophical terms.14 Before the
debate even begins, Ubhayabh@rata is appointed the judge of the contest, and in
the end she awards the victory to Sankara. This is an outcome that will change her
own social status, since her husband must now become a disciple of Sankara and
therefore a renouncer.
Yet the story is not quite over, as Sankara is now challenged to a debate by
Ubhayabh@rata herself in the ninth canto. Ordinarily this would not have been a
role that a woman would be allowed to assume, and the philosopher himself
expresses second thoughts about participating on these grounds before being finally convinced.15 Though the Sankaradigvijaya says that their sophisticated dialog
lasted for 17 days, it does not describe the contents in detail, unlike the debate
with Ma>nana. After this long struggle, Ubhayabh@rata hits upon a clever strategy
for besting Sankara: She decides to test him about sex, an area in which she
anticipated that the philosopher would have no mastery, since he had been celibate since childhood. It should be noted that it is not clear whether this debate will
turn on the philosophers experience of sex, or on his knowledge of a certain
textual tradition. Unambigious evidence of some role for textuality in the study
J. E. Llewellyn
of sexuality is provided later in 10.1718, where it says that Sankara studied the
work of V@tsy@yana and the commentaries on it, that is, the K@mas+tras.16
Confronted with this seemingly surprising turn of events, Sankara begs a timeout. He takes advantage of this to utilise his yogic power to occupy the body of a
just-dead king named Amaruka, so that he can learn about sex among his wives.17
And then he returns to the debate, in the 10th canto, only to be declared the
winner by an adoring Ubhayabh@rata.18 It is Sankara-cum-Amarukas dalliance that
constitutes what Jonathan Bader calls the obvious moral issue, which will be the
main concern of the remainder of this article.
That Sankaras behaviour is not just a problem for Jonathan Bader is clear from the
complicated way that M@dhava himself handles the morality of Amarukas possession. Before getting into M@dhavas head, we might note two divergent modern
reactions. When Sankara justifies his possession of Amaruka to his disciple
Padmap@da, he says that he must witness sexual behaviour. The translator K.
Padmanaban expands on the philosphers point, by adding something for which
there is no clear warrant in the Sanskrit original. He has Sankara say, I would like
to be a sakshi [that is, a witness] for the sringara [erotic] activities not a participant.19 Apparently, according to Padmanaban, Sankara was like the Peter Sellers
character in the film Being There: He only wanted to watch. In his translation,
Swami Tapasyananda does not take refuge in such a strategy, and elsewhere he
offers a footnote that seems to indicate that he would find it unnecessary. At the
beginning of the 10th canto, Tapasyananda admits that there are many who object
to the subject matter of this chapter, but then he invokes Sankaras own reply
when he is challenged. The philosophers critics forget that it is king Amaruka and
not Sankara who is actually involved in it.20 Unlike Padmanaban, Tapasyananda
does not imply that it was not sex that Sankara had, rather he says that it was not
Sankara who was doing the having, but Amaruka, since it was not Sankaras body
that was implicated, but Amarukas. So, between these two modern translators
there are two very different ways of dealing with the the obvious moral issue.
It is ironic that as soon as the Sankaradigvijaya sets out the rationale for Sankara
to possess the body of Amaruka, that is, to learn about/experience sex, it undercuts it. Verse 9.71 reads (in part): Even though knowing it, he would speak as one
newly learning erotics, to uphold in the world the rules for renouncers.21 In other
words, the text says that Sankara already knew sex, though it doesnt say how he
knew. However unedifying it might be for a renouncer to enjoy the sensual life in
the guise of a king, apparently it would be even more of a scandal for him to admit
to a knowledge of sex outright.
In the Sankaradigvijaya, second thoughts about the philosophers plan to possess
Amarukas body are expressed by his chief disciple, Padmap@da, who tells his
teacher the story of Matsyendran@tha. Though a great soul (mah@tm@), when the
previous saint had occupied the body of a dead king to experience sensual pleasures, he so forgot himself that his student had to call him back to his former
spiritual life.22 I find it interesting that M@dhava describes Matsyendran@tha as
having forgotten (using the verb vi smP) sam@dhi.23 This is a problem that Dalal
takes up in his essay in this Journal. I have always thought of sam@dhi as a state of
unitive awareness that implies a fundamental transformation of consciousness, but
apparently it was not so fundamental at least in this story that it could not be
lost.24 Presumably, had it not been for the intervention of his disciple
GorakXan@tha, Matsyendran@tha might have remained a sensualist indefinitely.
Sankara emphatically brushes off this cautionary tale. He could not be captivated by sensual pleasure, he insists, explaining, Desire has no power over the one
who is unattached.25 The teacher goes beyond this to claim that he is bound by no
social rules at all. So he proceeds with the plan to possess Amaruka. And it seems
that he suffers the same fate that Matsyendran@tha did. Specifically the
philosopher-cum-king immerses himself in love play, which the Sankaradigvijaya
describes briefly, but with some relish.26
Though the text says that the bliss of knowing brahman was better than sex,
Sankaras disciples become worried when he does not return to his original body
on schedule. Disguising themselves as musicians they penetrate the court and sing
of the spiritual truths their guru had taught them, asking him, Why dont you
remember your former nature?27 Apparently the song does the trick as the text
concludes: Reminded by them in the court, relying on this, he came out of his
delusion [m+rch@], and from the body of the king he entered his own body. Having
regained his body and consciousness [sa:jn@] in the manner previously described,
the king of gurus rose up as before.28 Sankaras own earlier claim to his spiritual
powers notwithstanding, I think that language here is fairly clear. In the kings
harem, like Matsyedran@tha before him, the philosopher had lost his head. And he
might have remained in the kings harem, if his students had not given it back to
him.
That the obvious moral issue was not entirely resolved in the middle of the
Sankaradigvijaya is suggested by an incident that occurs at the end of the book. The
culminating event in the 16th and final canto of the book is what Tapasyananda
calls Ascending the Throne of Omniscience. The Sankaradigvijaya says that there is
a temple in Kashmir dedicated to the goddess of learning S@rad@. At that temple
there is a throne of omniscience (sarvajnapabha), with entrances in the cardinal
directions.29 Sages had opened the doors to the west, north, and east, but so far no
southern scholar had gained admission. Now Sankara sought to remove this stigma
on his native region by passing through the last remaining door. Before doing so,
the sage from the south was required to answer a rapid-fire series of questions
about technical philosophical points.
Then he is subject to a further test by the goddess herself. Explaining that
occupying the throne requires not only omniscience (sarvajnat@), but also purity
(parisuddhat@), the goddess asks about Sankaras dalliance with Amarukas wives.30
J. E. Llewellyn
And Sankara responds: Starting from birth I have not committed any sin in this
body. Mother, I am in no doubt. One is not tainted by deeds done in connection
with a different body.31 However problematic I may find this answer, and I think
that there is plenty of evidence that M@dhava finds it problematic, too, the goddess
accepts it and Sankara ascends to the throne with great eclat.
Multiple selves
Following Frederick Smiths reading of the Sankaradigvijaya in his book The Self
Possessed, it becomes even more clear that one of the great themes in that Sanskrit
work is the loss and recovery of the self. For this reader, the psychological plausibility of the tale of the possession of King Amaruka is undermined by Sankaras
identity as an incarnation of Siva. When the philosopher returns from the kings
court to his own body, to debate Ubhayabh@rata, and she proclaims his greatness
without the debate ever occurring, she acknowledges: You are the lord of all
knowledge, you are the lord of all embodied beings, you are the ruler over brahman. O brahman, you are manifestly always Siva.32
If Sankara as an incarnation was all knowing, then he would have had no need
to learn erotics. So then why did he have to possess Amaruka at all?
Ubhayabh@ratas answer is to imitate the behavior of mortals (martyacaritravinambanam).33 The last word in the compound can be translated in different
ways, so that the phrase could even be rendered something like to disguise yourself with the behavior of mortals. Perhaps Ubhayabh@ratas logic here is similar to
Sankaras own in 9.71. He possessed Amarukas body, not because he didnt know
sex, but precisely because he did, but didnt want to reveal his true divine nature.
Yet, if I am right that the purpose of the debate was to show that Sankara was
omniscient, which is tantamount to proving that he was an incarnation, then there
doesnt seem to be much logic to secrecy here.
Given that he is an incarnation, the fact that the philosopher seems to forget
who he is in Amarukas harem is raised from a kind of psychological and philosophical problem to a theological one. When Sankara did not know that he was
Sankara, did Siva not know that he was Siva? It reminds me of the philosophical
riddle: Can God make a rock that is too heavy for Him to lift? Can an all-knowing
God fail to recognise Himself? Consider 2.84, describing Sankara as an infant: Even
though he knew [from another root meaning "to know," vid] everything [again,
sarva], even though he possessed all powers, the boy, having been born in the
human race, conducted himself accordingly. Gradually the boy began to smile, and
eventually he was able to use his feet like lotuses to crawl.34 When Siva was a
toddler in his Sankara incarnation, was he still omniscient? Was he still
all-powerful? Did he just appear like a toddler, or was he really a toddler?
These are not puzzles that the Sankaradigvijaya solves. It doesnt even explicitly
pose them. But I think that they are puzzles that follow from the stories that it
does tell, of identities assumed and selves lost.
References
Notes
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