M. Witzel (3/2/13)
Kumbh Melā : another way to
heaven.
In the current excitement
about the Kumbh Melā, it has been entirely overlooked how this pilgrimage
actually originated. I do not mean the usual tales, of second or third
elaboration, that are found in the Itihāsa (Epic) and Purāṇa literature,[1]
but the first source that we actually have, the Veda.
To understand the matter it
is useful to recapitulate a few salient facts of the Melā: the bath at the
confluence of two sacred rivers, the Yamunā and Gaṅgā, at Allahabad (the
ancient Prayāga). The confluence
is believed to be a Triveṇī, where
the three ‘strands’ (veṇī) of these
two rivers and of the invisible, underground Sarasvatī join. At this confluence
stood a sacred tree,[2] from which
some would jump into the rivers: upon this suicide they would gain immediate
access to heaven. The land between the two rivers Gaṅgā and Yamunā was called
Antarvedi “the inner vedi”.[3]
All these terms recall Vedic
beliefs and rituals:
The vedi is the area on the sacrificial ground between the three sacred fires representing heaven, earth and moon. The name Prayāga is derived from yaj or pra-yaj “to offer” a solemn Vedic (śrauta) ritual.
The Vedic connections do not
end here. The river Sarasvatī is the most-praised river in our oldest text, the
Ṛgveda.[4]
Together with its parallel sister stream, the Dṛṣadvatī (now Chautang),[5]
the Sarasvatī (now Sarsutī, Ghagghar-Hakra) forms the western and eastern
boundary of Kurukṣetra. This is the
famous area where even the gods sacrifice: the land is indeed called a deva-yajana,[6]
as the Yajurveda texts tell us. (Late Vedic kings make a pilgrimage all the way
from Bihar to this area to reach heaven).[7]
The Sāmaveda and Yajurveda
Brāhmaṇas tell us that the Sarasvatī disappears (vi-naś) in the
sands of the Tharr desert,[8] at a
place called upamajjana “diving
under” or vinaśana. Later on, Epic
and Purāṇic texts say that the river did so out of shame, and that it now flows
underground, eastwards up to Prayāga.
The Sāmaveda Brāhmaṇa texts[9]
describe in detail a gradual
‘pilgrimage’ (yāt-sattra) along the
Sarasvatī,[10] upstream from its disappearance in the
desert until one reaches her source at
Plakṣa Prāsravaṇa in the lower Himalayas. This is “the Plakṣa tree of “streaming forth” (pra-sravaṇa).”[11]
Once the sacrificers participating in the sattra
ritual reach that tree, they reach heaven.[12]
This place is called by
other texts the “center of the earth” or the “center of heaven”: it is located
one span northwest of the tree.[13] Indeed, the center is frequently characterized as having the giant
world tree, with its roots in the
netherworld and its upper branches in heaven.[14]
Even if one should die during the sattra pilgrimage one still reaches heaven.[15] However, upon reaching the Plakṣa tree one may also gain a thousand cows, and if one should not succeed, one may descend into the nearby Yamunā,[16] at a place called Tri-plakṣa and simply “disappear,” in other words, commit suicide in the Yamunā river. [17]
One Brāhmaṇa text says that
one can also carry out the same upstream pilgrimage along the Yamunā until on
reaches its ‘top’ (vartman).[18]
Finally, upon studying more
closely the ancient Vedic
traditions about the Sarasvatī (“she who has many ponds”) and the Dṛṣadvatī (“she who has many stones”), one
notices that both rivers are the mundane reflection of two “rivers” in the
nighttime sky. This reflects the common mythological theme “as above, so
below”. These two rivers are the two branches of the Milky Way, the ‘heavenly
Gaṅgā’ or svarnadī as she is later
called.[19]
The area between them, the “gate,” is a reflection of Kurukṣetra.[20]
Importantly, though we may not be aware of it, the Milky Way actually moves, unlike a given single star or the Sun, counter-clockwise around the celestial North Pole (now, the Pole Star).[21] Upon following the Sarasvatī upstream or by “entering” a branch of the Milky Way when it touches the earth,[22] one moves “upstream” to the world tree and the top of the sky (nāka), the place where the gods reside.[23]
Importantly, though we may not be aware of it, the Milky Way actually moves, unlike a given single star or the Sun, counter-clockwise around the celestial North Pole (now, the Pole Star).[21] Upon following the Sarasvatī upstream or by “entering” a branch of the Milky Way when it touches the earth,[22] one moves “upstream” to the world tree and the top of the sky (nāka), the place where the gods reside.[23]
In sum, all major elements
of the Kumbh Melā are present here, with Kurukṣetra transferred eastward to the Pañcāla area that became central to later Hindu religion: to Prayāga, thus,
just a bit upstream from Benares.
Nowadays, the Milky Way no
longer descends at Plakṣa Prāsravaṇa but at the source of the Ganges, first
falling on Śiva’s head, and then continuing on earth, just like the Milky Way
did at the source of the mundane Sarasvatī. The area between the two sacred
rivers, Gaṅgā and Yamunā, that substitute for Dṛṣadvatī and Sarasvātī, is
called an offering ground (prayāga),
just as Kurukṣetra was that of the gods (deva-yajana).
It is at the confluence of
the two rivers from where one starts one’s journey to heaven. In Vedic times it
was done near the confluence of the Sarasvatī and Dṛṣādvatī.[24]
Now this is done at the Yamunā-Gaṅgā Triveṇī, by a bath or by jumping from the
tree at Prayāga.
As so often in later
Hinduism, the tedious and periculous[25] journey along the sacred river (earlier,
the Vedic Yamunā) is substituted by a mere bath at its Allahabad tīrtha. This is marked by the Plakṣa (or
now a Banyan)[26] tree,
which originally stood at the source of the Sarasvātī river but now marks its
underground confluence, representing another shortcut: one no longer has to
track the Yamunā (or Gaṅgā) upstream to their respective sources. The link with the Vedic Sarasvatī tree
however is preserved: it marks the place where the “underground” Sarasvatī of
later times joins the confluence of the Gaṅgā and Yamunā.
Both the Sarasvatī and the
Gaṅgā descend down from the sky,
the Sarasvatī from the Milky Way at Plakṣa Prāsravaṇa in the lower Himalayas
and the heavenly Gaṅgā (svarnadī)
from the skies to Śiva’s head, and then down, via the Himalayas, to Gangotrī
and Hardwar.[27]
In Vedic and modern times
one starts the pilgrimage at or near the confluence of the two branches of the heavenly
Gaṅgā: they once were represented
by the mundane Sarasvatī and the Dṛṣadvatī, and they are now represented by the Gaṅgā, Yamunā and the mythical,
underground Sarasvatī.
By taking a bath at the confluence
of the latter Triveṇī and by following the Vedic Sarasvatī,
people associate themselves with a river that will move them
upstream, and finally let them enter the river’s reflection in the nighttime
sky, the Milky Way. It will transport them counterclockwise, upward to the
region of the Pole Star, as to reach the realm of the gods.
Which is, of course, why
millions of Hindu pilgrims – and Harvard academics[28]--
still make the journey.
The present writer, however,
unlike his ‘pilgrimage’ to the Vedic Agnicayana ritual in Kerala in 2011, has
preferred to stay put and instead pore over various Vedic texts so as to
unravel the secrets of the Kumbh Melā.
***
The take-away is: The traditions underlying the Kumbh Melā
furnish one more example that the close study of the Vedic texts can explain
later Epic and Purāṇic myths and rituals, as the present writer has shown a few
decades ago.[29]
[1]
See W. Kirfel. Die Kosmographie der Inder.
Bonn 1920. [Reprint, Darmstadt 1967]: 109, 175; for another interpretation of
the Ganga and Yamunā, see F.B.J. Kuiper, Ancient
Indian Cosmogony, Bombay 1983:
32.
[3]
Witzel, Sur le chemin du ciel. Bulletin
des études indiennnes 2 (1984): 213-279, n. 50. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/CheminDuCiel.pdf.
[4] See Macdonell-Keith’s Vedic Index II 434 sqq.; notably Ṛgveda 6.61; 2.41.16
[5] Dṛsadvatī means “she who has many stones.” The Milky Way is called aśmanvatī “having many stones” in Atharvaveda 19.2.26-27, cf.
Mayrhofer, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches
Wörterbuch, II p. 61.
[6]
Witzel, Sur le chemin, n. 50; Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa (JB) 2.299: “In these sattras … they go towards the east,
across the whole of the Kurukṣetra. This territory is the sacrificial ground of
the gods. They cross the
sacrificial ground of the gods.”
[7]
Pañcaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa (PB) 25.10.17:
“It is by this means that the King Namī Sāpya of Videha went directly to
the shining world.”
[8]
JB 2.297 (ed./transl. W. Caland §156).
[10]
Described in detail in PB 25.10 and JB II 297 sqq. (Caland, §156 sqq.) One proceeds, by daily
throwing the śamyā knife upstream and continuing the ritual
where it falls. -- Cf. PB 25.13 for another Yātsattra, along the Dṛṣādvatī.
[11]
PB 25.10.16: “At forty-four (days)
on horseback from the disappearance of the Sarasvatī stands the Plakṣa Prāsravaṇa.
At the same distance from here is the world of heaven. The go to the world of
heaven by a journey commensurate with the Sarasvatī.” (Caland).
[12]
JB 2.297 sq: “They go as far as the Prakṣa Prāsravaṇa. Prakṣa Prāsravaṇa is the
place where speech ends. In the place where speech ends, there is the shining
world (the Milky Way). They go so well that they arrive at the shining world.”
[13]
The center of the world, see Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa 4.6.12; or the center
of heaven (divo madhyam), in the
unedited Vādhūla Pitṛmedha Sūtra see Witzel, Eine fünfte
Mitteilung über das Vādhūla-Sūtra. Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik
(StII), Vol. 1, 1975, pp. 75-108.
[14]
Note the image of the stūpa with its
central pole (see B. Kölver: Re-building
a stūpa: architectural drawings of the Svayaṃbhūnāth.
Bonn 1992). In some old representations the central
pole of the stūpa still has branches
at the top, similar to the Icelandic
Yggdrasil. The motif is widespread in Eurasia.
[15] JB 2. 298: “These sattras have these accomplishments: (udṛc; utthāna Taitt.S.):
-- if they succeed completely, that is one; -- if one of them dies, that is
one; -- if 100 cows become 1000, that is one. --- [And, after someone had died
during the sattra]: “Do not
lament! This (man), for whom you
are here lamenting, he has taken, once past the āhavanīya (fire, in the east), the path of the shining world.”
[16]
JB 2.299 “They take their final bath in the Yamunā. Now, the Yamunā is the shining world. They go therefore
towards the shining world."
[17]
In the Dṛṣadvatī-Sattra (PB
25.13): “they descend to Triplakṣa
at the Yamunā for the final bath.
That is where he becomes invisible to men." (Or one takes the bath
at the unknown location Kārapacava, on the Yamunā, in the Sarasvatī-Sattra). --
This region exhibits other astounding properties: in the śaiśava
river branch, Cyavana was rejuvenated (JB 3, 121 sqq).
[18]
JB 3.150: A certain (named) person gained heaven (svarga-loka) by ‘mounting’ (ārohaya)
the Yamunā, against the current (pratīpa)
and finding for himself a way (me
vartmāni, svavartmāni) that he used as a path (niyāna) to the top of heaven. The parallel text, PB 13.9.19, does
not speak of this. However, this is a first indication of the shift of the old
Vedic tradition eastwards to the “middle country” (Madhyadeśa, U.P.)
[19]
-- "The consecration (dīkṣā) is performed at the place where
the Sarasvatī disappears (in the desert sands). They follow the current (of the
Sarasvatī). The counter-current is, so to speak, the shining world (i.e. the
movement of the Milky Way, in the morning, from December to June; see fig.3a
in: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/CheminDuCiel.pdf). It is thus that one attains the shining
world. They go towards the northeast. The shining world is partially (iva) to the northeast (i.e. moves
towards the northeast -- from December to June). They go, rising towards the shining world. They go as far as the Prakṣa Prāsravaṇa. Prakṣa Prāsravaṇa is the place where
speech ends. In the place where speech ends, there is the shining world. They
go so well that they arrive at the shining world.”
[20]
JB 2.297: “The shining world is, so to speak (iva), in the northeast.” JUB 4.15.4 svargasya lokasya dvāra. This
doorway is located there, at the spot where the bifurcation of the Milky Way
(in the Aquila constellation) becomes visible on winter mornings, around the
time of winter solstice. In June and in July, at summer solstice, the
"doorway" of the Milky Way disappears in the west.
[21]As the Milky Way is lightly curved and ‘bent’
above the North Pole, or
rather, at the beginning of the Vedic period, curved around the three polar
stars surrounding the pole (see
fig. 1 in: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/CheminDuCiel.pdf):
at that time there was no Pole Star yet, due to precession.
[22]
There is a similar myth in the early Daoist literature of China, Jun Ping: he
stepped a float in the Milky Way, moved around with it, until he reached home
again after one year.
[23]
Actually one can do so also by mounting the ‘back’ of heaven at the eastern end
of the world, where heaven touches the ocean surrounding the earth with a
minuscule gap as broad as the wing of an insect (Bṛhad Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.3.2), and then moving towards the
top. Cf. the vartman of the Yamunā.
[24]
A little below, that is where the Sarasvaṭī disappeared in the desert: JB II 297 (§ 156) sqq. "The
consecration (dīkṣā) is performed at
the place where the Sarasvatī disappears (in the desert sands).”
[25]
See above on the Yātsattra.
[26]
Both are ficus trees: the Plakṣa is the Ficus
infectiora, (D. Brandis, Indian trees,
London 1906, 602, 718); the Vaṭa is the Banyan (Ficus bengalensis, also called Ficus
indica (Brandis 600, 603).
[27]
See the famous sculpture at Mahabalipuram: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Descent_of_the_Ganges_01.jpg/1024px-Descent_of_the_Ganges_01.jpg. Detail at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ganga_Mahabalipuram2.jpg.
[29] Witzel, Macrocosm, Mesocosm, and Microcosm. The persistent nature of
'Hindu'
beliefs and symbolical forms. In S.
Mittal (ed.) IJHS Symposium on Robert Levy's MESOCOSM, International Journal of Hindu Studies,
1.3 Dec. 1998, 501-53. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/w97ijhs-MesocosmLevy.pdf
