Chapter XV (VERSES I, II, III, IV)
Purushothama Yoga – The Yoga of the Supreme Spirit
CHAPTER XV
(Verse 1)
ऊर्ध्वमूलमधःशाखमश्वत्थं प्राहुरव्ययम् ।
छन्दांसि यस्य पर्णानि यस्तं वेद स वेदवित् ॥ १५-१॥
The Blessed Lord said: 1. They (wise people) speak of the indestructible ASHWATTHA tree as having its roots above and branches below, whose leaves are the VEDAS ; he who knows it, is alone a Veda-knower.
Reminiscent of the casual picture of the “Peepal-tree” brought up in the Kathopanishad (VI-1), here Vyasa exhaustively paints the Tree-of-life and shows its relationship with the Infinite. If the Spirit be one-withouta-second, out of this one Consciousness how did the world-of-matter — constituted of the body and its perceptions, the mind and its feelings, the intellect and its thoughts — arise? Even if it has so risen up, what nourishes it and sustains it? What exactly is the relationship between God, the CREATOR, and the world, the CREATED — the Infinite and the finite? These are some of the questions that generally rise up in any human intellect, once it is set to contemplate upon life.
The picture of the “Peepal-tree” unveiled in these three stanzas serves as a beautiful allegory of the entire spiritual concept expounded in this chapter.
Ashwattha is botanically known as Ficus Religiosa, popularly called the Peepal-tree, which, according to some, has gathered its name “because horses used to stand under its shade (Ashwattha).” According to Shankara, this tree has been chosen to represent the entire cosmos because of its derivative meaning — Shwa means “tomorrow”; Stha means “that which remains”; therefore: A-shwattha: “that which will NOT remain the same till tomorrow.” In short, the word indicates the ephemeral, the ever-changing, world of the phenomena.
It is described here that the Ashwattha-tree has its roots “up” (Urdhwa). Accepting directly the literal meaning, we have got some spiritually absurd, religiously mischievous, and aesthetically ugly ‘pictures’ of this Tree-of-Samsara, painted by some illiterate artists, and made easily available in the Indian markets. It is an insult to the mighty majesty of this scriptural picture.
According to Anandagiri, Samsara is represented as a tree (Vriksha) because of the etymological meaning of the Sanskrit term, Vriksha: “that which can be cut down.” The experiences of change and sorrow which the world-ofplurality gives us can be totally ended through detachment. The Tree-of-Multiplicity that has seemingly sprung forth from the Infinite Consciousness Divine, can be cut down by shifting our attention from the tree to the Divine.
Luckily, we who are educated in modern universities, have a similar use of the term “tree” in our history textbooks. The ‘family trees’ of kings and dynasties are, without any exception, shown as branching down from their ancestral ‘source.’ Similarly, the Tree-of-Samsara has its roots UP in the Divine Consciousness. A tree holds itself up and gets nourished by its roots; similarly, the “experiences” of change, and the “experiencer” of them, are all established in the Infinite and draw their sustenance from It alone.
“Even then,” many of our friends doubt, “why is the word ‘UP’ (Urdhwa) used?” It is used here in the same connotation as we use the term ‘up’ in our everyday expressions, like ‘HIGH-command’: ‘HIGHERofficials’: ‘TOP-men’: ‘UPPER-class’: ‘HIGH-class jewellery’ etc. In all these cases, by the term HIGH or UP or TOP, no geometrical elevation is indicated, but it indicates a superiority, a greater nobility, or value. Psychologically, it is natural for man to concede, for the subtler and the diviner, a HIGHER place of reverence and to consider the grosser and the devilish as belonging to a LOWER status. The Perfect is the Highest Consciousness, illumined and vitalised by which alone can the body-mind-intellect equipment experience its world of “perception-emotionthought.” Naturally, therefore, the world-of-plurality is allegorically pictured here as the fig-tree — arising from and sustained by the Higher Consciousness, the Reality.
This world-of-change (Ashwattha) is considered here as eternal (Avyaya), only in a relative sense. Any peepal-tree in any village must have observed many generations playing and growing up under its shade, and thus, with reference to man’s average age, the fig-tree can be considered as RELATIVELY eternal. Similarly, with reference to the generations that grow, conceive, plan, strive, achieve and die away, the world itself can be considered as RELATIVELY immortal.
For this tree-of-life “THE VEDAS THEMSELVES ARE THE LEAVES” — Veda means ‘knowledge.’ Knowledge does bring forth a greater spurt of dynamism of life into the world. In comparison with the modern world — with its colossal endeavours, mighty achievements, and superhuman aspirations — the ancient generations were, relatively speaking, not even alive. More the knowledge a generation acquires, clearer becomes its vision of a greater future and diviner possibilities, and therefore, more is the amount of effort put forth by it to achieve the perceived goal. Now to compare Veda-‘knowledge,’ to the leaves of the “Tree” is not quite inappropriate. Leaves are areas from which the water contents get evaporated in all trees, and this, in its turn, creates the ‘osmotic-pressure’ in the roots and facilitates the roots to draw more quantity of nourishment from the earth. Cut down the leaves of a tree and its growth is immediately stunted; the larger the number of branches and leaves, the greater is the tree’s dimension and growth. Where there is greater knowledge, there we are sure to find a greater flare of manifest-life.
HE WHO KNOWS IT, IS A KNOWER OF THE VEDA — He alone, who has realised not only the Ashwattha-tree, but also the Higher, from which it derives its existence, is the one who has fulfilled his knowledge of the Vedas. The Vedas indicate the One Eternal Principle from which all the realms of experience have sprung. Neither pure science, nor mere devotion, can achieve the Truth of perfect knowledge, is the conclusion of the Geeta. Knowledge is perfect only when we know of the here and the hereafter, of the finite and the Infinite, of the created and the Creator. All the rest of the pursuits of knowledge, however spectacular they might be, are, at best, only onesided views of the whole Truth. The Man-of-Perfect- ‘Wisdom,’ as conceived by the Vedas, is the knower of both the PERISHABLE and the IMPERISHABLE; and such a man alone is recognised by Krishna as the Vedavit — knower of the Vedas.
(Verses 2)
अधश्चोर्ध्वं प्रसृतास्तस्य शाखा गुणप्रवृद्धा विषयप्रवालाः ।
अधश्च मूलान्यनुसन्ततानि कर्मानुबन्धीनि मनुष्यलोके ॥ १५-२॥
Below and above are spread its branches, nourished by the GUNAS; sense-objects are its buds; and below, in the world of men, stretch forth the roots, originating in action.
Continuing to paint the picture of the Tree-of-Samsara, we have here the etching in more details. Such mystical representations should not be taken too literally, whether in literature or in art. The very style of the Vedas is couched in mysticism. Taking any convenient object of the world and describing it in such a poetic style so as to express some of the subtler philosophical truths and thereby to convey some deeper religious message, is called mysticism.
Describing the Tree-of-life and adding more details to it, Vyasa says: “UPWARDS AND DOWNWARDS ITS BRANCHES SPREAD” — the flow of life in the individual, as well as in the world, is sometimes towards the higher evolutionary purposes, but more often it tends to cater to the lower animal nature. These two tendencies are significant here when it is said that the branches of the Tree-of-life grow both “upwards and downwards.”
PATTERNED BY THE GUNAS — These urges for living the higher and the lower values are maintained and nourished by the particular type of psychological tendencies gunas available in the individual. In an earlier chapter (XIV) the play of the gunas (moods of the mind) has been exhaustively discussed.
In any tree there are nodular buds which are potential branches that have not yet developed, but are waiting for a chance to burst forth. Corresponding to them, Krishna says, in the Ashwattha-tree, are the sense-objects, the ‘buds.’ It is a fact that in the presence of an ‘object’ our tendencies revolt against all our higher concepts and ideals, and run amuck to gain their gratification: a new “branch.”
DOWNWARD THE ROOTS EXTEND — If the main root of the Tree-of-Samsara is lost in the Absolute Reality, High above, the “secondary roots” which spring from it are spread all around, and grow even downward, “IN THE WORLD OF MAN, INITIATING ALL ACTIONS.” Here, secondary roots are thought-channels (vasanas), which are created in us, and which propel each one of us towards his own typical actions and reactions in the world. They are the very causes that promote man’s evil as well as meritorious activities in the world. Just as the main taproot, while spreading its secondary roots, claws the earth through them and gets the plant well-rooted, so too, these Samskaras, actions and their reactions, both good and evil, bind the individuals fast to the earthy plane of likes and dislikes, of profits and losses, of earning and spending.
(Verses 3)
न रूपमस्येह तथोपलभ्यते नान्तो न चादिर्न च सम्प्रतिष्ठा ।
अश्वत्थमेनं सुविरूढमूलं असङ्गशस्त्रेण दृढेन छित्त्वा ॥ १५-३॥
Its form is not perceived here as such, neither its end, nor its origin, nor its foundation, nor its resting-place; having cut asunder this firm-rooted ASHWATTHA -tree with the strong axe of non-attachment. . .
(Verses 4)
ततः पदं तत्परिमार्गितव्यं यस्मिन्गता न निवर्तन्ति भूयः ।
तमेव चाद्यं पुरुषं प्रपद्ये ।
यतः प्रवृत्तिः प्रसृता पुराणी ॥ १५-४॥
Then that Goal should be sought after, where having gone, none returns again. I seek refuge in that ‘primeval PURUSHA’ from which streamed forth, from time immemorial, all activity (or energy).
In order that the students may not misunderstand this mystic symbolism, and take the Tree too literally, the Geeta acharya owns that ‘ITS FORM, AS SUCH, IS NOT PERCEIVED HERE.’ The Tree-of-life, as described in the previous stanzas, evidently represents the entire field of manifested life. The subtle Principle of Life manifests through us, in different planes and in a variety of forms — as perceptions of the body; as emotions and feelings of the mind; as ideals and thoughts of the intellect; and as mere non-apprehension of the causal-body. All these vehicles and their experiences, manifesting in the Infinite Life, in their totality, constitute the Ashwatth a-tree spreading out into all quarters. Naturally, therefore, Lord Krishna says that very few have the comprehensive vision to see them all as such in one gaze.
Not only are the different vehicles and their expressions not recognised as such in their entirety, but very few of us in the world come to recognise “THEIR END OR THEIR BEGINNING, OR THEIR EXISTENCE.’ The Tree-of-life springs from the ‘ignorance’of Reality (Avidya) and it ends on the “realisation of the Self” (Vidya), and it exists only so long as the mental demands and desires (vasanas) function. These subjective implications are not generally perceived, or recognised, or understood, by the majority of men.
The manifested world constituting the Ashwattha-tree can be cleft ‘BY THE STRONG AXE OF DETACHMENT.” The world of matter is inert and insentient. The experience of life gained through it is known and lived only because of the play of Consciousness upon it. As long as the wheels of a car are geared on to the machine, the vehicle moves. In case we can clutch the motive-power off from the moving wheels, the vehicle must necessarily come to its own natural motionless condition. Similarly, if Consciousness is withdrawn from the body-mind-intellect vehicle, its play of perception-emotion-thought must necessarily halt. This clutching off of Consciousness from the inert matter vehicles is detachment. With the axe of detachment, Krishna advises Arjuna, to cut down the tree of multiple experiences.
At our present level of conscious-existence we are apt to protest against this advice, because, to us detachment from these three vehicles is a complete retirement from the worlds of perception, from the realms of emotion, and from the fields of thought. In fact, we know no other world to tread, and therefore, intellectually, we reach but a state of utter nihilistic nothingness. This is a despairing situation indeed. But Krishna adds, almost in the same breath, “THEN THAT GOAL SHOULD BE SOUGHT AFTER, TO WHICH MEN GO AND DO NOT RETURN AGAIN.”
On the whole, the tone of suggestion and the manner of expression in these two stanzas clearly indicate that the students who seek the Divine in themselves should learn to withdraw more and more from their usual dissipations with perceptions, feelings and thoughts, and must, in “the still moments of meditation, contemplate upon the Higher — the Source from which the Ashwattha-tree itself draws its sustenance and nourishment.
Had this advice been merely given out and left at that, it would have been, at best, only a poetic vision, or an impossible suggestion. As a practical hand-book of instructions to man on how to live nobly and grow out of his instinctive weaknesses, the Geeta has to show the seekers some practical methods of self-improvement at every stage. And this is accomplished when the stanzas are closed with a prayer: “I SEEK REFUGE IN THAT PRIMEVAL PURUSHA WHENCE STREAMED FORTH THE ANCIENT CURRENT.”
The stanza indicates that when our personality has, to a maximum degree, retired from its extrovert pursuits, the intellect is to be consciously turned, in an attitude of love and surrender, to the goal — the goal from which the stream of Consciousness flows to the matter-vehicles facilitating them to play their parts. In short, HALT the manifestations of life, and seek the Eternal Life, the Source of all expressions of life. What this primeval Purusha is and how one is to conceive It is the theme of the entire chapter.