Kapila and Devahuti

An abridged retelling from J. M. Sanyal's English translation of the Srimad Bhagavatam.

The sage Maitreya told Vidura how the Lord Vishnu came into the world as the son of Kardama and Devahuti, and what that son said to his mother.

The son who was promised

Devahuti, the daughter of Manu, spoke modestly of her sorrow to her husband Kardama. Kardama was moved. He remembered what Vishnu had promised him, and he said, "Do not grieve. The Lord himself will soon enter your womb. Keep your vows, worship him with restraint and with gifts to the worthy, and when he is pleased he will be born as your son. He will teach you the knowledge that cuts the bonds of the world."

She believed him and worshipped Vishnu for a long time. As fire is born in wood, the Lord of Madhu was born in Devahuti. Music sounded in the clouds, the Gandharvas sang and the Apsaras danced, and flowers fell from the sky. Brahma came to Kardama's hermitage with Marichi and the other sages, for he knew that the Absolute was being born to teach the Sankhya. He told Kardama to give his daughters in marriage to the sages, and he told Devahuti that her son, golden-haired and lotus-eyed, would cut up desire at its root, and would be known on earth as Kapila. Kardama gave his nine daughters to Marichi, Atri, Angira and the rest, and they went home glad.

Then Kardama bowed to the child and said that the Lord whom yogis seek through many lives had been born in his poor house. He asked leave to become a wandering renunciate. Kapila said he had kept his promise, and had come to bring back the knowledge of the Self that time had worn away. "Go where you please," he said. "I will teach my mother, and she will be free of every fear." Kardama walked around him and went into the forest. He gave up even his fire and his house, and wandered, with his mind fixed on the Lord, and reached the Lord's own state.

The mother asks

Kapila stayed in the hermitage by Lake Vindu, to please his mother. He sat quietly, saying nothing. One day Devahuti remembered what Brahma had said, and she came to him.

"I am tired," she said. "The senses have driven me without rest, and I was being led into the dark. But now that I have you as my light, I hope to be taken across. You are the Lord himself, risen like the sun for the ignorant. This sense of 'I' and 'mine' is your doing, and only you can remove it. I take refuge in you, and I want to understand what is called Nature and what is called the Self."

Kapila smiled, pleased with her wish. He told her that the mind is the cause of both bondage and freedom. Fastened to the things of the world it binds a being, and fixed on the Lord it frees him. When the mind is pure and treats pleasure and pain alike, a person sees the Supreme Soul, and the world loses its hold. For those who want to reach Brahman there is no better road than steady love for the Lord. The same attachment that binds a being becomes, when turned to the Lord, a door to liberation. He told her to seek the company of the good, for in their company stories of the Lord are told, and they are sweet to hear.

Devahuti asked again. "What kind of devotion should I give you? I am a woman, and my understanding is small. Teach me so that I may follow it easily, and tell me what yoga is, and how many parts it has."

Kapila felt tenderly toward her, for he had been born of her body. He told her that a love for the Lord that seeks nothing, not even liberation, is higher than liberation. There are those who serve him and do not want to be merged in him, who delight in his forms and his talk, and still are never touched by Time. "To them I am dear as a son, close as a friend, trusted as a teacher," he said. "The wind blows in fear of me, the sun burns in fear of me, Indra sends rain, Fire burns, and Death goes about for fear of me."

What she learned of Nature and the Self

Then Kapila taught her, one by one, what the sages call the Sankhya. He told her of the Self, which watches and does nothing, and of Nature, which is unseen and gives rise to the world. Nature has three qualities, and from her come twenty-four things in order: the great principle, the sense of "I", the five elements, the five subtle forms, the ten organs, and the mind in its four aspects. Time stands as the twenty-fifth.

When the Self forgets itself and believes it is the doer, it is bound to the wheel of births and deaths. He gave her a likeness for it. The sun is reflected in water and again on a wall, and a person in the room may take the second reflection for the sun itself. In the same way the Self, clothed in a body, mind and ego, is mistaken for what it is not.

Devahuti objected. "Nature and the Self depend on each other. How can the Self ever be free of her? Even when these teachings take away our fear for a while, the causes are still there, and the fear comes back."

Kapila answered that fire is born from wood and in the end burns up the wood. In the same way Nature is set aside by the Self, through steady love for the Lord, true knowledge, and the habit of looking at the world without attachment. He gave another likeness. When a person sleeps, he may see terrible things in a dream, but when he wakes they cannot trouble him.

Yoga

Kapila told her next how a person should practise yoga. He should be content with what comes, serve those who know the Self, live on a little pure food in a quiet place, speak the truth, take only what he needs, and keep his mind turned toward the Lord. He should prepare a seat of kusha grass and a deer skin, sit upright, and learn to control the breath, as gold is cleansed of its dross by fire. Then he should fix his gaze on the tip of his nose and call up the form of the Lord: his face calm and smiling, his eyes like the inside of a lotus, four arms holding the conch, the discus, the mace and the lotus, a yellow robe, the Kaustubha jewel on his chest.

He told her to hold this image until the mind was steady, and then to meditate on each limb in turn, from the lotus feet up to the smiling face.

The Lord's own form, Time, and the way back

Devahuti asked once more. "You have told me about Nature and the Self. But what is the use of this knowledge? What is devotion in practice? And what is Time, your other form, which makes people act in fear?"

Kapila said that devotion differs as people differ. Some show it in anger, pride or spite. Some offer it for fame or riches. Some give the fruit of their duties to the Lord. And there is a devotion without any motive at all, which flows to the Lord as the Ganga flows to the ocean. This last he called devotion beyond the three qualities. Those who have it want no heaven, no wealth, not even to be made one with him. They serve, and nothing else.

Then he spoke of Time, which is another name for Vishnu. Time makes the world turn, and it enters everything and brings it to an end. It has no favourite and no enemy. Because of it the wind blows, the sun gives its heat and the rivers flow. People do not see its power, as clouds do not feel the wind that drives them. They think of their sons, wives, houses and wealth as real, though these pass, and so they suffer when Time takes them.

He told her of the life of a creature from the first night in the womb, through its months of growing and its forgetting at birth, to its death. He told her what becomes of different kinds of people when they die: those who work for heaven and the ancestors go to the moon and return, those who give up the fruit of their work reach the Lord by the way of the sun, and those who live only for the body and its pleasures fall into darkness and pain. He told her that these teachings are for the humble, the friendly and the devoted, and should not be given to the cheat or the proud.

Her song, and his leaving

When Kapila stopped speaking, Devahuti's ignorance had gone. She bowed to him and sang his praise.

"This body of yours is made of the elements and the senses, and from your navel Brahma was born, and could not see you as you lay on the waters. You do nothing, and yet you create, keep and end the universe. At the end of time you carry the whole universe in your belly. How could I ever have borne you in my womb? Even your infancy, when you lay alone on a banyan leaf and sucked your toe, is a wonder of your power. If even an outcaste hears your name, he is fit to perform the sacrifice. How much more one who sees you."

Kapila answered her tenderly. "Mother, the path I have told you is an easy one. Follow it fully. By it you will be free even in this life. Even Brahma and the other knowers of Brahman walk it. Those who do not know it fall into the mouth of Death."

Then, with his mother's leave, he went away.

Devahuti stayed on in the hermitage, which had grown as rich as a palace from her yoga and austerity. It had ivory beds inlaid with gold, seats of gold with soft cushions, walls set with crystal and emerald, jewelled lamps, and gardens full of birds. Celestial nymphs and Gandharvas sang there. Still she left it without sorrow. Only her face showed a trace of sadness at the loss of her son, as a cow misses her calf. Her husband had gone to the forest, her son had gone away, and she thought of Kapila, and so lost her hold on the rich house.

She bathed three times a day, and her hair turned grey and matted. Her body, wrapped in rags, grew thin. She cleansed her heart by devotion, by meditation on the Lord's form, by steady discernment and by moderate living. Little by little she lost all sense of being a creature, and with it the sense of pain. She lost all desire, and her absorption deepened. As a person who wakes from sleep does not remember his dream, she hardly remembered her own body. Celestial women fed her, and her husband's power sustained her. She grew no thinner, though she was covered with dust like a flame wrapped in smoke. If her hair came loose or her cloth slipped, she did not notice it. In a short time she reached the Lord, who is ever free.

The place where she attained is known throughout the three worlds as Siddhipada. Her body, cleansed by yoga, became a river, the best of rivers, which the Siddhas honour still.

Kapila first went north. The Siddhas, the Charanas, the Gandharvas and the ascetics praised him as he left, and the Ocean offered him a gift of water and a home. He is still engaged in yoga, for the good of the three worlds, and those who follow the Sankhya still sing his praise.

Maitreya said that the conversation of Kapila and Devahuti is very holy. Those who hear or read it keep their minds on the Lord whose banner is Garuda, and at the end reach his lotus feet.