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Core text - 182

Discussion on the Bhṛgu smṛti (BhS)

Basic structure of the BhS

The BhS is one of the Smṛtis of the Bhārgavas that is attributed to the founder of their clan, Bhṛgur-ātharvaṇa or Bhṛgu Vāruṇi. It is also found embedded in the Śānti Parvā of the Mahābhārata within the death-bed lecture of Bhīṣma, the Kuru patriarch, to the victorious Yudhiṣṭhira. The text is of considerable interest because it covers a greater diversity of topics in comparison to other Smṛtis. In addition to covering topics, which are the common concern of the Smṛtis in general, it shares certain interesting features with the Manu Smṛti or the Mānava Dharmaśāstra (MDS):

1. It contains a long a cosmogonic or origin-mythology section at the very beginning of the text.
2. Its narrator is the great ṛṣi Bhṛgu, who is in dialogue with the Āñgira ṛṣi, Bharadvāja.

However, unlike the other Smṛtis, the BhS allots a disproportionately larger space to origin mythology, cosmogonic issues and Adhyātmā than any of the other Smṛtis. Given its content and principle protagonist, the BhS can be considered a part of the massive Bhārgava redaction of the ancient Bhārata epic, which introduced several major inserts into the ancestral text, chiefly pertaining to the stories of the Bhārgava clan and the struggle of their hero, Rāma of the Axe with the Haihayas.

The Manu Smṛti itself appears to have undergone an early major redaction, under an unknown Bhārgava scholar, who introduced or exaggerated the section on origin- mythology. This redaction of MDS also introduced Bhṛgu as its narrator. This suggests that the MDS probably co-opted devices that were earlier established by the Bhārgavas in the compilation of the BhS.

The BhS has four distinct sections:

• Section 1 with 4 chapters: Covers origin mythology, cosmogony and proto- science and is presented above.
• Section 2 with 2 chapters: Covers Adhyātmā.
  • Here Bhṛgu first introduces a certain version of the law of conservation of matter. He thus explains that the bodies of organisms are not permanently destroyed but transform from one state of elemental combinations to another.
  • Then, he introduces the idea that the mind is a purely material entity similar to the other chemical constituents of the body.
  • Finally, he introduces the concept of the Ātmā as an independent entity that is pure consciousness. He describes this consciousness as surviving the dissipation of the aggregates of matter known as living organisms.
  • He then goes on to describe that Yoga is the means by which this pure consciousness may be realized.
• Section 3 with 2 chapters: describes the 4 Varṇas of Ārya society and the ṁlecchas. Bhṛgu first mentions that the Brāhmaṇa are white in complexion, the Kṣatriyas are ruddy, the vaiśyas tawny and the śudras black. But Bharadvāja counters that if complexion were the only criterion then it appears that the 4 Varṇas have extensively mingled with each other. He also goes on to say that the mental emotions, instincts and basic physiology of all humans appears to be the same and questions their division into 4 Varṇas.
  • Bhṛgu provides a peculiar answer by stating that originally there was only the Brāhmaṇa. Subsequently they underwent professional divergence and behavioral transmutation to give rise to the 3 other Varṇas and ṁlecchas. The Brāhmaṇas who fail to observe their rites and ritual conduct are said to fall to the other Varṇas.
  • At the same time BhS, in sharp contrast with the MDS and other Dharmaśāstras, declares that the Veda and the performance of Vedic rituals are available to all the 4 Varṇas. However, the characteristics of the śudras are described as the negligence of Vedic study, consumption of unclean (abhojya and abakṣya) foods and unclean practices. Those śudras who observe self-restraint and self-control are mentioned as not being considered śudras (but it is not clear what they are then?).
• Section 4 with 3 chapters: describes the puruṣārthas and āśramas. For all the āśramas of life the person is recommended to follow non-injury to life, truthfulness and calmness, along with the performance of all the due rituals of twilight worship and fire worship. In the householder state, the person is entitled to use cosmetics and ornaments, enjoy of pleasures derived from dancing and music, both vocal and instrumental, good food and drink, and sex. In the last station of life one performs the internal Agnihotra and worships the internal Agni with internal oblations. This section also describes a peculiar group of ascetics known as the Parivrajakas, who observe complete renunciation of all pleasures and live a life of Ahimsa.

Parallels with early Greek thought

Of greatest interest is the first section that covers cosmogony and proto-science of the Hindus. An examination of this section reveals the many connections to the Vedic Saṁhitās and Upaniṣads. In most cases the BhS represents an evolute or a further development of the germs of ideas seen in the former texts, buttressed by some new concepts that appear to emerge from the need to reconcile the divergent presentations provided by the earlier texts. This suggests that the BhS was produced by the Bhārgavas shortly after the core Vedic period and attributed to their founding father.

Many features of the text suggest a continuity in intellectual tradition starting from the earlier works of the Bhṛgu seers in the Atharvaveda and the Upaniṣads. However, equally striking are the similarities to the early Greek philosophical works that are considered to be the basis of Western science and intellectual thought. The deep parallels suggest that BhS and related texts similarly constitute an important early stratum of Hindu scientific thought, and that Greek and Hindu scientific thought had a common ancestor that already possessed several of its chief features. We discuss below a few of these parallels.

Water

Thales of Miletus, often called the “first of the Greek philosophers”, is attributed to have made two famous statements:

1. Water is the foundation of the world and
2. All things are full of gods (DK 1A14).

The first statement is mirrored in the BhS 1.27-29 in the description of the watery worlds at the foundation of the solid world.
The second statement is the expression of pantheism that is expressed throughout early Hindu thought, including the idea of the world pervaded by Prajāpati in the BhS.

Apeirōn

Anaximander of Miletus, who was a younger contemporary of Thales, is also believed to have presented a cosmogony and world model and discussion of living organisms much in the spirit of the BhS. Anaximander states:

“The principle (archē) and element (stoicheion) of all existing things was the entity termed apeirōn [unlimited]. It is neither water, nor any of the so-called elements, but something else an infinite entity, from which all the heavens and the worlds within them come into being. And the source of coming-into-being for existing things is also that into which perishing takes place…” (DK 12A1).

For the much later Aristotle the apeirōn is the “Prime Matter” and he mentions that Anaximander had described the apeirōn as being “divine, immortal, indestructible and being unborn or self-born”.
Anaximander describes the emergence of the universe from the apeirōn in a poetic language, full of images, similar to the Hindu text (compare with the lotus-pericarp imagery of the BhS). He says:

“an embryo, pregnant with ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, separated itself off from the eternal apeirōn, whereupon out of this germ a sphere of fire grew around the vapor that surrounds the earth, like a bark round a tree” (DK 12A10).

The apeirōn concept equivalent to the Mānasa presented in BhS 1.11 and is described using very similar adjectives. While the embryo that gives rise to the universe is the cognate of the Prajāpati as Hiraṇyagarbha of the Hindu texts, in the BhS it is paralled by Prajāpati in the lotus.

Air

Anaximander was succeeded by Anaximenes son of Eurystratus, the next great philosopher from Miletus. He wrote a text inspired by the former, who may have been his teacher. His views on the “elements” are thus expressed:

“Air differs in essence in accordance with its rarity or density. When it is thinned it becomes fire, while when it is condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, when still more condensed it becomes water, then earth, then stones. Everything else comes from these.” (DK13A5)

This hypothesis of Anaximenes finds a remarkable parallel in the thoughts expressed in BhS 2.10-17, eventhough some of the actual details may differ. Further, Anaximenes states:

“Air is the principle (archē) of all existing things; for from it all things come to-be and into it they are again dissolved. As our soul being the air element holds us together and controls us, so does the wind (as breath, pneuma) encompass the whole world.” (DK 13B2)

The role of the gaseous element as Prāṇa controlling the body is described in chapter 4 of the BhS. In BhS 1.18 Vāta is described as the breath of the world- being (Anaximenes’ Pneuma of the Pantheos- world being). This concept is seen even the ancient ṛgvedic hymn to Vāta, where the air is called the Ātmā of the gods that encompasses the world (RV10.168.4).

A philosophy similar to that of Anaximenes is presented by Raikva of the cart to Jānśrutī in the Chāndogya Brāhmaṇa of the Sāmaveda.

Sound

This similarity between the Greek tradition, which is considered to lie at the base of Western scientific and philosophical thought, and Hindu intellectual tradition goes beyond the above-mentioned points pertaining to the Milesian School. For example, the analysis of sound presented in the BhS is close to the starting point for the elaborate mathematical analysis of sound by the Pythagoreans.

Caste

The ideas on Adhyātmā presented in the two chapters in the second section (BhS 5-6) are paralleled in the works of Pythagoras, Heraclitus and Empedocles. Plato’s Republic (3-4) provides a division of human society into 3 castes, ‘guardians’, ‘auxiliaries’ and ‘craftsmen and husbandsmen’, which parallels the Varṇas of Dharma treatises and the similar social stratification seen in other Indo-European cultures.

More specifically, Plato appears to stress on the role of “Guṇa” or conduct in determining the caste, just as BhS 8. Plato expounds in the Republic that all the castes were born from a common being, but they came to differ because of the differences in their “souls”. Like the complexions assigned by the BhS to castes, Plato terms them as being golden, silver and brass or iron respectively. The highest caste, which includes the philosophers and the guardians of the nation, are dominated by reason and observe an austere life without indulging in excesses. The second caste is dominated by aggressiveness and the third caste by passivity and appetite.

Plato too notes that the members of the guardian caste, who fail to observe their high conduct, degrade to the lower castes. Mirroring the Dharma treatises Plato warns against the rule of the state by the members of the lowest caste and mentions that such a state goes to ruin.

Kuṇḍalinī doctrine

Another point of interest is the primitive version of the Yogic “Kuṇḍalinī doctrine” presented in the BhS 4. The BhS holds that the ātmā (or the prāṇa) is held by yogis in the brain to attain the highest yogic state. The path of the ātmā to the brain is believed to be via a cartotid artery ascending from the heart. This concept is very similar to the views expressed in the earlier Upaniṣads such as the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (8.6.6) of the Sāmaveda, Maitrayāṇa Brāhmaṇa [Upaniṣad] (6.21) of the Maitrayāṇa branch of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda and the Praśṇa Upaniṣad (chapter 3) of the Paippalāda branch of the Atharvaveda.

The movement of prāṇa in the body and conveyance of nutrition to the body by the arteries branching out of the heart as explained in the BhS echoes a similar (more primitive) exposition by the seer Yājñavalkya to the king Janaka in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Further, the Maitrayāṇa Brāhmaṇa clearly mentions that the carotids emerging from the aorta are paired arteries that move parallely to the brain. This suggests that the original “Kuṇḍalinī doctrine” supposed that the path of the ātmā (or the prāṇa) to the brain lay via an arterial route rather than a nervous one. The main development of the Yoga-Tantra stream appears to have been the recognition of the nervous basis for the process and the identification of the role of the spinal cord and the ganglia and neural plexi.

In the Greek world parallels to the anatomy expounded in the BhS is seen in the work of Diogenes (DK 64B6), which is quoted by Aristotle in his Historia Animalium. However, the “Kuṇḍalinī doctrine” presented by Plato in the Timaeus is much closer to the version of the Yoga-Tantra period. He mentions that the true home of the ‘soul-stuff’ is the brain that under the influence of ‘false eros’ passes downwards through the spinal passage and is emitted through the phallus as semen. He also mentions two accessory channels of ‘soul-stuff’ that pass on either side of the spinal cord (Timaeus 77b-c). This view of the spinal cord as the “holy tube” conducting engkephalos from the brain to the base of the spine, where it becomes semen, is also expressed by Alcmaeon, the medical philosopher from Croton (DK 14A13). This suggests that the BhS represents an earlier stage of development of this doctrine and the Greek world only appears to preserve a developed later version of it similar to that seen in the Yoga-Tantra literature.

Explanation

The similarity between Greek and Hindu proto-science requires an appropriate explanation, but such an explanation cannot be easily obtained. In general, there are two genres of explanations: 1) Lateral transfer and 2) Vertical inheritance from an early Indo-European precursor. The third alternative of pure convergence is ruled out because of the numerous specific similarities that are not encountered in other coeval cultures of the ancient world (There have been some claims for similar systems in Egypt and Mesopotamia [^1]. While there are certain shared motifs with these systems, the Indo-Greek system has specific shared features that are entirely lacking in the other ancient systems).

Observations

The Greek system, as we know it, appears to being suddenly between 600-500 BCE in the milieu of Miletus. It is already well-developed and has several abstract theoretical constructs and generally resembles the systems presented in BhS and the MDS. The genre of astronomy of the Milesian School also resembles the early Hindu astronomy expounded in the Itihāsa, which is likely to be of the same era as the BhS.

In contrast, the Hindu system seen in the BhS represents a stratum in a long evolutionary process that begins with the much earlier systems presented in the Vedic Saṁhitās and early Upaniṣads.

Lateral transfer

The presence of this anterior evolutionary history amongst the Hindus supports a potential lateral transfer from India to the Greek world.

However, such a model is fraught with certain difficulties:

1. Extensive Indo-Greek contact as known in mainstream history, happened in only in the much later Post-Alexandrian period.
2. Despite the detailed similarities between the Hindu and the Greek systems, Anaximander’s geography suggests that he had, at best, a very vague idea of the existence of India.

To counter these difficulties, some scholars have suggested the role of the rising Iranian Achaemenid Empire as an intermediary between India and Greece. While this is not implausible, it has to be noted that the Iranians do not seem to have been influenced much by these Indic ideas despite their greater proximity.

Vertical inheritance

The vertical inheritance model from an ancestral IE precursor is supported by the presence of several motifs such as the Macranthropic motif, the caste divisions and the associated origin mythology and evidence for proto-Smṛtis. Further, the similarities go beyond proto-Science and include detailed parallels between the Greek theater and the Hindu Nāṭya śāstra, as well Greek and Hindu medicine. This pervasiveness of similarities also supports an inheritance from an ancestral source.

However, this model too is affected by similar problems as the lateral transfer model: In linguistic terms the Indic branch of IE is closest to Iranian, and then the other Satem assemblage of Slavic and Baltic. Greek appears to have been the sister group of this entire proto-Satem assemblage (The latter unified by both the Satem and the RUKI rule). However, neither Iranian nor Balto-Slavic cultures preserve any vestiges that may considered similar to the Indo-Greek proto-scientific system.

An alternative vertical model is that the motifs were present in the common ancestor but their assembly into proto-science and philosophy happened only in India and Greece due to the similar intellectual conditions. The long history of texts combined with the repeated re-working of pre-existing texts to reconcile and correct their concepts may have convergently produced very similar systems because their starting material was anyhow very similar due to common origin [^2].

Iran

In both models Iran remains the anomaly due to linguistic, cultural and geographical proximity to the Hindu world. Indic and Iranian literature is strikingly parallel in the early stages. There are several parallel texts such as the Yaśṭs and the ṛgveda, the Yazna Haptanghāiti and the Yajurveda, the Yazna explanatory section and the ritual sections of the Brāhmaṇa texts, the Nirangistan and the Śrautasūtras, the Vat-dievo-dat and the Dharma and Gṛhya sūtras and the Nighaṇṭu and the Frahang-i-oim. The Upaniṣads and the literature that evolved from them however, have very few Iranian cognates.

The only Iranian texts that qualify for this genre of literature are the Aogemadaeca and the Hadhokht Nask, and even these express a fairly limited and primitive philosophical excursion. This sudden divergence in tradition between the Indic and Iranian branches in the Upaniṣadic stratum and its derivatives could have potentially arisen as a result of the unique Zarathustrian transformation of Iranian religion. Depending on the model this transformation, might have either blocked the Iranians from developing further along the lines in which the Hindus and the Greeks developed, or it might excluded them from participating in the flow ideas. It is also possible that the subsequent assaults faced by the Iranians destroyed all evidence for their developing a system similar to the Indo-Greek one. However, this theory would require an unusual preservational bias, suggesting that it is unlikely.

Summing up we present the following scenario:

1. The early Indo-European world already had the raw material for most of the concepts seen in the proto- science of the Indo-Greek world. These were vertically inherited by both the Greeks and the Hindus from their common ancestor. These ancestral motifs were presented in their original form and developed further throughout the core Saṁhitā period by the Indo-Aryans.
2. Late Vedic (Upaniṣadic) period and the following Post-Vedic period in India saw a tremendous synthesis and systematization of the ancestral motifs through the correlative process [^2]: textual reconciliation and subversion to introduce new concepts by using the old analogies and imagery. In the Hindu texts we see this entire process in 5 great strata:
   • a) The ancestral Saṁhitā texts
   • b) The Brāhmaṇa texts
   • c) Upaniṣads
   • d) The early Post-Vedic synthetic texts like the BhS and related inserts in the Itihāsa and
   • e) The foundational texts of the 6 Darśaṇas.
3. In Greece we see the sudden local emergence of material corresponding to stratum-d of the Hindu works. Hence, we suggest that Greeks probably got a jump start into this stage due to relatively detailed templates for the correlative process diffusing into their world from India. They applied these templates to the similar ancestral material they shared with the Hindus and arrived at parallel constructs where the lateral constructs and horizontal influences where inextricably merged.
   • Iran, probably due to Zarathushtrian transformation, minimally participated in the process, but may have served as a junction where Indians and Greeks met.
   • In contrast, China, despite its own independent textual history appears to have been part of the process. It acquired similar templates diffusing out of the Hindu world, which was combined with its independent starting textual material (beyond certain obvious Hindu influences). Similar correlative processes acting on this combination resulted in Taoism’s constructs, with several general parallels to the Indo-Greek world, but with clear differences in the specific details which were unique to the common Indo-European heritage of the Indic and Greek cultures.

Implications for Hindu early science

It has been commonly stated that Hindus were irrational and myth-oriented, whereas the Greeks, ever since Thales, developed real science and philosophy. However, nothing can be farther from the truth, the Greek and Hindu thinkers followed very similar constructs and had very similar world views. Science in both the systems emerged from the same matrix of ritual and religion. The Greek philosophers were as prone to poetic imagery, mythic language and “Adhyatmic” diversions as their Hindu counterparts.

Some believe that the Greeks developed mechanical models of the world from their philosophy but the Hindus did not. Whereas in Greece this process begins abruptly with the Milesian School, in the Hindu world we see the process proceeding progressively through the 5 strata mentioned above. The Milesian astronomy can be favorably compared with the early Itihāsa astronomy, where similar mechanical models emerge. They develop in complexity through the Paurāṇic successors and finally culminate in Āryabhaṭa. So the role of the text like the BhS should be considered similar to the role of the Milesian School in the rise of Western intellectual tradition and the process of scientific evolution was essential very similar in the Greek and Hindu worlds.

[^1] The Shape of Ancient Thought (Mcevilley)

[^2] Neurobiology, Layered Texts, and Correlative Cosmologies: A Cross-Cultural Framework for Premodern History, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 72 (2000 [2002]): 48-89. Steve Farmer, John B. Henderson, and Michael Witzel

“अङ्गिरसो नः पितरो नवग्वा अथर्वाणो भृगवः सोम्यासः ।
तेषां वयं सुमतौ यज्ञियानामपि भद्रे सौमनसेस्याम ॥”

Our ancestors are the Añgirasas, the Navagvas, and the Bhṛgus, the Atharvaṇs who drank the Soma. May these, the gracious sacrificers look on us with favour, may we enjoy their good minds.