Question- Write a character sketch of Yavakri.

Answer - 

Character Sketch of Yavakri

Yavakri is the son of Sage Bharadwaja who wants to obtain spiritual knowledge direct from the gods instead of learning it at the feet of a human guru. But his father advises him against it. Yavakri defies his father and undergoes a ten year ordeal in the jungle to make Indra grant him his wish.

Yavakri's Ordeal

His old blind servant Andhaka is all praise for Yavakri for this because, as he tells Arvasu :

"Every Brahmin on the face of this earth wants to gain spiritual powers. But few succeed. In my life time I rave known only two who did. Your uncle (Bharadwaja) and your father (Raibhya). And they got their knowledge from human gurus. By diligent study. Yavakri has gone beyond even them. He received his knowledge from the gods, direct! Your uncle was sure he would fail. How he tried to dissuade the boy from taking on this ordeal. But I said to him, 'Master, let him go to the jungle. You don't know your son. I do. I brought him up on this lap of mine. He will succeed in anything he tries, you mark my words! If he had listened to me, he would be alive today. But he died of a broken heart...... and now he has come back. In triumph, the whole world is at his feat."

Yavakri's 'tapasya', however, hasn't been easy. Although he underwent the ordeal in a jungle for the long years, Andhakla describes it graphically:

"Ten years of rigorous penance and still lord Indra would not oblige. Finally, Yavakri stood in the middle of fire and started offering his limbs to the fire-first his fingers, then his eyes, then his entrails, his tongue and at last, his heart that's when the god appeared to him, restored him limbs, and granted him the boon."

After his return from the jungle, Yavakri gets no peace in the hermitages as he has a stream of visitors - learned men, ascetics, pundits, all dying to find out how he talked to the god, the details of his austerities, the hymns he charted and what Indra told him. So he goes to a hill to meditate alone. This simple Nittilai is intrigued because the tribals conduct their rites and communicate with their spirits in the open. And in any case, when Yavakri has attained such knowledge, why doesn't he use it for the welfare of the people and invoke Indra to bring rains to the parched land? But she is told by Andhaka that such knowledge is "not to be used to solve day-to-day problems. They are meant to lead one to-to-inner knowledge."

His Dubious Achievement

But Yavakri hasn't been able to gain "inner knowledge" which Vishakha calls universal knowledge. He recounts his ordeal to Vishakha :

"For a start, life in the jungle is sheer hell. Files, giant, ants, beetles, pests, leeches attacking at the suspicion of moisture, vipers lurking in bowls of dust. The relentless heat. Not demons but mosquitoes to torture you".

Then his encounters with indra haven't been pleasent, with the lord repeatedly dissuading him and telling him that spiritual knowledge cannot be attained through mere austerities it must come with experience. Indra asked him not to be "stubborn" as "you can't cross a full stream on a bridge of sand." But eventually Indra gives in and grants him his wish.

Yavakri admits that he has gained "some knowledge, but probably little wishdom." He admits that his dialogue with Indra has been "a trite exchange of words."

"I think I have some mystical powers I hadn't before, Mastered a few secret arts. Got a few mantras at any finger-tips...... The strangest thing however is that I've discovered a corner with in me-left untouched by those ten years: Undisturbed by all that self-lashing".

But this limited, undigested learning is of no help, it makes him swollen-headed and arrogant, which proves to be his undoing.

His love for Vishakha

What Yavakri hasn't been able to get over after his long penance is his love for his former sweetheart Vishakha, now Paravasu's wife and his uncle Raibhya's daughter-in-law. He stalks her for a few days before he confronts her and tells her :

"And when I opened my eyes, do you know the first thing that I thought of? Ten year ago I had come to your house to bid you good bye. And you led me quickly to the jack-fruit grove behind your house. You opened the knot of your blouse, pressed my face to your breasts, then turned and fled. I stood there stunned Ten year later I opened my eyes and I knew I was hungry for the moment."

Vishakha has also been "hungry" since her husband Paravasu left her seven years ago to preside over the royal sacrifice as the chief priest. She willingly and readily yields to him. She wants to talk to him and relive her past-how she got married to Paravasu against her wihses, how they were happy intially and how she is sex-starved and frustrated now.

They are discovered while making love by Nittilai and Arvasu. Nittilai lashes out of Paravasu : "Some people put the treacherous viper to shame". To which Yavakri's arrogant rejoined is :

"Aren't you the whelp who was asking my old servant if knew the moment of my death? .......I don't know when I'll die. But I promise you this- you'll be dead within the month."

His Grand Plan

In his arrogance Yavakri says that he dosen't know when he'll die, but it is sooner than Re or Nittilai expected. Returning home, Raibhya learns of the liaison between his daughter-in-law and Yavakri. While he leaves Vishaka to her fate to be dealt with by her husband Paravasu in the manner thought fit he invokes the 'kritya' spirit and creats a brahma rakshasa to pursue and kill Yavakri. He can save himself only by hiding in his hermitage. If he sex vives for twenty four hours, Raibhya will enter fire and immolate himself.

This is precisely what Yavakri has wanted all along when a concerned Vishakha runs to warm him of his impending fate, Yavakri is happy. He tells her of the hatred he has nursed all these years against her husband's family who have repeadtly upstaged his learned but meek and self-effecting father, sage Bharadawaja, and appropriated all the privileges and honours due to him :

I cried at the humiliations heaped on my father. He was one of the most learned men in the land. Probably the most brilliant mind. But he was scorned while this unscrupulous brother of his grabbed all the honours....... my father deserved to be invited as the chief priest of the sacrifice. But that too went to Paravasu, your husband. Even in the midst of my austerities wept when I heard the news. For I knew father would refuse to take offence. I knew he would go and congratulate Paravasu and bless him".

Which he did, says Vishkha. Yavakri hated his father for that. "He was one of the reasons I fled to the jungle".

Yavakri can't forget the past. "The past isn't gone," he tells Vishakha.

"It's here inside me. The time has come to show the world what my father's son is capable of. This is my moment.

For all his austerities and penance Yavakri hasn't been able to get rid of his human weaknesses-his love for Vishakha and his desire for reveage.

He explains:

"One night in the jungle, Indra came to me and said: "You are ready to receive knowledge, But knowledge involves control of passions, serenity, objectivity," And I shouted back; "No, that's not the knowledge I want. That's not knowledge. That's succide! This obsession. This hatred. This venom. All this is me. I'll not deny anything of my self. I want knowledge So I can be vicious destructive."

So he was planned if all in advance and he doesn't want to run away from the challenge he has thrown at Raibhya and Paravasu :

"Do not think all this happened accidentally? You think I would leave anything to chance? How do you think I would leave anything to chance? How do you think Arvasu happened to arrive at the river- bank at the right moment? Who called your father-in-law back?.... It was fortunate that you yielded. If you hadn't I would have had to take you by force."

Vishakha is aghast at her lover's vindictiveness as he tells her that this is the moment he has been waiting for all these years. He has consecrated water in his Kamadalu with which he will destroy the Brahma Rakshasa despatched by Raibhya to kill him. Then Raibhya will have no other choice but to immolate himself. He will then "Catch Paravasu by this scrotum. Sequeeze if so that he couldn't even squirm."

Although he loves Vishakha and has loved her all his life, she quietly picks up his kamandala and pours out the consecrated water it contains as Yavakri is waiting for the brahma rakshasa to appear. And when the demon comes, Yavakri screams end runs to his hermitage in order to save his life. He can't even find a drop of water around to consecrate and sprinkle it on the Brahma Rakshasa to destroy him. But the Brahma Rakshasa chases him to the gate of the hermitage and spears Yavakri before he can entre. The blind old Andhaka wails and blames himself for not having being able to recognize his footsteps, something he had prided himself on earlier.

Thus Yavakri meets his end an account of his arrogance and vindictiveness. All his knowledge fails him at the last moment as it was undigested knowledge not learnt at the feet of the human guru though diligent study. Gods had reprimanded him on his folly as he had not pursued knowledge in the right manner. As C. Rajagopalachari aptly remarks at the end of the myth of Yavakri in his abridgement of the Mahabharata :

"But learning is one thing and virtue is quite another. It is true that one should know the difference between good and evil, if one is to seek good and shun evil but this knowledge should soak into every thought and infuence every act in one's life. Then indeed knowledge becomes virtue. The knowledge, that is merely so much undigested information crammed into the mind, cannot instill virtue. It is just an outword show like our clothes and is no real part of us."

This is Yavakri's fatal flaw which leads to his downfall.

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