The Teaching of Fire: Upakolsa’s Education in the Chandogyna Upanisad

Upakolsa has two teachers in the Chandogyna Upanisad: fires, and his guru, Satyakama. By doing a close reading of the text I compare the two teachers, exploring how they teach, what they teach and their attitude towards Upakolsa.

The story of Upakolsa begins with unfair treatment. Upakolsa has tended the fires of his master for 12 years, and has not yet received the secret teaching of his master, Satyakama. While other students have been allowed to go home, he has been here, paying his dues past their date. To rub salt in the wound, Satyakama inexplicably leaves for a journey in a moment where Upakolsa expects to finally be taught. Satyakama’s wife makes these tensions clearer by not only urging her husband to teach Upakolsa, but also issuing a warning to the guru. “Teach him before the fires beat you to it.” (Olivelle 4.10) Satyakama’s departure and refusal plunge Upakolsa into profound suffering. It is at this moment that the fires deliver a discourse to Upakolsa. Their teaching is composed of two parts. The first is a simple and profound theology about the connection between prāna (breath), ka (joy), ākāśa (ether), and Brahman (creator God). This part also includes a question from Upakolsa which the fires answer. The second is a description the fires give, unprompted by Upakolsa, about their identity of the individual fires.

If I knew Sanskrit, I would push the analysis of the first part further. The dialogue between the fires and Upakolsa is essentially about definitions and language; so I have taken recourse to commentators Sankara and Nikilananda to try to piece together the nuances.

“Brahman is prāna (breath). Brahman is ka (joy). Brahman is ākāśa (eather).”

He replied: “I can understand that Brahman is prāna. But I don't understand how it can be ka or ākāśa.”

“ka is the same as ākāśa,” they replied, “and ākāśa is the same as ka.” And they explained to him both prāna and ākāśa. (Olivelle, with recourse to Nikilananda)

Upakolsa’s reasoning is easy to follow. It is easier to believe that prāna, the sacred breath of all things, is Brahman. Prāna sustains life. However, that ka and ākāśa are also Brahman is harder to understand, because ka is sensory fleeting pleasure, and ākāśa is ether, a defined portion of the cosmos. Learning that ka and ākāśa are the same challenges Upakolsa’s thinking–and pushes him to think differently about Brahman and the cosmos. The intellectual challenge is also accompanied by an emotional balm; when you are suffering it would be reassuring to hear that the space which surrounds us not only is joy, but that merely existing in that space puts you near Brahman.

The second part of the discourse changes form from a dialogue to a lecture. Each of the respective fires explains to Upakolsa what they are, followed by a refrain which is the same throughout this section.

“Then the Girhapatya Fire instructed him- 'Earth, Fire, Food and Sun. The person that is seen in the Sun-that I am, that indeed am I. One who knowing this thus, meditates upon it, destroys sin, wins regions for himself, reaches the full life-span, lives gloriously, and his descendants never perish. We protect him in this world, and in the other, whosoever knowing this thus meditates upon it.” (Sankara, 204)

The fires spend by far the largest time in what they say to Upakolsa repeatedly promising him of worldly reward. More subtle is the changing definition that each fire gives. Garhapatya, the household fire, is the Sun. Anvahãrya, the southern fire, sacrificial for Manes, is the Moon. And Āhavanya, the Eastern fire, sacrificial for Gods, is lightning. This enigmatic progression will take on new meaning when Satyakama eventually returns to complete Upakolsa.

The fire’s teaching style is empathetic and individualized. Unlike Satyakama, they answer the moral obligation they are under, and the content of their teaching both rationally challenges Upakolsa, and emotionally supports him. While all this is true, the entire content of the teaching feels elusively enigmatic, like the mystic utterance of a sage. The fires seem to acknowledge a missing link in what they have taught him, when they end their teaching saying “Upakosala! Son, now you have this knowledge both of ourselves and of the self (atman). Your teacher, however, will point out the goal to you.” (Olivelle, 225). There is both the omission which the fires themselves point to, and the omission implicit in their understanding of their own teaching. This means that the first part of their discourse, on the unity of prāna, ka, ākāśa and Brahman was ultimately about ātman. It is an open question exactly how that is so.

When Satyakama returns from his journey, gone is the sulking supplicant. Satyakama remarks that the Upakolsa’s face “glows like one who knows Brahman.” (Ibid.) One might think that Satyakama would have known that the fires were likely to teach his student; after all Upakolsa has been their tender for over a decade. But he doesn’t seem to have that in mind, and he rather asks “who taught you?” (Ibid.). When Upakolsa meekishly gestures toward the fires, Satyakama already has an idea about what they taught him. “They did indeed tell you about the worlds, son. But I will tell you that about which it is said: ‘When someone knows it bad actions do not stick to him, just as water does not stick to a lotus leaf’” (Ibid.). Strictly speaking, Satyakama doesn’t have a precise understanding as to the content of the fire’s discourse. The fires did teach Upakolsa about the world, and how they are the world, but they also taught him about Brahman and ātman. This leads one to wonder the extent to which Sataykama’s following teaching is fully adjusted to what Upakolsa knows and does not know.

The content of Satyakama’s discourse has a similar structure to the fire’s. There are two parts. The first is about ātman and Brahman. The second is a cosmological tracing of the path of a soul after death. On a basic level, in the first part of the discourse Satyakama here links the internal self, ātman, and the creator god, Brahman: Ātman is Brahman. He also calls Brahman samyadvama (lovely-uniting), vamani (lovely-leading), and bhamani (shining). If I knew Sanskrit, I would explore how these attributes of Brahman relate to the previous attributes of fire, prāna (breath), ka (joy), and ākāśa (ether). Is there perfect harmony between all of them, or is there tension, and if so what is it? The second section of the discourse is more accessible and traces the journey a soul takes after death. No matter if this person has performed the ritual death sacrifices or not, the path is: Death–Light–Day–Fortnight of the Waxing Moon (two weeks)–Sun moves Northward (six months)–Year–Sun–Moon–Lightning–Guide to Brahman. Time is the clearest way to understand the nature of this progression. The soul progresses from when there is no time, death, up to the expanse of a year. From here the units of time expand suddenly into that which is beyond time or timeless, the Sun and Moon, before rocketing back down to a lightning bolt, which exists for a single instant. The order in which the fires described themselves fits into a segment of this progression; Garhapatya (Sun)–Anvahãrya (Moon)–Āhavanya (Lightning). Through association, both progressions take on new meaning. Despite the fact that this progression of the soul occurs whether they perform the funeral rites or not, their soul after death becomes ritual sacrificial fire. Put more directly, the fires are who we will become.

This is the final word of both discourses. How did we get to this point? Whereas the fires were emotionally perceptive, and seemed to tailor their teaching to Upakolsa’s emotions, Satyakama’s discourse on the journey of the soul after death feels random. Although it does fundamentally elaborate on and to some extent interpret the fire’s teaching, what Satyakama ultimately says has the tenor of a lecture delivered in the same way, irrespective of the audience, for years. Would the structure of the teachings and how they fit together be clearer or more apparent if Satyakama had listened to his wife and gone first? We can only speculate. Moreover, does Upakolsa need Satyakama’s discourse? After the fire’s teaching he glows with the profundity of what he has just been told. I end this paper with increased skepticism about Satyakama, and a deeper appreciation of the sensitive and personalized nature of the fire’s teaching.