Delusion of Tripura

Vyasa asked

The king of daityas, deluded by maya, took diksha. After that, what did the possessor of maya say, and what did the lord of the daityas do?

Sanatkumara replied

Narada and the other disciples waited on the mendicant Arihat's lotus feet. After giving diksha he spoke to the king of daityas.

He called his words the essence of all Vedanta, a secret. Samsara, he said, is complete and without beginning; there is no karma and no doer. It arose of itself and will dissolve of itself. From Brahma down to a blade of grass, all are bound to bodies and are their own lords; there is no second lord. The names Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra are names of embodied beings, mere labels like his own name Arihat. When their time comes all bodies dissolve, from Brahma to a gnat, and none is higher than another. Eating, sex, sleep and fear are the same for all, everywhere. All embodied beings are satisfied equally by food, and drink quenches thirst the same for each. A man may have a thousand beautiful women but in union takes only one; he may own hundreds of horses but rides one. Sleep brings the same happiness on a couch as on bare ground. Everyone from Brahma to an insect fears death. So all embodied beings are equal, and no one should ever act violently toward anyone. No dharma on earth equals compassion to beings. Protecting one being is as if the three worlds were protected, and killing one is as if they were killed; so nonviolence is the supreme dharma, the oppressor is a sinner, and freedom from dependence on others is liberation and heaven. Men afraid of hell should not injure; in all the three worlds no sin equals violence; the one who injures goes to hell, the one who does not goes to heaven. Gifts of many kinds yield only limited fruit, but no gift equals the gift of freedom from fear. The supreme rishis, reflecting on many texts, named four gifts good for this world and the next: fearlessness to the frightened, medicine to the sick, learning to the seekers of knowledge and food to the hungry. All the other gifts together are not a sixteenth of the fruit of granting beings fearlessness. Jewels, mantras and herbs have unimaginable power, but men seek them only for a name and wealth, and wealth only to serve the twelve senses; why worship anything else? There are five senses of action and five of perception, and with mind and intelligence they are the twelve. Heaven and hell, for living beings, are here and nowhere else: happiness is heaven, unhappiness is hell. Those who have thought about truth say that to give up the body while enjoying happiness is supreme liberation, and that so is the rooting out of hardship, desire and ignorance. Speakers of the Vedas say the shrutis prove this: no living being should be injured and no violence done. Those who slaughter animals say agnishtoma sacrifices require it, but that is the view of the wicked; those who know say there is no such proof. It is amazing that anyone should hope for heaven by felling trees, killing animals, making a mire of blood and burning sesame and ghee in a fire.

Sanatkumara said

So he set out his own view to the lord of Tripura and then lovingly made all the residents of the city listen. He spoke of what could be seen directly and of means to bodily happiness, citing this supreme dharma from Buddhist agama texts and from the Vedas, saying: the shrutis state that bliss is a form of the brahman; take that as true, anything else is false. While the body is well, the senses unimpaired and old age far off, one should strive for happiness; when the body is sick, the senses weak and old age here, how can there be happiness? Those who want happiness must be ready even to give up the body. The earth is weighed down by people who give no pleasure and give nothing to those who ask, not by oceans, mountains and trees. The body is soon destroyed and so are accumulations; knowing this, the knowing person must work for bodily happiness. The Vedas say the body is breakfast for dogs, crows and worms, or is turned to ash. It is pointless to sort people into jatis: everyone is human, so who is above and who below? Elders say the first creation flowed from Brahma, who had sons, Daksha and Marichi being famous; Kashyapa, Marichi's son, by the path dharma shows married thirteen of Daksha's fine-eyed daughters. Mortals now have little intelligence or valour, and they argue pointlessly about whether he had relations with one he should not have. People of old imagined the four varnas born together from mouth, arms, thighs and so on. How can four sons born at once from one body have different varnas? So the division into varnas and sub-varnas is not convincing, and differences among humans should never be accepted.

So, sage, the mendicant addressed the daitya lord and the citizens. With his disciples he carefully destroyed the Vedic dharma. He undermined women's dharma and, more gravely, the great dharma of fidelity to husbands; the dharma of men's self-control; the worship of the gods; shraddha, especially at tirthas; the dharma and mantras of sacrifice. He specifically destroyed the worship of Shiva, beginning with the lingam, the proper worship of Vishnu, Surya, Ganesha and others, bathing and gifts, and everything especially done on parva days. This master of maya, supreme among those who know it, destroyed all of it. Indra among brahmanas, why say more? He moved every part of Vedic dharma far away. All Tripura's women were deluded and gave up serving their husbands, though they had once had that excellent inclination; they were subjugated and eager for this learning. The men were deluded and thought themselves successful only when they seduced other men's wives. Everyone was deluded, women of the inner quarters, princes, and the men and women of the city, and so all the residents gave up their own dharma, turned away, and were pleased with what they took for a better one. Lord, all this happened by Vishnu's command: it was the maya of the lord of the gods. Sent by him, Alakshmi went to Tripura. By loving worship of the lord of the gods and through their austerities they had earned Lakshmi, but sent out by the lord Brahma, she left them. By Vishnu's maya their understanding was confounded so. With this done at once, Narada thought himself successful. But despite their forms Narada and the master of maya did not themselves become deviants, by Paramesha's favour. Sage, by Shiva's will the capacity of the daitya king, his brothers and Maya was held back in this way.