Bahubali's inner victory

At a Glance

• Central figures: Bahubali (also called Gommateshvara), the younger son of Rishabhanatha, the first Tirthankara; and Bharata, Bahubali’s elder brother, the first Chakravarti (universal emperor).
• Setting: The kingdom of Rishabhanatha’s sons in ancient India, after Rishabhanatha renounced the throne and divided his realm between his hundred sons; Bahubali ruled the kingdom of Podanapura (Paudanapura).
• The turn: Rather than wage a full war, Bharata and Bahubali agreed to settle their dispute through three contests - eye-combat, water-combat, and wrestling - and Bahubali won all three, yet found no satisfaction in victory.
• The outcome: Bahubali renounced his kingdom on the battlefield itself, pulled out his hair, and stood in meditation so long and so still that vines grew up his body; he attained Kevala Jnana - omniscient knowledge - while standing.
• The legacy: The colossal monolithic statue of Gommateshvara at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, carved in 981 CE, depicts Bahubali standing naked with vines climbing his legs and arms; every twelve years the statue is anointed in the Mahamastakabhisheka ceremony.

Bharata had conquered the six continents. His army had swept in every direction, his chariot-wheel rolling unbroken across kingdom after kingdom, and when he returned to Ayodhya, the sacred Chakra - the divine discus that accompanies a Chakravarti - refused to enter the city. It stopped at the gate and would not move. Bharata’s ministers told him why: the discus would not rest until every rival king had submitted. And there were still rivals. His own brothers.

Ninety-eight of Rishabhanatha’s hundred sons had already taken diksha - renounced the world and followed their father into ascetic life. One had not. Bahubali, the youngest, the tallest, the strongest, ruled Podanapura and saw no reason to kneel.

The Discus at the Gate

Bharata sent messengers to his remaining brothers. Ninety-eight had already gone. Only Bahubali stood in the way. The messengers arrived at Podanapura and delivered the demand: submit to Bharata. Acknowledge him as Chakravarti. Bow.

Bahubali listened. He did not bow.

He said he had not been defeated in battle. He had not been defeated in anything. He would not submit to a brother simply because a discus had chosen him. If Bharata wanted submission, Bharata could come and take it.

Bharata came. He brought his army. Bahubali brought his. The two forces faced each other across a plain, and the ministers on both sides saw what was about to happen - the sons of the first Tirthankara slaughtering each other’s soldiers, men dying for two brothers’ pride. The ministers proposed an alternative. Let the brothers settle it themselves. Three contests, body against body, no armies involved.

Bharata agreed. Bahubali agreed.

Three Contests

The first was drishti-yuddha - eye-combat. The two brothers stood face to face without blinking, without looking away, each trying to force the other to drop his gaze. Bahubali’s eyes held. Bharata looked down.

The second was jala-yuddha - water-combat. They stood waist-deep in a river and tried to unbalance each other with waves and splashes, striking the surface with open palms to send walls of water at the other’s face. Bahubali was taller, heavier, steadier. Bharata lost his footing.

The third was malla-yuddha - wrestling. They locked arms. Bharata was strong, but Bahubali was stronger. He lifted his elder brother off the ground. He held him in the air. He could have thrown him down onto the hard earth and ended it.

He did not throw him.

He held Bharata above his head, and something turned in him. He was about to dash his own brother against the ground. For what? A kingdom. A title. The right to say he had won. He had already won. He had won three times. And the winning tasted like dust.

He set Bharata down.

The Hair Pulled in Handfuls

Bahubali stood on the field where the armies had gathered to watch, and instead of claiming his victory, he reached up and pulled out his own hair. He pulled it out in five fistfuls - the Jain act of kesh-loch, the renunciation of vanity, the first gesture of a monk. The hair fell on the ground. His ministers stared. His soldiers stared. Bharata, still breathing hard from the wrestling, stared.

Bahubali stripped off his armor, his ornaments, his royal garments. He stood naked on the field. He did not speak. He closed his eyes and began to meditate, standing upright, arms slightly away from his body, palms open, in the posture called kayotsarga - abandonment of the body.

He did not move.

The Vines

Days passed. Bahubali did not move. Weeks passed. Months. Seasons turned. His army went home. His kingdom ran itself without him. Rain fell on his shoulders and dried. Sun darkened his skin and moved on. Ants built trails across his feet. Snakes coiled at his ankles and left.

Vines began to grow. They crept up from the earth around his calves, wound around his thighs, climbed his arms. Anthills formed at his feet. His body became part of the landscape, a thing rooted, like a tree.

But Kevala Jnana did not come.

His mind was almost still, almost free, but something held it. A small thing, finer than a vine, harder than stone. Pride. Not pride in his kingdom - he had abandoned that. Not pride in his strength - he had abandoned that too. Pride in his renunciation. He had given up everything, and he knew he had given up everything, and the knowing was itself a possession. He was proud of having nothing. That pride - the last, thinnest film of ego - kept omniscience away from him the way a closed eyelid keeps out the sun.

His sisters came to him. Brahmi and Sundari, Rishabhanatha’s daughters, had both attained spiritual knowledge. They saw what held their brother. Brahmi spoke to him directly.

Bahubali, get off the elephant.

That was all. Get off the elephant. The image was precise: a man riding a great beast, looking everywhere for that same beast, not realizing he is sitting on the thing he claims to seek. Bahubali was standing in renunciation and searching for renunciation. He was on the elephant.

Kevala Jnana

He understood. The last attachment broke. It broke the way a single thread breaks when it has been holding a whole curtain - the fabric simply falls. Bahubali’s pride in his own asceticism dissolved, and in that dissolution, Kevala Jnana rose in him. Total knowledge. Knowledge of every being in every world across every time. He saw everything at once and clung to nothing.

He opened his eyes. The vines still clung to his body. He did not brush them away. He stood with the vines wrapped around him, entirely free, entirely still, the first human being in this cosmic cycle to attain omniscience while standing.

Bharata knelt then. Not because the discus demanded it, not because he had lost the wrestling. He knelt because he recognized what his brother had become. The Chakra entered Ayodhya that day. The discus had been waiting not for Bahubali’s submission, but for something else entirely - a war that ended before anyone died, a victory that the victor refused to keep.

At Shravanabelagola, the statue stands fifty-seven feet tall, carved from a single block of granite. Bahubali is naked. His face is calm. The vines climb his legs and arms and reach toward his shoulders. Every twelve years,ثنتا thousand pots of milk, saffron water, sandalwood paste, and vermillion are poured over his head from scaffolding built for the occasion, and the liquid runs down the stone vines, and the crowd below watches it pool at his feet.