The Seizers and What Karma Alone Carries Forward
Jaratkarava Artabhaga questions Yajnavalkya at Janaka's court: how the senses grasp their objects, and what is left of a person once the body returns to the elements
Before the dialogue
This exchange is the second stop in a chain of debates that fills Brihadaranyaka Upanishad chapter 3. King Janaka of Videha has held a sacrifice with a prize of a thousand cows, gold tied to each pair of horns, for whichever brahmin present is most learned in Vedic knowledge. Yajnavalkya has his students drive the cows away before anyone else speaks, provoking a series of challengers — Ashvala first, then Artabhaga here, and after him Bhujyu, Ushasta, Kahola, Gargi (twice), Uddalaka Aruni, and finally Shakalya — each pressing Yajnavalkya on a different question until the assembly is settled. Artabhaga's own turn is itself in two parts: a public catechism on the senses, followed by a question he and Yajnavalkya visibly step aside to answer alone.
The Brihadaranyaka is generally reckoned among the oldest Upanishads, composed in the milieu of the Shukla Yajurveda's Vajasaneyi tradition with which Yajnavalkya is closely associated, likely in the first half of the first millennium BCE. Its "graha/atigraha" (seizer/over-seizer) vocabulary for the senses and their controlling powers, and especially the closing formula on karma in this Brahmana, are among the passages later Vedanta and Mimamsa writers return to most often when arguing about how action and its moral quality persist beyond a single life.
The pre-eminent Vedic sage of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, seated at King Janaka's assembly answering, in turn, every brahmin who challenges him, ultimately for a prize of a thousand cows.
One of the Kuru-Panchala brahmins present at Janaka's sacrifice; the second questioner in the sequence of debates that runs through Brihadaranyaka Upanishad chapter 3.
At Janaka's assembly
Yajnavalkya has just taken the thousand cows offered to whoever among the assembled brahmins is most learned. Jaratkarava Artabhaga rises next to test him.
Eight seizers, eight over-seizers
Jaratkarava Artabhagaअथ हैनं जारत्कारव आर्तभागः पप्रच्छ। याज्ञवल्क्येति होवाच। कति ग्रहाः कत्यतिग्रहा इति। अष्टौ ग्रहा अष्टावतिग्रहा इति। ये तेऽष्टौ ग्रहा अष्टावतिग्रहाः कतमे त इति॥
atha hainaṃ jāratkārava ārtabhāgaḥ papraccha, yājñavalkyeti hovāca, kati grahāḥ, katy atigrahā iti, aṣṭau grahā aṣṭāv atigrahā iti, ye te 'ṣṭau grahā aṣṭāv atigrahāḥ katame ta iti.
Then Jaratkarava Artabhaga questioned him. 'Yajnavalkya,' he said, 'how many seizers are there, and how many over-seizers?' 'Eight seizers,' he said, 'and eight over-seizers.' 'And which are those eight seizers and eight over-seizers?'
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.2.1
Artabhaga opens with a question about the senses, framed as pairs: each sense organ is a graha, a 'seizer' that lays hold of something, but it can only do so because a matching atigraha, an 'over-seizer', is what actually enables the grasping. Yajnavalkya confirms there are eight of each and Artabhaga asks him to name them.
What is left when the elements are returned
Artabhaga then asks the harder question: at death, when a person's faculties dissolve each into its cosmic counterpart — speech into fire, breath into wind, sight into the sun, mind into the moon, hearing into the quarters, the body into earth, the self in the heart into space, body-hair into plants, head-hair into trees, and blood and seed into water — what becomes of the person then? Yajnavalkya answers this part only after taking Artabhaga by the hand and leading him away from the assembly.
Yajnavalkya and Artabhagaतौ ह यदूचतुः कर्म हैव तदूचतुः। अथ ह यत्प्रशंसतुः कर्म हैव तत्प्रशंसतुः। पुण्यो वै पुण्येन कर्मणा भवति पापः पापेनेति॥
tau ha yad ūcatuḥ karma haiva tad ūcatuḥ, atha ha yat praśaṃsatuḥ karma haiva tat praśaṃsatuḥ, puṇyo vai puṇyena karmaṇā bhavati pāpaḥ pāpeneti.
Whatever the two of them said there, it was karma alone that they spoke of; and whatever they praised, it was karma alone that they praised: 'One becomes holy through holy action, and evil through evil action.'
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.2.13 (closing line of the mantra; some secondary sources number the dissolution-of-the-elements material immediately preceding this as separate verses 3.2.11–12)
Central teaching
The senses can only grasp their objects because something beyond the organ itself enables the grasping; and when death dissolves a person faculty by faculty back into the elements, nothing named survives that dissolution except karma — action already performed and its moral quality, which alone accounts for what a person becomes next.
Key insights
- Perception is described as codependent, not one-sided: each sense (graha, 'seizer') functions only because a matching subtler power (atigraha, 'over-seizer') is what actually enables it to grasp its object.
- At death the person is described as dissolving faculty by faculty into a cosmic counterpart — speech into fire, breath into wind, sight into the sun, mind into the moon, and so on — leaving the question of what, if anything, is left over.
- Yajnavalkya answers the death question only privately, taking Artabhaga's hand and stepping away from the assembled brahmins — the text marks this teaching as too weighty for open debate.
- The reported answer is that their entire private exchange was about karma, closing with one of the earliest explicit Upanishadic statements of moral causation: one becomes holy through holy action, evil through evil action.