The Jabala Upanishad (जाबाल उपनिषत्), also called Jabalopanisad, is a minor Upanishad of Hinduism. The Sanskrit text is one of the 20 Sannyasa Upanishads and is attached to the Shukla Yajurveda. The Jabala Upanishad is an ancient text, composed before 300 CE and likely around the 3rd century BCE. It is among the oldest Upanishads that discuss the subject of renouncing the worldly life for the exclusive pursuit of spiritual knowledge. The text discusses the city of Banaras in spiritual terms, as Avimuktam. It describes how that city became holy, then adds that the holiest place to revere is one within – the Atman (soul, self). The Upanishad asserts that anyone can renounce – this choice is entirely up to the individual, regardless of which Ashrama he is in. 

Jabala Upanishad History

The Jabala Upanishad is an ancient text, composed before 300 CE and likely around the 3rd century BCE, and among the oldest that discuss the subject of renouncing the worldly life for the exclusive pursuit of spiritual knowledge. The text is also referred to as Jabalopanishad (जाबालोपनिषत्) or Gabala Upanishad.

Meditation and renunciation

The themes of this Upanishad are meditation and renunciation. Sage Yajnavalkya “as the expounder of the precepts of this Upanishad” elaborates on the aspects of renunciation of the worldly life, in the interests of achieving spiritual enlightenment as the “transcendence of attachment to every desire, including the desire for renunciation itself”. 

According to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, this Upanishad seems to justify suicide in certain circumstances, a view opposed by earlier Vedic texts and principal Upanishads. The text discusses the city of Banaras as “one Shiva never leaves”, and as a holy place to revere. It also is among the earliest texts which state that the four stages of life are not necessarily sequential in that anyone can renounce their worldly life at any time. The Jabala Upanishad presents the Vedanta philosophy view that the proper life of a sannyasi is not about any rituals, nor wearing any sacrificial thread, but about the knowledge of one’s soul (Atman, self).

Three Ashramas (Life stages)

In the Vedic-era literature, only three ashramas (life stages) were mentioned, with Brahmacharya (student) as the first stage and the Grihastha (householder) as the second stage. The third stage of life, in the Vedic texts, combined Vanaprastha (retired or forest dweller) and Sannyasa (renunciation) as one ashrama.

According to Soti Shivendra Chandra, a scholar at Rohilkhand University, the separation of Vanaprastha and Sannyasa as two different stages of life is first mentioned in the Jabala Upanishad. However, Patrick Olivelle, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, states that the Sannyasa ashrama as a separate stage is mentioned in Aruni Upanishad, which likely is a more ancient Upanishad.

Jabala Upanishad Chronology and Anthology

Jabala Upanishad Chronology

It is unclear when the Jabala Upanishad was composed, as is true with most ancient Indian texts. Textual references and literary style suggest that this Hindu text is ancient, composed before the Asrama Upanishad, dated to 300 CE. 

Hajime Nakamura, a Japanese scholar of Vedic literature, dates Jabala Upanishad along with Paramahamsa Upanishad to around the start of the common era. The German scholar of Upanishads, Joachim Sprockhoff, assigns it to be from the last few centuries prior to the beginning of the common era, while the German Indologist Georg Feuerstein dates it to around 300 BCE. The text is one of the oldest renunciation-related Upanishads.

Jabala Upanishad Anthology

In the anthology of 108 Upanishads of the Muktika canon, narrated by Rama to Hanuman, it is listed as number 13. In the Colebrooke anthology of 52 Upanishads, which is popular in North India, the Jabala Upanishad is listed at number 51. In Narayana’s anthology of 52 Upanishads, which is popular in South India, the Jabala Upanishad is listed at number 39 or 40 depending on the manuscript. 

In the 30 minor Upanishads published by the 19th-century Sanskrit scholar Ramamaya Tarkaratna in the Bibliotheca Indica, the Jabala Upanishad is given the name Gabala Upanishad and listed as number 28.

Translation into the Persian language

The Jabala Upanishad is one of the 20 Sannyasa Upanishads. The Sultan Mohammed Dara Shikhoh, in 1656 helped organize and publish a collection of 50 Upanishads translated into the Persian language, with the title of Oupanekhat; in this collection, the Jabala Upanishad is listed as number 29, and “Jabala” is spelled “Djabal”. 

This Persian translation was itself translated into Latin by Anquetil du Perron in 1801–02, wherein Anquetil remarked that the Indians are reading this collection of Upanishads all the time “knowing it to be the best book on religion”. The Anquetil translation brought the Upanishads to the attention of Arthur Schopenhauer and other Western philosophers.

Themes of Jabala Upanishad

The themes of this Upanishad are meditation and renunciation. Sage Yajnavalkya “as the expounder of the precepts of this Upanishad” elaborates on the aspects of renunciation of the worldly life, in the interests of achieving spiritual enlightenment as the “transcendence of attachment to every desire, including the desire for renunciation itself”.

According to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, this Upanishad seems to justify suicide in certain circumstances, a view opposed by earlier Vedic texts and principal Upanishads. The text discusses the city of Banaras as “one Shiva never leaves”, and as a holy place to revere. It also is among the earliest texts which state that the four stages of life are not necessarily sequential in that anyone can renounce their worldly life at any time. 

Structure of Jabala Upanishad

The Sanskrit text of this Upanishad has six chapters. Sage Yajnavalkya answers questions in the first five, wherein the questions are posed by Brihaspati, Atri, students of Brahman-Atman, King Janaka, and by Atri again. The last chapter lists the names of famous sages who were model sannyasis (renunciates).

Extant texts are found in two versions. One consists of six chapters structured into 14 verses, while the other has six chapters with the same content but does not number the 14 verses.

The first three chapters are devoted to defining the place where the seat of all beings and ultimate reality (Brahman) resides, and how to reach it through meditation, the Hindu god Shiva, and the city of Varanasi. The next three chapters relate to renunciation. They describe the characteristics of a Paramahamsa as one who has reached the highest status of spirituality, who abandons all external signs of asceticism, and discards all relationships or worldly comforts to know “Brahman, the nature of the Self”.

Jabala Upanishad Contents

The holy city of Varanasi

First Chapter

The first chapter of the Upanishad opens as a conversation between Brihaspati and Yajnavalkya, where Brihaspati asks Yajnavalkya for information about the place where the seat of all beings, the Brahman, lives. Yajnavalkya states that the true Brahman seat of all beings, or Kurukshetra, is Avimuktam – a place that Shiva never left. This Avimuktam is a part of Varanasi (Banaras). 

All renouncers, after having wandered places, should stay at this Avimuktam. This is the place, asserts the Upanishad, where Rudra imparts the moksha knowledge just when the last vital breaths of the dying are departing, leading one to videhamukti (salvation after death). This place is holy, a place to revere and not leave.

Second Chapter

Atri then asks how to find Avimuktam. The Jabala Upanishad uses wordplay to express a literal and hidden allegorical meaning. 

Atri, after listening to this metaphorical answer, repeats his question, “But where is this place of Avimuktam?” Yajnavalkya replies that Avimuktam is already within Atri, “where his nose and eyebrows meet, for there is the place of the world of heaven and the highest world of Brahman.” This Avimuktam is the “abode of Brahman”.

Third Chapter

In the third chapter, the shortest in the Upanishad, the students of Brahman ask Yajnavalkya to recommend a hymn that guides someone to immortality. Yajnavalkya recommends the Satarudriya, the hymn with the hundred names of the God Rudra. 

How to renounce

Fourth Chapter

In the fourth chapter of the Upanishad, King Janaka of Videha asks Yajnavalkya, “Lord, explain Sannyasa [renunciation].”

Questions and answers

Yajnavalkya answers that one may complete Brahmacharya (the student stage of life), then Grihastha (householder), followed by Vanaprastha (retirement), and finally Sannyasa (pilgrimage as Parivrajaka Bhikshu, renunciation). Or, continues Yajnavalkya, one may renounce immediately after completing the student stage of life, or after the householder stage, regardless of whether or not one has completed the sacred fire ritual or any other rituals. 

Olivelle interprets the sacred fire ritual reference as an indirect reference to marriage, and thus the text asserts that those who have married or never married can both renounce. The Jabala Upanishad herein recommends that a person may renounce on the day he feels detached from the world, regardless of which stage of life he is in, and whether he has completed that stage.

Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas

Yajnavalkya states that some people perform the Prajapati ritual when they renounce, but this should not be done. A person should instead make an offering to Agni (fire) which is one’s own vital breath. He should make the “three-element offering”, namely, to “Sattva [goodness], Rajas [energy], and Tamas [darkness]” within. 

He should revere Prana (internal life force) because it is the yoni (womb, birthplace) of all fires. If he cannot obtain this fire, he should offer the oblation “Om! I offer to all godheads, svaha” with water as he begins the renunciation stage of life. 

Life is sacred, and the ending is a choice

Questions and answers

Fifth Chapter

In the fifth chapter, Atri asks Yajnavalkya whether someone pursuing Brahman can be without the sacred thread. According to the translation by Paul Deussen, a professor and German Indologist, Yajnavalkya answers that “this very thing is a sacred thread, namely the Atman”. A renouncer or Parivrajaka (another term for renouncer) performs a sacrifice to the Atman whenever he feeds himself or rinses his mouth with water. Feeding and dressing his Prana (life force) is the only duty of the renouncer.

Yajnavalkya states that the renouncer can choose a hero’s death by dying in a “just war”, or abstaining from eating any food, going into water or fire, or starting off on the “great journey”. This section has led some scholars to believe that this Upanishad may be giving the choice of ending a life to the individual and justifying suicide in certain circumstances. This view is different from Vedic texts and Principal Upanishads which consider suicide to be wrong.

Journey to the Knowledge of Brahman

According to this Upanishad, the renouncer pilgrim undertakes the journey to the knowledge of Brahman with the purity of thought, without belongings, with his head shaved, wearing discolored garments, free from enmity towards all, and he lives on alms. This method is not essential for anyone too sick or in mortal danger – such a person may renounce verbally or mentally.

Paramahamsa: The ideal renouncer

The sixth and final Chapter

In the sixth and final chapter, Yajnavalkya lists exemplars of Paramahamsas, the highest renouncers: the sages Samvartaka, Aruni, Svetaketu, Durvasa, Ribhu, Nidagha, Jadabharata, Dattatreya and Raivataka. They do not carry staves, bowls, hair tuft, nor the sacred thread, but they are the ones who seek after the Atman (self, soul).

Naked as he was born, beyond the pair of opposites (joy versus sorrow etc.), without belongings, wholly devoted to the way to truth, the Brahman, with a pure heart, going out, begging alms at a proper time only to sustain his life, with the belly as his utensil, even-tempered whether he gets anything or not, staying homeless, whether in a deserted house, in a temple, on a heap of grass, on an ant-hill, at the roots of tree, in a potter’s workshop, on a river bank, in a mountain cave, in a ravine, in a hollow tree, at a waterfall, or just bare ground, not striving, free from feeling of “mine”, given to pure contemplation, firmly rooted in the supreme Self, eradicating all evil deeds, […] he is called a Paramahamsa.

— Jabala Upanishad, Chapter 6 (abridged)

The Paramahamsa is the renouncer who seeks his own self, abandons impure acts and evil within, and devotes himself to meditating on the Atman and the Brahman.

Influence of Jabala Upanishad

Retirement stages of life

Five important Upanishad texts, according to Olivelle – the Jabala plus the Aruni, Laghu-Samnyasa, Kathashruti, and Paramahamsa Upanishads – provide different answers to the question of when someone may renounce the worldly life to lead a monastic one. 

The Laghu-Samnyasa Upanishad, Kathashruti Upanishad, and Paramahamsa Upanishad suggest that a man may renounce after sequentially completing the student, householder, and retirement stages of life, and then getting the consent of his elders and direct family members. In contrast, the Jabala Upanishad and Aruni Upanishad assert that the choice is entirely up to the individual, without needing to have completed any stage of life nor requiring the consent of anyone else.

Jabala Upanishad makes renunciation an individual choice

If an individual feels Vairagya (detachment from the world), the Jabala Upanishad maintains that no preconditions apply, and the individual has the spiritual right to renounce immediately. 

The Jabala Upanishad concurred with some Dharmasastras on the right to renounce and lead a monastic life, but its views contradicted others such as those in Manusmriti verses 6.35–37. The text fed a debate on the right of the individual, and medieval Hindu scholars relied on and sided with the Jabala Upanishad.

Achieve living liberation

The Jabala Upanishad influenced other scholarly works as well. The Jivanmukti-Viveka, written by the 14th-century Advaita Vedanta scholar and Vijayanagara Empire mentor Vidyaranya, refers to the Jabala Upanishad while describing those who achieve living liberation.

Jabala Upanishad Teachings

If an individual feels Vairagya (detachment from the world), the Jabala Upanishad maintains that no preconditions apply, and the individual has the spiritual right to renounce immediately. 

The Jabala Upanishad concurred with some Dharmasastras on the right to renounce and lead a monastic life, but its views contradicted others such as those in Manusmriti verses 6.35–37. The text fed a debate on the right of the individual, and medieval Hindu scholars relied on and sided with the Jabala Upanishad.

Conclusion

Because of the above, I am confident you have learned in-depth about Jabala Upanishad, its history, chronology, structure, contents, six chapters, teachings, etc. Now, that you have become self-sufficient in knowing the importance of Jabala Upanishad, henceforth, I believe you will be adopting the values of such unique knowledge.

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Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabala_Upanishad