"Ānanda", or All Desires Fulfilled

Author(s): J. A. B. van Buitenen

Source: History of Religions , Aug., 1979, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Aug., 1979), pp. 27-36
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1062420

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 J. A. B. van Buitenen N A N DA, OR
ALL DESIRES
FULFILLED

It is quite a few years ago now th

particularly confusing passage in t
Maitrdyaniya Upanisad and found t
of the Taittiriya Upanisad provided th
the Maitrdyaniya corruptions satis
the comparison of the two Upan
Maitrdyanzya also shed needed light
was not the epigone of the other, and
of the two texts had to be studied in
my Maitrayanzya study was mainly
standing of the textual history of t
pursue too far the implications of the
Taittiriya. I should now like to return

This article after many years continues my

they are scattered, may be listed here. "Vdcd
Festschrift S. K. Chatterjee (Poona, 1955); "S
Reconstituted; 2: Ahamkdra; 3: Sattva," Journ
76, no. 3 (1956): 153-75; 77, no. 1 (1957): 1
"Notes on Aksara," Deccan College P.R.I. B
Reconsidered," Indo-Iranian Journal 2, no. 4
of the American Oriental Society (1959): 17
of Religions 4, no. 1 (1964): 103-14; "The Sp
in Indian Linguistics-Festschrift M. B. Eme
1 J. A. B. van Buitenen, The Maitrdyaniy
pp. 29 ff.

? 1979 by The University of Chicago. 0018-2710/80/1901-0003$00.95

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Ananda

Taittiriya Upanisad, chapter 2, is well known on two counts: it

propounds the so-called Five-Sheath2 doctrine of the dtman, and
it defines brahman as bliss and bestower of bliss,3 dnanda. This
definition of brahman as dnanda became central to later Vedanta
thought which defined the supreme as sacciddnanda, "existent,
spirit and bliss." Also, when the road to release from the bondage
of karman in transmigration became viewed as the road to know-
ledge of brahman, the bliss that was brahman placed a highly
positive value on this release: for not only was release merely
desirable as an escape from the miseries of life, death, and rebirth,
it was a state of bliss by itself, over and beyond the escape from
the misery of bondage.
How was this notion of bliss prepared? How was this bliss
regarded; or, what was regarded as blissful, and why? An in-
vestigation of the early contexts of dnanda, before it was viewed
as the opposite of bondage, provides interesting answers.
.Rg Veda 9.113.6 gives early notice:
yatra brahma pavamana chandasyam vacam vadan /
gravna some mahiyate someannandam janayann-
indrayendo pari srava //

"0 thou now purified, Soma in whom the brahman priest, while
speaking the words of the hymns, rejoices with the pressing stone,
generating bliss through Soma-swirl around for Indra, 0 drop!"
The scene here is of the soma sacrifice when the soma stalks are
being pounded with the pressing stones and the pressed-out juice
swirls around the cowhide on which this pressing takes place.4
The purification takes place while the pressing goes on by straining
the juice through a cloth into the drona trough underneath.5 It is
clear from ?Rg Veda 11 how this bliss is seen. Still addressing Soma,
the poet says

yatranandai ca m6das ca mddah pramuda asate /

kamasya yatraptah kamas tatra mam amrtam krdhi-
indrayendo pari srava //

"Thou in whom the blisses, joys, pleasures and raptures are sitting,
in whom the desired objects of desire are obtained, make me
immortal in thee-swirl around for Indra, 0 drop!"

2 Pancakosavidya is the traditional name in Vedanta; the word kosa is not

used by Taitt Up. in this context.
3 Taitt Up. 2.7.1 anandayati.
4 Willem Caland and Victor Henry, L'Agnistoma, 2 vols. (Paris, 1906-7),
?129, I, pp. 157, ff.
5 Ibid., ?133 f., I, pp. 168 ff.
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History of Religions

While no doubt the soma was pressed for Indra, its principal
recipient, the priest drank it too, and it is obvious that he, not
Indra, asks for the immortality in the draught in which bliss rests
and desire's objects are obtained. The word dnanda here, para-
phrased by "joy, pleasure and rapture," and paralleled by the
phrase kdmasya ... dptdh kdmdh, signifies the joyous state of
(drug-induced) ecstasy in which the ecstatic may hope for im-
mortality. Three points may be kept in mind from the beginning:
the use of the word dnanda, its association with the fulfillment of
the greatest desires,6 and its potential for immortality.
Once more in praise of the soma about to be offered, the
adhvaryu, the priest of the Yajurveda, invokes it according to the
Vdjasaneyi Samhitd 19.8,7 as follows: upaydmagrhito 'sy dsvinadri
tejah sarasvatdim viryam aindram baldm / esd te yonir moddya
tvdnandaya tvd mdhase tvd: "Thou hast now been taken in the
ladle,8 (thou) glory of the Asvins, might of Sarasvati, strength
of Indra: this (ladle) is thy womb-(I take) thee for joy, for bliss,
for largeness."
Again dnanda is coupled with moda, but also now with mahas
"largeness," on the creative implications of which I have com-
mented before in this journal.9 It may here signify a "swelling with
joy," for there is no clear indication yet that dnanda (or for that
matter moda) meant anything more than the exuberance following
the drinking of the soma. The same Samhitd, 30.6, in a series of
persons who contribute to human activities, good or bad ("for
dancing a bard, 30.5), for singing a songster," 30.6, so kamdya
pumscalum "for lust a harlot," lists dnandaya strisakhdm "for
bliss a friendly woman"10 and later in the same context dnandaya
talavam "for bliss a musician" (30.20). The meaning of the word
dnanda is not summed up by "sexual bliss," though it is no doubt
among the joys included in it. Vdjasaneyi Samhitd 20.9 has a list
of answers to the question, "Who are you, what are you, for what
(man), for what (woman) do I take you?" the following one:
dnandanandav dnddu me bhdgah sdubhdgyam pdsah: "My testicles
pleasure me to bliss; vagina, penis are my delight."
While the occurrences so far give us little reason to assume any

6 Kamasya kdmdh may be read as a superlative idiom; but note that kama
regularly occurs in two meanings side by side: "desire" as a craving, and "object
of desire," its objective.
7 I quote from the Madhyamdina version, which I have at hand.
8 Upayama is the name of the ladle with which soma is offered into the fire.
9 "The Large Atman," pp. 105-10.
10 The compound by its accent should be read as a karmadharaya.
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Ananda

specific refinement of meaning for dnanda (although we shou

keep the Rg Veda passages in mind), The Satapatha Brdhman
employs it with a broader and higher intention, 10.3.5.13: dnand
evdsya vijndnam dtmdnanddtmdno haiva sarve devdh sa haisa
devdndm addhdvidyd sa ha sa na manusyo ya evamvid devdna
haiva sa ekah: "bliss, (that is to say) knowledge of it (sc. th
brahman) is his self: indeed, all gods are ensouled by bliss: th
is the peculiar knowledge of the gods; the very (person) who has
this knowledge is not a human, he is one of the gods." Here t
scope of dnanda is certainly broadened: knowledge of the "eldest
(= supreme) brahman" (oatapatha Brdhmana, ibid., 10) equals bliss
which equals soul. Moreover, this conception of dnanda might w
be called a special knowledge (vidyd), for it was important enoug
to be signed by a sage in the immediate sequel:1l etad dha sma v
tad vidvdn Priyavrato Rauhi?neya dha / vdyum vdntam dnandas
ta dtmeto vd vdhito veti sa ha sma tathaiva vdti tasmdd ydn deve
&disa icched etenaivopatisthetdnando vd dtmdsau me kdmah sa m
samrdhyatdm iti sam haivdsmai sa kdma rdhyate yatkdmo bhavat
etdm ha vai trptim etdm gatim etam anandam etam dtmdna
abhisambhavati ya evam veda: "This is what Priyavrata Rauhiney
who knew exactly this, said to the blowing wind: 'Your soul
bliss, now blow this way or that!' So the wind blows these ways.
Therefore the blessings which a person wishes from among t
gods, let him attend (on the gods) with: 'Your soul is bliss. Wh
I desire is this.... It must succeed.' For him that desire indeed
succeeds, whatever desire he has. He who knows this obtains th
contentment, this course, this bliss, this soul."
Here, as in the Rg Veda verses quoted, the idea of dnand
connected with the fulfillment of wishes, and it is important
note that it is a divine attribute, which is however within t
reach of man: etam dnandam etam dtmdnam abhisambhavati.
There is also a creative part to dnanda, for the god is by hi
dnanda moved to create. This creativeness easily blends into
procreativeness, as in Satapatha 6.2.2.6: Prajdpatih prajd
srstvdnuvyaiksata tasydtydnandena retah pardpatat: "Prajapat
having created the creatures, looked about; because of his suprem
bliss his semen spilled."'2 Here the bliss is both the result o
creation and the cause of procreation. This perception of dnan

1 at Br. 10.3.5.14.
12 It becomes a white, hornless, bearded he-goat (and is described as t
life), which upon being sacrificed is returned to Prajapati as his life
(ibid., 7).
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History of Religions

will persist, although this bliss does not necessarily equal orgasm.
A hasty reductionist might depart from a basic meaning of
"orgasm" and leave the history of dnanda there, blissfully content
that further blisses must be derivative or sublimative of orgasms,
but the texts do not.13 They use dnanda as a quasitechnical term
indicating a state in which all desires are fulfilled so that no
desires are left, and in which all other realms of desire are tran-
scended.
The quoted Satapatha passage of 10.5.2.11 stresses that the bliss
which is knowledge elevates a person: he is no longer a man, he is
one of the gods. This vaguely recalls RV. 9.113.11 where having
obtained all desires (=dnanda) is a condition for immortality.
What the texts appear to assume is that the bliss of dnanda is of a
different order altogether from other pleasures that human beings
may experience, and that sexual bliss is at best a metaphor for it.
Even in its sexual connotation the scope of dnanda is rather
different from what one might expect. There are six such occur-
rences in the Kausitaki Brahmana Upanisad, all of which have the
same context where the penis (upastha) is treated as one of the
motoric faculties (the karmendriyas of later texts). In 1.7 it reads:
kendnandam ratim prajdm [dpnosi] ity upastheneti: "He said,
'With what (do you obtain) bliss, sexual pleasure, offspring?'
'With the penis."' So also in 2.15, 3.5-8. The sequence dnandam
ratim is noteworthy: rati reads like a gloss on dnanda: "bliss, that
is to say, sexual pleasure," as though by this time that connota-
tion of the word needed explanation. In the same context of
sensory and motoric faculties dnanda occurs in Brhaddranyaka
Upanisad 2.4.11.
The Brhaddranyaka in 4.1.6 indicates a convergence point
of this, rather abstracted, sexual bliss and divine bliss: mano
brahmeti... mana evdyatanam dkdsah pratisthdnanda iti ...
kdnandatd Ydjnavalkya / mana eva samrdd iti hovdca manasd
vai samrdt striyam abhihdryate tasyadm pratiripah putro jdyate
sa dnando mano vai samrdt paramam brahma nainam mano
jahdti sarvdny enam bhutdny abhiksaranti devo bhitvd devdn
apyeti: "'brahman is thought,' he said ... 'Thought is its domain,
space its foundation, its bliss,' he replied. 'In what consists this
bliss, Yajfiavalkya?' 'Thought, Sire,' he said: 'by thought, sire,

13 Nor do the Pali texts cited in the Copenhagen Dictionary indicate such a
connotation; the synonyms quoted for dnanda are tutthi, pZti, nandi, pamoda,
pamdda, somanassa. Besides, the many uses of the word as a proper name,
beginning with that of the Buddha's favorite disciple, indicate its high meaning.
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Ananda

one is fetched to a woman:14 from her a son in his image is born:

that is bliss. Thought, sire, is the highest brahman; thought does
not desert him, (but) all things flow into him; having become a
god he joins the gods."' Despite the esoteric language the old
idea shines through: brahman equals knowledge, which equals
bliss-which is like the bliss that is the son born to a man by a
woman fetched by desire. We reencounter also the Satapatha
notion that bliss follows creation and causes semen to flow. We
are far removed from dnanda as sexual pleasure; BA Up. 3.9.28
repeats: vijMdnaam dnandam brahma: "brahman is knowledge,
bliss."
Here it becomes necessary to look more closely at the formation
of the word dnanda. It is not, as at first sight it might seem, a
nominal derivative from the root nand- with preverb d; the verb
dnandate is not recorded until much later.l5 Rather should it be
regarded as a verbal noun nanda with prefixed a, and thus to
belong to a fairly large group that often goes unrecognized: a
indicates the place where the verbal action occurs, for example,
dsrama, where one toils; drama, where one enjoys oneself; dkara,
where things are scattered; dlaya, where things lie, etc. The word
dnanda thus implies a locus: that in which one finds bliss, be it a
son, the fulfillment of a wish, the knowledge of brahman, the
dtman, the brahman; or, as in the case of the wind, in blowing
where it lists. Ananda then is not just a free-floating unfocused
bliss, a state of beatitude; it has an implied object.
Where, now, does one find this bliss? In BA Up. 2.1.19 King
Ajatasatru holds forth on deep, dreamless sleep and what happens
to the "soul" there: through the 72,000 veins of the body which
lead to the pericardium "he creeps toward the pericardium and
lies in it; as a young prince, or a great king, or a great brahmin
would lie having reached the pinnacle of bliss, so he lies there."
And this leads us back to the Taittiriya and its five sheaths of
the person, for Aj&tasatru's description of the "soul's" contracting
to the center of the body where it finds the pinnacle of bliss
closely resembles the "soul's" progression through dtman-sheaths
until it reaches the pinnacle where it is bliss.
14 Cf. Chdndogya Up. 8.2.9: atha yadi strilokakdmo bhavati samkalpdd evdsya
striyah samuttisthanti; in the BA Up. passage too manas has the sense of "purpose-
ful thought."
15 The Petersburg Dictionary cites the Bhattikdvya and Gitagovinda for the
earliest attestations of anandate; anandaydti (Taitt Up. 2.7.1) and dnandayate
(Prasn Up. 4.2, hence dnandayitvam, ibid., 8) are to be regarded as denominatives
from dnanda. The Copenhagen Pdli Dictionary cites dnandati only from the late
prose of the Jdtakas.
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History of Religions

The Taittiriya pictures the human person as consisting of five

layers called dtman, which increase in subtleness. Each of these
dtmans is described as purusavidha "personlike" with a head,
two sides (or wings), an "dtman," and a foundation (or tail).
About this later. These "personlike dtmans" are annamaya,
"made of food"; prdnamaya, "made of breath"; manomaya,
"made of mind"; vijnanamaya, "made of knowledge"; and
dnandamaya, "made of bliss." The annamaya is the visible body
whose parts the teacher can point to.16 The prdnamaya has as its
parts the five prdnas, the manomaya, the four Vedas and their
instruction. The vijdnnamaya has sraddhd, "faith"; rta, "=dhar-
ma"; satya, "truthfulness"; yoga, "enterprise"; and mahas,
"largeness." At the pinnacle, or, if you will, the center, is the
dnandamaya, which has as its parts pleasure, delight, rapture,
bliss, and brahman.
The image is a complex one: it comprises a hierarchy of dtmans
that rise from the visible body to the universal brahman which is
bliss; a hierarchy of faculties rising from physical subsistence
(anna), vitality (prdna), learning (manas), ethics17 (vijiina), to
ecstasy (dnanda); and elements of a bird-symbol, with a head,
two wings, a trunk and a tail. The complexity of the image shows
that the different hierarchies and pentads are brought together
in an attempt to unify them.
Whence this bird? A parallel Maitrdyaniya passage18 points
to the road we now have to take back. It too has five layers:
(1) fire = earth with its seasons ( food); (2) wind = prdna and its
five forms; (3) sky (=adkasa) with Indra=Sun, with the five
Vedas including itihdsapurdna ( manas); (4) the knower of the
dtman (-vijndna); and (5) brahman, where one becomes blissful.
The first three layers have heads, wings, trunks, and tails, but not
the fourth and fifth, whereas the Taittiriya carries on the image
to the last two levels with the consistency of one who completes
what was left out. As though all this imagery were not enough,
the Maitrdyaniya has additional, more archaic features: the head,
etc., are altar-building bricks (istakd), and the first three levels
are the first, second, and third layers of an altar built by Prajapati,
clearly in the shape of the bird well known from the ritual of the
agnicayana.19 While the Taittiriya postpones the description of a
16 As he does in Taitt Up. 2.1.1.
17 I do not intend this as a meaning of vijndna, only as the use the author makes
of the word.
18 Maitr Up. 6.33.
19 Cf. my remarks in The Maitrdyanzya Upanisad, p. 29-33.
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Ananda

journey of the "soul" till 2.8,20 the Maitrdyaniya21 has this

journey right in the altar-layer context: the soul is here th
yajamdna, the sacrificer, who is passed on to the fourth level
the dtmavid, "the knower of the dtman," and finally to brahman
where he becomes dnandin "filled with bliss."
This is upanisadic statement at its most compact: archaic
structures are retained but to them are added new elements that
are yet felt to fit comfortably into those structures. It departs
from older speculations on the cosmic homologies of the laying
out of the three fires and the building of the bird-shaped altar of
the agnicayana. The three fires, or the three layers, represent the
familiar three-leveled world of earth, sky, and heaven. Each
level is then filled: the first is the fire on earth through the year,
which means food; the second is the sky with the wind, which
micranthropically22 is the prdna; the third is heaven with the
sun and is also the space, which is the medium of sound, that is,
the Vedas.
But this world was no longer enough. In Satapatha 10.5.4.3
Celaka Sandilyayana announces: ima eva lokds tisrah svaya
dtrnnavatyas citayo yajamdnas caturthi sarve kdmdh pancam
imams ca lokdnt samskurva dtmdnam ca sarvdms ca kdmdn ity eva
vidydd iti: "One should know that the three pierced-brick layers
are these three worlds themselves, the yajamdna himself is th
fourth,23 all objects of desire the fifth: he perfects these worlds
himself, and all objects of desire." Although the fulfillment of al
desires, for which the Vedic poet prayed at the soma sacrific
may be the logical goal of all wish-fulfilling ritual, it is clear tha
these speculations have left the actual ritual performance behind,
while borrowing from it the old hierarchy of the cosmos an
expanding that. At the pinnacle appears dnanda, which is all
desires fulfilled; but "all desires" are now epitomized in th
knowledge of brahman and of dtman, the knowledge which i
the brahman and the dtman itself. The Taittiriya text goes on to
say: "This is the inquiry into bliss. If there were a young man, a
fine young man, studious, very prompt, very stable, very vigorou
and if all this earth were his, filled with wealth-that is one human

20 Where the "purusa" travels from the annamaya atman to the dnandamay
21 BA Up. 2.1.19 knows of a comparable journey.
22 I happily borrow this term from Maryla Falk, II Mito psichologico nell' India
antica, Transactions, Lincean Academy, ser. 6, vol. 8, fasc. 5 (Rome, 1939
pp. 289-738; it is much more useful in the Indian contexts than "microcosmic."
23 The yajamana as the prototype of the journeying soul deserves further study.
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History of Religions

bliss." 24 A hundred such blisses is one bliss of human Gandharvas,

a hundred such one of divine Gandharvas, a hundred such one
of the Ancestors, etc., up to Indra, a hundred of whose blisses are
one of Brhaspati, whose hundred are one of Prajapati, whose
hundred, finally, are but one of brahman. This paean to dnanda
ends:

yato vaco nivartanta aprapya manasa saha /

anandam brahmano vidvan na bibheti kutascana //

"Whence words return along with the mind without reaching it-
he who knows that bliss of brahman has nothing to fear from
anywhere."
This verse gloriously concludes a chapter in the history of
ananda, to open a new one in Vedanta, of brahman, and dtman,
and God and his grace, and the soul and its bhakti.
In following the course of the uses of the word dnanda we have
seen it pause at the landmarks in the development of religion
and thought. It was the high joy of drinking the soma and of
offering it, the climax of the ritual building of the universe, the
unhindered happiness of gods, the orgasm that begets a son in
one's image as a metaphor for one's self-renewal as one of the
gods, the joyous knowledge of oneself and the eldest brahman,
and the bliss that is the brahman and the dtman. It appears as a
value completely outside the context of transmigration, in its
own right; this seems to me very important.
It often appears as though the "joy" one is told to find in the
dtman when it is released from transmigration is not much more
than the absence of the misery caused by the thirst for life and
the bondage of karman. But it is clear now that this is not so.
There was a conception of the possibility of a bliss that transcended
all that is pleasurable in this world well before, and apart from,
the need for it that arose from the gloom of interminable
existences. Krsna's use comes to mind of brahmanirvdna, which is

24 Taitt Up. 2.8. This "human bliss" is well chosen: Vedic students probably
were rarely fine, studious, prompt, stable or vigorous; besides, they were paupers,
living off begging. For them to be such paragons and to have all of earth with its
wealth would be bliss indeed. Remember that a teacher is talking to his student,
with apposite irony. A similar idea, namely, that all ordinary human pleasures
culminate in and symbolize the pleasure that is the dtman, explains, I think, the
curious passage in BA Up. 2.4.5: "It is not for the desire for a husband that the
husband is dear to one, but for the desire for the atman." This is repeated in
identical phrasing with wife, sons, wealth, brahminhood, ksatra, worlds, gods,
(all) creatures, and "everything," which equals "all objects of desire" that are
thus transcended by the atman as object of desire.
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Ananda

the brdhmi sthitih in the Bhagavadgitd,25 the nirvana that

brahman, which is the stance in brahman that opens not on a vo
but a fullness.

University of Chicago

25 Bh 0. 2.72.

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