Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c16.35

c16.35

In the *Chhāndogya Upanishad*, iv, 1-3, Raikva first calls Jānaśruti a Śūdra, and then imparts to him the Saṁvarga-Vidyā ("a theory of Vāyu and Prāṇa as *saṁvargāḥ*, absorbers of the elements and life-organs"). The reply is that a single case does not make a rule; that the claim to one particular Vidyā does not mean claim to all Vidyās; and that the epithet Śūdra was applied by the Ṛishi in its etymological sense (viz. "one who rushes into grief", *śuchāṁ abhidudrāva*) to the sorrowful Jānaśruti by virtue of his supernatural insight into the king's mental state. Besides, in the story, Jānaśruti, being praised for the same Vidyā with the Kshatriya Abhipratārin, shows that the former was really a Kshatriya and not a Śūdra. To this Śaṅkara adds the further proof of his Kshatriyahood from the fact that he had a steward and other similar signs of power. This, as aptly pointed out by Deussen, itself shows that "for the time of Śaṅkara and also for that of Bādarāyaṇa it was by no means self-evident that a man of princely pomp and wealth like Jānaśruti could not have been a Śūdra", which is interesting from the point of view of both political and cultural history.