Three Hundred Verses, Kept Together
Bhartrihari is one of the most quoted poets in Sanskrit and the arrangement of his work is the most interesting thing about him.
The Shatakatraya
Three hundreds. Three sets of a hundred verses.
One. Nitishataka, on conduct.
How to behave, how to judge people, how power works, what learning is worth, what the company of the good does and what the company of fools does. Worldly wisdom, in the classical Indian sense: not moralising, but observation about how things actually go.
Two. Shringarashataka, on desire.
Love poetry, in the full classical register, and it is not devotional and does not pretend to be. It is about attraction, about women, about what desire does to a man's judgement, and about the pleasure and the trouble of it in equal measure.
Three. Vairagyashataka, on renunciation.
On age, on the failure of everything the first two centuries described, on what is left when the appetite goes, and on going.
And the arrangement is the argument
Because the tradition kept all three, in that order, under one name.
It could easily have done otherwise. A tradition that wanted a renunciant poet could have preserved the Vairagyashataka and let the love poems go, which is what happened to a great deal of material of that kind.
It did not.
And what the arrangement says is that the third one is not a correction of the first two.
It is what comes after them.
The man in the Vairagyashataka is not somebody who was always detached and is not somebody who now regrets the earlier verses. He wrote them, they were true when he wrote them, and this is true now.
Which is a more honest account of a life than a tradition that only preserves the last stage, and it is why the Shatakatraya has lasted where more consistent bodies of work have not.
The verse
And there is one verse everybody knows, and it is worth giving properly.
In substance:
We did not consume the pleasures. The pleasures consumed us.
We did not perform the austerities. We ourselves were burned.
Time did not pass. We passed.
Desire did not grow old. We grew old.
Why it is the one that survived
Because of the grammar.
Every line reverses the subject and the object. The thing you thought you were doing turns out to have been done to you, four times in a row, in the same construction, with the same verb.
And the fourth line is the one that lands: desire did not grow old. The appetite is not the thing that wore out. You are. It is exactly as strong as it ever was and the body carrying it is not.
And there is no consolation offered anywhere in the verse.
Other verses worth knowing
On art: a person without literature, music or art is an animal without the tail and the horns, and it is a mercy to the grass that such a creature does not eat it. Which is the rudest thing in classical Sanskrit and is quoted constantly.
On the company you keep: a running theme of the Nitishataka, and the position is that association is not a minor factor but the principal one, and that a person is made or ruined by whom they sit with.
On kings and patrons: he is bitter about them, at length, and the bitterness reads like experience rather than convention.
On the impossibility of advising anybody: several verses on the futility of trying to correct a person who does not want correcting, which is the funniest material in the collection.
The Two Bhartriharis
A confusion worth clearing up, because it is extremely common.
There is a second Bhartrihari.
And he is a completely different kind of figure.
The grammarian
Bhartrihari the philosopher of language, roughly fifth century, author of the Vakyapadiya, one of the most difficult and most important works in Indian philosophy.
What it argues
That language is not a tool for describing reality but is the structure of awareness itself.
Its central doctrine is sphota: that the meaning of a sentence is not built up out of the meanings of its words, and the meaning of a word is not built up out of its sounds. Meaning arrives whole, in a single flash, and the sequence of sounds is only the occasion for it.
And its metaphysics is shabda brahman: the ultimate reality is of the nature of language, and the world is its articulation.
Which is a serious philosophical position and it was argued about for a thousand years afterwards, and this app's entry on Arunandi Sivacharya lists Sabdabrahmavada, the grammarians' position, among the fourteen schools he takes up and refutes.
Are they the same person
Almost certainly not, and the scholarly consensus is that they are two.
The reasons: the dates do not fit well, the Sanskrit is different in character, and the interests do not overlap at all. A technical philosopher of language and a poet of desire and disillusionment are not impossible to combine in one person, and there is no positive evidence that they were.
And the confusion is old, going back a long way, and it is repeated constantly in popular material, which is why this section exists.
How to keep them straight
Vakyapadiya: the grammarian. Shatakatraya: the poet. Different people, same name.
And the Nath tradition claims the poet, as Bhartrinath or Bhartrihari, one of the Navnath, and it is the poet's biography that is attached to the ballads and the cave at Ujjain.
The legend of the king
The tradition makes him the king of Ujjain, brother of Vikramaditya, and uncle of Gopichand, whose entry precedes this one.
And there is a story about a fruit.
A brahmana gave the king a fruit which conferred long life, or immortality, and the king should have eaten it.
He gave it to his queen, Pingala, because he loved her and wanted her to have the years.
She gave it to somebody in the household whom she loved and wanted to keep.
He gave it to a woman he loved.
And she gave it back to the king, because in her judgement he was the person whose life was most worth extending, and she thought the kingdom needed him.
And the king found it in his hand again and traced it back.
What the story is doing
Three things and one of them is unusual.
One. The obvious: he learns that the arrangement he had built his life inside was not what he thought.
Two. The chain: everybody in it acted out of love, and every act of love in the sequence was a betrayal of somebody else, and none of them was doing anything cynical.
Three. And the unusual one: the courtesan is the only person in the story who behaves well.
She is at the bottom of the social order, she has the least reason to be loyal to anybody, and she is the one who gives the fruit to the person she thinks most deserves it rather than to the person she wants.
Which the tradition does not draw attention to and which is sitting right there in the story, and this app is going to point at it.
How to hold the legend
As legend. The historical Bhartrihari, whichever one, is not a king of Ujjain in any evidence, and the fruit is a fruit.
And with a note about its shape: the unfaithful queen who ruins a king is one of the oldest and most tired devices in world literature, and it is doing the same work here that the land of women does in the Matsyendranath story.
And what the Vairagyashataka actually says does not need the queen.
Time did not pass. We passed. That verse is not about anybody's betrayal, and it does not need a fruit or a wife to explain it.
Ujjain, and What to Do With the Verses
Where to go
Bhartrihari Gufa, Ujjain.
A cave complex on the bank of the Shipra, near the Gadkalika temple, which this app has an entry on, and a short distance from Mahakaleshwar.
And it is a real place you can walk into: a low entrance, rock cut chambers, an image of Bhartrihari inside, and Nath sadhus who look after it.
Whether he sat there is not the question anybody sensible asks, and the place has been a Nath site for a very long time and is a working shrine, and that is enough.
And Ujjain is worth the visit anyway: Mahakaleshwar, one of the twelve jyotirlingas, with the bhasma aarti at dawn; Kal Bhairav, where the offering is liquor; Harsiddhi; the Shipra; and the Simhastha Kumbh every twelve years.
All of which this app has entries on.
The ballad
Bhartrihari is sung with Gopichand, and the two cycles travel together in the Nath jogi repertoire across Rajasthan and north India.
The Bhartrihari ballad's central scene is the same as Gopichand's: the renunciation, the leaving, and the person left behind arguing.
And the same note applies as in that entry: these are living oral traditions carried by hereditary performer communities of low social standing, the audience for multi night sung narrative is disappearing, and the useful things a reader can do are to listen to recordings, to pay properly if a performance happens near them, and to record older relatives who know songs.
What to actually do with the Shatakatraya
Read it, and read all three.
It is available in translation, it is short, and each verse is self contained, so it can be read a few at a time indefinitely.
And the recommendation is to read them in order and not to skip to the third, because the whole value of the arrangement is that the man who wrote the third one wrote the other two first.
The verse to keep
One verse, memorised, is worth more than a book skimmed, and this is the one:
We did not consume the pleasures; the pleasures consumed us.
We did not perform the austerities; we ourselves were burned.
Time did not pass; we passed.
Desire did not grow old; we grew old.
And what to do with it is not to be depressed by it.
It is a description rather than a verdict, and the accurate response to an accurate description is to look at it and then decide what to do with the time that is left, which is what the man who wrote it did.
And a closing note on the arrangement, once more
A tradition preserved three hundred verses by one man: a hundred on how to live in the world, a hundred on wanting people, and a hundred on the end of both.
And did not throw any of them away.
Which is a better model for reading a life, including your own, than the version in which the last stage is the true one and everything before it was error.
A daily practice from this entry:
- Om Namah Shivaya, at Ujjain or anywhere
- One verse of the Nitishataka or the Vairagyashataka, read slowly, in Sanskrit with a translation if you can
- The Bhartrihari question, applied once: what am I currently telling myself I am doing that is actually being done to me
- And at Mahakaleshwar, if you get there: the bhasma aarti, which is ash from the burning ground put on a deity at dawn, and which makes the same argument as the verse without a word
The Short Version
The Shatakatraya: three sets of a hundred Sanskrit verses. The Nitishataka on conduct, which is worldly wisdom in the classical sense, observation about how things actually go rather than moralising. The Shringarashataka on desire, which is love poetry in the full classical register, not devotional and not pretending to be. And the Vairagyashataka on renunciation, on age and the failure of everything the first two described.
Why the arrangement matters: the tradition kept all three, in that order, under one name, when it could easily have preserved the renunciation verses and let the love poems go, which is what happened to a great deal of comparable material. What the arrangement says is that the third is not a correction of the first two but what comes after them. The man in the Vairagyashataka is not somebody who was always detached and does not regret the earlier verses: he wrote them, they were true when he wrote them, and this is true now. That is a more honest account of a life than a tradition preserving only the last stage.
The verse everybody knows: we did not consume the pleasures, the pleasures consumed us; we did not perform the austerities, we ourselves were burned; time did not pass, we passed; desire did not grow old, we grew old. It survives because of the grammar: every line reverses subject and object, so the thing you thought you were doing turns out to have been done to you, four times in the same construction. And the fourth line lands hardest, since the appetite is not the thing that wore out. No consolation is offered anywhere in it.
The two Bhartriharis: a second Bhartrihari, roughly fifth century, wrote the Vakyapadiya, one of the most difficult works in Indian philosophy, arguing that language is not a tool for describing reality but the structure of awareness itself, with the doctrine of sphota, that meaning arrives whole rather than being built out of sounds, and the metaphysics of shabda brahman. Almost certainly a different person: the dates do not fit well, the Sanskrit differs in character, and the interests do not overlap. Vakyapadiya, the grammarian; Shatakatraya, the poet.
The legend: the tradition makes the poet a king of Ujjain, brother of Vikramaditya and uncle of Gopichand. A brahmana gave him a fruit conferring long life; he gave it to his queen Pingala out of love; she gave it to somebody in the household she loved; he gave it to a woman he loved; and she gave it back to the king because in her judgement his was the life most worth extending. He traced it back and renounced. Three things are in it: he learns the arrangement was not what he thought; everybody acted out of love and every act of love was a betrayal of somebody else; and the courtesan, at the bottom of the social order and with least reason to be loyal, is the only person in the story who behaves well, which the tradition does not draw attention to. The unfaithful queen is one of the most tired devices in world literature, and the Vairagyashataka does not need her: time did not pass, we passed, is not about anybody's betrayal.
Where to go: Bhartrihari Gufa on the bank of the Shipra at Ujjain, near the Gadkalika temple and a short distance from Mahakaleshwar, a rock cut cave complex with an image inside and Nath sadhus who look after it.
What People Ask Most
What is the Shatakatraya?+
Bhartrihari's three sets of a hundred Sanskrit verses: the Nitishataka on conduct, the Shringarashataka on desire, and the Vairagyashataka on renunciation. The Nitishataka is worldly wisdom in the classical sense, observation about how things actually go rather than moralising, covering how to judge people, how power works, what learning is worth and what company does to a person. The Shringarashataka is love poetry in the full classical register, not devotional and not pretending to be. The Vairagyashataka is on age, on the failure of everything the first two described, and on what is left when the appetite goes.
Why does it matter that all three sets were kept together?+
Because it could easily have gone otherwise. A tradition that wanted a renunciant poet could have preserved the Vairagyashataka and let the love poems go, which is what happened to a great deal of comparable material. It did not, and what the arrangement says is that the third set is not a correction of the first two but what comes after them. The man in the Vairagyashataka is not somebody who was always detached and is not somebody who now regrets the earlier verses: he wrote them, they were true when he wrote them, and this is true now. That is a more honest account of a life than a tradition that preserves only the last stage, and it is a better model for reading a life, including your own, than the version in which the final stage is the true one and everything before it was error.
What is Bhartrihari's most famous verse?+
In substance: we did not consume the pleasures, the pleasures consumed us; we did not perform the austerities, we ourselves were burned; time did not pass, we passed; desire did not grow old, we grew old. It survives because of the grammar, since every line reverses subject and object, so the thing you thought you were doing turns out to have been done to you, four times in a row in the same construction with the same verb. The fourth line is the one that lands: the appetite is not the thing that wore out, you are, and it is exactly as strong as it ever was while the body carrying it is not. No consolation is offered anywhere in the verse. It is a description rather than a verdict, and the accurate response to an accurate description is to look at it and then decide what to do with the time that is left.
Are there two Bhartriharis?+
Almost certainly, and the confusion is extremely common. One Bhartrihari, roughly fifth century, wrote the Vakyapadiya, one of the most difficult and most important works in Indian philosophy, which argues that language is not a tool for describing reality but the structure of awareness itself, with the doctrine of sphota, that the meaning of a sentence arrives whole in a single flash rather than being built up out of the meanings of its words, and the metaphysics of shabda brahman. The other is the poet of the Shatakatraya. The scholarly consensus is that they are two people: the dates do not fit well, the Sanskrit is different in character, and the interests do not overlap at all. The simple way to keep them straight is Vakyapadiya, the grammarian, and Shatakatraya, the poet: different people, same name. It is the poet whom the Nath tradition claims, as Bhartrinath, and whose biography is attached to the ballads and the cave at Ujjain.
What is the story of the fruit?+
The tradition makes Bhartrihari a king of Ujjain, brother of Vikramaditya and uncle of Gopichand. A brahmana gave him a fruit conferring long life, which he should have eaten. He gave it to his queen Pingala because he loved her and wanted her to have the years; she gave it to somebody in the household she loved; he gave it to a woman he loved; and she gave it back to the king, because in her judgement his was the life most worth extending and she thought the kingdom needed him. He found it in his hand again, traced it back, understood, and renounced. Three things are in it: he learns that the arrangement he had built his life inside was not what he thought; everybody acted out of love and every act of love in the sequence was a betrayal of somebody else; and the courtesan, who is at the bottom of the social order and has the least reason to be loyal to anybody, is the only person in the story who behaves well, which the tradition does not draw attention to and which is sitting right there. It should be held as legend, and the unfaithful queen who ruins a king is one of the most tired devices in world literature. The Vairagyashataka does not need her.
Where is Bhartrihari's cave?+
At Ujjain, on the bank of the Shipra, near the Gadkalika temple and a short distance from Mahakaleshwar. It is a rock cut cave complex with a low entrance, chambers inside, an image of Bhartrihari, and Nath sadhus who look after it, and it is a real place you can walk into. Whether he sat there is not the question anybody sensible asks: it has been a Nath site for a very long time and is a working shrine, and that is enough. Ujjain is worth the visit anyway, for Mahakaleshwar with the bhasma aarti at dawn, Kal Bhairav where the offering is liquor, Harsiddhi, the Shipra, and the Simhastha Kumbh every twelve years.
About the author
Pandit Ravindra Sharma · Vedic Rituals & Bhakti, 22+ years
Pandit Ravindra is the Vandnaa editorial team's resident specialist on aarti, chalisa, and daily devotion. He has performed home and temple pujas across Varanasi and Delhi for over two decades and contributes the bhakti-focused articles on this site.
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