Yājñavalkya said: “Thinking is dangerous. And it was never more so than the day Janaka of Videha invited me for a sacrifice, and likewise invited the brahmans of the Kuru-Pañcālas. On arrival, I found myself walking through a huge fair. Behind a stockade, a thousand cows were lowing, coins tinkling around their colored horns. Those cows were the prize Janaka was offering to whoever proved best able to answer questions about brahman. The Kuru brahmans all looked at me with suspicion, and some with resentment. I was seeing many of them for the first time, but we all knew something about each other. I was renowned for my brusque manners and didn’t want to disappoint. The meeting began: it was made up of two white stripes, the brahmans and the cows, between which milled a colorful crowd of women (some of them, I noticed, supremely beautiful), merchants, warrirors, and craftsmen, in short people who keep quiet and bear witness. Then I turned to Sämaṣravas, the young disciple who followed in my footsteps: ‘Sāmaśravas, my boy, go ahead and get the cows.’ I had spoken softly, but it seemed everybody had heard. There was a buzz of noise, with everybody speaking in everybody else’s ear.
“Aśvala, the hotṛ of Janaka, who was master of ceremonies on that occasion, stood up and asked me: ‘So, Yājñavalkya, you really are the best, are you?’ His voice was calm, his mind seething with rage. ‘I’m ready for anything,’ I said, ‘but I want those cows.’ The contest began at once. Gazing along the line of brahmans, I had the impression that every eye had narrowed to a slit: each mind was looking for the sharpest question. They wanted my head to burst. The first question was Aśvala’s by right: ‘Yājñavalkya,’ he said, ‘everything that exists is tainted by death. How can he who sacrifices not be tainted by death?’ There was a strong wind that day, bright sunshine, tents and banners hummed like sails. The wind bared my head. Everybody was looking at it. They wanted to see if the bones would shatter. The questions went on and on. With the concentric circling of the hawk they were homing in on brahman But my head was not bursting.
“Then Gārgī stood up. She was the most beautiful of all women theologians, and the most to be feared. Few were the brahmans who dared compete with her. Yet, rather than at the woman herself, I found myself looking at her robe. I hadn’t known that a fabric could be so splendid, hugging her body as if it were itself a body and eluding any definition of its color. She must have woven it herself, was my first thought, since I knew that Gārgī did some weaving as a pastime. She was famous for her fabrics, though one never saw them. Then I thought, ‘Perhaps the excellence of Gārgī’s thinking was a pastime when compared with her art as a weaver.’ As this thought came to an end in my mind, so did Gārgī’s first question. Playing the coquette, the woman who will speak of nothing but women’s matters, she was asking me a question about fabrics. ‘Yājñnvalkya,’ she said, ‘if the waters are the weft on which all things are woven, on what weft are woven the waters?’ An easy question, or so it seemed. But watching her facing me, I sensed that Gārgī was determined to beat me. The deceptive modesty of this opening was just a way of leading me into a trap. Ten times she asked me on what weft had been woven the world that was the weft of the preceding world. And I answered without hesitation, as though repeating a liturgy. After the tenth question, she looked up at me with blazing eyes: ‘And the worlds of brahman, what weft were they woven on?’ Then I felt fury well up within me against that insolent woman, temptress of the mind. ‘She believes that what her hand weaves is everything, that everything is there in her loom, beneath her fingers. Quite probably no man has ever dared contradict her. And she’s too proud and mad about her body ever to have invited a man to her bed,’ I thought. Then I found a new vibrancy in my voice, it was harsh and tense as I heard it pronounce these words: ‘Do not ask too much, Gārgī. Take care, lest your head should burst. You ask about a divinity beyond which there is nothing more to ask. Do not ask too much, Gārgī.’ And Gārgī fell silent.
“But it wasn’t over. Gārgī was holding back her last attack. She let the other brahmans ask their questions one by one. Then she came forward again, but her manner was different this time. She was no longer the impressive painted statue. Now the warrior came to the fore. First she looked at the brahmans and said: If he answers these two questions, none of you will beat him.’ Then she turned to me, legs braced like a man: ‘Yājñavalkya, I stand here in front of you like a warrior from the country of Kāśī or Videha. I have strung my bow. I hold two arrows tight in my hands, ready to transfix you. They are two questions. Try to answer.’ I’d been preparing myself for an attack from a different quarter. But once again Gārgī displayed supreme elegance. Again she spoke about weaving. She asked me what time was woven on. I knew that she knew that I had already answered this question. But I decided to answer softly, calmly, intimately, as if speaking only to her. I told her that time was woven on the indestructible. I said that it was woven on he who neither eats nor is eaten. On he who knows the one who knows. I said this looking straight at Gārgī, knowing perfectly well that I wasn’t telling her anything new. It wasn’t this she wanted to hear. So I added something else as a gift, a gesture of homage to lay at her feet. I said: ‘in this world, Gārgī, he who makes offerings, celebrates sacrifices, practices tapas, but does not know the indestructible, his virtues will come to an end, be it only a thousand years hence; in truth, Gārgī, he who leaves this world without having known the indestructible is a wretch, but he who does not leave this world unless he has first known the indestructible, he, Gārgī, is a brahman.’ I saw Gārgī’s eyes flash when I said the word ‘wretch.’ That was the word that right from the start she had wanted to hear spoken at this gathering, in front of those tight-lipped brahmans, wretched every one quite probably. She had wanted to hear a word that would speak contempt for virtuous deeds. At the same time I sensed an unspoken complicity between myself and Gārgī that nothing could undermine, a complicity that, were we never to speak to each other again, would be with us forever. Then Gārgī turned around and said: ‘Brahmans all, rejoice, for you can never escape this man except by rendering him your homage. None of you will ever beat him in theology.’”
Yājñavalkya was renowned for his bluntness. He never stooped to the polite commonplace. The words that came from his mouth were as unpredictable as his natural authority was immense. Everybody remembered the time when a group of brahmans had plunged into the most dazing speculations vis-à-vis meat eating — and it was clear that many of them were only speaking in the hope that Yājñavalkya would notice how clever they were and perhaps drop a compliment. So giddily high-flown was the dispute, you would have thought that none of the brahmans had ever eaten meat in his life. Yājñavalkya listened, eyes staring at the ground, face inscrutable. Everybody went on behaving as if he wasn’t there, but everybody knew that the outcome of the discussion depended on what, if anything, he would say. They were exhausted — and still Yājñavalkya hadn’t spoken. Then he looked up from half-closed eyes. All he said was: “When I eat meat, I like it tender and juicy.” Nobody dared add so much as a word. Later, when they cast their minds back on that day, it was with a feeling of terror.