The Modern Review/Volume 38/Number 4/Dadhichi
Dadhichi
In some dim and historic past India witnessed the supreme sacrifice of Maharshi Dadhichi who has ever since remained in the heart of India as the ideal of renunciation, purity and selflessness. In this age of historical research one would ask us who Dadhichi was and the exact circumstances and setting of his life. We might also be asked to prove that Dadhichi really was somebody and that he actually made some sacrifice for some cause. But we must own up that we shall not be able to satisfy the curiosity of critical historians. In olden days people had a habit of deifying great men and associating their life and deeds with the gods. As a result of this much human “history” has become mythology. This is hardly anything to be mourned; for the essence of the history is not lost; it has merely been preserved in a different shape. The story of Dadhichi that has been handed down to us by our fore-fathers is that once upon a time the gods were subjected to merciless persecution by the demon Vrittra. Neither Vishnu nor Siva, nor Indra could do anything to this mighty foe who drove the gods from heaven and harassed them till they thought their immortality a curse. Then the gods were told that nothing could destroy Vrittra except a Vajra carved out of the bone of a perfectly pure man who would give up his life, without any remorse or hesitation, for the gods. The gods went shamefacedly to Dadhichi as there was no other being who could satisfy these conditions and begged for his bones. The sage gave up his life with not even the shadow of any unwillingness. He was glad that his bones could be of any good to the gods. The gods made the Vajra out of his bones and killed Vrittra with it. Thus heaven was saved from domination by the Asura: The story tells us of one who passed the supreme test of true idealism; that of unflinching readiness to give up even one’s life in order to realise the ideal. When the community, of which the individual is but a part and through which alone is it possible for the individual to attain completeness, is in some great danger, either external or internal, it is renunciation on the part of the individual and nothing else that can save it. Dadhichi was one who gladly died to serve the community and for good.
The Calcutta Dadhichi Jainti Samiti recently celebrated the glory of the great sage. In these days of rampant selfishness, narrowness and corrupt individualism, if the spirit of Dadhichi could be invoked to rouse a sense of social duty in our hearts and give us the power to place ourselves second to the social good it may yet save us from complete moral bankruptcy.