Yajnavalkya

Once king Janaka performed a major sacrifice in which he declared that a thousand cows each carrying a bag of gold coin will be presented the sage who claims to be the most eminent among the sages. None dared to come forward. After a long silence one sage stood up and ordered his disciples to take home the cows. Other sages questioned his right to take the cows. All the sages came forward to pose questions of various types. The high-spirited sage who claimed the cows not only answered all their questions satisfactorily but made them speechless by putting his own questions to them. King Janaka was immensely happy with the sage and allowed his disciple to carry the cows to the sage’s home.
None but Yajnavalkya was this sage who became famous for his unsurpassed spiritual wisdom and power. He is the seer of Shukla Yajurveda Samhita, and is credited with the authorship of the Shatapatha Brahmana (including the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad), Yogayajnavalkya Samhita and Yajnavalkya Smriti. The third and the fourth chapters of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad abound with the great philosophical teachings of Yajnavalkya.
Yajnavalkya was the son of sage Devaraata and was the pupil of sage Vaishampayana who was also his maternal uncle. Yajnavalkya was studying the Taittiriya Samhita from Vaishampayana. Yajnavalkya was too confident about his ability. Once he displayed too much sense of pride in being abler than other students. At this Vaishampayana got angry and asked Yajnavalkya to give back all the knowledge of Yajurveda he taught him. As a result Yajnavalkya vomited all the knowledge that he acquired from his teacher in the form of eaten food. Yajnavalkya determined not to have any human guru thereafter. Thus he began to propitiate the Sun God for the purpose of acquiring fresh knowledge of the Veda not known to his preceptor, Vaishampayana. The Sun God, pleased with Yajnavalkya’s penance graced the sage with such fresh portions of the Yajurveda as were not known to any other. This is how the Shukla or White Yajurveda came into existence.
Yajnavalkya had two wives: Maitreyi and Katyayani. Of the two, Maitreyi was much interested in the knowledge of Brahman. Intending to enter into the monastic life Yajnavalkya wished to divide his property between the two wives before his departure. Maitreyi asked whether she could become immortal through wealth. Yajnavalkya replied that there was no hope of immortality through wealth and that she would only become one among the many who were well-to-do on earth. Hearing this Maitreyi refused to accept any wealth and desired to learn the means of immortality from the sage. Then Yajnavalkya described to her the greatness of the Absolute Self, the nature of Its existence, the way of attaining infinite knowledge and immortality, etc. This immortal conversation between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi is recorded in the forth section of the second chapter of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The central theme of the discourse is this:
“All things are dear, not for their sake, but for the sake of the Self. This Self alone exists everywhere. So, the real Self should be heard of, reflected on and meditated upon – and thus realised.”