Three Lives of Study

Bharadvāja lived the life of a student of the Veda, the sacred knowledge that is learned from a teacher's mouth, for three lifetimes. When he lay worn out, old and failing, Indra came to him and said: Bharadvāja, if I gave you a fourth life, what would you do with it?

I would live the life of a student with it, said Bharadvāja.

Then Indra showed him three things like mountains, which he did not recognise. From each of them Indra took a handful, and he called to him: Bharadvāja, these are the Vedas. The Vedas are endless. This is what you have learned in these three lifetimes. All the rest is still unlearned by you. Come, know this fire. This is the whole of knowledge.

And Indra taught him the Sāvitra fire, the sacred fire of Savitṛ, the god of the sun. That fire is itself the knowledge of the Vedas. When Bharadvāja had come to know it, he became immortal and went to the world of heaven, into union with the Sun.

So the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa, a book of the Veda, ends its story of him. The great epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, tell of Bharadvāja living on earth, as a father and as the master of a hermitage, and the rest of his story comes from them.