॥ ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय ॥
Monday, 30 January 2023 Summaries of Skandhas V. VI and VII - This is a good time to recollect important takeaways from these Skandhas. I will confine myself to very few quotations. The details can all be accessed through the ready indices at the bottom of the post by each blog link.
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Sage Bharata ( Skandha V)
The story of Jada Bharata, a glorious king, an accomplished ascetic, fallen into the infatuation with a deer, born as a deer and seeking through devotion to liberate himself, born again as a great Brahmin with full self-realisation from birth, meets and instructs the king Rahugana the following, when he is insulted.
ब्राह्मण उवाच
दुरत्ययेऽध्वन्यजया निवेशितो....भवाटवीं याति न शर्म विन्दति ॥
T: Sage Bharata (who is now referred to as a Brahmin by Vyasa) spoke:
Man is lost in the forest of worldly existence with no real happiness, driven as he is by the hard-to-conquer effects of Maya. He is completely under the sway of the three Gunas - Sattva, seeking happiness, Rajas - thinking that activity and acquisitiveness are the paths to it, and Tamas - ignorance of the real nature of existence.
This forest has six dacoits - the enemies embedded in the human mind, viz. Lust, Anger, Greed, Infatuation, Arrogance and Jealousy. They rob man of every prospect of welfare. It is like how wolves attack a herd of sheep!
Other people are constantly jealous of man, and torment him like wild mosquitoes!
Unable to find real Gurus or advanced souls, man slips back to the material world with its false promises, like the forest dweller cultivates monkeys! These are worldly people who goad him to enjoy sense pleasures, get drunk and womanise. He is so lost when the moment of death approaches. Or he falls victim to an incurable disease, which is like falling inside a mountain cave. He becomes afraid of death, like the elephant stranded in a deep cave, grasping desperately at twigs and creepers.
Hell
Those who engage in impious activities according to the extent of their ignorance are placed in different grades of hellish life. If one acts in the mode of ignorance because of madness, his resulting misery is the least severe. One who acts impiously but knows the distinction between pious and impious activities is placed in a hell of intermediate severity. And for one who acts impiously and ignorantly with an incorrigible nature of Adharma, the resultant hellish life is the worst. Because of ignorance, every undergoes suffering in hell since time immemorial.
King Chitraketu (Skandha VI)
The story of how King Chitraketu got and then lost a son and turned to spirituality to be blessed by Sankarshana. He was reborn as an Asura Vrittra who was fully devoted to Bhagavan. So much so that Indra had to atone his sin of killing him. The extracts:
Angiras decided to help Chitraketu. He performed as great Yajna to Tvashta, and gave the sanctified Yajna Prasadam to Chitraketu's principal queen, Kritadyuti. After that, in due course of time, a son was born to the King. Hearing news of this, all the inhabitants of the sShurasena were extremely pleased.
Chitraketu celebrated the son's arrival with all rituals and gifts. His joy knew no bounds and he loved his baby boy like anything.
But tragedy was not far behind. Chitraketu's several other queens grew extremely jealous and unhappy. They hated their lot for their neglect by the king and his inordinate fondness for the son of Kritadyuti and her consequent happiness. They went and poisoned the baby and the horrified queen discovered one morning her son dead in his cradle.
For the mourning king and his family, Narada arranges for the departed Jiva of the young prince to appear. He clarifies that as the transmigratory Jiva, he feels no permanent link to anyone or anything since every experience and association is merely the play of Karma.
Chitraketu stops mourning. The queens who had sinned by poisoning the prince to death atone their sins on the bank of the Yamuna as advised by Sage Angiras.
Once the king gets over his grief through this wisdom, Sage Narada teaches him the sacred prayer to Bhagavan.
Chitraketu pursues that Sadhana for seven days without food in intense Yoga.
Lord Sankarshana grants him the Darshan and reinforces the essence of Srimad Bhagavatam.
The incomparable story of Bhakta Prahlada and Bhagavan Narasimha (Skandra VII)
The avatara
17. Thus, while Hiranyakashipu was making a determined effort to kill his son, he was wonder-struck to hear the strange and terror-inspiring sound, whose source he could not trace anywhere in the assembly.
18. In order to make true the words of His devotee who had said that he saw Sri Hari in the pillar too, and also to demonstrate that He was immanent in everything, the Lord was seen as emerging into the assembly from the pillar, in a form that was neither of a beast nor of a man.
19. The Asura, who was looking around for the source of that sound, now saw that form emerging from the pillar, a wonderful form which was neither a whole man nor a whole animal, but Lo! A Man-lion!
20. While Hiranyakashipu was questioning himself anxiously within, there stood before him that very fierce form of the Man-lion, having glowing and frightening eyes resembling the colour of molten gold, and a face surrounded by brilliant matted locks and mane.
21. His fangs were terror-inspiring. His tongue was sharp and quivering like a sword. His curved eyebrows gave a frightening look to His face. His ears stood erect and high. His open mouth and nostrils looked like strange mountain caves, while his cleft cheeks added ferocity to the face.
22. His body touching the sky had a neck that was short and thick, a chest that was broad, and an abdomen that was slender. With hair resembling the rays of the moon covering His body, He had innumerable arms set on all sides with claws that looked like weapons.
23. The form that stood before Hiranya was so formidable that none could approach Him, and the Daityas and Danavas all fled away in every direction before His spectral Sudarshana discus and other weapons.
30-31. The Man-lion form of the Lord then appeared forbidding to look at, because of the fury reflected in His eyes. With His tongue licking the two corners of His wide-open mouth, with the mane of His face and neck reddened by drops of blood, and with the loops of intestine hanging on His neck, the Lord as the Man-lion presented a formidable appearance, even as a lion that had slain an elephant. He now attacked the followers of Hiranyakashipu. Throwing aside the body of Hiranya with the heart torn out, the multi-armed Man-lion went around attacking and killing in hundreds with the stroke of His nails the numerous followers of the Asura who were standing with uplifted weapons in readiness to strike.
32. The clouds were shattered by the movements of His manes. The luminaries in the sky like the sun lost their lustre in the abundant brilliance released from His eyes. His breath agitated the seas, and the elephants of the quarters trumpeted in fear, hearing His terrific roars.
33. The heavens with the aerial cars of the celestials shattered by His mane, and the earth trembling under the tread of His feet, were both stirred to their depths. Under His powerful impact, the mountains were tossed up, while the lustre emanating from Him drowned the brilliance of the sky and the quarters.
34. Afterwards He seated Himself on the royal throne in all His splendorous glory. None dared to approach that all-powerful being of terrific face, which bore marks of anger because there were no more opponents to be confronted.
Prahlada's Prayer
12. Since all can worship the Lord W\without any consideration of qualification, I, freed from all hesitation due to my low birth as an Asura. shall extol the Lord's majesty to the best of my capacity. Such praise of the Lord is the way for the purification of oneself caught in the transmigratory cycle created by the Lord's Maya, I fear not this fearful Form!
13. All these, Brahma and the Devas who stand there in utter fright of Thee, are Thy servants carrying out Thy will, unlike us Asuras. There is therefore no reason for them to fear Thee. All Thy incarnations are enchanting. as they are for the welfare of the world and for Thy sportive joy. They are never for causing fright.
14. Therefore deign to defuse Thy wrath. The Asura is now dead. and there is no one here deserving Thy anger. Even pious men rejoice at the killing of harmful creatures like scorpions and serpents. Similarly, the whole world feels relieved by the elimination of the Asura, and all are waiting to see Thy anger abate. O Thou of the Man-lion form! Henceforth men will contemplate this form of Thine for freedom from fear.
15. O Ever-victorious Lord! I am not frightened by this terror-inspiring form of Thine. Thy frightful face, tongue. sun-like eyes, quivering eyebrows, fierce molars, garlands of intestinal loops, bloodstained manes. bristling ears, fierce roars that startle even the elephants of the quarters, and claws that tore open the enemy's chest.
Lord Narasimha's grace
Lord Narasimha wanted to bestow benedictions upon Prahlada, one after another, but Prahlada, thinking of them to be impediments on the path of spiritual progress, did not accept any of them. Instead, he fully surrendered at the Lord’s lotus feet.
Bhagavan was greatly pleased with Prahlada for his unalloyed devotion, yet the Lord provided him one material benediction — that he would be perfectly happy in this world and live his next life in Vaikuntha. The Lord gave him the benediction that he would be the king of this material world until the end of the manvantara millennium and that although in this material world, he would have the facility to hear the glories of the Lord and depend fully on the Lord, performing service to Him in uncontaminated Bhakti-yoga. The Lord advised Prahlada to perform sacrifices through Bhakti-yoga, for this is the duty of a king.
Prahlada accepted whatever the Lord had offered him, and he prayed for the Lord to deliver his father. In response to this prayer, the Lord assured him that in the family of such a pure devotee as Prahlada, not only the devotee’s father but his forefathers for twenty-one generations are liberated. The Lord also asked Prahlada to perform the ritualistic ceremonies appropriate after his father’s death.
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॥ ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय ॥
