Shrimad-Bhagavatam
and Advaita Bhakti – 3
(Vidura,
Maitreya; SvAyambhuva Manu; Creation)
The great
Sage Shuka narrated the Bhagavatam in seven days to King Parikshit and a large
audience of silent listeners to the narration. This happened 30 years after
Suta Pauranika
was one of the many who were in the audience at the first saptAha. Because of his
extraordinary powers of memory he was chosen by a later gathering ( probably several hundreds of years later) at Naimisaranya for
recounting what he heard from Shuka on the banks of the
Another
manner in which Bhagavatam reached posterity is from Sanatkumara (who heard it
from the Lord Absolute) to Sankhyayana, who communicated it to Sage Parasara
from whom it came to Maitreya who gave it out to Vidura.
Of
course even earlier Brahma (who had it from the Lord Absolute) had communicated
it to Narada, who, at the coronation ceremony of Yudhishtira at Indraprastha,
had passed on several parts of Bhagavatam to Yudhishtira, in answer to
questions by him.
Thus when Bhagavatam comes to us from Suta, sometimes he quotes
Maitreya, sometimes he quotes Narada and sometimes he quotes Sage Shuka himself.
Before the onset of the Mahabharata War Vidura leaves the scene on
pilgrimage because he is in total disagreement with what is going on under Duryodhana’s leadership in
Hastinapura. He comes back after several
years but in the meantime he meets Uddhava, a relative as well as a most
sincere devotee of
So we
now have a long conversation between Vidura and
Maitreya. The subjects dealt with
cover a wide range – like, Brahma’s
original creation called ‘sarga’ consisting of the elementary creation of
sixteen items of matter, and further
elaborate details of
various subcreations, which together constitute what is called ‘visarga’.
Before
Creation the Lord, the Soul of all souls (*AtmA AtmanAM vibhuH * - III – 5 – 23) was the Only One.. When there
was no Seer nor Seen, it appeared as if there was a
void. During Creation, by His icchA shakti He appears to be multifold. The Lord created
this universe of multiplicity out of His own Cause. The Cause and Effect were
the same. This phenomenon is called mAyA. (III – 5 – 25):
sA vA
etasya sandrashhTuH shaktis-sad-asadAtmikA /
mAyA nAmA
mahAbhAga yayedaM nirmame vapuH //
The
latent Power in Him as Eternal Time caused the manifestation of the mahat-tatva,
the supreme sum-total of matter, from which all the manifested universe of
matter arose. Maitreya gives a fantastic amount of details about creation. And Vidura
asks very pertinent
questions.
“How is it, the
Absolute which is immutable and which is beyond all guNas, resorts to action resulting in creation of the
universe? Even as a Leela,
is it not incompatible with the nirguNa
nature of the Transcendental Absolute?” (III – 7 – 2).
“You
said, Oh Maitreya, that it is through avidyA (Cosmic Ignorance) that the Lord creates, sustains and dissolves
the universe. But He the Almighty is beyond time and space. How did He associate Himself with avidyA? In all bodies the
experiencer that is the jIva is also nothing but a spark of the Absolute. How can he then lose the Bliss that he came from and how can
he suffer because of actions?” (III – 7 –
Maitreya
replies (III – 7 – 9):
seyaM bhagavato mAyA
yanna yena virudhyate /
Ishvarasya vimuktasya
kArpaNyam-uta bandhanaM //
In fact,
it appears to be a contradiction that to the Lord who is devoid of all avidyA,
there happens due to avidyA a
bondage and a fall of Knowledge. This
appearance is nothing but mAyA. Just
like, in a dream, a person dreams that his head has been cut off. Just like,
the reflected moon in water assumes all the vibratory movements of the
water. So the non-real BMI produces the
appearance to the dreamer-jIva and not to the Lord. The same guNas of the BMI reach their end by the practice of
renunciation and by
Bhakti in the Lord. When
the senses are taken away from their objects, all sorrows and experiences merge
in the fullness of the Absolute, as they do in sleep. (III –
7 - 10 to 12).
At this
point, there is a beautiful analogy by Shri Jnaneshvar for illustrating the
“Actionlessness” of the Lord. In a
forest, a monkey and a human being , scared of a lion
which is chasing them, climb a tree and station themselves on the branches of
the tree, safely away from the clutches of the lion. The lion keeps banging on the shadow of the
monkey. Every time the lion hits the monkey’s shadow, the monkey on the tree
gives out a shriek, jumps from branch to branch and thus gets more and more
excited. In its excitement, in due time,
after its shadow has received a few beatings from the lion’s paw, the monkey
falls from the tree and duly becomes an easy prey for the lion. Now the lion starts
beating the shadow of the man, but the man uses his discretion and is
unperturbed by the lion’s beating of his shadow. Finally, the lion gets tired, goes its way and
the man is saved. Now Jnaneshvar says, when experiences, good or bad happen to
you, think that they are happening to your shadow; then you will not be
affected either by happiness or by misery. The Lord behaves like that in every
one of His actions and so He is not touched by them!
Creation
is nothing but the imbalance in the guNas in the Cosmic Personality, caused by
His mAyA. This first creation is the mahat
principle. From this is created ahamkAra.
From this the tanmAtras which cause the five elements, and the
subtle seeds of jnAnendriyas and karmendriyas. The fourth stage of
creation is the indriyas themselves.
The fifth is the set of devatAs which
are the substrata for the indriyas.
The sixth is tamas or avidyA. All these six stages of creation
constitute the prAkrta creation.
Next comes the universe of matter including all plants that go up
to grow but show no external signs of consciousness. The eighth is the world of birds and animals.
No consciousness of the future, a mind of darkness, capacity of different kinds
of intuitive sense and an ignorance of the self – these are the common characterisitics of the world of birds and animals.
The
ninth stage of creation
is the human species. Food
goes downward in them. They are rajas-dominated. They concentrate on their
work. They find pleasure even in misery.
The seventh, eighth and ninth creations constitute what is called vaikRRita-sRRishhTi.
Beyond
this there is the creation of devas
and asuras, gandharvas, yakshas,
rakshasas, bhutas, pitRs, kinnaras etc.
All this
is the work of the Absolute who takes the form of Brahma and through him
carries out the different creations. All creation is only with respect to the
three lokas – bhUloka, bhuvar-loka
and suvar-loka. All that is animate
and inanimate, all pitrs, and all devas and asuras are constituents of these three worlds
bhU, bhuvaH and suvaH and they
rise and fall, in each day of Brahma’s kalpa.
Beyond this there are four more lokas, (maho-loka,
jano-loka, tapo-loka and satya-loka)
which do not come under the daily creation and dissolution scheme of Brahma’s
cosmic day (kalpa).
When
creation comes Time also starts ticking. There are four yugas: kRRita, tretA, dvApara and kali. Their durations are respectively 4k, 3k, 2k and k,
where k = 432,000 years.
The four yugas together constitute one chatur-yuga. It has 10k,
that is 4,320,000 years, or 4.32 million years. One thousand such chaturyugas constitute one day of Brahma. In other words the duration
of one Brahma’s day is 4.32 billion human years.
One day
of Brahma (also called Cosmic Day) is
technically known as
one kalpa. In one kalpa
there would be fourteen Manus. Each Manu is the physical King of the universe
during his period of Manu-ship, called a Manvantara. Its duration is a little more than 71 Chatur-yugas. Brahma’s nights are as long
as His days. Kalpa after kalpa, creation and dissolution go on. Each year of
Brahma has 360 cosmic days and nights The present Brahma has already spent His
fifty years of an allotted total of a hundred years of life. The second half has just started.
Each half is called a parArdha. His
‘today’ is the first day (first kalpa) of his second ‘parArdha’. (Also see Hindu Concept of Time).
By the way parArdha is a mathematical word in Sanskrit denoting 1017.
The powers of
10 upto the power 17 have technical words in Sanskrit:
Eka-dasha-shata-sahsra-ayuta-laksha-prayuta-koTi-arbuda-
Abja-kharva-nikharva-mahApadma-shankha-jaladhi-antya-madhya-parArdha.
On the
very first day of His first parArdha,
that is, on Day 1 of His life (of 100 Brahma years) that was the day on
which the Vedas came out from His breath by the call of the Absolute. That first kalpa is called ‘brAhma kalpa’.
At the
end of the first parArdha (50 Brahma
years), there was the last kalpa called pAdma-kalpa,
because in that kalpa, Brahma came out from the divine Lotus springing from the
navel of Narayana. The present kalpa is
called ‘shveta-varAha kalpa’.
The
first creations of Brahma were the four kumAras, named, Sanaka, Sanandana, SanAtana and Sanatkumara. But from the time of
their creation they were enlightened and so they did not prefer to
contribute to further creation. Brahma got angry at the failure of purpose of
his very first creation and from his anger rose Rudra
and all his gaNas. Brahma went back for
meditation, at the end of which he created the ten PrajApatis, known by the
names:
Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu,
Brighu, Vasishta, Daksha and Narada. There also came out Yama
and two other prajApatis
called Kardama and Ruchi.
And at the end of these creations, his own body (Brahma’s body) split into two, one
male and one female. The male form became to be known as SvAyambhuva and the
female form as ShatarUpA. After this, creations of the human species were in the
worldly manner of biological union.
SvAyambhuva
was the first Manu of the present kalpa. From him ShatarUpA gave birth to two sons, Priyavrata and Uttanapada and three daughters AkUti, DevahUti and PrasUti. These three were given in marriage
respectively to the prajApatis Ruchi, Kardama and Daksha. From these three couples the world began to
be populated. (See
Genealogy) (Note that in the
genealogy charts we distinguish feminine names by the pink colour. In this text
portion also, when the names are first mentioned, they are distinguished by pink colour).
All this is told in the first 12 chapters of the third skanda.
Thereafter seven chapters (from #13 to 19) are devoted to Varaha Avatar and the
killing of Hiranyaksha. We shall take this up when we come to Narasimha avatar,
in the seventh skanda.
Continuing
the story of creation, we take up the story of Kardama-Devahuti couple. Before they were married, Kardama did a monumental tapas for 10000 years. The Lord appeared before
him and commanded him to accept Devahuti when she is presented to him by
Svayambhuva Manu. Kardama was also told by the Lord that the Lord Himself would
be born to him, after he begets nine daughters from Devahuti.
Svayambhuva
Manu came to Kardama’s Ashram on the banks of the Saraswati and offered his
daughter Devahuti in marriage. Kardama accepted it on condition that he will
stay as a married householder only till a son is born to him. The Manu accpted
this condition and the marriage took place with all rituals from ShAstras. In fact this was the first marriage ritual ever performed.
To remember this and propitiate this couple, even today, our marriage homas and
havans have a
whole package of mantras offering ghee
and samit in the Fire with the
invocation: “devahUtyAM
svAhA”.
Satisfied
more than ever by the services rendered by his devoted wife Devahuti, he
granted her by his yogic powers all that he had acquired by his tapas, samAdhi,
vidyA and yoga. The superhumanly conjugal and amorous pastimes that this first couple enjoyed for 100 years are
elaborately described in Chapter 23 of the third skanda. Kardama created a
vimAna for her and took her around the whole world. He split himself into nine
bodies and gave her superlative sensual pleasure. She gave birth to nine daughters on the same
day. They are known as
KalA, anasUyA, ShraddhA, HavirbhU, Gati,
KriyA, KhyAti, arundhati and ShAnti.
These
were given in marriage respectively to
Marichi, atri, angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Brighu, Vasishta
and atharvA.
Devahuti
yearned for a son. When Kardama Prajapati expressed his intention to renounce
the householder Ashrama, Devahuti pleaded with him to give her a son and then
go. They also remembered how the Lord Himself had promised earlier to Kardama
Prajapati that He will be born to him as a son. The time has come now. In
expressing this Devahuti makes a thought-provoking statement. “Oh Lord of my
life! All these years
I did not understand your spiritual greatness. I wasted my time
in sensualities. But my attachment to
you cannot be said to be misplaced.
If one cultivates attachment to persons who are ignoble,
then that will lead to further samsAra. Whereas, attachment placed on
nobilities like you actually leads to the end of all attachment. (III – 23 – 55).
So my
attachment to worldly things has all vanished now. Please enlighten me on the
Self”.
In reply
to this, Kardama tells her that she is going to have the Lord Himself as her
son. He is going to be a great sage called Kapila. He will impart to her, says Kardama PrajApati, that
spiritual wisdom for which she is rightly yearning.
The Lord
kept His promise. He incarnated as their son, Kapila. The father Kardama
knowing full well that it is the Lord who has come as their son, made
prostrations to the Avatar, entrusted the mother to the son and left for the
forest to do his tapas. In due time he reached his divine
destination.
Now comes a sequence of seven chapters (#s 26 to 32), which
constitute Sage Kapila’s teachings to Devahuti, his mother, on the spiritual
path and goal. These chapters are known as Kapila Gita and form an important
part of the Bhagavatam.
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