Shrimad
Bhagavatam and Advaita Bhakti – 9
Prahlada-Charitam: Part I
The
seventh book of Bhagavatam is the story of Prahlada .
It is the most fascinating account of how one who is devoted to the Lord in
toto is never let down by Him and how the recitation of God’s names as the only
and final resort is the gateway to reach the Lotus Feet of God. Prahlada was
the divine son of the undivine Hiranya-kashipu whom the devas and asuras dreaded alike. Prahlada’s
unshakeable faith in the omnipresence of the Lord resulted in the Lord
appearing to him from within a pillar, but appearing in such an unusual form of
half-man-half-lion that it proved to be the end of Hiranyakashipu. The
story is so exemplary for the elaboration of
Bhakti that Kamban the Tamil poet chooses to build into his Ramayana
epic, through the mouth of the character Vibhishana, the entire story of
Prahlada, in order to tell Ravana that even such a person as Hiranyakashipu
finally had to collapse before the power and goodness of the Lord. The faith of Prahlada is Faith par excellence.
It was a
faith that he inherited, not from his genes, but from the time he was in the
womb of his mother. By a fortuitous circumstance as a child in the womb he was
listening to the stories of great devotees recited by Sage Narada to his
pregnant mother, but actually directed at the unborn child! By this miraculous
turn of events Prahlada was a convinced and confirmed devotee right from his
birth; not a devotee of any ordinary kind, but one who could lead the rest of
the world in the exemplary devotion of the Supreme Lord – Shriman Narayana or
Vishnu residing, with his consort
Goddess Lakshmi, in Vaikuntha for all practical purposes, but really residing
everywhere and, in particular, in the hearts of all living beings as the
Transcendental Absolute.
The
undivine nature of Hiranyakashipu and of his younger brother HiranyAksha was
itself due to a curse which they both received from the team of the four most
ancient sons of Brahma, namely, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana and
Santkumara. These four were created by
sheer mental sankalpa
of Brahma. When
the latter wanted them to go and contribute to the creation by populating the world with
their offsprings, they refused to abide by the suggestion. They were already
enlightened when they were born and so, not being enamoured of any of the
worldly distractions, they became renunciates right then and there. In fact
these four are the earliest sages of earth and heaven.
The Lord declares in the Gita ( X – 6 ):
“maharshayas-sapta pUrve catvAro
manavas-tathA”
The four rishis mentioned
here are these four
who
were not interested in progeny.
The story is told in the third skanda of
Bhagavatam how Jaya and Vijaya, the keepers of the final doors of the abode of
Lord Shri Vishnu, were cursed by
these four boy-sages, who looked only
five years old, even though they were the oldest of all living creatures and
had realized the truth of the self. They had open doors everywhere. They had no
idea of "ours" and "theirs." With open minds, after
crossing six doors (of the Lord’s mansion in Vaikuntha) freely out of their own will, they entered the seventh door, but were
stopped there by Jaya and Vijaya, who were unaware of their greatness. The sages declared that these two door-keepers had no right to be in Vaikuntha and so they cursed
them accordingly. Their declaration in this context is worth study:
(III – 15 – 33, 34, ): In
this Vaikuṇṭha
world there ought to be complete harmony between the residents and the Supreme
Lord, just as there is complete harmony within space between the big and the
small skies. For, the Lord contains
everybody in Himself. Why then is there a seed of fear in this field of
harmony? These two persons are dressed like inhabitants of Vaikuṇṭha,
but wherefrom can their disharmony come into existence?
Therefore let us consider
how these two contaminated persons should be punished. The punishment should be
apt, for thus benefit can eventually be bestowed upon them. Since they find
duality (in the form of friends and foes) in the existence of this Vaikuṇṭha
life, they should be removed from this place to the material world, where the
living entities have three kinds of enemies in the form of krodha (anger),
By this
time the Lord rushed outside to receive the sages Himself. He said that all these
events had been willed by Him and He pleaded with the sages to offer a way out
for His sincere devotees Jaya and Vijaya to get off the curse as early as
possible. The sages offered them the choice between being born as devotees of
God or being born as enemies of the Lord to be finally killed by the Lord Himself. The divine devotees
chose the latter option.
Thus was
born Hiranya-kashipu and Hiranyaksha as enemies of the Lord. Jaya and Vijaya were born three times. First as
the anger-dominated Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu in the Asuric
world, second as the lust-dominated Ravana and Kumbhakarna in the Rakshasa
world and third as the greed-dominated Sishupala and Dantavaktra in the human
world.
Hiranyaksha
was powerful and tyrannical enough to roll away the Earth itself and take it to
the depths of distant waters in the nether worlds. Lord Vishnu took the
incarnation of a giant Boar – this was His VarAha-avatAra – went into the
waters, fought
with Hiranyaksha, killed him and retrieved the Earth. Enraged by the killing of
his brother, Hiranyakashipu ordered his men to go on rampage wherever there was
worship of Vishnu
as the Lord. Thus began a whole long era of atheism, cruelty, terror and
aggression. It spread to the three worlds, because Hiranyakashipu, by a series
of austerities, had invoked the blessing of Lord BrahmA on himself and had Him
grant his request. The historic boon thus enunciated by Hiranyakashipu and
granted by the Creator was that he would not meet his
death at the hands of any creation of BrahmA, he would not meet his death by
any weapon, either inside or outside his house, day or night, either on earth
or above in the sky, either by human beings or animals, either by the living or
non-living or by the demi-gods. Thus he protected himself from all sorts
of possible death and this made him conquer the three worlds and declare
himself the unchallenged Lord of the World, in fact, God Himself!
He went
to Vaikuntha, the highest abode of Vishnu, the abode where His devotees live in the eternal bliss of companionship with Him
and service to Him. Hiranya-kashipu wanted to challenge God Vishnu in his own
home, but the Lord was not visible to Him for He went and resided in
Hiranya-kashipu’s heart! The demon searched for Him in all the three worlds and
naturally could not find his enemy! Thereafter he proclaimed that no more
propitiation of Vishnu as the Supreme Lord of the world is allowed anywhere.
They should all propitiate him instead. He was the Lord, God and Saviour, ever!
Several thousands of years passed in this manner. The Gods of the heavens went
and prostrated before Lord Vishnu. The
Lord assured them that in due time a noble son would be born to Hiranya-kashipu
and when his atrocities reach the stage of even killing his own son for the
perpetuation of his own egoism, then would be the time for his own end.
The Devas went reassured and abided their time.
Then was born the divine son, Prahlada. He was one of the four sons born to Hiranyakashipu but he
was the noblest of them all and the most unique. The epithets that Kamban uses
for him are inspiring: Scholarly among the scholars;
purer than the scriptures; and the purest among the pure.
(In Tamil: aRijnarin aRijnan
tUyar enbavar yArinuM maRaiyinuM tUyan)
(Kamba Ramayanam : Iraniyan
Vadaipppadalam: Verse 148)
His
affection to the Lord was a natural one. Even as a child he would not play with
his mates in the usual frivalous way. His mind was full of the Lord Govinda,
whether he was sitting, walking, eating, sleeping, or talking. Sometimes he
would be seen laughing and some other times he would be seen crying. His hairs
would stand on end at the thought or mention of God. His was a possessed
behaviour, possessed by God. It was with such a noble soul that Hiranyakashipu
chose to cross swords.
As the
King of the land, the father entrusted the education of the five-year old boy
to the care of the two sons of his Guru, Shukra-acharya. These two preceptors
Sanda and Amarka by name, started the education of
Prahlada in the conventional way earmarked for them as the way, by the King. It was to begin with the declaration that
Hiranyakashipu was the Lord-God of the world and everything should be begun
only after making the first prostration to him as the Supreme Lord. But
Prahlada would not do any such thing. He would bow only to Lord Narayana, the
Lord of Vaikuntha and of all the worlds. In the beginning the teachers thought it was only
due to childish pranks and they ignored these protests of Prahlada for some
time. But the matter came to light when the King called his son to his lap and
began enquiring what he had learnt at the feet of the preceptors. Specifically,
he asked the question: ‘What do you consider, my son, as a good thing’?
papraccha
kathyathAm vatsa manyate sAdhu yad-bhavAn
That
brought forth a shockingly grand reply from the child prodigy:
tat-sAdhu manye asura-varya dehinAM sadA
samudvigna-dhiyAm-asadgrahAt /
hitvA AtmapAtaM gRRiham-andha-kUpaM vanaM gato
yad-harim-Ashrayeta // (VII – 5 – 5)
I
consider that as great, which, leaving aside this attachment to the body as ‘I’
and ‘Mine’ renouncing this bondage which takes one lower in evolution, takes
one to the forest where one can propitiate the Lord Vishnu, the destroyer of
all ills.
Hiranya-kashipu
was taken aback. But he was too
convinced of his way of doing things to face
reality. He just warned the
preceptors that they should teach him ‘the right thing’ and sent them away. The
preceptors did their best to teach the boy ‘the right thing’. Instead they were
obliged with a lecture from the child Prahlada as to what is
right knowledge and what is not! They told him not to take the name of
Narayana, the enemy of his father. And Prahlada naively replied: (Kamba Ramayanam, in Tamil: Iraniyan Vadaip-paDalaM, Verse 154)
Ennai
uyvitten entaiyai uyvitten inaiya
Unnai
uyvittu ivvulagaiyum uyvippAn amain du
Munnai
vedattin mudar-peyar mozhivathu mozhinden
Ennai
kutram nAn iyambiyathu iyambudi endrAn
Meaning,
Tell me what crime have I done. By taking the name that even the vedas use as
the First Name I have redeemed not only myself, but my father, you and this
entire world.
The
preceptors tried several means to convince him. The four means of sAma, dAna, bheda
and daNDa
all were tried by them – all to no avail. Finally they took him to the king and
expected the King himself to discover the problem. Again King Hiranyakashipu
asked the child to tell him what he had learnt. Back came a spirited reply,
which has since been quoted across the world millions of times. It is one of
the grandest pronouncements of Hindu religion:
shravaNaM kIrtanaM vishNoH smaraNaM
pAdasevanaM /
archanaM vandanaM dAsyaM sakhyaM
Atma-nivedanaM //
iti pumsArpitA vishNau bhaktiscen-nava-lakshhaNA
/
kriyate bhagavad-yad-vA tan manye adhItaM uttamaM // VII – 5 – 23, 24
That
action is the greatest lesson one learns which expresses itself in terms of the
nine manifestations of devotion to Lord Vishnu, namely,
Listening to the recitals of the names and glories of God - shravaNaM,
Reciting the names of God - kIrtanaM,
Recalling Him and His deeds - smaraNaM,
Waiting on Him – pAda-sevanaM,
Worshipping Him - archanaM,
Saluting Him - vandanaM,
Serving Him - dAsyaM,
Befriending Him - sakhyaM, and
Dedicating oneself to Him – Atma-nivedanaM.
Hiranya-kashipu
was naturally furious on hearing this. He questioned the preceptors as to who
taught Prahlada and where he got all this ‘old-fashioned stuff’. The preceptors
washed their hands off the whole business and told the truth that this boy had
somehow got it into his head and they were not able to change it. It was then
the father asked the child: Tell me, my son, who taught you all this? Prahlada
gives a profound talk on Vishnu Bhakti. ‘Bhakti towards Vishnu’, says Prahlada
‘does not come from any external source; nor is it
achievable by those who revolve around mundane attractions all the time. They
are only blind leading the blind. Without satsangh one cannot hope to reach Vishnu’s
lotus feet. And unless one resorts to those feet one can never hope to get out of
this samsara’.
The King
could not stand this any longer. He was furious. ‘Go and have this boy killed,
at any cost’, ordered the King. They tried to kill him in several ways. He was
pierced by spears; he was crushed by elephants; snakes were set upon him to
bite him to death; he was administered poison; and he was thrown from the top
of the mountain. Nothing could kill him. The saintly child came out of
everything totally unscathed. All the time he was chanting the name of
Narayana.
The two
preceptors suggested to the King that he better lie low until the senior Guru,
their father, came back. So the boy was again taken to the guru’s home and
education continued, but now on the rules and regulations that apply to a
householder. In between whenever the preceptors
were not on the scene, the other boys who were studying along with Prahlada
wanted to know from him about Narayana who seemed to be protecting him all the
time. Here follows one of the most beautiful pieces of the Bhagavatam, namely
Prahlada’s sermon to his classmates:
If a man is wise he should start doing dharmic
deeds.
Even that should be started while still one is
young.
For, the human birth is so rare among all
births.
Even in one’s birth, one does not know when
death will end that life.
Lord Vishnu is the friend and indwelling AtmA,
in all lives.
So what we do should be to please Him.
Those who serve the lotus feet of Lord Vishnu
will never perish.
Man loses half of his 100-year life in sleep.
Foolish in childhood and lustful in youth,
He loses another twenty years. And another
twenty
Are lost in old age and
incapacitation.
Therefore do good
while still it is not too late.
Do that which propitiates Achyuta, the Lord
Vishnu.
Leave aside your demonish qualities and have
Sympathy and compassion towards all
living beings.
Thus goes Prahlada on and on. The sixth
chapter of Skanda VII, beginning with
“kaumAra
Acharet prAjnaH dharmAn bhAgavatAn iha”
is
all Prahlada’s beautiful Vedanta teaching to his classmates. He ends up his sermon with the thrilling
statement that he learnt all this from Sage Narada. They immediately ask a most legitimate
question: You have been all the time
with us all these years. When did you happen to meet the sage and learn all
this? That is the time when he tells them
that he had learnt all this while still in the womb of his mother and Sage
Narada was sermonising apparently to his mother but really to him inside. By
the Lord’s Grace he remembers all these! And he continues and repeats the exact
words of Narada, in a form which constitutes what we may call Prahlada’s advaita capsule! We
shall only quote the following five shlokas from this capsule. ( Shrimad Bhagavatam: VII - 7 - 19, 20, 23, 24 and 25) .
AtmA nityo-vyayaH shuddhaH ekaH
kshhetrajna AshrayaH /
avikRRiyaH
svadRRig-hetuH vyApako'sangy-anAvRRitaH //
etair-dvAdashabir-vidvAn Atmano
lakshhaNaiH paraiH /
ahaM
mamety-asad-bhAvaM dehAdau mohajaM tyajet //
The Atman is permanent;
does not undergo any change;
is uncontaminated by mAyA;
has neither internal nor external distinctions;
is the one intelligent being which cognizes
everything;
needs no support but supports everything;
neither acts nor is acted upon;
sees everything but is not seen;
is the primal cause but is itself never caused;
is beond space, time and matter;
is unattached to anything; and
can never be negated by anything.
These are the twelve indicative qualities of
Atman, by a knowledge of which one should be able to throw away the false identification
with the body, mind and intellect.
dehastu sarva-sanghAto jagat tasthuriti dvidhA /
atraiva mRRigyaH purushho neti netIt-yatat tyajan //
anvaya-vyatirekeNa vivekenoshatA''tmanA /
sarga-sthAna-samAmnAyaiH
vimRRishadbhir-asatvaraiH //
The body is a conglomeration of all (the
effects of PrakRRiti -- referred in shlokas 22,23, not
quoted here) and is of two kinds, mobile and immobile. It is here in the body
that the Self (Purushha) is to be sought for by discarding every non-Self as
'not this' 'not this', by men coolly reflecting on the creation, continued
existence and dissolution of the universe with a mind purified through reasoning
on the lines of 'anvaya' (the all-pervasiveness of the Absolute) and 'vyatireka' (the distinctness of the Absolute from
everything else).
buddher-jAgaraNaM svapnaH
sushhuptiriti vRRittayaH /
tA
yenaiv-AnubhUyante so'dhyakshhaH purushhaH paraH //
Wakefulness, dream and deep sleep
-- these are the three functions of the inntellect. He alone by whom they are directly
cognized is the transcendent purushha, the witness of everything.
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