Recently, I got acquainted with two blogs, whose authors are, as I assume, few of the great devotees of Krishna (I deduced from their writings). You may refer their blogs here (I hope the authors do not mind my linking their blogs here):
This reminded me of my devotion towards Krishna, amidst many mundane activities of the recent past. Anyways, as I was going through their blogs and especially Rajini’s, we ended up discussing about Śiṃsumāra Chakra of Bhāgavata Purāṇa. I am now impelled to write an article on what I know of Bhāgavata, of course taking Master.E.K’s exposition as basic theme.
The ancient Indian wisdom can be categorized into the following genre of texts, though text is only a reminiscent of vast Oral tradition:
Each of them complement the other and only when looked in a holistic way, without separating one from the other, can we get a proper intention of the SEER/Sage. Vēdic set is direct revelation of a seer in literary form with associated oral and intellectual keys and locks. A common man is far from literate/evolved to the level of understanding the direct musings of a SAINT of the Vēda. So, a different approach was needed by the seers to convey their realizations to the most common man who formed the majority of society, and the goal was to give to all categories of evolution, an equal opportunity to immerse in the ecstasy of JOY of realizing the Lord. From the line of this attempt, came out the way of Itihāsa and Purāṇa. Itihāsa means Iti+Hāsa = It thus happened, a compilation of History. But, this compilation, unlike the modern day history, embeds the essence of the Vēda in the form of Allegories and Parables.
Purāṇa is a mix of history and a mix of legend(s) or Tales. This makes it even more easy to take the capsule of Vēdic wisdom to even a kindergarten kid. That is why, most of the Indians are aware of Purāṇās and itihāsās than any other literary forms related to Vēdās. So, what makes a Purāṇa? What are its characteristics? can any piece of fable be called Purāṇa? No! PURĀṆA should have the following articulations in it:
What do you see in the five parts? Let us go in the reverse order. First we will know of different dēvās or emanations of LORD, who are responsible for the primary “causes” of creation. From them, the space-time divisions unfold as the petals of lotus. In the womb of this space-time, hatches the seeds of future generations – called Vaṃśās. The lords of this are the Pitṛ Dēvās. From them occurs the evolution of different species (physical and non-physical) and each species has the same principle personified as personal reproduction. So, any piece of Indian literature is called Purāṇa, only when it includes all the five aspects mentioned above. Thus, when a purāṇa is decoded and properly understood, it gives us the GRAND-MYSTERY of the evolution of LIFE in this Universe.
As mentioned earlier, we have 18 purāṇās and 18 sub-purāṇās. Then why choose Bhāgavataṃ? In absolute sense, each purāṇa describes the same story. But in relative sense, each purāṇa describes same story – applied to different “aspects” of this creation. For example, Brahmāṇda Purāṇa runs on the backbone of center story line of ” Hatching of Our Cosmic EGG” while the Matsya Purāṇa runs on the center story line of “How present race is saved from the Grand Deluge – Like the story of Noah’s Ark”.
Bhāgavata Purāṇa on the other hand deals with the birth of Omnipresence as his own creation. This, then, must involve both the physical and non-physical aspects i.e., it contains the five articulations applied to the visible Universe and man there in, as well as the invisible Universe and the soul there in. This makes Bhāgavata Purāṇa a grand piece of Purāṇa. In fact, most seers consider this a separate Purāṇa equivalent to Vēda itself and introduce Dēvi Bhāgavata as one of the 18 purāṇās in its place. That is the grandeur of Bhāgavata. More interesting points can be summarized as follows:
“Number of chapters” play an important role in deciphering the “intent” of a scripture. Bhāgavata has in it, 12 cantos. 12 is the number that rules our DAY (12hrs of Day and 12hrs of night as seen from equator on the day of equinox). But, 12 is the number that rules our YEAR-cycle with its 12 months aswell. Our age, our perception of time-span is based solely on number 12. Even the Earth’s seasonal vibrance is based on 12 (1/2 of 12). Thus, the number of chapters in this scripture is hinting us that it is going to explore the play of lord through the number 12.
In fact, there is a parallel between a human’s birth and the 12 chapters of this Bhāgavata. The 1st chapter describes the death of Krishna as Universal self. The 10th chapter describes the birth of Krishna as the human babe, after hatching in the womb of Prakṛti/Dēva-ki for 9 full months. Third chapter reveals the formation of formation of “number consciousness” in the form of 32 teeth, two hands, two feet. etc., through the lord of numbers KAPILA’s Sānkhya Śāstra (the true Sānkhya). It also reveals the formation of “Umbilical cord” through the story of birth of Brahma (consciousness) from a lotus having a “STALK” – whose depth was unfathomable to the newly born consciousness. In this way, each chapter links certain aspects of fetal development depending on the number of the chapter as the month of the fetus.
On contrary to Darwin’s theory of evolution, Bhāgavatam gives a counter theory, which is more universal than Darwin’s. Darwin’s theory would form as a subset to the theory of evolution put forth in Bhāgavatam. Consider the story of Priyavrata from Bhāgavata:
To understand Bhāgavatam, one need to properly understand every name used in it. But, if this is understood, it is very easy to grasp the import of this Purāṇa. Names of Manu, Brahma, pancha Jani, etc were earlier hinted above. Now, let us take the characters of Śukra, Ūrjaswati, Dēvayāni for more understanding.
Śukra is one of the greatest sages who appear in Vēdic lore, multiple times. His stories reveal to what he is lord of. Take the story of He, finding “Mṛta Sanjīvani – Immortal Alixer” for the sake of Demons. In those stories, the daemons are those angels who are responsible for the creation of physical body. They jail the otherwise universal self into an individual self. But body always perishes. This perishing is shown as the war between Angels and Deomns and the defeat of deamons. To protect this, Śukra finds the immortal elixer. What is it actually? He is the lord of Semen and through him, a Jīva is born and is embedded into a physical body. This process of reproduction is the immortal elixir that he found. Vēda extols this as “Ātmā vai Putra Nāmāsi – meaning, ‘I AM’ born as my child”. So, the continuity of reproduction is un-broken in its absolute sense and this is the story of Śukra.
Now, in Bhāgavata, Śukra marries Ūrjaswati for the sake of populating the worlds created by the seven sons of Priyavrata. Who is Ūrjaswati? SHE is the LIGHT of semen, the Śukra Dhātu. It is to be noted that “wives” in scriptures always express the property/light of “husband”. You may refer my article 11) Spiritual Symbolism of a Woman for more details. So, Ūrjaswati is the dynamic agent of reproduction. Who is born? Dēvayāni is born. Dēva+Yāni = A path way to the world of Dēvās. So,When a sperm meets ova what happens? The birth of Angels happens. Our human body is said to be an equilibrium of multiple forces or angels at play. Before fusion of sperm and ova, no angels exist in our frame of reference, they are in “potential state”. But after fusion, they all take birth in a physical frame of our body. The daemons too are born, but exist as the mundane aspects that obstruct the “self-realization light” from immersing the individual self.
You see, how the nomenclature is very important in understanding what role a character plays and what information they convey? On similar lines we must proceed to unveil the plethora of characters in this Purāṇa.
Thus, Bhāgavata is a package of multiple mysteries and theories which need to be understood from the lens of a sage. One may ask, what is the use of explaining so much theory of evolution or the structure of Universe etc., when humans in present day face so many problems? Well, the answer to that question is how you define a problem. Humans have ability to think, their thought causes a problem and solution. What Bhāgavata offers is to train that thought, with proper understanding of our own evolution and where we stand in this Universe, and gives us a chance to resonate with Divine Plan, which obviously brings JOY and erases all the so called apparent problems. One must note that, problem may not go, but the sense of problem goes away and hence there is no problem as such to a realized soul, even though the situation that occurs may be same.
Have a good journey into the mysteries of Bhāgavata, if you decide to take up on such a journey! 🙂
PhD (Quantum Physics), M.Sc. (IIT Madras), B.Tech. (LNMIIT).
Bridging the depths of Science and the wisdom of the Vedas
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