When South Indian brahmins are famous as learnt, why does Chaitanya lila depict an illiterate South Indian brahmin?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, question 11.2. How is it that Chaitanya Jaya describes South Indian Brahmin who could not read Sanskrit properly? Normally, Brahmins are expected to be learned and South Indian Brahmins we know even now are quite learned. And 500 years ago is not all that old. Answer? There are two different points over here.
First point is that not all Brahmanas are of the same level. In the sense that even for Brahmanas, Brahmana is one varna. But in Brahmana also there are higher levels of varnas.
Saras Brahman will be higher and other Brahmanas will be lower. For example, there are some Brahmins, they are considered Brahmins, but then they do animal sacrifices and they do tantamma scriptures. And they may not be very learned in the conclusion of scriptures.
The point is, Brahmanas can also have a hierarchy within them. So, in fact, when Ravana was going to fight with Rama, he had his Brahmanas and they were doing rituals for invoking victory for him. So, that means the word Brahmana doesn’t have to mean only one thing.
So, that’s the first point. Second point is that in this particular pastime, what is described is that this particular Brahmana, he was definitely an exception to the norm. Generally, Brahmanas are learned, but there can be some exceptional circumstances because of which, you know, maybe a Brahmana is not able to study.
So, we see that it’s also described that Dronacharya was a Brahmin, but he was so poor that he could not even provide food for Ashwathama. Ashwathama asked his mother, my friends are drinking milk, can you bring more milk? They had no money to get milk. Then she just mixed some flour with some water and gave milk.
She said, this is milk. Dronacharya couldn’t tolerate that. At that time, he decided that I cannot live anymore as a Brahmana.
I’ll do whatever it is. I have knowledge of Shastra. I’ll use that and that’s how I’ll learn anything.
That’s how he chose to become a Shukri afterwards. So, the point is, now we may say that at that time, Vedic culture was so much there, how could a Brahmana starve like this? But the point is, we shouldn’t, in one sense, imagine that everything everywhere in the past, even in Indian history, was spiritual. Now, we know that in India, Buddhism and Jainism are both atheistic religions.
And if you see, as compared to Greek or other languages, classical, in 5th century AD to 5th century BC, no other language has produced as many atheistic books as Sanskrit has. Because Buddhism and Jainism are both Sanskrit. So, we shouldn’t think that everything in the past was spiritual or devotional.
The normal duality was there, variety was there, but the large, the social leaders were Dharmic. Whereas in today’s society, social leaders are Adharmic. So, similarly, for whatever circumstances, this Brahmin, he was more of a devotional bent than an intellectual bent.
So, normally it is expected that Brahmins should be very learned. But it may be possible that some persons may be born in a Brahmin family, and they are trying to carry out the Brahmin religion, but they may not have the intellectual capacities. Whatever be the reason.
So, they were not able to do, he was not able to do. And then, what Chetan Mahaprabhu did is, he, through him, demonstrated that, as contrasted with just Brahmanic, Brahmanical intellectual capacity or salvation capacity, the devotional tendency of the heart is far more important. So, there can always be exceptions to the norm, and the exceptions can, exceptions are used to demonstrate some other exceptional conclusion.
So, yes, normally Brahmins would not be illiterate or semi-literate, as this was. But we see there are other examples where exceptions do occur. And this was the exception which Chetan Mahaprabhu used to demonstrate another exceptional conclusion.
That the supremacy of bhakti over mere Brahmanical learning.