Bhagavatam study 102 1.18.36-43 Avoid offenses carefully and avoid getting offended easily

in a future class. Thank you. Srimad Bhagavatam 1.18.37 onwards.
This is the momentous event in the Bhagavatam which shapes the emergence of the message of the Bhagavatam. This is Shringi cursing Parishad Maharaj and for cursing Parishad Maharaj, he assumes, he presumes, you could say that he is as powerful or he has the responsibility of doing what Krishna has done. So, he is trying to here focus on, see the background here is that Parishad Maharaj has put a snake on the body of Shringi, on the body of Shri Krishna and Shringi comes to know it and Shringi becomes furious and as he becomes furious, he goes on to, he dissolves that I will curse and how will he curse? He just now plans and what happens over here, that is what we will describe here onwards.
So, let us take a look at 1.18.37. Maryada is limitation. It is the way restriction or the regulation, the proper behaviour. So, langita, langita means to cross over.
This person has transgressed the proper code for behaviour. Takshaka saptame ahani. Therefore, as a consequence takshaka, the snake bird, the fiery snake bird, takshaka saptame ahani.
That snake bird will come here and what will he do? He will dankshatisma kulangaram, dankshati, no dankam, bite. So, kulangaram, normally we have the word like kulashiromani. Kulashiromani means the crest jewel or the crown jewel.
So, kulangaram means actually the lowest, the ash. Now fire is valuable, smoke is not considered to be so pure, but ash is considered to be worthless. So, dankshatisma kulangaram, kulangaram.
So, he is considered to be the lowest of the dynasty. This person chodito me tathudruham, because of what he has done to my father, so he will be killed. Now the curses are fearsome occurrences.
In the past, sages would be fearful, people in general would be fearful of sages who could curse anyone for even the slightest of transgressions. And the Bhagavatam will repeatedly feature sages cursing. And we have for example, Jayendra is also Maharaj Indratumna, he is cursed before in his previous life.
And the Garga Samhita describes that many of the demons in Krishna Leela were people who had been cursed in a previous life. So, this theme of cursing, what exactly happens over there? Generally, in this world we will see that the greater the power a person has, the greater power their speech has. They may not have greater power over their speech, but their speech has greater power.
So, for example, if an ordinary citizen says, you will be arrested for doing this. Well, okay, that person has to, it is not going to happen immediately. But if a police person says, you will be arrested for doing this, then that is what is going to happen immediately.
On the other hand, if a judge says, you are going to be sentenced to death for this, then that will happen immediately. So, if we see here also, the power of speech of different people depends on the power of their position. Now, there is a material mechanism, it is not just the speech itself immediately causes death.
When the judge gives a sentence that you are going to die, you will be executed, you will be given capital punishment. Then there is a mechanism, there may be hanging, there may be electric chair or whatever by which the person is killed. So, in this case also, we understand that the principle is the same, the process is different.
The principle is that somebody who has a position that is powerful, then their words also become correspondingly powerful. So, if say some hot headed head of state who has control of a state which has nuclear weapons, if that person issues one command, then weapons of devastation can break havoc in various parts of the world, kill thousands, even millions. So, just because their words have power does not mean they have power over their words.
But the two are different things. So, Shringi has, Shringi’s words have power, but he does not have power over his words. That means, he misuses his power.
So, here the mechanism is subtle. We understand that the universe is interconnected unit and brahmanas are capable of accessing powers at higher levels of existence. So, by just as when a king says or head of state says, attack this country, then the king may do nothing personally, but the weapons, missiles and other things will charge towards that country.
So, similarly, here Shringi says that, let this person die, and then a missile in the form of a snake bird gets ordained to go there. So, the process specifically of, now we may not have snake birds attacking, but the process may be different, but the principle remains the same. Now, what happens after this? tatto abhyeta ashramam balo gale sarpa kalevaram pitaram bhiksha dukkharto mukta kantor rodhah tatto thereafter, after having uttered this fearsome curse, abhyeta ashramam balo, he went to the ashram, he went to the hermitage, he was playing outside with his friends and he went to the ashram, hermitage of his father, gale sarpa kalevaram and he saw gale, he saw on his neck, on his shoulder, the kalevaram, on his body the snake was there and pitaram bhiksha dukkharto and seeing this he felt distressed, he felt agonised, dukkharto, being distressed with, being distressed, sorry, mukta kantor rodhah, mukta kantor, so kantor is speech, mukta kantor means no restriction, just speech becomes liberated.
Now, here it’s not in the positive sense, normally we need to have some restraint, now we have the power to speak very loudly but normally we don’t speak loudly because that’s seen as screaming, that distracts others, that may be disrespectful to others, so we speak at a volume that is appropriate for the occasion, so the kantor has to be, the speech power has to be used appropriately but when it becomes completely free that means there is no regulation on it then, so when a person is very distressed they cry and when they cry they don’t notice how loudly they are crying, just cry out, their intention is not to disturb anyone, their intention is not to distract anyone but they just, their own emotions overwhelm them so much that the emotions pour out as their, as their cry, so mukta kantor rodhah and he cried out very loudly, so it’s interesting, he saw the snake and after that he cried, this is a interesting situation. Now, why did he cry? What made him cry? Srishti Prabhupada explains in a purport that even he recognised that he had been hasty, that he had committed a grave mistake because when he saw the snake, he saw that actually that snake was dead, the snake was not capable of causing any injury to his father and in that sense, he, sometimes some people do something and then they are afraid whether what they have done is right or wrong and they become very apprehensive, they become very remorseful, especially this happens with kids, after they do mischief they want sympathy for the mistake, so now he started crying because he started feeling, he was not sure of what he had done, on one side he was distressed because he saw his father in this condition, on other side he saw, he was thinking what have I done, have I done the right thing, so in that confusion there is crying out that is happening. Now, what happens after that, text 39, sava aangiraso brahman, shrutva soota vilapanam, unmilya shanakai vekre, dhrishtva chaamse vruto ragam, sava, that person, aangiraso brahman, aangira was a great sage and Shamakvasi descendant in the aangira dynasty, so aangiraso, shrutva soota vilapanam, he heard his sons crying out, vilapanam, his lamentation is crying, unmilya shanakai vekre, he opened his eyes, dhrishtva chaamse vruto ragam and when he opened his eyes, he saw a snake bird around his ears, so it’s interesting, unmilya shanakai vekre, gradually, slowly, eventually opened his eyes, so he was in a deep trance, so it’s interesting when Parikshit Maharaj called out to him, Parikshit Maharaj addressed him, at that time the sage did not respond, but when his son cried, he responded, was it because he is more attached to his son and he didn’t care for Parikshit Maharaj, not like that, actually he will hear also dhrishtva chaamse vruto ragam, gradually, suppose we are in deep sleep, then if somebody addresses with an ordinary tone, we may not hear it, but even if we are in deep sleep and there is a loud noise, and there is a loud persistent noise, then we will wake up, so similarly the state of sleep is in some ways similar to the state of trance, usually in sleep we go into the mode of ignorance whereas in trance we go towards transcendence, so in that sense they are opposite, the consciousness goes down in sleep, the consciousness rises up in trance, but from the physical perspective both can appear similar, in sleep we are unconscious to physical reality and in deep trance also we are unconscious to physical reality, but we come back to that consciousness of physical reality when we understand that there is something disruptive happening, so sometimes when we are in deep sleep, somebody starts speaking loudly next to us, and if we are dreaming then we may hear that person’s voice in the dream, and we are having some other dream and what is this person doing over here in the dream, so for some moments we may be in a state where we are partially conscious of the dream and partially conscious of the waken state, and then gradually as this voice persists, loudly persists, then we come out of the dream state, so like that slowly the sage came out of the dream state by steady, because of the crying, so it was not so much because of attachment to his son at all, it is primarily because the son was crying and crying loudly and crying continuously, Parikshit Maharaj addressed the sage, spoke a few words to the sage and then went away, and Parikshit Maharaj may say that normally when we are asleep, sound and touch, sight is close, but sound is there and touch is there, sometimes we may crack, speak loudly, somebody wakes up, we touch them or we move them, we throw water on them, we jerk them, then they wake up, so in the case of Parikshit Maharaj, he just put a snake on his shoulder and the snake was dead and the snake’s body was not very heavy, so that sensation did not awaken Shamik Rishi or did not bring Shamik Rishi to external consciousness, but eventually when he did come to external consciousness and having something unusual on our body, it is unnatural, suppose we are asleep and then we have put a blanket on our body while sleeping and then it has become, by the time it’s morning, at night it was cold, by the morning it has become very warm, the first thing you know, I’m feeling unpleasantly warm here, stuffy, oh there’s a blanket, let me push it away, so we become aware of that, so like that he became aware of the snake on his body and he pushed away the snake, that will be described in the next verse now, so text 40 here, विष्रुज्यतम् चप्रपत् पप्रच्च वच्चकस्मात् धिरोधिसी रोधिशी के नवाते पकृतम् इति उक्तःस अनवेदयत अनवेदयत So, विष्रुज्यतम् चप्रपत् पप्रच्च, so he quickly threw away that snake, it’s interesting, his son took that snake on being on his body to be a great offence, but the sage, he didn’t make a big issue out of it, saw the snake and tossed it away, when sages go into trance, they are not aware of what is happening on the body, and sometimes some sages may form, go into trance for so long, that sometimes cobwebs may form near them, we have Hiranyakashipu’s example, that there were ants and other beings which were eating his flesh and practically only skeleton was remaining, so once one goes into that internal consciousness, one may not be aware of things at all, so for him, when he became aware, he just tossed away that snake, and then immediately his concern was the stimuli that had brought him to external consciousness, he had not come to external consciousness because of the presence of the saint, he had come to external consciousness because of his son crying, so पप्रच्च, he enquired, what is happening, पच्च कस्मा धिरो धिशी, O son, कस्मा, what is making you cry, why are you crying, के नवाते अपक्रतं, के नवाते, so has anybody harmed you, has anybody hurt you, so normally when a child is crying, there is a reason, and Shringi was not a very small child, it’s not a baby who is crying, babies when they are hungry they cry and the parents feed them, Shringi was not so small that he would cry out of starvation or thirst, he could have arranged food for himself, so therefore, he asked him, अपक्रतं, के नवाते, has anybody misbehaved with you, has anybody hurt you, say if a child comes back from, say if you have a child and he or she comes back from school and they are crying, he asks, has somebody misbehaved with you, did somebody bully you in school, or did somebody speak harshly to you, what happened, so like that, शमिक्रशी, at one level, his child once said that he is deep in trance, he is in such deep trance that he is not even aware of the king’s coming, but still he is a concerned, responsible householder, and he knows his son is his responsibility, and therefore, when he comes to external consciousness and he sees his son crying, he asks, has anyone hurt you, when he has asked this question, इत्युक्तःस अन्वेद्यत्, अन्वेद्यत्, अन्यवेद्यत्, so then नवेद्यत्, नवेद्यत् means informed, so when this question was asked, the son informed him all that had happened, now we will see the response of शमिक्रशी over here, निशम्यशप्रम् अतर्हं नरेंद्रम् सब्राम्मणोनात्मजम् अभ्यनंदत् अहो बतामो महद अध्यतेक्रतं अल्पीयसी द्रोह उरुदमोद्रतः, so निशम्यशप्रम्, after hearing that the king had been cursed, अतर्हं नरेंद्रम्, so the king is अतर्हं, is not to be cursed, those who are in responsible positions, they sometimes have to take some hard decisions, and they are not normally to be reproached, because we may not know the constraints, the factor that they are considering, we may not know the constraints that they are having, and there are many complex factors which they have to consider while doing some action, so some of their actions might seem reproachable to us, but we may not know what all is going on over there, so therefore अतर्हं नरेंद्रम्, for those who are not in that responsible position, in a similar responsible position, they don’t have the right to reproach the नरेंद्रम्, नरेंद्र, who is the king, he is the best among human beings, so other human beings don’t have the right to chastise him, of course they can enquire and they can understand, but they don’t have a right to curse like this, सब्राम्णो नात्मचं अभिनन्दत् सब्राम्ण, so he, now he did not congratulate his son, it’s interesting, अभिनन्दत्, now the son was in two minds, may be have I done wrong, have I done right, what has happened to me, so he may have expected, he may have expected his father to say, oh you have defended my honour, this king insulted me and you have avenged that, good work, but he did not do that at all, नाभिनन्दत्, so in that sense, when Draupadi, when Kaikeyi was doing all her scheming, at that time she expected that when Bharat would come back, Bharat would appreciate all that she had done to protect him, protect his right to the kingdom, but when Bharat chastised her and spoke her very strongly, you are the goddess of destruction, descended in our family to cause the ruination of our whole family, she was shocked, so something similar happened to this Brahmana boy, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो मह अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध्यते कृतम्, अहो बतामो महद अध अध्यते कृतम्, aV the punishment should be proportional to the crime.
If the punishment is not proportional to the crime, then that is not justice. That is revenge. And of course, sometimes revenge also has to be proportional.
There are two dynasties. Somebody from dynasty A kills somebody from dynasty B and somebody from dynasty B kills somebody from dynasty A. But that kind of vigilante justice where people take their law in their hands, that is recipe for chaos. Even then actually what to speak of when there is proper court and there is justice awarded.
Even vigilante justice also, it is meant to be proportionate. Just because one person from a particular dynasty has killed another person, that doesn’t mean that somebody from second dynasty can go and kill the whole dynasty. So, he is saying that, alpiyasi drohe, urudhamodhrata.
So, his son took it very seriously. He said, you, you can recollect, he spoke that the Kshatriyas are meant to be like dogs at our door. They are meant to protect us.
They are not meant to come in our house. How dare he come in our house? He has no right there. And he has offended the great Brahmana and I will punish him.
So, in general, we have to be very cautious about taking offence. We have to be cautious about, we should certainly be cautious about offending others. That means we behave properly, we don’t offend others.
But we also have to be cautious that when others do something, we don’t have to take offence at those things. Of course, thankfully, we don’t have the power to curse others. Otherwise, we would hurt others and by the abuse of that power, we would hurt ourselves also.
But still, without understanding the situation, sometimes some people may be behaving in a way that seems disrespectful. But if we understand the situation properly, then we won’t get so disturbed by it. So, we don’t have to react in a knee-jerk way.
Unfortunately, this is what this Brahmana boy had done. So, text 42, नवाईन्द्रभेवनरदेवं पराक्यम् सम्मातुनरहसि अविपक्वबुद्धे इतेजजादुर्विशहेन गुप्ता विन्दन्ति भद्रान्यकुतो भयाप्रजा He is saying what the king was doing. The king is so important for the kingdom that by the king’s grace, विन्दन्ति भद्रान्यकुतो भयाप्रजा that the subjects, विन्दन्ति, they are enjoying life, they are enjoying prosperity, auspiciousness, अकुतो भयाप्रजा they are enjoying fearlessness.
So, auspiciousness, fearlessness, joyfulness, they are all getting this. So, why? Because of this king. यतेजजादुर्विशहेन गुप्ता यतेजजादुर्विशहेन गुप्ता His power is so great, यतेजजादुर्विशहेन गुप्ता His power is so great, it is so unsurpassable, that by his power, people are free from fear, full of joy and full of auspiciousness.
नवायिन्द्रुभिर्णरदेवं पराक्यम् So, पराक्यम् So, by an ordinary human being, नरदेव the king is not to be chastised, who is for a higher level, पराक्यम्, it’s almost like transcendental. सम्मातुमर्हस्य अविपक्वबुद्धे सम्मातुमर्हस्य But that king was at a much higher position, अविपक्वबुद्धे because your intelligence was not at proper, was immature. So, because of that सम्मातुम You placed him on equal footing.
You cannot treat him like an ordinary person. He is doing so much for the society at large. So, you have treated him like an ordinary person.
So, it’s interesting that अविपक्वबुद्धे The point here is that you have, you do not have proper intelligence by which you do not understand the position and the power of the king. The king cannot be chastised. It’s interesting that repeatedly here शमेकरशी tries to drive home to his son the exalted position of a king.
Because it is the king who is the protector of society and the king cannot be treated like an ordinary person. Today we live in an ethos of equality of democracy, where everybody is said to have equal rights. That’s certainly true.
But still, even in democracy, some people get elected and when they are elected, they go to a more powerful position. And in that powerful position, as long as they have that power, they can do a lot more than what anybody else can do. They can do a lot more.
They are meant to be respected for that position. Suppose a politician gets elected as the chief minister or the prime minister, while they are in that position, they deserve the respect and they may have security. Nobody can meet them very easily.
So, all those things come because they are in a particular position. So, most traditional cultures, they were quite hierarchical. Now we say that everything, there should be no hierarchy, things should be horizontal.
But we cannot function without a hierarchy. There is some hierarchy, there are hierarchies always. So, the hierarchies are what are essentially required and without the hierarchy nobody can function.
So, we see here the opposite of the attitude that Shamik Rishi is exhibiting towards Parishad Maharaj and Shringi exhibited towards Parishad Maharaj. Shringi said that the kings are meant to be like dogs at our door. They are not even meant to come outside.
But here the attitude is far more respectful. Generally, when we get some new power, this boy is just young. Maybe he has just recently learnt some mantras, the power of mantras, the power of giving curses and he is intoxicated with this power.
He is intoxicated with his own power as well as the power of the group, the brahmanas to which he belongs. But when his father is much more mature, so then he says his whole mood is to give respect. Sakala samana korita shakti, deho yatha yatha yatha.
Bhakti Nath Thakur says in his song that please give me the strength to respect everyone appropriately. Normally we feel that give me the strength by which I can become so powerful that everybody will respect me. But here, yes we may have power and we may command respect.
But actually it also requires power to be able to give respect where it is due. And that power he does not have. That power, Shambhi does not have because it is avipakva buddhe.
So text 43 now. alakshamane naradevanam nidathangapana vayamangaloka tadahi chaura prachura vinamkshatya arakshamano shanat, shanat, he says that now what is going to happen? alakshamane naradevanam. If there is no longer this naradev, if the power, if the king is removed from power, the king is no longer there, then rathangapana vayamangaloka rathangapana.
So the lord carries a chariot wheel, a wheel on his body. That means he is like a, he is like the, he is Krishna, that is the lord and the king is also like Krishna. Rathangapana, he has, he is a representative of that lord and thus he also has great power.
And with that power he can do many things. He can protect society. And if he is removed from the position, tadahi chaura prachura vinamkshatya chaura prachura, thieves will become profuse, they will become too much, vinamkshatya and people will be destroyed.
Arakshamana, they will have no protector. Vivarathpada, kshanat, like lambs being slaughtered. Lambs are often used as a symbol or as an example of helplessness, of helpless animals.
When lambs, when they come, when lambs are there and a predator like a wolf comes, then the lambs just have to flee and they can’t get away, they will be slaughtered. So, leaders are the protectors of the masses and when the leaders are removed, then there are misleaders who come up and these misleaders, they don’t protect the masses, they exploit the masses, they destroy the masses. So, the terrible consequences of neglecting, of disrupting the social order by taking away the king’s position and power, by sentencing the king to death, that is, the gravity of all that is being communicated here by Shamik Rishi to his Shamshree.