Bhagavatam study 105 1.19.7-12 The universal sages come to see of the royal sage

So, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, canto 1, chapter 19, which is the last chapter of this canto, and text 7. Iti vayacchid yasa pāṇḍaveya, prāyo paveshaṁ prati viṣṇu-paddhyāṁ, tadhau mukundāṅgri mananya-bhāvo, munī-vrato mukta-samasta-saṅgahaṁ. So, here it is described what happened to Parīkṣit Mahārāja.
He had decided to take shelter of Ganga, so that he could get the shelter of Lord Hari, of Lord Mukunda. So, iti vayacchid yasa pāṇḍaveya, is referred to by his connection with his illustrious ancestors, the descendant of the Pāṇḍava. So, pāṇḍaveya, prāyo paveshaṁ prati viṣṇu-paddhyāṁ, prāyo paveshaṁ.
So, he took the prāya-vrata of fasting till death for the purpose of attaining viṣṇu-paddhyāṁ. Viṣṇu-paddhyāṁ, viṣṇu-pada refers to the lotus feet of Lord Viṣṇu. Viṣṇu-paddhyāṁ refers to the river that emanates from Lord Viṣṇu’s lotus feet and the river by whose proximity, by whose mercy, by whose blessings, one can attain viṣṇu-pada.
So, he also wanted to attain viṣṇu-pada. Now, he gave himself to what? Mukunda āṅgreṃ, the lotus feet of Lord Hari. Ananya-bhāvo, without any other aspiration, without any other hope.
Ananya-bhāvo munī-vrato mukta samasta saṅgaha munī-vratam. So, the sages in the forest often take vratas and their vratas are considered to be very firm. In this world, there are many temptations but those who stay secluded from the world, those who stay absorbed in higher reality, often they can stay free from illusion much better than us.
They can free safely from temptation much better than us. And the very fact that they have become munis, that they have gone to the forest, that itself indicates that they have a significant amount of determination. So, he took a munī-vrata, that means just the vāva of the sages.
Sages take a vāva to stay detached from the world. Sages take a vāva to stay absorbed in the supreme, in pursuit of transcendence. So, similarly, he took a vrata.
The vrata is prāya-vrata. Now, mukta samasta saṅgaha, he gave up all attachments. Now, here, we will see that there are two parts of any resolution.
This is what I will not do and this is what I will do. This is what I will give up and this is what I will take up, we could say. So, for him, he could understand and he immediately acted, that was in his power, what to give up.
So, he gave up all his kingdom, he gave up his everything else, but now he had to take up something. And what he took up, how he decided to take that up, all that will be revealed in this chapter and subsequent sections of the Bhāgavatam. So, what is the defining question, which will come up in this chapter is, okay, he wants to attend Mukundangari, but what is the best way to attend Mukundangari? What process should he follow for doing that? Text 8, patropa-jagmur, uvanam punāna, mahālubhāvā munaya sa śiṣyaḥ prāyeṇa tīrthābhi gamāpadeśayi svayam hi tīrthāni punanti santah.
So, the tropa-jagmur, at that time, when he had taken shelter, he had decided to take shelter of the Lord at the Ganga, they arrived, uvanam punāna, those great beings, mahānubhāvā, they were great minds, they had great experiences, they had great emotions, anubhāvā can refer to experience, anubhāvā can refer to the emotion that we experience. So, mahānubhāvā means those who are greatly experienced, those who are great souls, munayaḥ, those great sages, uvanam punāna, these great sages are capable of purifying the whole universe, they came there, sa śiṣyaḥ, along with the disciples, prāyeṇa tīrthābhi themselves could make any place into a place of pilgrimage, but they came there on the plea of coming on pilgrimage, svayam hi tīrthāni punanti santah. So, svayam hi tīrthāni, they had the capability of purifying places just as and making them into like a tīrtha.
So, these great sages, they came of their own will on the plea of making a pilgrim’s journey, as Prabhupāda said, in his translation that, that means, they ostensibly came for a pilgrimage because where Parīkṣit Mahārāja had decided to leave his body, that was like a place of pilgrimage. So, he came there, they all came there, but their purpose was not so much to come on a pilgrimage, their purpose was to actually take shelter, to be with Parīkṣit during his final journey, to give him strength by their association as well as to behold this magnificent event. Those who have devoted themselves to attaining a particular perfection and sages are basically people who have devoted themselves to attaining the perfection of an eternal destination.
And if somebody, some great illustrious person has also made the determination, naturally, they will join over there to support that and to witness that. Normally, in the world, we would want to witness, say, if there is a cricket world cup finals, sometimes the tickets get sold at outrageous rates. If a new movie is getting released, it’s a very hyped up movie, then its first day first show tickets sometimes go at phenomenal prices, black prizes.
So, all this happens because people think these are the happening things and these are what we should be there, so that we can tell the world, you know, oh, when this movie was released, I saw the first show, oh, I saw this cricket match live actually in the stadium. So, now, that’s because people consider this to be more special in today’s world. But from the ultimate perspective, this life is temporary and going beyond this world to attain the eternal world is life’s ultimate perfection.
And to attain that, we do need to have a firm conviction. So, we understood, so, they wanted to see how Parikshit will depart from this world. And they wanted to witness, this is the real happening event.
This is what life is all about. This is what is the most important event. And this is ultimately our life’s biggest testing ground.
And thus, all these great sages came over there. So, now, the next verse is a list of great sages will be given. And this is something similar to the kind of great sages who had come when Bhishma Pitamah was departing from the world.
So, let’s look at these. We could say these are the who’s of the sage community. So, while many names are being mentioned, some names here are especially significant.
So, the last two names are Dvaipayana Vyasa, who compiled the Bhagavatam and Vyasa, that is Dvaipayana Vyasa, Bhagavan Naradascha. So, they are Naradascha, they are Narada. Now, here, Prabhupada uses a simple strategy in his word to word translation.
He is efficient over here. And he says this all list is the names of different saintly personalities who arrived there from different parts of the universe. Atre, Vashishtas, Javana, Sharadwan.
So, they all arrived over there. Medhadithir, Devala, Arishtise, now, if you see, these are all extraordinary personalities. And you can read about like brief bios sometimes in a book which is a which is authored by just like a compilation with many contributors, then there is a brief bio of each of these personalities.
Similarly, there is a bio of each of these personalities given by Srila Prabhupada, which can be read and we can understand the glories of these personalities. We won’t go into that over here at this stage. Our for us, we can just look at some of these.
Now, Parashara Muni is of course well known, Parashurama is also here. And most significant is Vyasa and Narada here. So, if you see, that means Vyasa is the father and we could say also the spiritual preceptor of Vyasaki, Sruta Goswami, who is going to come later.
And Narada is the spiritual master of Vyasa. So, although both of them are spiritual masters, we could one generation, second generation later, but still it was Shukadeva Goswami who spoke. So, these great sages just wanted to be there.
They did not necessarily want to be at the center stage. If they could do some service, and if for that service, it was needed that they be at center stage, they were ready to do that. But that was not their interest in coming here.
Their interest was primarily in getting the things done. Their interest was primarily in witnessing this event and assisting that event and getting inspiration from that event. So, we see that Narada and Vyasa also will be in the audience, they will not thrust themselves as speakers.
Text 11, Hanyeecha Devarshi Brahmarshi Varya, Rajarshi Varya, Aruna Dayasya, Nana Rishi Prabharan Sametan, Abhyarcha Raja Sirasa Vavande. Abhyarcha Raja Sirasa Vavande. So, when this happened, Abhyarcha Raja, that he worshipped them by Sirasa Vavande, by offering them obeisances.
There were many other who came, Hanyeecha Devarshi Brahmarshi Varya. So, there are different kinds of Rishis also. There are those who are considered Devarshi, like Narada is a Devarshi, Brahmarshi.
So, Prabhupada, Rishideva or Devarshi, that is Rajarshi. So, the word Rajarshi comes in the Bhagavad Gita also. It refers to saintly kings.
It can also be translated the other way as royal sages. Devarshi can be among the gods or the sagely gods, the saintly gods. It can be Brahmarshi, the Rishis who are steeped in Brahminical qualities, Varya, the best among them.
So, basically, all the important people, important especially from the spiritual perspective, those who were illustrious people, they all chose to come over there and they came because they all recognized what a momentous event this was. Nanaharshe pravaransametan. So, Arsha refers to those who are learned.
In the epistemology that Jiva Goswami talks about, epistemology is the way in which we learn script, we understand knowledge. Knowledge about how to gain knowledge, that’s called epistemology. There he says, Arsha Vakyam.
Arsha Vakyam means, the words of the sages are also themselves considered to be one authoritative source of knowledge because the sages are very illustrious personalities. The sages are themselves such people who know what is, they have seen higher reality and by their perception of higher reality, they know what is the nature of reality and thus they are capable of speaking words that the rest of us are not capable of perceiving and thus what they speak is also an authority at one level. So, that mood is being conveyed over here when it is said that all these Arshas came.
So, they were all very learned people and their learning will all come to the aid of Padishah Maharaj. They all came there to bless him, to sanctify that place and themselves get inspiration. So, what a momentous event we could see.
This must be in the history of the universe that so many great people are there at one time to help, to create a potent spiritual presence to help Padishah Maharaj take this final journey. The final journey is a glorious journey. It is also a difficult journey and normally in life when we want something which is very, we have to do something which is very difficult and we certainly have to have our determination but it is vital, even indispensable to get the benediction of those who are bigger than us.
Their benediction can not only ease our way, it can actually make our way possible where otherwise it would have seemed impossible. So, Padishah Maharaj gets all these blessings and he uses these blessings, he empowers himself by these blessings. So, we will see his words of submission, appreciation and seeking of benediction.
All this will come in the words that he will speak to welcome the sages. Padishah Maharaj’s action of departing from the world in such an exemplary and extraordinary way is something which the sages came to know by their mystic powers. Sages, at that time there was no internet by which news could be spread like this.
Oh, you know what Parikshit is doing? No, what is he doing? We send a message on WhatsApp, we make a post on Facebook and it becomes viral. This technology can be used today to share important news. But at that time, the news of Parikshit Maharaj’s departure became viral.
How? Because the sages had mystic powers. Now whatever technology can do today, it was possible to do in the past through the mystic powers that the great sages had. And just like when we have social media, based on our browsing interests, say on Facebook, whatever it is that we wish to browse, Facebook customizes those feeds and accordingly we get more and more material which is suited to our interests.
So like that, because the sages were interested in spiritual growth, in spiritual perfection, so we could say their transcendental feeds were customized to news about transcendence. And as far as news about transcendence is concerned, the news of Parikshit Maharaj’s departure was a huge news. And naturally, when they heard this big news, they were delighted.
They were hugely delighted and they all came there. And now we will see how Parikshit Maharaj… so the theme is now, what he said, what is said in the last line, abhyarcha raja shirasavavande. Shirasavavande, that way he worshipped them by bowing down his head.
So the word that he spoke to complement his action, that will be described subsequently from text 13. But let’s look at text 12 right now. Sukhopavishteshvatate shubhuyah krutapranam mahasuchki rishitam yat vijnapyam asa vivikta cheta upastito agre abhigruhit paanihi.
So paani refers to hands. Abhigruhit paani means he folded his hands in respect. So by such folding of hands, he is conveying his respect.
Sukhopavishteshvatate shubhuyah krutapranam. So when all of them were given proper sitting places, sukha. All of them were… they sat down at a proper place.
Actually, taking care of basic comforts is a matter of culture. And although Parikshit Maharaj is not at home right now. He was not in his kingdom.
He was at a place in a forest on the banks of the Ganga. So he couldn’t really provide much comfort to the sages. But still what he could provide, he provided.
He took… although he was himself out of his home, but still he knew that they had come to see him. And not just see him, to see him off. So normally when you see off means somebody comes to a… comes to the door, somebody comes to the station, somebody comes to the airport.
All this is seeing off. Sukhopavishteshvatate. But here they had come to see him off means see him off from this world so that they could attain the next world.
Sukhopavishteshvatate shubhuyah So, after he offered them a proper place to sit. And now it’s generally for those who are very materially attached, making them happy is quite difficult. But sages are anyway renounced.
So pleasing the sages, satisfying the sages in that sense is not very difficult. Atate shubhuyah. So he had just given them a basically comfortable sitting place.
It’s interesting that when Parishad Maharaj interacted with a sage recently, he had interacted with Shamik Rishi. At that time he had not got a proper sitting place. He had not got a proper reception.
But Parishad Maharaj was not at all vindictive. He gave proper reception to the sages. Atate shubhuyah.
And again offering obeisances, offering respects. Kutapranamah swachhikir shitamyat. Swakutapranamah.
He offered his obeisances to them. And swachhikir shitam. Swachhikir shitamyat.
His own resolution, his own decision. He informed them that I have planned to fast till death. Vijnapayamasaviviktachetah.
He submitted his resolution to them. Vijnapayamasaviviktachetah. Vivikti is here the same as virakta.
His consciousness was detached. And with that detached consciousness, he submitted his decision for their approval. Upasthito.
So now there are certain basics which we all know we need to take care of. So for example, if somebody is sick, then don’t take too rich food. Don’t expose yourself to contaminate places.
There are basic principles of hygiene which we all know we should follow. And there are specialized principles of treatment which also need to be followed. So we could say that Parikshit Maharaj deciding to leave the kingdom and fast till death, this is like a basic principle of spirituality.
Of course, it’s not basic in the sense of being easy to implement. It’s basic in the sense that it is, we could say, a no-brainer. That’s what is required.
If the moment of death has come, then just turn the thoughts, turn all thoughts away from this world, turn the thoughts straight towards Krishna. So that’s what he did. And thus he directed his attention, he directed his consciousness towards the Supreme.
And by directing his consciousness towards the Supreme, what happened? He had done the basic principles of spirituality. Now he wanted to know the specific principles of spirituality. So what is the specific treatment that a particularly, that a particular patient with a particular disease may need? So similarly, what are the specific treatment that he should take? That is what he will ask the sages in the next verse.