Bhagavatam study 16 – 1.4.14-25 – The tradition makes itself accessible

Srimad Bhagavatam 1.4.14. This is the appearance of Shri Narada is going on and till now in this chapter Sonaka has questioned about the background of the Bhagavatam. He has asked the two levels of origination of the Bhagavatam. First is he’s asked about how did he asked to get the inspiration to speak this or to write this and then he is also asked about how Shukadeva Goswami learned it and how did Shukadeva Goswami speak it to Parikshit Maharaj and in connection with that in his questions he has described the glories of both Parikshit Maharaj and Shukadeva Goswami.
So now these questions which are raised over here will be answered gradually. Chapters four to six will describe the answer to the question which was raised in just one verse that is the third verse. So there’s one half of the question what? So how did Vyasa get the inspiration to compile the Bhagavatam? So that is one half of one part of the question and that’s how things move forward now.
So Shuta Vaach is 14th text. द्वापारे समनु प्राप्ते तृतिये युग पर्येये जातः पराशरा योगी वासव्यां कलयाहरेहे द्वापारे समनु प्राप्ते तृतिये तृतिये युग पर्येये जातः पराशरा योगी वासव्यां कलयाहरे द्वापारे समनु प्राप्ते तृतिये तृतिये युग पर्येये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृत िये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये तृतिये त एक आसीन उदिते रवी मंदले कालेन आव्यक्तरंहसा कालेन आव्यक्तरंहसा युगधर्म वितीकरम् युगधर्म वितीकरम् प्राप्तं भुवी युगे युगे प्राप्तं भुवी युगे युगे कालेन आव्यक्तरंहसा भुवी युगे भुवी युगे भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भु भुवी युगे भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भुवी भु to describe his expert diagnostic ability and Amoghadrik he is used to describe his prescriptional expertise so in this way he was expert in both things and he observed the anomaly of the age and then he contemplated okay what could be the solution for this age एकं चतुर्विधं चतुर्होत्रं कर्मशुध्धं चतुर्होत्र if you read the Ramayana in the Mahabharata there is a great emphasis given for making sure the sacrificial fire is going on even an impious king like Dhritarashtra he said he had a sacrificial altar in which the fire would go on all the time and when Draupadi was dishonoured when the Pandavas were dishonoured especially Draupadi was dishonoured at that time the sacrificial fire started getting extinguished and when that happened Dhritarashtra realised oh some line has been crossed things have gone too far and at that time he tried to intervene and salvage the situation चतुर्होत्र so this in this the fire of the sacrifices the four kind of fire sacrifices which are there they are meant to actually purify the peoples कर्मजानमिक्षवैधिकम so according to the Vedas these are described so वेदधात् यग्यसंतत्य and in that वेदधात् that is made into यग्यसंतत्य that is actually meant the यग्य is meant for for the auspicious of people वेदं एकं चतुर्विधं so what he did is okay there are the sacrifices so there was one way that at that time but in a one book which is very big many times if people see a 500 page book they say oh i can’t read this and they often don’t even take it up for reading but if there are say 100 120 pages 150 pages four books they say okay maybe we can read this and eventually they end up reading the same thing but through smaller manageable sections something like that Vyasadev he divided वेदं एकं चतुर्विधं the one वेदा he divided into four sections and in this way he the Vedic sacrifices that were there and the associated directions that were given he made them more accessible to people in general now he described in 20th text what he did so the overview of the Vedic literature is given over here and first line describes the four Vedas रिज्यजु, साम, आतर्व, अतर्व so साम and अतर्व and they put together the संधी becomes साम आतर्व, साम अतर्व, ओ becomes आ over there but there are four Vedas रिज्यजु, साम, अतर्व, अतर्व and वेदा चत्वारुद्रत्ः these were the four main parts then इतिहास पुरानंच इतिहास has referred to the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, Puranas referred to the various Puranas these are called पंचमो वेद उच्छते so the Bhagavatam makes it very clear that we should not have a fragmented view of this literature where we think that the Vedas are one body of literature and the Puranas another body of literature and इतिहास is another body and they don’t have much in common especially some scholars think that okay the Vedas are one body and इतिहास पुरान is another body and they evolved at different times and they talk about different देवताs and one says they think of they have very fragmented view the Bhagavatam makes it clear no it’s not fragmented it’s integrated that there is one purpose that underlies all the the various literature and that one purpose is we will seek to raise people’s God consciousness and ultimately take people towards God so पंचमो वेद उच्छते so इतिहास पुरान are considered to be the पंचम वेद तत्रर्ग so here it is described for the 21st text तत्रर्ग वेद धरः पईलः सामगो जैमिन हिकवि वैशंपायनो एवैको निष्णःतो जुशामुतः तत्रर्ग तत्र देरपान so रिगवेद धरः पईलः so रिगवेद धरः one who was one who assimilated one who took in the रिगवेद was पईलः पईलः refers to the sage पईलः सामगो जैमिन हिकवि the सामवेद was taken up by जैमिन वैशंपायनो एवैको निष्णःतो जुशामुतः so वैशंपायन became expert in the इजुरवेद so he is now describing that because these branches of knowledge were very complex and it needed required mastery it’s like you know in our school days we study physics chemistry and we study various subjects but then if you want to go to graduation post-graduation then we have to specialise we can’t study all subjects we focus on one or two subjects and further when we go if you want to teach then we have general knowledge of various subjects but then we may go into super specialised level then be a professor of you know say a professor of chemistry and a professor of engineering chemistry there can be a huge amount of difference between the two so similarly here there is specialisation that is being described and one sage Prabhupada uses contemporary translations over here and uses the word professor to talk about them Jaimin is the professor of the Samveda over there so वैशंपायन एवैको निष्णःतो so that’s to accommodate the sophistication of the subject matter it was made the specialisation was done and so different sages were made specialists of different subjects so sages and subjects we had sophistication and specialisation अथर्वांगीर सामासीत सुमन्तुर्दारुनो मुन्ही इतिहास पुराणानाम पितामेरो महर्षणहाम अथर्वांगीर सामासीत so the Atharva Veda was given to Angir Muni सुमन्तुर्दारुनो मुन्ही he was also not Sumanthu Muni दारुनहाम he was totally devoted to the Atharva Veda इतिहास पुराणानाम two verses ago it was mentioned that इतिहास पुराणानाम पंचम वेदा so now they are also given a special person to specialise in today and he was entrusted and that was पितामेरो महर्षणहाम so he is saying it was my father रो महर्षण who got the responsibility for these Vedas तएतर्शयो वेदम सुमसं विस्यन अनेकधा शिष्यः वशिष्यः तच्छिक्षः तच्छिष्यः वेदास तेस शाखिनो भवन तएतर्शयो वेदम that in this way the sages entrusted तएतर्शयो वेदम सुमसं यस्यन अनेकधा that they gave it to their they studied it and they entrusted अनेकधा to their many disciples शिष्यः वशिष्यः तच्छिष्यः so basically a disciplic tradition was started so the disciples and grand disciples and great grand disciples वशिष्यः तच्छिष्यः वेदास तेस शाखिनो भवन and in this way the various शाखिनो वेदास came about so now this is something this is describing the origination of this knowledge and this happened over a period of time and that is what is being described here by Suta Goswami to Sona Kali Rishi’s and the purpose is giving the historical background by which he will describe then how the Bhagavatam came about to be composed 24th verse तएव वेदा दुर्मेधईर धार्यं ते पुरुषयिय था एवं चकार भगवान व्यासः कृपणवच्छलहाम तएव वेदा दुर्मेधईर that that certainly वेदा दुर्मेधईर the book of knowledge दुर्मेधईर by the less intellectual धार्यं ते पुरुषयिय था so to make that knowledge understandable for people who are not very intelligent the word दुर्मेधः was used earlier to describe the populace of this age also धार्यं ते पुरुषयिय था एवं चकार भगवान so that तएव वेदा that Vedic knowledge was assimilated was edited by चकार चकार means edited भगवान भगवान refers to व्यासदेव व्यासः कृपणवच्छलहाम कृपणवच्छलहाम वच्छलहाम is one who is affectionate भक्तवच्छलहाम is the normal epithet used to describe the supreme lord that is affectionate to his devotees now Prahlad Maharaj also uses the word कृपणवच्छलह to refer to Lord Narasimhadev that he is merciful even to those who are miserly so that same point is being made over here that व्यासदेव he was just merciful not just to the learned he was merciful even to those who are who are not very intelligent who are caught up in the materialistic conception of life and are seeking only material gains even for them what did he do he composed the Bhagavatam and thus he he actually is not composing the Bhagavatam will come a little later here it is mentioned that he edited the Veda so the way he edited has been described briefly previously and in this way he made the Vedic wisdom accessible and this is important for all of us who are practitioners and teachers at some level of Vedic wisdom that it is important it is the responsibility of the living tradition to keep the tradition living that means that the living tradition has to make the wisdom of the tradition intelligible and accessible to the contemporary ethos otherwise we may say that we are beating the tradition we are keeping we are being faithful to the tradition but being faithful to the tradition also means being faithful to the purpose of the tradition and that purpose of the tradition is to make sure that it benefits people so if it is presented in a way that doesn’t make sense that that is not comprehensible to the people then that purpose can be defeated so it is important that things be presented in a way that is intelligible, accessible and appealing to people and that is what Vyasadeva did at the start of Kali Yuga and that is what teachers of the tradition do throughout the history of the tradition they make the tradition’s wisdom accessible to people so it was not just in terms of editing in terms of size that was what Vyasadeva did, that was of course one thing but he also made the overall content more accessible so here it is described that so for those who are those are not for them the Shrutis are not accessible so who are these three? the Shudras, the women and those who are the Dvija refers to those who have taken the second birth that means those who have taken the initiation, the Gayath initiation as it is called and that Gayath initiation is something which is so those who are born in Dvija they are born in Dvija but they are not really developed the qualities of a Dvija so Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya who have gone to a lower level not ascended to the expected level of qualification for them the Shrutis were not accessible but still even for them for them also auspiciousness was not to be denied and how was that auspiciousness provided for them? that was provided that they could also achieve the Shreyas and for that purpose that literature which was known in the Mahabharata the sage he composed this to have mercy on those who were going to for whom the Vedas were not accessible now this raises the question, is it that this is like a casteist slur or sexist slur this was not meant for the women or not for the low castes here we have to understand that sometimes the content is very intellectual and those whose primary vocation was engaging in physical work or those who were caught in too many household duties and others with domestic affairs the point was not discrimination, the point was enhancing accessibility that if things are projected in a way that they are accessible to them then they can take it up, they can use it and they can become benefited by that that is the point over here, that is the point that is being made here also that for those in the Vedas who were not accessible for them that same wisdom of that long term benefit they could get through the study of the Mahabharata through the study of the Mahabharata and in this way the point that is being made here is that the Mahabharata is also continuation of the same tradition of wisdom but it is an adaptation for people who for whom some parts of the tradition were not accessible, so the whole mood of the tradition is to make itself accessible to different people at different levels of consciousness and how that accessibility is done may vary according to the circumstances but here this is what is being described that earlier it was out of mercy they were what happened after they asked they composed all this and how from here the composition of the Bhagavatam took place that we will discuss in our future talks thank you, they were given this particular literature as a means of accessing the same timeless wisdom