Deconstructing Shishupala’s character assassination of Krishna
- Neglect
- Let others respond
- Respond yourself
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Hare Krishna I seek the blessings of all the assembled Vaishnavas so that I can try to speak something on the 10th canto of the Shrimad Bhagavatam here I feel very humbled and honoured to be here in the biggest devotee community centered on Srila Prabhupada's disciples who are the pioneers because of whom Srila Prabhupada's legacy came into my life and the lives of millions like me So I seek your blessings so that I can try to do some small service Here, the Shrimad Bhagavatam is describing the incident of Shishupal Vituperatively opposing Krishna's being celebrated as the person receiving the foremost worship There is a fascinating overlap between the Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam In fact, if we study what all is covered in the Bhagavatam and what all is covered in the Mahabharata and see where they overlap Where they, if you consider them to be two circles Where they intersect, where they don't intersect. That itself is a beautiful study in fact the Bhagavatam, the most momentous event in the Mahabharata is the Kurukshetra war And the Bhagavatam entirely skips that In the Bhagavatam, what we have is the description of Balram's pilgrimage instead. Now we could say if a world war is going on and somebody starts describing the tourist activity of someone, what is going on here? So our Acharyas explain that Shukadeva Goswami has a particular focus He wants to help Parikshit Maharaj remember Krishna at the time of death and because Parikshit Maharaj never saw his own father who was killed brutally in the Kurukshetra war So out of sensitivity Shukadeva Goswami bypasses the discussion towards the end of the It's the 10th day.
So the last moments are coming up and he wants to keep the focus on Krishna directly So there are pastimes in the scripture where at one level it appears as if Krishna did not protect his devotees So for example the Abhimanyu in the Mahabharata or Jatayu in the Ramayana Of course ultimately the Lord protects, but sometimes when the protection is not manifested at the material level Devotees do not always like to discuss those pastimes So here if we see the pastime that is described, the Rajasuya Yajna The same pastime is described in the Mahabharata also But the Mahabharata's focus is slightly different The Bhagavatam's focus is clearly on Krishna. In the Mahabharata, Krishna is clearly known as God But the focus is not on Krishna. The focus is on the Pandavas There is an appendix to the Mahabharata called the Harimamsa in which Krishna's pastimes are described and Jiva Goswami is Gopal Champu as well as Rupa Goswami is Dasham Tipani They draw extensively from the Harimamsa to elaborate, to fill in the gaps between the narrative of the Shrimad Bhagavatam So prior to this Shishupal was so envious of Krishna and yet Shishupal is present at this sacrifice So now Shishupal had no antipathy towards the Pandavas Before the Rajasuya Yajna was to be performed, the four Pandava brothers went in four different directions to either Defeat all other warriors or to get them to voluntarily submit.
So when Partha went to Shishupal's kingdom And that's when Shishupal himself came out to welcome him And he said, what is on your mind, oh Partha? And when he told about Rajasuya Yajna, he said, yes, I respect you, Dhishtir And you Pandavas are virtuous people, I'll offer tributes and I'll come. So there was no battle at that time So generally, you know, if we respect a friend Respect for a friend also needs to include respect for the friend of that friend If I say I respect you, but if you love someone and I utterly disregard or insult that person Then I'm really disrespecting you also So Shishupal apparently respected the Pandavas, he regarded them well, but he had no respect for Krishna Now the history of that is of course that Krishna had abducted Rukmini and Thus Literally Shishupal was left on the marriage altar empty And he was embarrassed, mortified, enraged And he couldn't match Krishna's military might when he tried to counter him. So he was seething with the desire for taking revenge in some way or the other and normally when we want Someone to be dishonored, someone to be destroyed, the worst thing at that time is to see that person honored And when that happens With Shishupal seeing that the Pandavas are honoring Krishna as the topmost object, the person to be worshipped He, as Prabhupada writes, as is quoted here, he goes berserk, he goes mad And usually What we speak about others Speaks more about us than about others That means when I speak something about someone I may be in the mode that I was informing you this person is like this, that person is like that But by what I speak about that person, I also reveal my heart What is my disposition? For example, the same fact Can be told in two different ways.
Suppose if I like someone and Then the fact is okay that person had some problems earlier, but he's stable now So he had some issues, but he's stable now This is one way of saying it. I can stay true to the facts and give a completely different tilt to it He has been stable recently, but he had problems in the past The same facts, but you can give a completely different spin to it So Shishupal, there's three things here. First is he takes true facts and Gives them a false spin, a misleading spin Second is that he speaks outright lies and Third is he brings in unrelated issues.
So we'll discuss how these three things he does basically in In a negative sense, character assassination is also an art Art in a perverse sense. When somebody wants to assassinate someone's character, people can Distort facts in such a way that the person who is hearing can get completely misled So now we by the Acharya's grace know that Krishna is the Supreme Lord and he is not to be blamed. But if somebody were just to read Shishupal's narrative Shishupal's version of events.
I think Krishna is a really bad person What kind of person is he? We think like this So what all is he saying? First thing he says is परणाश्रम कुलापेता सर्वधर्बभहिष्कुतः He says that this person Krishna You are worshipping him at the topmost But he is an outcast Now every culture has its own Derogatory reference for those who do not belong to that culture Just like say in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Those who don't belong are called pagans. The Muslims, those who don't belong, they call them kafirs so within the Vedic tradition those who do not belong are You often refer to by word leechas, yavanas And at one level this might seem just a cultural Way of saying I versus we, you know, we are good and the others are evil But in the Vedic culture, there is a spiritual foundation to things and we'll come to that in a when we talk about the next verse, but the point is when a person is Belonging to a particular culture at that time to refer to that person as not belonging to that culture Is a great insult so for example if say within a devotee community if somebody wants to Criticize someone else, he says he's a mayavadi Now that is probably the worst insult that anybody can offer to a devotee Because mayavadi is considered to be just antipodal to devotees So similarly for a person who is in the Vedic culture and for that person to be a sarva dharma bahishkruta Bahishkruta literally the word is used, it means ostracized He is not only outside the four varnas, but he has been ostracized by the four varnas So it's a very strong kind of condemnation So the criticism the severity of the criticism has to be understood when we enter the cultural context So for example in say today's culture if somebody is called you are a racist now 200 years ago say Practically everybody in America was a racist So that word would not have any negative connotation over there So practically all the founding fathers of America, they own slaves So the point is that this today the word Racist has such a pejorative connotation that would not have been present in the past Similarly when Varunashram is not present the severity of this criticism Sarva dharma bahishkruta, all religious orders, all religious people have ostracized him That may not be apparent, but it's a very strong Condemnation that is being offered in that context and then he says further that Svairvarti gunahir hina, saparyam katha margati So he is he doesn't follow scripture just like in the in Devotee community if somebody says he doesn't follow Prabhupada That is very strong criticism So whether that is true or not different people may have different interpretations of what following Prabhupada means But just that can become a very strong spur on a particular person So like that here, Svairvarti, somebody is living independently, Krishna lives independently not following scripture This is a again a very strong criticism in that culture And because of that because of being outside Varunashram because of not following Vedic scriptures, gunahir hina Has no qualities and therefore saparyam katha margati So Rhetorical questioning is often a very strong way of conveying a point So that there is not really a question if the answer is self-evident in the rhetorical question How does such a person deserve worship? The point is that means he doesn't deserve worship But instead of saying he doesn't deserve worship by asking a rhetorical question the onus is put on the audience to think saparyam katha margati How can such a person be worshipped? How does such a person deserve worship? Now in Sanskrit linguistics, there is a form of speech called as Vyajas Tuthi Vyajas Tuthi is praise through criticism and Vishwanath Chakravarthyakar is especially expert in Reinterpreting all of the criticisms of Krishna which are done by various characters, especially demoniac characters Or people who are temporarily overcome by demoniac mentality as happened to say Indira in the Govardhan Leela So Vishwanath Chakravarthyakar reinterprets them these statements as glorifications of Krishna So Srila Prabhupada gives us explanation of that in the purport and he says Krishna is Yes, the point is what if these are the four varanas, this is varanashram Then what Shishupala wants to say is he is outcast in the sense that he is below varanashram But out of the varanashram, it can either be below varanashram or it can be above varanashram You see an outside something where it means that is not stated within that.
So what Srila Prabhupada explains based on Chakravarthyakar's commentary is that Krishna is outside varanashram because he is above varanashram It's like there is morality. There is immorality, but there is transmorality So Krishna, as Gopi is going to Krishna, meet Krishna at midnight for the rasa rants. It's not immoral.
It's transmoral So Krishna is out of varanashram in the sense of he is He is beyond varanashram In 4.13 and 14 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna states that he is made the varanashram, but he is a non-doer because he is imperishable, he is beyond and because he is not the desirer of fruits of any activity, nor does he have any sense of imperishability. Therefore One who knows his position does not become bound. So that is the reinterpretation that Vishwanath Chakravarthyakar gives of this particular criticism and further now each of these is elaborately interpreted by Chakravarthyakar and the next criticism that he makes is As far as being independent, he says Krishna is independent because He is supreme Not because he is whimsical But because he is transcendental.
There is some people may be independent in the sense that they are actually dependent completely on their mind What people call as independence often is just slavery to the mind and the senses They are dragged here and there, but Krishna is completely independent in the sense that he has Transcended the need to follow scripture because he has no selfish motives. In the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna talks about the advanced yogi, he says a person goes beyond Shabda Brahma, beyond the sound of Brahma. So like that Krishna has gone beyond He is Svairvarti, he has become independent.
Then next thing he says is, so first was how he is Misinterpreting. Now he brings in old irrelevant things, you know dredge up the past to try to Assassinate the character of a person. So he says he has been cursed by Yayaati and because of being cursed by Yayaati therefore all good people have have Ostracized him and ostracized not just him.
So he is now moving from Krishna to the whole Yadu dynasty So this story is told in the ninth canto of the Shrimad Bhagavatam where Yayaati wanted his youth back and Wanted his youth rather. He wanted one of his sons to exchange their youth with him with his old age so that he could enjoy with his With his wives. So for that purpose he asked Yadu, but Yadu refused and that's why he was cursed now this was generations and generations ago and that has got no relevance over here and Yadu's purpose was transcendental.
He wanted Krishna to descend as quickly as possible and that's why he refused It is not because of any sense gratificatory desire. So that has usually whenever Rumors are to be mongered, the character is to be assassinated. Now facts are not important, feelings are what are important Somehow you bring something from somewhere and try to label a person as bad.
So Yayaati's curse has nothing to do with the context And he says because of that Pana, they have become addicted to drinking alcohol Now the Chakravarthi Padre interprets that Pana can mean alcohol, Pana can also mean protection Pala, similar root it comes. So he is saying that they are protecting everyone expertly And he again asks the same question, Saparyam Kathamarthi So Brutha is a person, how can that person be worshipped in vain? But he explains that Whatever worship is being offered, Chakravarthi Padre says, it is actually insufficient for Krishna. There's a famous poet who worshipped Lord Ram and he wants to describe, Lord Ram's eyes are as beautiful as And the poet looks at all the world around and thinks what can be the metaphor? Ram's eyes are as beautiful as Ram's eyes So there is no metaphor that is adequate There's no metaphor at all that is adequate And Lalit Madhava, Rupa Goswami Retells many of the past times from the 10th Canto and there he describes two kings especially those kings who had been Imprisoned by Jarasandha.
So when they are rescued they offer praise to Krishna and they say that Earlier when we were seeking your help, we offered great praise to you and we thought we were offering very beautiful praise to you but Now that we have actually seen your beauty We have seen your glory. Now, we feel that Our praising you was like calling the sovereign of the whole world the landlord of a village If we call the sovereign of the whole world the landlord of a village Then that is actually disrespectful So actually no glory is sufficient When it comes to glorifying the Lord and therefore whatever worship is offered that is actually inadequate Of course that does not mean we shouldn't offer worship there is a famous verse of Shankaracharya which is often misinterpreted by many Advaitins. So they say that Actually, Oh Lord, you are unlimited, but I worship you in a limited form.
Although you are when you are beyond words still I speak about you in words and Although you are inconceivable still I think about you. By all this I reduce you and I offend you and Please forgive me for the offence So now this prayer the mood is to stress not the Uselessness of words, but their insufficiency. Tukaram Maharaj is a famous Vaishnava saint in Maharashtra And he has a very beautiful metaphor to explain this he says that a peacock Can dance with a beautiful gate But that does not mean that other birds have no right to dance Other birds may not be able to dance as beautifully as a peacock But just because they can't dance so well doesn't mean that other birds cannot dance.
So similarly he says that We cannot glorify the Lord adequately But that does not mean we should not glorify him We should glorify him according to our capacity and as Pilat Maharaj says it is for our purification that we glorify him Then he goes on and says So he is now trying to find out something to criticize Krishna So first he talked about his position in the society. They talked about your antecedents, your ancestors were having problem Now he says your location is having a problem. What is the location? Location is you are Brahma Rishi Saivitan Deva The area geographically is considered to be Brahma Varsha.
You have gone outside that And therefore You are living outside the Sacred area. So there is a tendency a common misconception to reduce the reduce the transcendental to the geographical To reduce the transcendental to the geographical. So for example the the traditional injunction which said that sannyasis should not go outside Bharat Varsha, outside India.
The purpose at one level could be protecting the Sannyasis from going to be exposed to materialistic culture But the point is to think that the message of transcendence is meant only for a particular geographical area Or that it is applied only within the particular area. That is a misunderstanding so you know if there is a potent pure devotee as Vashila Prabhupada then what to speak of the Transcendental going beyond a particular geographical limit. It can actually go beyond all geographical limits.
Vashila Prabhupada went from Vrindavan which was the capital of devotion to the Lower East Side Which was the capital of degradation At that time at least. So we are right now celebrating Vashila Prabhupada's coming by Jal Doota He is composing the Markini Bhagavad Dharma So there also Vashila Prabhupada says something similar. Here it was said that He is saying They are ostracized.
They are low-class people and Prabhupada when he observes from the Boston Pyre He also says They're all covered by the lower modes of passion and ignorance so now More important than what we speak is why we speak it. So Prabhupada may also say that these people are Mlechas or Yavanas, but that was not in a mood of condemnation. That was in a mood of compassion there is His mood was to elevate people whereas Shishupal when he is saying this thing, he is not only factually wrong, but he's also malicious so Vashila Prabhupada When he came to America and then after that he went all over the world by his potency By his spiritual potency, he manifested Vrindavan He manifested what is called not just Brahma Varchasa, but the topmost in the Brahma Aryavarta He manifested Vrindavan in so many places all over the world.
That is the potency of a pure devotee There is a famous verse in the Puranas Where the Lord is telling Narada Muni So he says that Krishna is saying that I am not present in Vaikuntha, I am not present in the Yogi's heart Now actually the Lord is present there. So this is a rhetorical statement to emphasize That okay, Krishna may be there in Vaikuntha, Krishna is there in the Yogi's heart, but common people can't perceive him there whereas Krishna who is present when the devotees glorify him Where Krishna is glorified by his devotees, there he is manifested in a Accessible way for everyone. So here what he is saying is that Krishna has gone and stayed in Dwarka Now Dwarka from the geographical point of view, it is outside the boundary of India.
It is an island, underwater also In the evolution of species Evolution not in a geographical sense, not in a historical sense, but in the sense of consciousness The aquatics are considered the lowest, lower even in the plants, not because the aquatics have lesser consciousness than the plants But the aquatics are away From land and land is considered to be the place where Krishna manifests, where there are holy dhams So that's why aquatics are considered lower than even the trees So here for him to say that Krishna is living in the ocean Now that is a condemnation. In the Gopal Chambu, Jiva Goswami explains Why Krishna goes to take the Mathura Vasis to Dwarka. The normal understanding is he wanted to protect the Mathura Vasis from the attacks of various invaders But Jiva Goswami says actually Krishna wanted to protect the Vraja Vasis So he took the Mathura Vasis to Dwarka to protect the Vraja Vasis How is that? Because Vrindavan and Mathura were very close to each other and whenever any invader would come at that time they would often come through Vrindavan or they would come close to Vrindavan and they would disrupt the lands of Vrindavan or there would be threat of disruption of Vrindavan and that's why Krishna was anxious that if Mathura is close to Vrindavan I will protect Mathura, but how will I protect Vrindavan? And so to protect the Vraja Vasis, if he is far away, those who want to attack him and his dynasty, the Yadavas They will have to come to Dwarka.
So then they will be far away from Vrindavan. In fact Krishna tells the Vraja Vasis that as long as I am in Mathura, you should not maintain any contact with me So that our enemies, my enemies will think that I have no affection for you and you have no affection for me. In that way we will They will not target you in any way and that way you will be protected So Krishna has his own reasons why he has come to Dwarka and that has got nothing to do with the rejection of Varanashram But here what is Shishupal saying that he has actually rejected Varanashram and that's why he has gone to a land where Varanashram is not practiced.
And further, for a king who is meant to be like a father protecting the citizens He is criticizing. What does he mean? These Yadavas, they are exploiting their citizens Now because Dwarka was inaccessible, in general the unknown gets unfavorably known In general, the normal human tendency is whatever is unknown It gets unfavorably known Like that's what happened with our movement also. The devotees in the early days, people just couldn't make sense of them They started thinking these are people who wear dhoti, kurtas and clay on their face.
They must be some cult members So the unknown gets unfavorably known Whatever we don't know about, we somehow get some straw rumors, some suspicion and we cast negative aspersions on those people So like that what was going on in Dwarka was not known So exploiting that ignorance, Shishupal is accusing that Krishna and the Yadavas are exploiting all the residents, all the citizens over there. And this way finally he says Evam adhinya badrani. In this way he offered various abadrani, various criticisms.
Nashtamangalaha All his good qualities have been destroyed and the conclusion which he gives over here is that Just as a lawyer does not hear the braying of a jackal, Krishna remains silent So I'll conclude with this point that there are Criticism, there are different ways of responding to criticism at different times Sometimes when the criticism is coming from a person who is not very important, then trying to respond to that criticism gives more attention to their criticism And then their criticism grows further and further so Whenever some great person doesn't respond to any criticism, this is the standard metaphor that is given As Prabhupada would say that the dogs may bark, but the caravan rolls on That is one way, just neglect the criticism and that is what Krishna will do over here But we will see that Krishna's devotees don't do that. In the Mahabharata it is described elaborately and here also it is hinted Bhishma counters Shishupal, Bhima counters Shishupal Sahadev also, Nakul Sahadev, they also counter Now usually The harsh words of our enemies don't hurt us as much as the silence of our friends That means if we are criticized in a forum If there are people who are enemies, they are anyway going to criticize us. That is still hurting, but it's not unexpected But if our friends at that time stay silent Then that hurts If someone spoke like that about me, how could you have stayed silent? So the sign of devotion, which is what manifested by Bhishma and Bhima and others that when Krishna is criticized, although Krishna remains silent, they don't remain silent So one way of responding to criticism is silence.
The second is let others respond to the criticism on our behalf So the third is we ourselves may have to respond in certain times Because certain times, certain criticisms may become widespread and they may create some unnecessary misconceptions. So then we have to respond to criticism. So what we may have to do will vary according to time, place, circumstance.
Shrila Prabhupada would often use criticism as an opportunity for preaching When Shrila became first time to India and there were many people who who Criticized the devotees. Oh, these are people from What can they know about this glorious Hindu culture and so many like that. So Prabhupada said just write letters Told Giriraj, Maharaj and others, you write letters and let them be published in the newspapers.
And if the newspapers refuse to publish them We'll publish them back to Godhead. Let us respond to all the criticism. So how we deal with criticism may vary according to time, place and circumstance and And Today is of course the appearance day of Sita Thakurani and Sita Thakurani is explained to be Pauranamasi.
She is the consort of Advaita Acharya and in It's interesting. I'll just do this one correlation to complete this. That Sita Thakurani in Navadvipi and in Pauranamasi in Vrindavan.
Their correlation is interesting She acted like a mother to Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and she was she was the person who gave him the name Nimai and She was like a surrogate mother. She was actually a little older in age to Sachi Mata also and whenever Sachi Mata would need some more help in taking care of Nimai Advaita Acharya's wife was always there so They were all the whole Navadvip community If you read Chaitanya Bhagavata, Chaitanya Ram, Chaitanya Ritambhud, like a big joint family when everyone was there to help each other at different times Now Pauranamasi plays an interesting role in Krishna Leela. So first of all, she was there here Sita Thakurani was as a mother and secondly she was also as she acted as the means for reunion between the Vrajavasi, between Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the Navadvipavasis because a Sanyasi cannot come back to one's home.
That is a convention But he would come back to Shantipur and he would stay at Advaita Acharya's house So Sita Thakurani would host and then Sachi Mata and other Navadvipavasis would come. Pauranamasi on the other hand played a different role. She arranged for Krishna to leave Vrindavan Anyway, the whole Vrindavan community knew that Radha is meant for Krishna.
Radharani is to marry Krishna and Pauranamasi said no wait, wait, wait. Now the season is not right. Season is not right.
Wait some time, wait some time and in that way Krishna had married and Krishna could not have left Vrindavan and then he would not have done the work of Vinasha Jyotishtam So, of course Gopal Sharma describes that eventually when Krishna goes out of Vrindavan kills the demons and comes back at that time Pauranamasi plays a central role in arranging for the eventual reunion of Krishna with the Gopis So our Acharyas have these exalted double personages They have very significant roles in Gaurila as well as in Krishnalila and here in the 10th Canto we get this glimpse of how Krishna is being, even the Supreme Lord is being criticized over here and yet he responds with stoic equanimity So, thank you very much. Are there any corrections, comments, questions? Thank you.