How do we understand that demons like Ravana were expert mantra chanters?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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If we have say, atheists like Ravana or Indrajit chanting mantras, they were expert chanters of mantras. So, how was their chanting? Actually, see mantra is technology. It is basically technology.
And technology is a means for manipulating matter. So, technology itself is value neutral. That means, say, if we have nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons or nuclear energy as technology, that can be used for generating electricity and constructive purposes.
That can be used for making nuclear weapons and can be used for devastatingly destructive purposes. But itself, the technology of nuclear energy is value neutral. It can go this way, it can go that way.
So, similarly, mantras, not as understood in the bhakti tradition, mantras as understood in the broad tradition of the Mahamsa, they are value neutral. That means, anybody who chants the mantras properly, they can access power. And if we see that way, when Krishna talks about the qualities of the brahmanas, in 18.42, he talks about it.
So, shamodamas tapah saucham, shantirarjamamevacha jnanam vijnanam astikyam brahmakarmasobhavacham. So, he gives a list of qualities and he doesn’t talk about bhakti as a quality of the brahmanas. He talks about astikyam.
Astikya, now in contemporary usage, the word astik and nastik, they refer to believer in God and non-believer in God. But in traditional India, the word astik refers to those who believe in the Vedas, those who accept the authority of the Vedas. And nastik are those who don’t accept the authority of the Vedas.
So, the brahmanas, they accept the authority of the Vedas. That is required. Then they are brahmanas, astikyam.
But within the Vedas, the Vedas are a vast body of knowledge. And there will be brahmanas who may not be devotees of Vishnu, devotees of Vishnukrishna. So, they accept the authority of the Vedas, but they may accept the karmakaranda sections, they may accept the mantra chanting sections, by which they get material powers.
So, this kind of brahmanas, they are there, they are interested in the Vedas as manuals for manipulating matter through mantra chanting or through fire sacrifices, through various rituals. And it’s actually, now certainly Ravana and Indrajith were expert mantra chanters, but they also had their brahmanas. So, they had paid priesthood, they are called yathudhanas.
And when Ram and Ravana, they would go out for battle, at that time Ravana had all these yathudhanas chanting mantras to invoke auspiciousness for himself. So, there can be brahmanas like that. We have Shukracharya also, the example in the 8th canto.
He is a brahmana. And what did he do? After he, after Bali Maharaj had been killed, he brought him back to life. And after he brought him back to life, what he did was, he got him to do yajnas.
And by the performance of yajnas, he became powerful. And then when he eventually got the seat of Indra, after that also he told him, do more yajnas, by which your hold on Indra’s seat can become stronger. But through it all, when Vishnu came to him, as Vamandevi told, don’t offer this, don’t give him this charity, we will ask for it.
That means he had faith in the Vedas, but he did not have faith in the purpose of the Vedas, which is Vedaisya Sarvai Aamey Vedyo. By all the Vedas, I am to be known, Krishna says in 15.15, that they did not have. Yeah, exactly, that was the example.
Yajnapatnis also like that. Yajnapatnis, they were not all that great in chanting the mantras and all that, the way their husbands were. But they were aware of the goal of Krishna.
They were devoted to Krishna. Whereas the Yajnapramanas, they themselves were not.