If “Svetasvatara Upanishad ” is dedicated to Lord Shiva , why is it dedicated to Krsna by Vaishnava Acharyas?

Transcript

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Question from Keshav Prabhu, Shvetashvatara Upanishad is dedicated to Lord Shiva. And why is it dedicated to Krishna by Vaishnavacharyas? Answer, it is a simplistic notion to just equate the occurrence of the word Shiva in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad with the personality of Devata Shiva.
As he is known in the broad Hindu world today, actually Shiva is also a name of Vishnu. And if we look through the full Shvetashvatara Upanishad, overall what we find is more generic characteristics of the absolute truth rather than specific characteristics that equate with Lord Shiva as we know him today in the Hindu world. So, the proper understanding is that actually the Shvetashvatara Upanishad is talking about the absolute truth and is referring to that absolute truth by one of the names and one of the names is Shiva.
Now, actually speaking, the Vaishnavacharyas, more than dedicating it to Krishna in artificial way, focus on the content of the Upanishad. And the content of the Upanishad has three important characteristics. First is that it among the various Upanishads, it is an Upanishad that focuses a lot on Bhakti.
It clearly explains how the Supreme Lord, the absolute truth is attained through Bhakti. Secondly, it does talk about the absolute truth in personal terms and it also talks about thirdly about his inconceivable characteristics that he has characteristics which are his personal, he’s a person still he’s all-pervading like that. This cannot be conceived by our normal intelligence, although it can be realized by purification and realization and elevation of consciousness.
So, now in general, all the Upanishads do talk about the absolute truth being a person, but that is only talked about in hints. It is not necessarily explicitly mentioned and certainly not repeatedly emphasized, but there are a few Upanishads which do that and Shvetashvatara Upanishad is one of those Upanishads. So, the Shvetashvatara Upanishad firstly does not specifically talk about Shiva, although it refers to the absolute truth by the name Shiva, but then the characteristics it describes of that absolute truth are generic.
And as we know Shiva is not just a name of Devata Shiva, Shiva is also a name of Lord Vishnu and the Vaishnavacharyas don’t dedicate it to Krishna, but they quote from that Upanishad because it talks about personalism, it talks about Bhakti and it talks about inconceivability of the absolute truth. So, now even one day if it is talking about Shiva, why should we assume if he’s using the name Shiva, why should it not be assumed that it refers to Lord Shiva directly? Why should we assume anything else about it? The important point here is that there is a bhed and there is a bhed between the personalities of Shiva and Vishnu and that’s why unless we are having a holistic understanding of the Vedic philosophy, if we just take one section from one book and assume that to be the conclusive understanding, then our conclusion can be mistaken. So, there’s another question over here on the site about why Shiva and Vishnu have identical names on many occasions, same names.
So, you can hear that and that will give a clear understanding of another question about, so basically in that question I describe how the characteristics of the absolute truth, especially the characteristics of auspiciousness that is Shiva, that is present in its completeness in the Supreme Lord and that is present in an enormous degree more than anyone else in the person whom we know as the demigod Shiva. So, that’s why because of that presence of that characteristic that is there. Another point is many of these names are proper nouns, not just proper nouns but they are also common nouns.
So, this I have answered elaborately again in the question on if we can go back to God by chanting the names of Krishna and Jesus and of Christ and Allah, then why not Ganesha and Kartikeya and other devatas. So, there I have talked about again the difference between proper nouns and common nouns. So, proper nouns are for example, if we talk about Obama or Manmohan Singh, proper nouns of the people who are ruling the specific countries today, but the common nouns are the Prime Minister or the President.
So, now Shiva can be a proper noun as well as a common noun. As a proper noun it refers to a specific person, as a common noun it refers to anybody who has the characteristic that is denoted by the word Shiva in its meaning, that is auspiciousness. So, we tend to assume that whenever we hear the word Shiva that it is referring to in a proper noun sense, but there are times when it is referring not in the proper noun sense but it is in a common noun sense.
So, that’s why by understanding this difference that there is a proper noun and there is a common noun and the Upanishads in general are not talking about the specific individuals and their individual characteristics in terms of who is that supreme individual as a person, that is revealed only in the Srimad Bhagavatam and in subsequent literature like that. So, therefore, the overall trend of the Upanishad is to point to the absolute truth, not explicitly or elaborately describe that absolute truth and certainly not its personal, not the personal characteristics of the absolute truth. So, if you look at the overall context, Shiva is used there not in a proper noun sense but in a common noun sense.
So, it refers to the attributes of the absolute truth which are indicated by the name Shiva, that is auspiciousness.