Is the Yamuna purer than Ganga? On whose banks was the Bhagavatam spoken?

From Praveen P:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Praveen Prabhu. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, canto 1, chapter 19, verse 6, it is mentioned that Parikshit Maharaj took the shelter of river Ganga, but then Shri Prabhupada mentions in the purport, quoting Jiva Goswami, that Parikshit Maharaj took shelter of Yamuna and also there he quotes that Yamuna is a hundred times purer than Ganga, but we have always heard that Ganga is the most sacred of all rivers. So, how do we understand these points? Answer, firstly regarding the relative purity of Ganga and Yamuna, this is not some, the spiritual realm is not a realm of mundane mathematics.
Now, for example, we have the, Shri Prabhupada was asked that Krishna is more pleased when he serves his devotees than when we serve him. Then similarly, will Krishna not be more pleased if we chant his devotees’ names than when we chant his names? So, Shri Prabhupada said, don’t speculate. This is mundane.
You just follow what is given in the scriptures. Similarly, so in principle, it is true that Krishna is pleased when we serve his devotees and please them, but then the process that the glory of the devotees is they are serving Krishna and they are connecting us with Krishna so that we can serve him. So, there is a standard scriptural process and that scriptural process does not have to be circumvented or subverted in the name of trying to exalt some particular devotional perceptions.
So, we don’t have to get into this whole zone of mathematical comparison. In the scripture, sometimes it is quoted that say one name of Ram is equal to thousand names of Vishnu and then one name of Krishna is equal to three names of Ram. So, if that is the case, then we may wonder why we have to chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra.
If Krishna’s name alone is most powerful, then we can just chant Krishna’s names, Krishna, Krishna, Krishna and not chant the Hare Krishna and especially not the Hare Ram part. No, we don’t do this because this is the specific Mahamantra that is mentioned in it. Now, there are some devotees who say that actually it is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who is the Yoga Avatar.
So, actually the most purifying would be chanting the names of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and they say that we will not get as much purification by chanting Krishna’s names as by chanting Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s names and they start making a japa of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s name instead of Krishna’s names. They are using the same logic that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is more merciful than Krishna but we have to look this is true. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is indeed the Mahavadanya Avatar but his Mahavadanyata has to be accessed according to his instructions not our speculations.
So, his instruction was that we chant the Hare Krishna Mahamantra. So, certainly we can chant his holy names also but not that we subvert the process that he has given. So, the standard chanting is the Hare Krishna Mahamantra because that is what has been taught and if we have this mathematical attitude then where is the devotional attitude in it? You know this although we are talking about we are offering our heart to Krishna but we are while offering our heart to Krishna we are having a profit calculation.
So, this will give me three times more benefit. This name will give me a thousand times more benefits and certainly a calculative attitude is not very compatible with a devotional attitude which is based on selfless service. So, our primary focus is on loving and serving Krishna.
So, whether we get when we get opportunity to bathe in the Ganga or in the Jamuna we take both opportunities and when we relish those opportunities and we greatly purify ourselves using those opportunities at that time we don’t focus on if you are bathing in the Ganga if we are at that time thinking oh the Jamuna is more purer you know that attitude will neither please Ganga Devi nor please the Lord. Actually, ultimately it’s not a question of who is more pure and less pure it’s a question of whether we are developing the right attitude to become purified. So, that’s the first understanding we cannot apply mundane mathematics to mundane mathematical logic to transcendental subject matters and not to speak of being in the Brihad Bhagavatam when Gopakumar goes to the abode of Vishnu and his journey upwards and the story of the Gopakumar in the Brihad Bhagavatam is basically the story of a seeker who ultimately attains the highest abode of Goloka Vrindavan.
So, when he is in Vaikuntha at that time he is initially ecstatic to be there in the abode of Lord Vishnu himself and there he sees that all the associates of Lord Vishnu in Vaikuntha are completely captivated with Lord Vishnu and although he’s initially attracted still his heart feels a little dissatisfied and then Narada Muni guides him then he’s guided forward onwards but critical to our point is that the Vaikuntha Vasis also think that Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu that even those in Vaikuntha they think that actually our Lord Vaikunthanath is the supreme Lord and Krishna is one expansion and Saradhan Goswami in the Brihad Bhagavatam describes this without trying in any way to philosophically counter it because at the level of Rasa ultimately if one has directed one’s love towards the Vishnu Tattva then so one is at the level of Tattva at the level of philosophical truth one is directed one has directed one’s love toward an eternal object then that is that is more than enough for the soul and then which particular manifestation of the Lord one is attracted to that is a matter of Rasa. So, we don’t have to we don’t have to absolutize or impose these devotional sentiments on others. So, if some devotees have a great attraction to Ganga then we don’t have to deride them by saying oh Yamuna is a thousand times hundred times more pure and we ourselves should not also minimize Ganga when we are having the opportunity to serve her by bathing in her waters.
So, these are we see this same principle in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes also where Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appreciates both Murali Gupta as well as Anupam the brother of Upanishad Saradhan Goswami who are very fixed in devotion to Lord Ram. So, he doesn’t he doesn’t castigate them for saying that oh you don’t understand Krishna is supreme although he tests Murali Gupta and Upanishad Saradhan Goswami also try to persuade Anupam but when both Murali Gupta and Anupam stay fixed in their devotion to Lord Ram actually Chaitanya Mahaprabhu glorifies them for that. So, of course we don’t see Murali Gupta becoming an initiating spiritual master in our Sampradaya.
So, as far as our preaching is concerned we will preach the Gaudiya Vishnu Siddhanta because we have followed the Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu but that doesn’t mean that in any way there is going to be a minimization of those devotees who are worshipping the Supreme Lord in one of his manifestations especially in one of his Vishnu manifestations. So, that’s why at our level we don’t have to we don’t have to get into mathematical calculating zone when it comes to looking at whether Ganga is purer or Yamuna is purer. Even the Ganga comes from the lotus feet of Lord Vishnu just as the Yamuna where Lord Krishna also comes from the lotus feet of the Lord.
At the same time from the Karmakand scriptures point of view Ganga is extremely exalted because Ganga offers purification from all sins and although Ganga is certainly connected with the Lord being the Charanamut of Lord Vamadeva but people bathe in Ganga not so much for developing devotion to the Lord but for trying to wash away their sinful reactions. On the other hand when devotees go and bathe in the Yamuna when one is in the realm of bhakti and one is concerned not so much with getting rid of sinful reactions as with trying to develop pure love for Krishna and so even if in some scriptures there are glories of Ganga they can be seen either as glorification from the Karmakand point of view or they can be seen as glorification from the bhakti point of view for those devotees who are attracted to the corresponding form of the Lord who are associated with the Kadali and from the pure bhakti point of view with the highest rasas in it Yamuna Devi is the highest. So if we try to impose matters of rasa on others then that leads to a sort of rasa abhas and that is something which is undesirable.
So as far as tattva is concerned we agree that there is Vishnu tattva and there are various personalities in Vishnu tattva and we don’t have to go about on a rampaging mission trying to impose what are matters of rasa on others who are experiencing different rasas. So in the Chetan Charita Amrit there is a discussion between Vallabha Bhatta and Chetan Mahaprabhu and in that discussion Chetan Mahaprabhu sort of corrects Vallabha Bhatta. So now Vallabha Bhatta’s objection in one sense is valid.
Vallabha Bhatta is saying that I have refuted the commentary of Sridhar Swami because his argument is very interesting. He says there is no consistency in Sridhar Swami’s commentary. He says that Sridhar Swami interprets everything according to context and I don’t see any consistency over there.
Now if you look back historically Sridhar Swami nominally belonged to Mayavada Sampradaya and actually through Sridhar Swami and other devotees Mayavada was permeated internally with bhakti. Sridhar Swami was an exalted bhakta but officially his sort of membership was with the Advaita Sampradaya and that’s why when he wrote some of his books even the Mayavadis were disturbed because he was glorifying bhakti at a very exalted level almost equivalent to gyan and some places seemed to be superior to gyan also. So now Sridhar Swami because he was in a particular Sampradaya so he could not just reject the conclusions of that Sampradaya’s previous teachers.
So when he was commenting on the Bhagavatam he gave the devotional conclusions at many places but at same time he also gave weightage to impersonal ideas and that’s what he had to do so that he could actually help the Mayavadis who thought they were very intellectual and philosophical to also see the philosophicality and the intellectuality of the bhakti perspective. So now Chaitanya Mahaprabhu understood this heart of Sridhar Swami and he understood that what he has actually done is glorious but Vallabhbhatta did not understand this properly and he felt that all his interpreting is a contextual. Some places he’s talking he’s glorifying gyan, other places he’s glorifying bhakti, some places he’s talking about Brahman as highest, other places he’s talking about a personal aspect of highest.
So there’s no consistency. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu sort of chastised Vallabhbhatta and he said that one who does not accept a swami is like a woman who does not accept her husband, husband is swami, so he’s like a prostitute. Sridhar Swami felt very sorry Vallabhbhatta felt very very humbled by that, initially humiliated but humbled and later on he was transformed by that but the point relevant to us is that some devotees in an early issue of Back to Godhead magazine published this conversation between Vallabhbhatta and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, this meeting in a Back to Godhead issue and then this Back to Godhead issue reached Sumti Moraji and Sumti Moraji was actually a follower of Vallabh Sampradaya.
Sumti Moraji was the person who had sponsored Shilpa Prabhupada’s trip by giving him free passage on Jaloguta. So she was quite upset and she wrote a letter to Prabhupada saying that you know why is Vallabhacharya being minimized in this book like that. So Shilpa Prabhupada wrote a letter to the editors of the Back to Godhead and he told them that these are rasic differences and these don’t have to be emphasized in public forums.
You know at a time when materialism and atheism is enveloping the world and those who are devotional theistic people need to unite not harp over minor differences and create internal divisions. So Shilpa Prabhupada himself did not approve of unnecessarily highlighting these subtle rasic points of difference not just practical point of view but also point of view of understanding that the Lord accommodates different people with different rasas. So this is about the comparison of Ganga and Yamuna.
We should not highlight or emphasize it too much especially if it is going to alienate other people who may have some special devotional sentiments for Ganga as compared to Yamuna. But when we read it and if we when we are going to run Yamuna we can surely think that we should surely think that as this is the most holy the purest river in all of creation and let me fully utilize the opportunity to bathe in her waters and purify myself. Now regarding where Shukadeva Goswami went, sorry where Shukadeva Goswami and Parashuram Harad’s meeting happened.
So in the purport itself Shilpa Prabhupada does not emphasize any one perspective. Shilpa Prabhupada quotes Jiva Goswami. Now if you look at the Sanskrit there is one verse which does explicitly say Ganga Chudevi Drushyita Ishe.
So Parashuram Harad is telling the sages that he says that oh sages I have surrendered to you and I have surrendered to Ganga and let this magical creation the snake or whatever it is come and kill me, kill and bite me I don’t care you just Gayanti Hari Gatha you please keep singing the glory of Vishnu Gatha. So from the scripture point of view there is explicit reference to Ganga. So it would seem that the whole conversation took place in the banks of Ganga and even geographically there is a place named Shukatal which is in North India which is actually on the banks of Ganga and that is considered by many to be the place where the conversation took place historically 5000 years ago.
So now Jiva Goswami is giving an explanation over there and then and we understand that that is also a possibility. It is not that all the details of all the past times happen in the same way every time. So Prabhupada quotes Varaha Puran and says that Ganga and Yamuna are non-different and in fact that is also this one argument that Saradwaj Acharya uses to pacify Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is taken to Shantipur instead of Vrindavan by Nityanand Prabhu and he is told that this is the Yamuna when actually it is Ganga.
So when Aditya Acharya is seen over there and he sees Aditya Acharya and when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu recognizes that oh we cheated this is not the Yamuna this is Ganga. Nityanand has cheated me. Then Aditya Acharya says actually the Ganga and Yamuna are non-different because they flow as one river and then they part at one point and basically they are one river at one point and then they are separated other points.
So he gives a logic over there and to reconcile the point that actually Nityanand Prabhu did not speak any lies. So the point again over here is that from the absolute point of view the various rivers especially the sacred rivers are manifestations of the feminine potency of the Lord and in that sense they are in one sense one. So it’s not absolute oneness of identity they are distinctly personal Ganga Devi and Yamuna Devi but at the same time they are manifestations of one feminine potency of the Lord.
So it could well be that in one particular kalpa this particular conversation happens on the banks of Ganga rather it happens in the banks of Yamuna. Actually Prabhupada uses tentative language in his purport and he says from the geographical perspective Jiva Goswami seems to be correct because Yamuna is closer to Hastinapura Delhi than is Ganga and so naturally Parishad Maharaj would have gone there. So Srila Prabhupada indicate that as a feasible possibility and then he also says that actually the two are non-different as per Varaha Purana.
So Srila Prabhupada is not in any way absolutely committing to one position and what he is saying is that Jiva Goswami’s position is also defensible and it can indicate another kalpa. Therefore these are issues which are there are details in scriptures and wherever the details can enhance our appreciation of the appreciation of the pastimes of the Lord, our enrichment of rasa then those details can be can be dwelt upon but wherever those details tend to create unnecessary controversies or confusions then we don’t have to harp upon them because we understand that we may not have adequate intellectual capacities to understand everything about the scriptures and Srila Prabhupada also in the earlier chapter in the 10th chapter of this first canto when Krishna departs for Dwaraka and in the 11th chapter describes how he arrives his arrival in Dwaraka. So towards the end of the 10th chapter he describes that Krishna went through various areas and through this city, this city, this city and he gave darshan to all these people and then finally reached Dwaraka and then Srila Prabhupada writes over this.
So he says archaeologists may try to find out the trace out the actual path of Krishna from from Asthanapur to Dwaraka but he says that as far as we are concerned we are simply satisfied that Krishna has reached Dwaraka and he is going to reciprocate with his devotees now. So Srila Prabhupada also says that that you know sometimes the chronology may not be very easily understandable for us because this may include different kalpas. Our concern is with the values and instruction that we can learn from these past times and enrich our devotional practice.
So therefore there is no need to unduly highlight these points and somehow let that cause a confusion or that let that rake up a controversy but at the same time we can understand that these points are they can they can make sense. They are intellectually defensible but they don’t have to be the primary points to be highlighted in the scriptures.