Is Vallabhacharya Krishna or devotee of Krishna?

From Raj Parikshit P
Answer Podcast:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, question from Rajapaksha Prabhu, is Vallabhacharya a devotee of Krishna or is he Krishna as is considered in the Pushya Maharaja Sampradaya? Answer, there is, within the, even the Vaishya Sampradayas, there has been a healthy devotional tendency where the focus of worship is the Lord.
And there has also been the tendency to sort of gain more security and more confidence in one’s own path by considering the founder of one’s path to be God or some godly figure like that. So, if we look at this tendency, this is, if you look at the Vaishya Sampradayas, the first system at either was Ramacharya, then we have Madhvacharya. And in the, if you look at either Ramanuja or Madhva Sampradaya, they consider their founder not to be God, but they consider them to be an associate of God.
Ramanuja is considered to be Lakshman, Madhva is considered to be Hanuman or Bhima. But now if you look at the later tradition, then especially in the Madhva Sampradaya, many of the subsequent Acharyas in the Madhva Sampradaya, some are considered to be Sudarshan, some is considered to be Ramacharya, and maybe the Boa of Vishnu or whatever. So, now where is the reference for this? The reference is usually not to be found directly in scripture.
It is largely in the revelation of the saints in that tradition. So, maybe the disciple of a particular Acharya got a revelation that my master is this incarnation Sudarshan Chakra or whatever like that. So, same way, now this is with respect to the subsequent Acharyas in a Sampradaya.
But if we go further historically, then we see that in some Sampradayas or in some traditions, the founder was elevated to the level of what was considered to be God. Whether the founder himself said it or not, that is a different issue. But in fact, in the Ramanandi Sampradaya, Ramananda was quite a prominent follower of Ramanujacharya in North India.
So, now several hundred years later after him, the followers of Ramananda split into two practically, because after several hundred years, some followers are considering Ramananda to be incarnation of Ram. Although he himself, whether he made any statements like that or not, that is debatable. So, then they split it to some considering their founder to be incarnation of Ram and others considering him to be a devotee who taught the path of Bhoomi.
So, in the same way, if you look at Vallabh Sampradaya, Vishni Marga, in general, there has been a tendency even in the Bhakti Marga, in those who have propagated Bhakti, to consider the founders of their tradition to be God. So, following in what has happened in the Vallabh Sampradaya, Vishni Marga, we see that even more prominently, say, Swaminarayan, where not only is Swaminarayan worshipped as God, but the worship of Swaminarayan is given far more prominence than the worship of Krishna. Although if you look at the teachings of Swaminarayan, there is no such, there may be some very indirect references which can be used to conclude that he is God by some people, but he certainly did not recommend his own worship.
So, now here, there is, you have to understand, in every tradition, Bhaktivinoda Thakur talks about how the follower of each tradition, or the follower of a particular religious path can believe in the superiority of one’s own path, but one should not try to prove the controversial superiority of one’s own path over other paths. Now, what does this mean? That if I believe something, then why should I not try to prove it? And if I do not prove it, then how will my belief be maintained? So, the point is that, in every tradition, there are inclusivist statements, there are exclusivist statements, and then there are pluralist statements. Inclusivist means, yes, there are many different paths, and there is a, there are many different levels, and then the highest level is what our teaching is.
The inclusivist path is there. And then the exclusivist is, our way is the only way. And even who does not follow our path is going to go to hell.
And pluralist is that, oh, our way is there, other ways are there. And whichever path a person wants to follow, that person can follow that path. So, if you look at these different varieties of statements, we will find them in all traditions.
Now, it will depend on the leaders of that tradition, which statements they will emphasize, and how they will present the tradition accordingly. So, even in the broad Vedic culture, there can be a caste conscious power, Brahmanas, who may say that even Shudras cannot enter into temples. And they may even deprive people within the same tradition of the, of certain facilities.
We see in the Chaturtham story of the Sakshi Gopal, that one Brahmin family was so opposed to marriage of their daughter with another Brahmin family only. Just because within the Brahmin family, they consider that we are of a higher jati and he is of a lower jati. Now, you see, it’s Brahmana family only.
And the elder Brahmana’s wife said that I will eat poison and kill myself if you get your daughter married to a person of a low caste. So, if you want to go towards sectarianism, we will find that even within the Brahmana caste, there can be the lower caste, lower level, lower jati Brahmanas, who are considered very abominable by higher caste. So, sectarianism can come anywhere.
It depends on who are the leaders of the tradition and how what they stress within the tradition. So, in general, if you look at Shri Prabhupada’s approach, at one time, the devotees wrote something about Vallabhacharya, which was not exactly, which was quite uncharitable. And Sumati Murari, she was one of the primary patrons of Shri Prabhupada who had helped him to go abroad.
And she was upset when she wrote to Prabhupada. Prabhupada told that why are you stressing this in Back to God and Back to God in this magazine meant for general people. Don’t create unnecessary conflicts.
So, the point here is that we don’t have to debate with others about whatever exclusive statements are found within their tradition. So, for example, the idea that Vallabhacharya is Krishna, that is a, you could classify that as an exclusive statement from the Pushtima. So, now, we don’t have to get into the zone of debating that.
That is, we should not mistake this with Mayavada, because Mayavada is not just considering one’s founder to be God. Mayavada is considering everyone to be God. And Mayavada is considering the personality of Godhead to be an illusion that one transcends to merge into the oneness of the Absolute.
So, that definitely is undesirable, it is offensive. And that should be avoided. But we should not confuse this sort of, this belief within a devotee Vaishnava tradition, the belief that, that founder is God, that is something which, if we are interacting with followers of that tradition, we don’t have to debate that.
Because ultimately, we understand that every person has to individually choose one’s faith. And how people choose to believe that will depend on their inclinations. In Bhagavad Gita 7.21 and 7.22, Krishna states that, actually, whatever form people want to worship, it is interesting, although Krishna uses the word Devata in 7.20, and again, he uses in 7.23. In these two verses, he does not use the word Devata.
Whatever form people want to worship, with faith, they want to worship. That, in that, I need their faith, Achala, Achala means strong. And then, with that faith, they worship.
And they fulfill their desires, but it is I who am the fulfiller of those desires. The specific section talks about Naming God worship. But the principle that is talked about in these two verses, that applies to any other form of worship also.
So, whatever faith people have in, say, the followers of Krishnamurthy have in their founder being God, we don’t have to go about challenging that faith. The focus of the principle of Bhakti and the practice of Bhakti and the elevation of consciousness that will happen by the practice of Bhakti, and by over a period of time, that person will, by Krishna’s arrangement, find the right path to move onwards towards Krishna. Now, from the philosophical perspective, what is the truth? If we see that, that way, anybody with a little bit expertise of Sanskrit can try to interpret a particular verse in a particular way to try to come to a particular interpretation.
So, if we go into, too much into scriptural, scriptural technical arguments, that is not going to necessarily convince a person about a particular person’s divinity or a particular person’s non-divinity. We see that, yes, we do say that we should use Shastra to understand who is God. But, if we look at Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s past times, it is not that wherever Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went, there were people waiting with a Shastric reference, they are reading a Shastric reference, oh, this was in the Bhagavatam talks about Krishnamananda Shah Krishna, and oh, this is a person who has come in a golden complexion, therefore, this must be God.
It was not that people evaluated Shastra, yes, there was Sarvam Bhattacharya who tried to debate based on Shastra that Vishnu is the three-yugi, and therefore, he does not appear now. So, there were few people like that who did discuss with Shastra. But most of the people who were attracted to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who became his followers, they became followers because of the spiritual experiences that they got by taking his darshan, by seeing him dancing and singing, and by getting his mercy.
So, and that mercy is available by following the process. So, essentially, rather than trying to argue at an intellectual level, for our own satisfaction, we can understand that every tradition has these exclusive statements. And because it is not Mayavada, it is not saying that everybody becomes God.
So, we do not have to consider these statements as anti-devotional. And we can focus not on trying to counter these statements using the scriptural technicality, but focus on inspiring people to practice the process of bhakti and increase their awareness of Krishna. And when they get spiritual experience thereby, the path for them, Krishna will give them the intelligence by which they can come to Him.