Mahabharata Characters 42 – Arjuna 05 – Austerity and audacity for the pleasure of Lord Shiva

This talk is a part of the “Fascinating Mahabharata Characters” series. To know more about this course, please visit: bhakticourses.com

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Welcome back to the Mahabharata Character series We are discussing about Arjuna So Arjuna Arjuna won the battle At Khandava Against all the gods And then by the grace of Maya By the gift of Maya And the arrangement of Krishna Krishna got a magnificent Palace And at that time actually Arjuna Went In the north And he Because the four directions had to be conquered So Arjuna went in the north And many many different Kings he faced Although all of them fought fiercely But none of them Could stand against him He overpowered them one by one And he went right into the Himalayas And from the Himalayas There are regions by which one can go to the higher planets And there he went To the kingdom of the higher beings And there those who were guarding him He said, Oh Arjuna as a human being You cannot go any further You are a godly person Why do you want to violate The laws which are there About the universal Functioning Humans cannot go beyond this What do you want So Arjuna said that I simply want To establish the imperial glory Of Yudhishthir He is going to perform a Rajasuya sacrifice And I would like to have You providing tribute Surely we will come We know that all of you Pandavas are great devotees Of the lord So no need for you To fight anymore over here We will send Abandoned gifts to you And moreover Even if you come this way You will not be able to see anything over here Because things over here cannot be seen By mortal eyes So actually When we talk about The higher planets They are not just simply higher in geographical sense When we talk about Up We normally say that heavens are up But what does up mean? It’s not in a simplistic geometric or geographical sense Because say India and America Are roughly we could say Antipodal So antipodal means on the opposite side of the earth approximately So the up for India And the up for America are opposite So if heaven is up What is up then? It’s two opposite directions Are there two heavens or what? So actually that up Is in a karmic sense The living beings In the upper planet resistance Have done better karma And because they have done better karma They live accordingly At higher levels of existence So there they have Bodies also of different nature Which we cannot see Normally when the devatas also come Unless they grant the vision We cannot see them So many times when fire sacrifices are performed The devatas are Extremely pleased With the fire sacrifices Then when they accept the sacrificial offerings They become visible And they visibly In their visible manifestations They accept the sacrifices Other times the devatas don’t manifest themselves And in visible form they accept the sacrifices So the point is That we cannot see the devatas Even if we can somehow trespass into their arenas So Arjuna He returned from there And actually It was the celestial jewels That Arjuna got from the heavens And they also Gave so many jewels That was one of the triggers For Duryodhana’s envy He said even if I do a sacrifice like this I will not get jewels like this So then of course The whole series of fateful events happened In which the gambling match took place And Bhima was so angry With Yudhishthira that He wanted to burn The hands of Yudhishthira It was Arjuna who checked him at that time Arjuna told him Arjuna himself was both Distressed and enraged He was distressed at the plight That they were going through He was enraged at those who were causing this plight But still Arjuna As compared to Bhima, Arjuna was cool headed And he said, oh brother How have such words come from you You know that Yudhishthira has Gambled, not because of greed But because He has been instructed to do so by The elders Especially the king Here he refers to the king as Dhritharashtra And And He calms him down Do not give pleasure to our enemies now By letting them see The signs of dissension within us So both ways By first reminding From the virtuous point of view to Bhima And then by reminding him From the point of view of Don’t give joy to their enemies So from both perspectives Bhima calms down He says, yes Arjuna what you are saying is right If it were not true then Already I would have wreaked havoc in this match And Yudhishthira would not be I would not have waited so long For interfering And then later on When eventually Things go too far At that time various Pandavas take vows So that if Arjuna takes a vow that I will kill Karna Karna was the person who suggested That Draupadi be brought in For being disrobed And Karna was the person who Opposed Vikarna And silenced Vikarna When Vikarna tried to Say that the dragging in of Draupadi Was wrong And the whole gambling match was Incorrect So Arjuna took that fearsome vow And Arjuna departed with the Pandavas And then When they were living in the forest It was agony for all the five Pandavas And of course All the more so for Draupadi Because She had been humiliated And she couldn’t see her husbands Who were meant to live in royalty Suffering like this And they couldn’t see her who was meant to live in royalty Suffering like this And as they were living like this In the forest in great agony So at that time They were thinking At that one time Bhima got very angry And Bhima said Why are you sitting silent over there Your enemies are prospering And why should we stay over here like this So He said that Let us attack the Pandavas And win back our kingdom So Yudhishthira Talked a lot from various perspectives And finally he told him that You know that we don’t have any weapons now We don’t have any army right now We are just five of us They have so many weapons They have so many Maharathas They have such an army Do you think we can fight right now with them So Bhima became silent And all the Pandavas became worried At that time Vyasadev came over there And Vyasadev told them I have intuited what you are thinking about And I want to help you I will tell you a means by which You can all increase your strength And then he took Yudhishthira aside And told that I will give you special mantras Called the Prathismuti Mantras And I will initiate you in these mantras And then you can initiate Arjuna in these mantras And with these mantras One can move very fast And Arjuna can go northward towards the Mandara mountain And from there he can Go to the heavens and there after meeting the Devatas And satisfying them through austerity He can get their weapons And with those weapons Arjuna will be equipped To fight and overpower any foe On the earth And after saying this Vyasadev departed And he told Pandavas you also do not stay Over here for too long Otherwise You will disrupt the ecological balance over here You know if Too many animals get killed That will disrupt the balance So move to some other place And then Yudhishthira waited for some time He could not tolerate the thought of being separated from Arjuna And yet he knew That that was the only way That If Arjuna got weapons That was the only way they may be able to get back their kingdom So finally When it could not be put off anymore He called Arjuna aside Told him the mantras and told him Vyasadev’s instructions Then he came back And then they told the plan And all the other Pandavas Were grief stricken Especially Draupadi was Heartbroken She said Oh Arjuna I pray that we never take birth Again In this warrior class Where we have to undergo So much suffering And we the ascetics Who have no attachment to material things And so can live peacefully But I Have not attached like that And I suffer everyday Thinking about the humiliation That I had to undergo At the hands of Duryodhana And Dushyasana But my suffering today is greater Than what it was at that time Because Today I will be separated from you Once you have gone away We will live by thinking About you at every moment And all our hopes Rest in you Go and may all success be yours And There were tears in Draupadi’s eyes Arjuna was her favourite Among the Pandavas And she could not bear the thought of separation from him For who knows how long And Arjuna smiled at Draupadi He circumambulated his Brothers And taking the blessing of Yudhishthir he departed He started walking towards the north And he found himself Energised in his steps Like giant leaps And short while he found himself a long distance away He reached the Vandahar mountain And started swiftly Climbing up And as he came to a plateau Suddenly he heard a Powerful voice What are you doing here? This is a place for ascetics He turned around And he saw a tawny coloured Effulgent Brahmin sitting there in meditation And the Brahmin said that You are obviously From the warrior class Why have you come here? He said Anyway this is a place for Meditation and asceticism Put aside your weapon And sit and meditate over here And Arjuna said I have no intention of ever putting aside my weapons He said I am here in service of my brother Yudhishthir And For his sake I need to fight the war And for that I have to keep my weapons with me I will not give up my weapons Under any circumstances And seeing Arjuna’s devotion to his Duty Indra was pleased This Brahmin was pleased And he revealed that I am Shakra The king of the gods.
Shakra is another name for Indra And he said I am pleased by your devotion to duty What do you want? Arjuna was delighted He was thinking that Now from here I will have to go to heavens And then see Indra I don’t know how and when I will be able to see him But here right at the beginning I have been able to see Indra He offered his respects And he felt delighted at his good fortune After having so much misfortune One after another Now this good fortune was Like a god sent gift And he said I would like to have your weapons So that I can fight in the war Indra smiled And he said I can give you residence In heavens. Why are you asking for these weapons? Arjuna’s voice Became loud and angry How can I ever think Of abandoning my brothers Who are living in Forest in misery And enjoying heavenly planets Five upon one Who abandons his relatives like this In such a situation. How can I abandon my duty? It’s impossible.
Please give me your weapons Again after hearing this response Indra was pleased So Indra tested Arjuna in two ways First is by offering him The pleasures The peace And the pleasure of Of a relatively austere But still Peaceful and tranquil life In the mountains And then he offered him another temptation A life of enjoyment In the heavens And Arjuna remained fixed in his duty Despite temptations And actually That is how our life is At different times in our lives On the path of duty We will be tempted by various allurements And the way we can Persevere and move onwards That is a test of our devotion That is a test of our duty So Arjuna said Yes sure Indra told Arjuna I will surely give you My weapons But not now He said ascend higher and do austerities To please Shiva And once you have pleased Shiva And he gives you his weapons Then my charioteer will come And he will take you to the heavens And there he will give you weapons So when Arjuna heard this He was Delighted and Indra disappeared Right from his eyes Arjuna moved upward Actually Arjuna was thinking of moving upward But then he thought This is the place where the Brahmin has sat Indra has himself sat So let me sit here and start performing austerities And he sat there Indra had told him basically not to go up But to perform austerities For satisfying Shiva And then Arjuna sat And started performing austerities For the first month He ate fruit just once in three days And in the second month He ate fruit once in six days In the third month He ate fruit once in just fifteen days And for the fourth month He just lived on air He stretched out his arms up Standing on one toe Looking upwards at the sky And chanting mantras In praise of Lord Shiva And he chanted those mantras Because of his Immense austerity His body became effulgent Like the sun And in the higher planets The Devatas, Rishis, they all became disturbed Because Arjuna had become So powerful, so effulgent So radiant with heat That nobody could tolerate it And they all rushed Towards Lord Shiva Who has three eyes And they told him Falguni is performing such austerities And it seems as if he will burn The whole universe, please stop him Please do something about it Please protect the universal order So Lord Shankar smiled and he said You don’t have to worry about Falguni He has no desire to attain the heavens I know what he wants And I will provide it to him And Rishis reassuring The disturbed residents of the celestial Planets Then Shiva himself Came down And as he came down He decided to test Arjuna And he assumed the garb of a Hunter And Along with him Uma was also there She was also very beautifully Adorned but appropriately as a Hunter’s wife And then there were the hobgoblins Who also came with him And their wives were there And numerous followers They all came And As Arjuna was performing the austerities Chanting prayers to Lord Shiva And Lord Shiva appeared over there At that time a dhanava also appeared over there And this dhanava He saw Arjuna meditating and he thought This is a human, I will kill him And I will devour him And he took on the form of a boar And in the form of a boar He started charging towards Arjuna And rode out a challenge Arjuna hearing the voice Immediately grabbed his Gandiva boar Strung an arrow and pointed it At this boar and he said Oh you wicked one, although I have not Provoked or harmed you anyway Still you dare to attack and kill me I will punish you for this And he just shot his arrow At the same moment Indira also Took his boar And held the arrow And he said hold off, I saw this animal first And he belongs to me I will kill him So Arjuna said no I have strung my boar first, I will shoot him And he belongs to me And both of them shot, Arjuna shot the arrow At the same moment Shiva also shot the arrow and both the arrows Thudded into the animal, the boar first And this dhanava who had thought That he was going to get a kill And get a feast, he got a double blow He died on the spot At that time Shiva spoke He said who are you and what are you doing here You are obviously a warrior But you are wearing the garb of an ascetic What is it that you are doing here And Arjuna said What are you doing here with all these followers You are a hunter But you have violated The universal codes of hunting An animal whom I targeted And whom I killed With my arrows, why did you target And shoot him also, I will punish you for this So Shiva started laughing derisively And he said do not take credit For what you have not done It was I who had pointed my arrow first And it was my arrow which killed him Because you are so insolent I will punish you for this And stand and fight Shiva said And Shiva started shooting arrows Arjuna shot arrows And the arrows collided And he kept shooting Arjuna shot his best arrows And Shiva countered all of them Arjuna was amazed Arjuna took his better and better missiles And trained better And shot better And although he countered Shiva’s weapons And many of Arjuna’s weapons were not countered They went right to Shiva But he just disappeared into his body Arjuna shot hundreds of arrows And he just disappeared into the body of Shiva Arjuna was stunned He said who is this, this cannot be any ordinary hunter An ordinary hunter Will not be able to Survive The onslaught of so many arrows With no damage at all How is that possible So he thought deeply And Of course he was not pausing and thinking He was just shooting arrows Then he decided this may even be a Yaksha or a Gandharva But I will kill him Unless he is Lord Shiva himself He will not survive And he started taking celestial weapons And he shot all the celestial weapons One by one by one And they all went And just disappeared into the body of Shiva Arjuna was baffled And as he was shooting Shooting And all his weapons were just Disappearing And suddenly he looked back And he saw his quiver Which was meant to be inexhaustible Had suddenly become exhausted Now the inexhaustible quiver had come From Agni through Varuna Agni and Varuna are both powerful gods Much much more powerful than humans But they are still less powerful than Shiva So Shiva While facing Shiva The inexhaustible quiver no longer remained Inexhaustible, it became exhausted And seeing this Arjuna was amazed Who is this person Who has sucked away all my arrows Not knowing what to do Arjuna Swung around His bow itself And he charged towards Shiva And he hurled the bow at Shiva And He just The bow just disappeared into Shiva’s body He took out his sword and he swung it And his sword also disappeared into the body And then he was amazed Arjuna was angry as well as fearful Now Kshatriya doesn’t become fearful Very easily But still this was uncanny How could all his weapons just disappear like this And then he raised his fists And he hit Shiva And nothing happened and both of them started wrestling Pounding each other To the best of their ability And Shiva caught Arjuna in a grip And Arjuna was beating But the grip was overwhelming And finally Arjuna used all his strength Just broke free And as Shiva released him Arjuna fell back Dazed Unable to see His senses almost lost He looked up in amazement Who is this person No one can have such power Arjuna remembered That he had fought and countered all the gods At Khandava So this person was definitely not an ordinary hunter This person was not even a god He must be greater than all the gods He must be Shiva And thinking like this Arjuna Immediately Arjuna went to him And he made an image of Shiva And he put some flowers on it And as soon as the flowers fell on Lord Shiva On the image of Lord Shiva The flowers appeared On the head of this hunter also Arjuna ran towards the hunter And he fell headlong and offered obeisances He said please forgive me I did not recognise you And Shiva got up And Shiva lifted Arjuna up And he embraced him He said I am pleased with your strength And your valour He says They are almost equal to mine You have no equal in three worlds Arjuna I am pleased with you Arjuna Ask for whatever you want And when he heard this He said please give me your Pashupathastra And when he asked for the Pashupathastra Indra He smiled And he said yes I will give it to you This is a weapon Which nobody in the three worlds can counter And it is such a weapon That it can destroy whoever You send it at But remember this is celestial weapon And it should be used only against celestials If it is used against Lesser beings then it may even Destroy the whole world And this weapon is such that It can be discharged with the mind It can be discharged by words It can be discharged By the bone And He says it Will be henceforth Serving you just as It has served me And then the Pashupath mantra Personified appeared in front Of Shiva and Shiva handed Pashupath mantra to Arjuna And seeing His stupendous feet Celestials cheered And actually the earth Seemed to tremble See that Arjuna had got this extraordinary power Actually when Arjuna had started Performing his austerities At that time The bugles had sounded in the sky And flowers had showered Indicating that he was doing a very auspicious thing Which would eventually Lead to So as Arjuna Received the gift From Lord Shiva he offered profuse Prayers to him And actually Lord Shiva is another form Of Vishnu just Vishnu by another name Some small difference is there But just as there is Vishnu Sahasranam Similarly the Mahabharata There is Shiva Sahasranam also And Shiva is glorified by a thousand names And many of the names of Shiva and Vishnu Overlap So just as milk and curd Are non-different They both come from the same source And this little difference is Some acid is added and some transformations take place So similarly Lord Vishnu when he accepts the mode of ignorance A little bit Then that is not Shiva No he is not just another of the gods But he is Way way above And Lord Shiva is shown Is repeatedly revealed in the Mahabharata Extremely powerful And he His power is revealed over here When That Arjuna who had defeated all the gods He is He is found to be Almost equal to Lord Shiva So through this both the glory of Shiva is demonstrated And the glory of Arjuna is also Demonstrated And as Lord Shiva disappeared Suddenly Arjuna saw that all the directions Had become illumined All the directions And he saw from there Actually the four Lokpals Came on the horizon He saw that Kubera Was there And Yamraj was there Then Varuna was there And Indra was there Arjuna was actually just standing there And Lord Shiva had Appeared in front of him. Lord Shiva had blessed him And then Lord Shiva had disappeared And Arjuna was just looking at the spot where Lord Shiva had been Standing amazed Thinking how blessed he had been To receive darshan of Shiva To receive his contact, to receive his blessings In the form of Pushyaparthastra Arjuna had been thinking that Just having this Pushyaparthastra is such a blessing Even if I cannot use it Again in my future war But just knowing that I have it in my possession will give me so much confidence Will give me so much power And as my victory is certain he felt like that And just as he was just Dwelling on this good fortune at that time He got further blessings He got the vision of the four Lokpals And they all came and I said And they all spoke Benedictory words To Arjuna. He said Arjuna Now that you have pleased Lord Shiva He is the greatest of the Gods With his blessings We will all bless you In fact You are actually a celestial You are Nara Who has come on earth to do The work of the Gods And we will bless you And then Varuna took his own Parsh It is a Naga Parsh It is a noose Made of Nagas Made of serpents And it is a special weapon Which can bind the strongest Of enemies And it can bind and choke to death Deadly weapon So Varuna gave his Naga Parsh And then there is Yamaraj Yamaraj on one side of his was death Another side was dying.
Both of them were personified And Yamaraj looked Fearsome with them But Arjuna of course knew That he has not come for his death He has come to bless him And Arjuna was pleased to see him And Yamaraj gave him his club Such a formidable weapon That it could destroy Anyone and everyone The death dealing club was there And then Kuvera was there And Kuvera gave him the Antadhan weapon A powerful weapon Which could just devastate and destroy The greatest of enemies And Indra was smiling And Indra told him That now that the Lokpal All of us have given you darshan We will provide you weapons also I will also provide you my weapons But before that I will take you To the heavens And you will stay with me as my guest You have performed Enormous austerities And you have pleased the great Shiva And now You will come with me to the heavens And there in the heavens You will Learn many many things And then seeing this The four Lokpalas disappeared And Arjuna was watching At that time he heard a thunderous sound And he saw a giant chariot Which looked almost like a city And it was huge It was filled It was decorated with jewels And it had So many horses And there he saw The chariot of Vaithali And Vaithali said On the instruction of Indra I have come I have come to take you To the heavens And as Arjuna Looked up At the majestic chariot with which He would go from here to the heavens It was an extraordinary Accomplishment Normally people go to the heavens Only after they leave this body and go upwards But Arjuna Was going to go to the heavens In this very body And yet Arjuna remembered He looked down at Mount Mantar From where he had performed his austerities Which had been his residence for the last several months And where he had been blessed With darshan of so many great people And he turned and offered his prayers To Mandar, his gratitude And he sought the blessings of Mount Mantar So that his journey to the heavens Would be successful So Arjuna Appraised in the Mahabharata In the Srimad Bhagavatam about this So although Krishna was not present over here But Arjuna is remembering That actually it is by Krishna’s blessing That I was able to achieve all this Arjuna doesn’t think I performed so much austerity Because of which I was able to get all this Krishna’s blessing is this So Bhagavan Yudhishula Paneer Shula Paneer is Trishul Lord Shiva holds, Paneer’s hand That Lord Shiva who holds Trishul in his hand What did I do? So even Lord Shiva was astonished What kind of powers does this human being have? And in his powers, nowhere I have seen A human being whose power is equal to mine And Girija is his wife, Parvati Devi She was also there with Shiva And she was also amazed to see the strength of Arjuna And Nijastra, Lord Shiva He gives Nijastra, Pashupatastra to me Anyepicham Amunai Kalevaren Anyepicham And other Devatas also gave their weapons to me And after that, that was not enough Amunai Kalevaren With these in this very body What happened? Prapto Mahendra Bhavane Mahadasanardhan Prapto Mahendra Bhavane Mahendra refers to Lord Indra The great Indra In his Mahabhavane, his abode Swarga and even that in his palace He attained And not only that, we will see that Indra actually Invited Arjuna to come and sit On his own throne So Arjuna sat right next to Indra On his own throne Both of them sat together Father and son, they sat together Mahadasanardhan Asanardhan On the same throne of Indra Which is the throne of the God, the greatest of the Gods Of the administrative Gods Arjuna said, I went to this In the same body and attained that And in fact this was one of the things which struck Struck terror in the heart of Dhritarashtra When he heard that Indra That actually Arjuna in this very body Has gone to heavens What kind of person is this? What kind of power does he have? And what hope is there for me? And my sons Fighting against them Such is the glory of Arjuna We will discuss more about his Accomplishments And his adventures in heaven In our next session Thank you