Please explain the union of Parasara Muni and Satyavati.

From: Puri Ashishkumara

How/Where do Chitrangada and Vicitravirya die?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
with Krishna.
Thank you. Question from Puri Ashish Kumar Prabhu. Please explain the union of Parashara Muni and Satyavati.
How and where do Chitrangada and Parashara Muni come in? Answer. The union of Parashara Muni and Satyavati is often misunderstood as an act of mundane lust. And that is why it has to be carefully understood if you look at the overall context and the ultimate proof that resulted from it.
So, Satyavati was a fisher woman and her father had engaged her in doing this service, doing the free or selfless service of taking travellers across a river in a boat so that she could get pious credits by that. So, she used to do that as a service and one day the great sage Parashara Muni came there and then Parashara Muni came and sat in the boat and then they were going across the river. At that time, the materialist understanding of this is that Parashara Muni was attracted by the movements of her body as he was, as she was oaring the boat and he got attracted to her and then he proposed union with her and she resisted and then he persuaded her.
But actually speaking, if we see from the broad point of view, ultimately from this union, the person who resulted was Vyasadev. Vyasadev is actually an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of God, a literary incarnation and he compiled all the Vedic literature together. So, in the Vedic tradition it is understood that if a man and a woman unite improperly, that means at an improper time, in an improper place, with improper consciousness, then that leads to, that leads to undesirable progeny who are called as Varana Sankara and not only is there undesirable progeny, there can also be dangerous progeny that can result by it.
And this is what is precisely demonstrated. There results the begetting of these two ferocious demons Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu. And the main reason given for that is that they united at an inappropriate time.
So, the consciousness of the two people, the time at which they are uniting, the way in which they are conceiving things, that will determine to a significant extent the kind of the progeny that they have. So now, if the contact between Parashara, Muni and Satyavati was mundane at last, then they would have had an uncivilized child who would have been at best a Varana Sankara, at best an undesirable progeny in the world. But we see what is the result.
The result was Vyasadeva, who was the literary incarnation of the Lord and who actually became the instrument through whom all the Vedic literature were put into written form and were made available to all of us, in Kali Yuga. So, Narada Muni himself refers to Vyasadeva in very respectful words. Although Vyasadeva is a disciple of Narada Muni, he says, your vision is infallible.
And he refers to him as Mahamune and other respectful references, great seer, great sage. So, therefore, certainly Vyasadeva is not Varana Sankara. It would be offensive.
It’s paramount for us to think like that. And therefore, going backwards from there, the union of Parashara and Satyavati is not illicit. Certainly, the great sages have powers by which they can intuit things which ordinary people cannot see.
So, Parashara Muni could see at that time when he was there with Satyavati that this was a time when a great incarnation of the Lord could appear in the world and he would do good to the whole world. And then he told Satyavati. Satyavati was naturally shy and apprehensive.
But then Parashara Muni assured her that this is actually a service to humanity and that she was afraid of losing her chastity or virginity. He said, you will retain your virginity. And in fact, because such a great person will be born through you, your body will become purer, not just at a spiritual level, but even at a material level because she was a fisherwoman, there would be a fishy sort of smell which would come through from her body.
And the very fact that there was such a smell, which would normally not be aphrodisiac by any sense, which would not incite lusty desires in a person, which would actually push away most persons, that in spite of her body having that fragrance and Parashara Muni noticing that, Parashara Muni still said that we should unite because it’s a service. A great being can appear in the world. And he told her that this odor that is coming from your body, it will disappear.
And there will be a charming fragrance that will come from your body. And that fragrance was eventually what attracted Shantanu and that’s what made Satyavati’s destiny change completely later. And she became from a fisherman’s wife, daughter, who would probably have become a fisherman’s wife, she became the queen of the whole Kuru kingdom.
And practically speaking, she was going to rule the whole world. So, from the resides point of view, in every way, it was auspicious. It was auspicious for Satyavati.
Her virginity was restored. Her body was purified. The odor was changed to a fragrance.
Her destiny improved later by her getting to marry the ruling monarch of practically the whole world at that time. And the world got a great person in the form of Yasadev. So, Vaipayana Vyasa is called.
So, Parashara Muni, by his mystical powers, he actually created a duipa over there. And then on duipa, they both united and then they had a child over there. And then Vaipayana, and then Parashara Muni told, now this being, it was not like a mundane sense in which a man exploits a woman and then dumps the woman and the woman has to take care of the child.
And she is burdened and she has become a single mother and desolate. It’s nothing like that. No, actually Satyavati became duipa and Yasadev, he manifested and he actually manifested a magical form.
He never became a burden to his mother. He actually grew up and he just went on his way as a great sage. So, the point here is all the circumstances, if you look at it, are extraordinary.
And when there are extraordinary circumstances, there is a personality with extraordinary level of spiritual advance. And Parashara Muni is the person who speaks the whole Vishnu Purana, which is one of the most important of the Puranas after Bhagavad Purana. So, he is not an ordinary person in the Bhagavatam, also in the third canto.
Parashara Muni is also described as one of the leading spiritual teachers in the dissemination of the spiritual knowledge to the parampara. So, that’s a different parampara from the Brahma, Madhava, Gaudiya parampara that we know of. But the point is, he is a very, very important spiritual teacher.
So, look at his personality, his calibre and look at the auspicious results that happen all around by it. And when we see all this, then we should not superimpose our own moralistic conceptions on people like them. So, you have to understand that this is something which we can never imitate, shouldn’t even think of imitating.
But at the same time, when great souls do these things, we should not impose our conceptions and judge them according to our tiny prism of values. So, these are given in the scriptures because they are extraordinary situations which led to this additional question here. Where do Chitrangada and Chitravira die? Chitrangada becomes a very powerful emperor, the successor after Shantanu.
But then there is a great Gandharva by the name Chitrangada, who becomes envious of the fame of the earthly Chitrangada. And he thinks that all the glory that comes from the name Chitrangada should come to me. So, he comes and challenges Chitrangada and they have a long, long fight.
Chitrangada fights heroically, but eventually the celestial Chitrangada being a Gandharva has higher powers by which he fights and slays the earthly Chitrangada. Chitravira becomes the ruler. Chitravira gets married and he has two queens, Ambika and Ambalika.
And after that, he gets a disease by which he dies prematurely. So, although he has these two queens, but he’s not able to get a child through them. And before that, only he passes away.
And that’s why then there’s a crisis of succession. That’s how basically they depart from the world.