The Monk’s Podcast 89 with Krishna Kshetra Maharaja – Churning the Bhagavatam- Dashavatara 5 Vamana

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna, Krishna Kshetra Maharaj. Thank you very much for joining again for the monk’s podcast. It’s wonderful to have you here.
And you know, it’s a way to continue the meditation on the Lord in his various manifestations and especially the richness of the conception of the divine. You know, our tradition becomes more evident when we do a sustained meditation and think of the forms of the Lord each month. So, although I’ve known about the Dashavataras since childhood, but I never really contemplated about them consistently or deeply.
Although we speak on them in the festivals, but this has been a different and enriching experience for me and I’m sure it must have been for, it has been for several of our audiences also. So, thank you for making it happen and sharing your time regularly every month. It’s enriching for me also.
So, I’m happy to do this. Yeah. So, this time we’re discussing Vamana Dev.
Is that right? Vamana Dev, yes. So, I thought of just, we could just go straight over the pastime or you have some structure which you would like to follow? No, let’s go over the pastime first. That’s fine.
Yes. So, primarily, we can look at the Bhagavatam, although there are quite a few other scriptures in which there are descriptions of Lord Vamana. And this is among the few pastimes where it’s almost that, where the Lord and His devotee almost start as adversaries and then eventually they become united.
So, I don’t see that storyline in any other pastime as such. So, we can’t really say Bali Maharaj is an adversary in an intercomplete sense, but definitely it starts off like that. So, that was one striking observation I had about this pastime.
Hmm. So, now there are several avatars of the Lord who have some devotees who are from a demoniac background. Most celebrated is, of course, Prahlad from the background from Narasimhadev, Vibhishan also.
But it’s not that they had a evolution or a transformation that dramatic as what Bali Maharaj has. So, it’s, they are already exalted devotees and maybe their exaltedness becomes manifest as the pastime goes forward. But in terms of, we have dramatic transformations like say, Rutrasur.
But in the case of Rutrasur, there is no particular form of the Lord that he is associated with. And another thing is that the Lord seems to transcend boundaries in this case. That, you know, He favors Indra also by giving him the kingdom.
But He favors Vamana more by giving Himself to Him. Vamana favors Bali Maharaj more by giving Himself to Him. So, there are a lot of distinctive features of this particular manifestation.
These are just some quick general observations I had before we go in. Would you like to respond to any of them or should we go into the pastime itself? Well, just what you said about crossing boundaries, of course Vamanadeva Himself is a boundary crosser because when He stretches for His second step, piercing through the shell of the universe, that’s, you can say, a major boundary that He is crossing over. Oh, yeah.
That’s an external sort of boundary, but I’m sure we can think about other boundary crossings happening in this pastime. It is true. So, maybe that could be the overarching theme of this.
So, you know, when He does that, that’s also… Do any of the other forms of the Lord have this much of a dramatic transformation? You could say the first avatar Matsya starts off as a very small manifestation and then He grows, like Vamana. Varaha also starts very small and grows. Yeah, Matsya and Varaha.
It’s interesting that from here onward, the Lord’s manifestations are almost entirely in human forms. So, we discussed a little bit about the correlation with evolution in an earlier episode. So, in a human form, He comes as a dwarf and then He grows into something which is entirely and dramatically opposite to that of a dwarf.
Something I’ve always not been clear about, it seems He’s a dwarf and He’s a child. So, is He a child smaller than ordinary because He’s a dwarf or what? That’s fascinating. I’m surprised I never thought of that.
So, we don’t have any mention of how old He is. It seems that He appears after the prayers of Aditi and especially Aditi and then He’s given various what Prabhupada calls birthday gifts and then immediately He comes over to receive charity from Bali Maharaj. So, it seems like, yeah.
So, He seems to be born sort of fully manifest. He doesn’t go through being a baby. He’s all there, but then right up, I don’t know, doesn’t say how soon after that He goes to Bali Maharaj.
That is true. Somewhere I thought I read that He’s a child as well. Yeah, I mean, I also have remembered that and that’s how it’s depicted usually in our pictures that He’s a child.
So, that’s a good question. And so, but either way probably the implication would be that He is He’s smaller than normal height and you know in some depictions if we look at the traditional temples, He doesn’t exactly seem to be like a child. He seems to be like a, now of course, we may not necessarily say that it is those depictions are accurate.
But in some depictions, it’s very clear He’s a child. But in some depictions where He is He seems to be more like a wise Brahmana of whatever age He is. I’m just looking at some of the depictions over here.
I think you can see the screen Maharaj. Yes. So, you know, if you see over in pictures like this, it seems that okay.
He seems to be like a, not this one, fully formed divinity. So, of course, that is I think expanded form. So, if you consider this, this is also an expanded form.
Okay. So, if initially it does seem to be okay. Yeah, if He has His Is this with His parents? These are the different pictures.
I think this is with the sister. Of course, we can’t say how accurate these depictions are also. So, maybe this is not the best way to explore.
Hmm. I don’t think we can take those pictures as evidence. Yes, definitely.
I think I’ll just delete this part from the podcast. When we display it. Anyway, their evidence, you can show their evidence for how Vamanadeva is represented in recent years.
That’s what their evidence for. Oh, that’s a good way. We don’t have to discount it, but you can contextualize it.
These are the kind of depictions that are there in recent times. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. In fact, I think except for maybe last few hundred years ago, apart from the iconography on the walls, these kind of pictures of divinity have not been very common in the Indian tradition. Isn’t it from what I knew? I think they started with some kind of development of contemporary technology and then contemporary art forms.
It came with print culture. Print culture. Print culture, what’s also called print capitalism, entered India, you know, in the early 19th century.
And then you start seeing these prints coming from, yeah, different artists and companies, especially in Mumbai. I think in the late 19th, early 20th century. Okay.
And then it becomes what’s come to be called calendar art. Oh, calendar art. Okay.
Yeah. There’s one scholar who did a whole study of this. And he shows how it’s not only reflecting history, but it’s creating history in India.
Anyway, that’s another topic. That’s amazing. Okay.
Reflecting and creating history. Yes, Maharaj. So, either way, either it’s because of his age or because of his, we could say, whatever innate nature, he is manifesting as a dwarf.
Now, that doesn’t seem to in any way like shape his behavior apart from say drawing a contrast between who he is and who he becomes. So that means sometimes people who are very small, they might have some some kind of complexes. Society might look down at them.
But there’s nothing of that sort seems to happen. Because he’s so effulgent when Bali Maharaj sees him, Bali Maharaj is impressed. All the visitors are impressed.
God does not have any complexes. Although he’s supremely complex. Yes, and supremely simple.
Yeah, both. But of course, his smallness highlights or accentuates the smallness of his request. His request for three steps.
Bali Maharaj looks at him and says, come on, you can ask for more than that because he’s so small. When he takes three steps, it’s going to be nothing. Okay.
So, in a sense, it adds to the drama of the pastime both ways. How small his request is and then how big it bigger form he takes. So both ways that form actually adds to the drama of the request.
So, now we already entered in the pastime. Just the quick backstory is that the Bali Maharaj has actually become very powerful. Although he had one time been killed almost dead and Shukracharya revived him and then got him to perform Vishwajit sacrifice supposed to make him the conqueror of the universe.
And then he drives the Devatas out and then their mother prays and then he appears. So there’s a lot over here, but it seems till this point Bali Maharaj seems to be you could say like a powerful conquering demon. He’s not exactly shown as doing any demoniac atrocities like say Ravana does or any other demons.
But he doesn’t seem to be evil. Yeah. So you could say he’s expansionist, but not evil.
Yeah, he’s an imperialist. Imperialist. Okay.
That’s a contemporary way of putting it. Imperialist. So he wants to extend his imperialism across the universe.
Yes. And it seems that he colonized. Sorry? He wants to colonize with his demon friends.
Colonize. Yes. So then he in a sense drives away the demons.
With respect to Hiranyakashipu, it seems he has subordinated the demons. The demons are offering subservience to him where they change the weather according to his mood and he says that if I just glance my eyes, they tremble in terror. If I just raise my eyebrows, they temper in terror.
But in this case, they have just been rendered like in today’s world, there are so many refugees because of political upheavals. So the Devakas have almost become like refugees. Yes.
They’ve crossed the Mediterranean into Italy. Across the Mediterranean. So now the answer at this point Aditi prays and she at the request of or at the direction of Kashyapa.
So here also is an example where the Bhagavatam, if you want to cross boundaries, the Bhagavatam crosses the boundaries between what is material and what is spiritual. In the sense that her request is material. She wants the restoration of the kingdom for her children.
It’s not so much from what I saw in her prayer that she’s actually worried about the universe and say dharma in the universe and she wants to establish with the order. It’s more of a maternal concern. She just wants to have her kids.
She wants to have her kids with her. Yeah, so and she wants them to be in power. Yes.
So in that sense the rigid set. This is also example of how somehow the other fix the mind on Krishna or what is the Bhagavatam verse? Akamah sarvakamoha mokshakamahudaradhi. So Dhruva Maharaj is a classic example of that where he gets a kingdom.
This we could say is a little more selfless because she’s asking for her sons and not exactly for herself or let’s say extended family. and then it’s interesting the way the Lord goes about restoring the kingdom. So quite often the Lord appears as a warrior and he fights himself.
But this is this is one occasion where the Lord Chaitanya appears as a Brahmana. But most of the avatars of the Lords appear in the Kshatriya dynasty. And all the Parashuram appeared in the Brahmana dynasty, but still he fights the Kshatriya.
So Ram and Krishna and Ashwagandha, Kali also appears as a Kshatriya. Buddha is a Brahmana. But then Buddha doesn’t exactly fight.
So here the Lord appears as a Brahmana and he gets very actively involved in say political realignment of things, rearrangement of things. Yes. Yes, Maharaj.
And he’s doing everything in a very Brahmanical way. Okay. Yeah, he’s going there, he’s asking for charity.
I mean, yes, his presence means Bali Maharaj understands that yes, I need to get some charity. I need to give some charity. And then he offers.
So Bali Maharaj, like you said earlier, is an imperialist. The point I was making is also that he seems to overall respect, if I may use the word broadly, Vedic culture. Although that word, what exactly it means can be a very broad ambit.
But he seems to respect the principle of doing Yajna. He seems to respect the principle of giving Dana. So, of course, even Brahmana, Ravana seems to have his own Brahmanas who give, who do sacrifice for him.
So that’s not unique. But we don’t really see any overt demon, as you said, evil or demonic tendencies within. Immediately he’s ready to give charity.
In fact, he asks, what charity would you like? And he wants him to take more than necessary or more than what he initially asked for. So he doesn’t come off as a typical bad guy in any way, except for the fact that he’s conquering. He seems to be exhibiting what in Bhakti Rasamita Sindhu, I think, Srila Rupa Goswami refers to as Danavirya.
Oh, Danavirya, okay. Yeah, I think there are four kinds of virya. And one of them is Danavirya, the chivalry of giving in charity, giving, the chivalry of giving, giving chivalry.
Oh, okay. But he seems to also be quite proud. He wants to show off that he can give.
Yeah. And I think there’s a verse which says that, and after having received charity for me, a person should not have to ask anything from anyone else in future. So that’s there.
And again, this is not a typical of a Kshatriya. That Kshatriyas do seem to, for lack of a better word, they seem to brag in some ways. They brag about their prowess.
And that seems to, especially before a war, that seems to be a part of setting the mood for the war. That they both want their prowess and they minimize or deride the power of their opponent. Hmm.
But also historically, because I’ve been reading about a kind of literary study of kingship in South India, giving in charity, they’re showing their wealth, especially by building temples. The king is establishing himself, especially by largesse, and that manifests in concrete form, typically in the form of temples. And this is one reason we see these, an important reason we see these very large temples in South India.
These are sponsored by kings and the kings want everybody to know that I have sponsored this temple. Oh, okay. Yeah, I remember hearing a lecture of Prabhupada, where he seems to, this is a broader part of Indian culture also.
He says that he met a Muslim who was poor and he became wealthy. And now he is going to build a mosque. So Prabhupada was using that as a story, as an anecdote to encourage some of the audience to contribute to building a temple.
So of course, I think even ordinary citizens becoming wealthy wouldn’t be able to build a big mosque. But to be a part of a broader culture, that even if there is some wealth available, one way of contributing to society and of course, gaining a good name is to build a temple. Hmm.
So Maharaj, is this something which you have observed in other religions also? There are many cathedrals in Europe. It seems that the church itself took the initiative and then they got into some controversy like selling indulgences. Are specific cathedrals attributed to specific members of the nobility or specific kings? Well, I’m no historian of European church building.
All I know is that the big cathedrals from the sort of 12th, 13th centuries around there, like Chartres and Rams and so on, these cathedrals were taking easily a hundred years to build. So they were going over, you know, from one, two, three kings, I would say over time. Certainly the kings were supporting and they would have their, when they died, those kings would then be, their bodies would be buried in the churches.
That’s something I don’t think we see in India. Oh, okay. That’s very interesting.
So, yeah. The royalty would definitely be involved in the building of the churches. Yeah.
But then it does seem that the Catholic church was also quite having its own institutional power and it had its ecclesiastical structure. So it was also, we don’t see anything like that in India. So in that sense, the kings probably would have greater responsibility.
We don’t see religion institutionalized to that degree in India, isn’t it? Yeah, the institutional, we might call it some more like soft institution. Yeah, there’s one scholar of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the late Joseph O’Connell, who spoke about soft institution and hard institution. Yes.
And he wanted to make a distinction between early Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the time of Lord Chaitanya and the next generations after Lord Chaitanya, which he identified as soft institution and what he calls the hard institution of specifically ISKCON because of its organizational structure and so on. Of course, it’s always more complicated than that, than just saying there are two categories and that’s it. But it can be helpful, I think, to think about religious organization and institutions in India can be somewhat useful.
That’s true. So I think I read about this in Dimoks Chaitanya Charita Amrit, where he introduced one more called medium. It’s a soft core, medium core, hard core.
And it seems that he says that Gaudiya was a little more medium core. And ISKCON, in some ways, Prabhupada wanted it to be medium core, but maybe it’s going toward hard core. That is his thesis because Prabhupada didn’t want, say, like the finances of ISKCON to be centralized.
And when they try to centralize it, Prabhupada almost suspended the GVC for some time. So we were talking more about the point about the kings patronizing to build temples. And that’s how we have these big temples.
So you were saying that those temples in South India, it may be relevant that they’re conceived as kind of models of the universe. So they’re a kind of totality. Also, the cathedrals of Europe were conceived as a kind of totality.
Everything is included. And so the temple becomes a kind of replication of the universe. So in giving charity in that way, the king is replicating the universe.
He’s becoming also the lord of that universe, so to say. Oh, the king is becoming the lord. That’s interesting.
In a certain sense, but it’s also more complicated. I can go into more detail on this, maybe after we talk more about the story of Vamanadeva. Yes, Maharaj.
But there’s an interesting connection. There’s an interesting connection of Vamanadeva with one particular temple in South India. Oh.
But let’s talk about that later. Oh, OK, sure, Maharaj. So the theme connecting was that Bali Maharaj was exhibiting characteristics that were not atypical of kings, even in recent historical times, that he was having pride.
We could say pride channeled in a religious way or religious pride. And that was exhibited through charity. So now, some of the avatars, some of the descents of the lord, they do some things which might again cross some ethical boundaries.
But none of the avatars, the central pastime involves crossing ethical boundaries. Crossing ethical boundaries means not just his going from, say, the appearing on the side and ending up with the side of somebody who is opposing the avatars, but he’s doing something morally questionable in the central pastime. Now, Krishna does a few things sometimes in the Mahabharata war.
Some of Rama’s actions are seen as questionable, like his killing of Bali or something. But the central pastime of Vamanadeva raises questions. So he says, in fact, not only the… He’s a cheater.
Cheater. In fact, I think the Gopis… And Bali Maharaj is welcoming. Bali Maharaj is warned against that.
He’s fully conscious that this may be the case and he accepts it. Yeah, that’s remarkable. So then one may ask, was this ethical? Because Bali Maharaj is already in a mood of accepting whatever the Lord does.
Yes, Maharaj. So this is… I had tried to read this pastime and look at the Acharya’s commentaries to try to understand where exactly the Bali Maharaj have a change of heart. Yeah, I’m wondering that also.
Yeah. So, you know, when he… If you just trace the pastime, he’s warned. He says, take as much charity as you want.
And he says, Vamanadeva to accentuate that, you could say, cheating. He not only asked for a small thing, but then he gives a discourse on being free from greed. And then exactly the opposite of that.
I will not take more than I need. If I take more than I need, this is very bad. Yeah, so… Greed is very bad thing.
And then he preaches, terrible to have greed. Yeah. If you take more than you need, you will be greedy.
And he says that if you’re not satisfied with little, you will never be satisfied with much. So greed is insatiable. So that’s quite a powerful discourse.
And it has a lot of truths. It’s just that he doesn’t walk that talk. So… But then you can say that he does walk the talk because although he’s going to take everything, it’s not that he holds on to it to enjoy it.
Oh. He basically gives it all to the devas, right? Oh, okay. Yes.
So even if he’s, say, even if he’s cheating, it’s not for his own sake. So it’s for someone else’s sake. For the sake of those… So it’s honesty among thieves.
Oh, you could say it’s contentment among cheaters or something. Honesty among thieves. Yeah, same way of putting it.
Yeah. So… So now when he says this, then he asks… Bali Maharaj says, okay, fine. So Shukracharya warns him.
Now there is also the undercurrent about here between ritualism and spirituality. That Shukracharya feels that if Bali Maharaj becomes poverty stricken, then he himself will be left without any sponsor. And… This is the problem.
Yes. He’s afraid he’s going to be out of a job. Yeah.
So he says, don’t do this. In fact, he goes so far ahead saying that you do this, you will be cursed, which is quite strong to stop someone from giving charity even to the Supreme Lord. And at that time, if you see, Vamandeva’s motivation at this time is not spiritual.
It is again, at this stage also, it’s still a sense of honor. That I have given my word to give charity and I will never go back on my word. You mean Bali? Sorry, Vamandeva, Bali, sorry.
So his motivation is still like keeping his word of honor and maintaining his fame. He says, better I die with the fame of having given charity, even at a great cost, rather than becoming famous for going back on my word. So at this stage, it was like that.
And then when the Lord expands and he covers the whole universe, and then he asks him, where is the, you are still a liar. Yeah. So because, where do I put my third step? So it seems after he gets the third step placed on his head, then he is, after that somehow his transformation starts or his transformation becomes manifested.
And actually it comes out in his speech much later. So even initially, then he says that the Lord doesn’t seem to accept that as a valid third step. And he says, you are like a liar.
And then he gets bound. He has Vishnu Dutas coming over there and then he’s bound. And then when the demons try to fight with, they feel it is he’s been cheated.
He’s been, so this is outrageous. So they try to attack and the Vishnu Dutas fight him off. And then he says, this is, the time is not favorable for us.
So don’t fight. It is later when Brahmaji appeals on his behalf. Prahlad appeals on his behalf.
And then Vamandev speaks. That is the first, this is later in the 20th, 21st chapters. That is the first time when Vaman speaks something in a mood of a devotee.
He says that there are many masters, sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m getting confused. My tongue is getting confused, not my mind.
Somehow, this is repeated tongue. So Bali Maharaj, that’s the time he says there are many masters who punish their servants, but never a master is punished any servant like you have. But because you’re the Supreme Lord, so I accept it.
I accept your will. So maybe it’s the touch of the feet of the Lord along with the situation of complete destitution which brings about a transformation. Of course, he’s also the grandson of Prahlad and Prahlad’s prayers have been there.
And in Prahlad’s prayers, he says that, you know, he was blinded by wealth. And because you have taken away his wealth, therefore, now you have freed him from that blinding. And thus you have done him a great favor.
So this is the rough storyline and how I understand it. Can you share something, your thoughts? Well, to this point about when does he, when is the change of heart? I like to think it’s a long process and that it goes back. Now I’m trying to remember.
I don’t think we hear about Bali Maharaj specifically with the Sagara Mantana pastime, but just after that, when the Devas and Asuras are fighting again, then Bali Maharaj becomes prominent. Yes. But if he is among the Asuras who are involved in the churning, that suggests to me that this is the beginning of his process of purification, just by virtue of the fact that the Lord is present.
The Lord is present there in many different forms. And there must be something going on in him as part of that process. Of course, it’s not explicit, but I like to think it’s there.
Because otherwise, it’s hard to understand to me, even though, as you said, it’s a matter of sort of Kshatriya spirit, giving and charity. And he has this spirit of keeping a promise and his fame and all of that. But somehow beyond and above all of that, for him, it’s like this is finally an opportunity, a clear opportunity to surrender to the Lord.
Because when Shukracharya says, hey, don’t do this, because it’s actually Vishnu, isn’t it that Bali Maharaj says, let it be Vishnu and let me be cheated. Oh, yes, he does say that. So, in one sense, this is a very beautiful analysis of the backstory, Maharaj.
Now, I do remember that Bali Maharaj is mentioned before the Amrit Manthan pastime. That means when Lord Vishnu asks the Devatas to form a deal with the Asuras for churning the milk ocean. So, at that time, Indra goes weaponless to the demon side and the demons are about to attack Indra.
But then Bali Maharaj says, no, stop, he’s come on a peaceful mission. And when Indra tells the proposal of Vishnu that we can together churn the ocean and then we can get the nectar, he immediately agrees. So, he’s mentioned there.
But within the Mohini Murthy pastime, he is not mentioned as among the demons who starts fighting for the nectar and the quarreling and then getting deluded. And that part is not mentioned. His name doesn’t come over there.
So, but he is there before that also. Now, I’m just finding where Bali Maharaj responds to Shukracharya. So, it’s interesting.
He says, first, he agrees with Shukracharya. This is verse 2 of chapter 20. He says, as you have already stated, the principle of religion that does not hinder one’s economic development, sense gratification, fame, and means of livelihood is the real occupational duty of the householder.
I also think that this religious principle is correct. So, he’s agreeing. Yeah, he’s agreeing with what is being discussed in terms of varna and ashrama.
Then he says, I’m the grandson of Maharaj Prahlad. How can I withdraw my promise because of greed for money when I’ve already said that I shall give this land? How can I behave like an ordinary cheater, especially toward a Brahmin? So, he’s appealing to his relation to being a descendant of Prahlad. Prahlad, of course, has, by this time, a great reputation as a devotee.
So, that’s also a matter of preparation. Then he’s going to elaborate on this theme of truthfulness and untruthfulness. He’s saying, if I don’t give now, I will be breaking my promise.
He quotes Mother Earth. She says, I can bear any heavy thing except a person who is a liar, which is suggesting that Shukracharya is putting himself in a position of being a liar. Yeah, that’s true.
Because he wants to incite Bali Maharaj to be a liar, even though he’s given reasons. He’s given this funny list at the end of chapter 19 of situations in which it’s appropriate and permitted to lie. Yeah, it’s a bit of a provocative list.
In flattering a woman to bring her under control, in joking in a marriage ceremony, in earning one’s livelihood when one’s life is in danger, in protecting cows and brahminical culture, or in protecting a person from an enemy’s hand, falsity is never condemned. Now, that sounds like it’s straight out of Dharma Shastra. And some years ago, I asked someone who was knowledgeable of Dharma Shastra whether it was to be found, and they found two or three references which were very close to this, very similar.
So, as you were saying, it’s kind of the ritual side versus the spiritual side. Here, the ritual side is sort of supported by Dharma Shastra. But I think it’s also readable as a parody.
Oh, parody, okay. It’s kind of, at least in the first, you know, flattering a woman to bring her under control, in joking in a marriage ceremony. It’s okay to lie.
That seems a little silly. I don’t know. I was going to ask you that.
The remaining part seems reasonable. Yeah. A woman’s livelihood, or the last four parts seem okay.
But marriage is a time of serious commitment. So, I don’t know, lying in the time of marriage, or lying to control a woman. So, parody makes a reasonable amount of sense here, rather than taking it as literal.
Now, it just struck me, though. It says, strishu narmavivahe ca. Strishu can also mean among women.
Oh, okay. Isn’t it? So, women can, you know, tell little white lies to each other in the course of their socializing. That could be another way of reading it.
I don’t know. Yeah. So, untruth and truth.
This is a major issue, which is certainly, it’s still within the realm of dharma versus adharma. It’s true that it’s kind of dharma versus adharma. But for me, it’s all part of his preparation of surrendering.
Hmm. His piety is showing. Here, you don’t get any sense of him being a demon.
He’s just a very pious, he might be self-centered, and so on. But you don’t get a sense that he is demonic. Yeah, at all.
Anywhere, actually. No. So, also, I think there is a general pattern in scripture that when there are certain characters who are normally considered good, if they are there involved in, broadly involved in a group that does something questionable, their names are not mentioned.
So, for example, in the 10th Canto, when Samba takes away the daughter of Duryodhana, Lakshmana, then the Kurus all attack him together and they arrest him. And then Balram says, I will go and mediate. I have a good relationship with Duryodhana.
But the Kauravas are angry. The Kauravas are a little arrogant with him. Now, at that time, who are those Kauravas who are arrogant, whether it is Bhishma also included in that.
It is the Kauravas said it’s a generic reference. So, whether it was now, of course, the Pandavas would not be there at that time in that because by that time, the two groups had become quite well separated. They had their own kingdom also.
So, it seems that if an overall group does something which is a little off, sometimes the individual members are not mentioned in scripture, especially if they are known to be otherwise good. This seems to be, maybe this is in broader consonance with the fact that Eastern cultures are often quite face saving cultures where you give venerable people a chance to ensure that their honor is protected. Yes, that is there.
But there’s something else, I think, which is sort of flowing underneath all these narratives. And that is that although there are these classifications like Deva and Asura, which seem to be very black and white, the reality is otherwise. And I think that’s especially highlighted in the Mahabharata.
The Kauravas are generally the bad guys, but not entirely. Duryodhana is a very good ruler. Ravana is apparently a very good ruler and so on.
And again, back to Bali. Bali is a very good ruler and he has some genuine sense of propriety. Hmm.
Oh, OK. The only fault, the only fault is that he is against the Devas and so far he’s been against the Lord. That seems to be his only fault.
Oh, OK. So, yes, there are. So, as compared to Hiranyakashipu, who does seem to be more of a monochromatically black character, we do see that the other demoniac characters are not that black.
I don’t know if Hiranyakashipu was ruling the demons equitably or just properly. He definitely, before he conquered everything, he was destroying all over the universe. And even Ravana, he was terrorizing and conquering and plundering.
But Lanka, he kept prosperous. Duryodhana, as far as we know, he doesn’t go too much on a rampage to conquer the world during the time when he has power. Of course, his father is still there and other elders are there.
So, we don’t know what he would have done if he had untrammeled power, unopposed power. But, yeah, so that’s it. Yeah, please.
And it has been argued, it can be argued that, in fact, Duryodhana was justified in being the king. Dhritarashtra was justified in having his sons be the, receiving the kingdom. And since Dhritarashtra was the older son, he himself was disabled by his blindness.
But there’s a certain reasonableness to then saying, still, his sons would be the followers. Anyway, my general point is just… That’s true. Going back to Bali Maharaj, that he is in process, it seems to me, of preparing to surrender to the Lord.
And now the opportunity, this wonderful opportunity has come. And he’s only asking for three steps of land. How easy it will be.
Now, I’ve always wondered about this three steps of land. What does that mean? Because you can take three steps, one, two, three, and you have a little triangle. Is that what he meant by three steps of land? Or if you take three steps going in one direction, then what would be the width of that? And furthermore, why three steps? Why not two? Why not four? And so on.
Of course, we can see that what he does with his three steps demonstrates. But initially, we may wonder why three? And one thought came to me that three kind of, in terms of grammar, it indicates multiplicity. In Sanskrit grammar, you have the singular, the dual, and the plural.
Oh, okay. That’s striking. And there are very few languages that have a dual form.
Somehow, Sanskrit has preserved a dual form. The Slovenian language, incidentally, it’s a tiny country with two million residents tucked in sort of Central, South Europe, has a dual form. Oh, okay.
But the point is that as soon as you go from two to three, there’s a significant shift in understanding. If you think just in terms of numbers, we speak of duality, you know, the duality of heat and cold, happiness and distress. Yeah.
Of course, we can speak about degrees of happiness and distress. But when you add a third principle, then you have the multiplicity of the world. And perhaps, therefore, we have three modes of nature.
But in China, the Chinese tradition has yin and yang, just the two principles. They see everything as being a mixture of these two. Somehow, two doesn’t seem like enough for our tradition.
There has to be three. And then three is multiplicity. And perhaps for that reason, it’s a totality.
So that when Vamana Dev expands and takes his three steps and becomes Trivikrama, then he is indeed encompassing everything. It’s not only the totality of the universe in a physical sense, but also in a conceptual sense. It is the multiplicity which is reality that’s being encompassed by the Lord.
In contrast to the singularity, you know, the nirvishesha, the non-dual principle, it’s the multiplicity principle, which to me is indicated by three steps, simply by virtue of the numbering. And if you think in terms of grammar, three is significant as being significantly more than two. And it indicates multiplicity sufficiently.
You don’t need to talk about four and five and six. Three is sufficient. Grammatically speaking, three indicates plural.
Oh, that’s quite a profound analysis. And I love this. I don’t know.
Because if I think about it, you could even say that the Lord didn’t even have to ask for three steps. He could just ask for one step and he could have expanded one step to encompass everything also. If he had wanted.
So, he did expand his size, but he could have expanded his size itself to cover everything. So, it’s interesting that he asked three steps. And going to your point about physical and conceptual.
So, it seems that he spans the physical universe in two steps. And the third step is more to ask like a more of a, not just the surrender of possessions, but the surrender of one’s subtle body or one’s physical body and one’s entire being. So, we offer what we have and then we offer not only what we have, but who we are, which is a deeper level of surrender.
Yes. That’s surrendering oneself, Atmanivedana. Yes.
That’s the full surrender. And that must be the reason why Bali Maharaj is included among the Mahajans, isn’t it? Yes. He is an authority on bhakti.
Why is he an authority? Because he gave not just everything, but he gave himself. Yes, that’s true. So, another point is that he is not just one of the Mahajanas.
He is also the exemplar of that last limb of the bhakti. Shravanam Kirtanam Vishnu, Atmanivedanam. He is considered the exemplar of that.
So, it is Atmanivedanam that he represents. Very good. So, yeah.
Now, I was thinking to share with you something I came across connecting Vamanadeva to, well, to history in a way, which I find interesting. We can say also it’s art history. So, there’s one temple in Kanchipuram.
It’s a quite modest-sized temple. It’s called the Vaikunta Perumal, the house of Vishnu. And the temple has the shape of a pyramid.
It’s a bit different from most of the South Indian temples. And it was built in the late 8th century. And it was built by one king named Nandi Varman Pallavamala.
Is this any of the one Maharaj? Yes, that’s the temple. Very good. Vaikunta Perumal, yes.
Okay. You can make one full screen. Yeah.
I’m trying to look at it. It’s a small screen image itself. So, anyway.
Okay. It’s going to YouTube, sorry. Yeah.
Oh, coming. Yeah. Yeah.
So, you notice on these pictures, there are many, many sculptures. Yeah. And it turns out that the sculptures which are on the pyramid, the main temple structure itself, they are all descriptive of pastimes in the Bhagavatam.
Oh, okay. And all of what you’re showing here, these images in the courtyard, basically, these are all telling the history of this king, Nandi Varman Pallavamala. Now, Nandi Varman Pallavamala was not from a regular varna, like kshatriya background.
Rather, it seems that he was brought to India from Southeast Asia. Oh, okay. By some people to be their king.
And to legitimize him, he underwent Kancharatra initiations. And this entire temple is, in effect, documenting this process. It’s a process of initiation that he went through.
Now, how do I know all this? Because there is one book, which was the product of 25 years of research by one American scholar named Dennis Hudson. And he wrote a book, I’m just getting the name, called The Body of God, An Emperor’s Palace for Krishna in 8th century Kanchipuram. And this book describes in great detail one after another of the sculptures in this temple with elaborate explanation, not only about the stories behind the images, but also as an analysis of just why each panel, each image, or vast relief sculpture is positioned where it is in terms of directions, in terms of relation to the rest of the structure, the rest of the building.
And so, when it comes to his discussion about the sculpture of Vamanadeva, there are three sculptures. One is Vamanadeva, the next is Trivikrama, and then is an image showing Bali Maharaj surrendering to Trivikrama. And this Professor Hudson, the late Professor Hudson, he actually died before he finished this book, and then some friends finished it for him.
And it’s published by Oxford University Press. It’s explained that Nandi Varman is represented, or Bali Maharaj represents the king, Nandi Varman. And Vamanadeva represents Nandi Varman’s acharya, his guru.
Oh, okay. And he identifies five ways in which there is correspondence. So, I’ll just go through these.
So, Bali and Nandi Varman share an analogous ritual status. Asuras are analogous to shudras, and Nandi Varman is a shudra king. According to the laws of Manu, he is a malla and a dravida.
And both mallas and dravidas once were kshatriyas, but now are shudras. Okay. That’s according to Manu Samhita, apparently.
That’s interesting. And he gives a reference for that. Yeah.
So, it seems there’s mobility across the castes. There’s some rituals have to be done. So, historically… Specifically, pancharatra.
Okay. So, this is where pancharatra actually… We get a lot of understanding of what pancharatra is from this book. It’s a way of facilitating, bringing people into the fold, which is how we are engaged in the ISKCON mission today.
It’s very much linked to pancharatra. Second, Bali has a brahmin nature imparted to him by the Bhrigus and owns the whole world. Analogously, Nandi Varman has been consecrated according to the rights of the northern sequence and owns the entire Pallava realm.
The northern sequence, this is something he explains elsewhere in the book. But as I understand, it’s tied with the path of the devas as opposed to the asuras. Bali is devoted to brahmins and to Vishnu, so is Nandi Varman.
Bali knows that in the context of his sacrifice, Vishnu is disguised as Vamana. Nandi Varman similarly knows that in the context of his sacrifice, Vishnu is disguised as his acharya. Oh, okay.
Finally, Vishnu, disguised as a brahmin called Uttamashloka, receives Bali’s promised gift, the entire world. Similarly, Vishnu, disguised as the brahmin acharya, receives Nandi Varman’s promised gift, the entire Pallava realm. Oh, okay.
That’s fascinating. He’s the ruler of the Pallava kingdom and he, in effect, gives his kingdom to his acharya. Anyway, I just thought that is interesting.
It’s part of a much bigger explanation, of course, of this whole temple complex and what this king was doing to sort of document his life and his position. Oh, okay. Now, when he says his acharya is Vishnu, is that referring literally or is it more like a representative Vishnu or that’s not mentioned so clearly? I don’t think he elaborates so much on that.
There’s a certain sense of oneness and difference, you know. Yeah, that is true. It’s interesting that there’s the idea of reenactment of a transcendental pastime in history and… Yes.
Well, we get this not only as reenactment, but in Rajasthan, I read this quite some time ago, but it’s been shown by one scholar that the Jaipur kings, I believe that the king at the time of Vishwanath Chakravarti Thakur and Baladeva Dibhushana, when Baladeva came to have that debate in the, it would have been the 18th century, that the king, what was his name? One of the Jaipur kings. Mansi Jai Singh? Yeah, I think he was one of the Jai Singhs. He was presenting himself as being Kalki Avatar.
Yeah, that’s all you can say, oh. So his whole program was apparently to say, you know, I’m saving, Kali Yuga is now coming to an end because now I’m here. Oh.
And he was demonstrating, part of his demonstrating that was showing his concern that proper religious principles were being followed. And therefore, he was concerned that proper worship was going on in the Radha Govinda temple. And therefore, because there was criticism from who was it, the Ramanandis? The Ramanandis, yes.
So he had, he called in the Gaudiyas to have this debate. So yeah, king identifying themselves as avatars or somehow expansions of avatars is going on. Okay.
Now, this brings up another subject, which I thought is interesting in this past time. But before that, when we go back to the Sagara Mantana, the Amrita Mantana Leela, we have several, what I call divine interventions. Yes.
The Devas and Asuras are trying to churn and before that, they’re trying to bring the mountain and, you know, they break down, some of them are crushed. Then the Lord comes and saves them. He lifts Mandara Mountain.
And so on, one after another, there’s about five or six interventions in that past time. Yeah. Ajita on top, he comes and holds the mountain from above.
And Kurma and Mohini Murthy and so on. Yes. So these we can call divine interventions.
Now, I want to suggest that with Vamana Dev, we may have an example of a divine disruption. That’s beautiful. Because he is coming, the situation is that Bali Maharaj is performing a yajna.
Yajna is this very strictly formalized ritual procedure. And it bears no interruptions, except perhaps if a Brahmin comes and asks for charity. Then, okay, we stop and we give in charity.
But otherwise, nothing can stop. When Krishna’s friends go to beg alms from the yajnic Brahmins, and they say, basically, don’t disturb us, we’re performing yajna. It’s because they’re not allowing any disruption to be made.
In the Daksha Yajna, there’s a huge disruption, and we can call it a divine disruption. In that case, because Lord Shiva, simply by sitting and not responding, becomes a huge disruption. And it’s a disruption of the ritual universe, we can say.
Disruption. And when Vamana comes, he’s also disrupting, but in a very, very sweet way, which is not, yeah, it’s absolutely not violent. But it’s still a disruption, because in the end, whereas initially, Bali Maharaj is going to be giving in measured way, because what is sacrifice? It’s giving to the fire, Agni, in very measured ways.
What represents giving oneself, but is actually giving so many substitutes for oneself. Now, when Vamanadeva comes, he says, give me, please, three steps of land. And Bali Maharaj says, sure, why not? I’m happy to give you three steps of land.
He’s now ready to actually give himself, Atmanivedana. But he’s not going to give it in the ritual. He’s going to give to Vamanadeva.
And Vamana forces him to do it, because Bali doesn’t know how else to give himself fully. So Bali Maharaj helps him out. But by saying, where am I going to put my third step? You’ve made a promise.
Okay, put it on my head. Um, so it’s a very wonderful kind of disruption, the divine, divine disruption, which, as you said, is boundary crossing, it’s, it’s collapsing, we can say all the boundaries. But it’s preserving one boundary.
And that is, there are two principles. There’s the Lord, and there’s the Lord’s devotee. It’s not merging Bali Maharaj with Vamanadeva.
And then there’s the reversal of roles. When Bali Maharaj is, sorry, when Vamana becomes, isn’t that? Now I’m getting mixed up, becomes the doorkeeper. Vamana, is it Vamana becomes the doorkeeper for Bali Maharaj? Yes, Maharaj, the Dwarapal.
The Dwarapal. So then there’s a reversal of, of order. So it seems the mood, my voice is echoing through something.
Okay, not now. I don’t know. Okay, so it seems that his mood is that, you know, your kingdom was stolen earlier.
But now I will ensure that nobody ever steals the kingdom from you. Nobody ever steals anything from you. I’ll be your doorkeeper.
So he’s a doorkeeper, he’s a protector. I’ll be your doorkeeper, but your kingdom will be contained. It will be limited.
You are the Lord of, what is it, Sutala? Sutala, yes. But nothing more than that. Okay, but then it is also said that Sutala is more, in some ways more opulent than even the heavens.
So it’s not exactly a loss. No loss. Yeah.
So it’s a story with a happy ending. Yeah, very happy ending. In one sense, again, this echoes the theme of, say, material victory and spiritual victory being two separate things.
Like in the sixth canto of Uttarasur, he is materially defeated, but he is spiritually victorious. And Indra, he is materially victorious, but he doesn’t really become much elevated in his devotion. So Indra has the Lord with him initially as Upendra, as his younger brother.
But then by the end of the pastime, he has the kingdom, but he doesn’t have the Lord with him by his side. On the other hand, Vamanadeva, he had the kingdom initially, practical universe, but then he didn’t have the Lord. By the end of the pastime, he has the Lord and he also has a part of the kingdom, part of the universe.
He has a kingdom. So Indra is materially victorious and Vamana is, in one sense, not materially a failure, but he’s spiritually victorious and in material also he gains something. So it’s like… He has nothing to complain about.
Yes, it’s only like in the phase when he’s going through that, when he seems to have lost everything and he’s bound and even the demons start going against him. His priest goes, his Shukracharya goes against him. That’s like a dark phase.
So something like the dark night of the soul or he has to go through that. But then there is a happy ending. Yes.
Now I have a question. Maybe you can help me with this. We understand that Vamanadeva is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
He’s Bhagavan. All of the avatars are Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And we always emphasize the personality or personhood of the Lord.
And we understand we are his part and parcels. We are similarly in quality, non-different. We are also persons.
So if we take this category of personhood, what do we learn about personhood from Vamanadeva? In what ways does the pastime of Vamanadeva expand our understanding of what is a person? This is a genuine question. This is not a trick or it’s not, I don’t have a pat answer. I’m actually wondering, how can we think about this? Whether it’s Vamana or any of the other forms of the Lord, because they’re all coming to re-establish dharma, to punish the non-devotees, to protect the devotees.
But if we’re thinking of the Lord’s understanding, he is the supreme person. So he is the complete fullness of personhood. Then we must be able to learn something about personhood from each of his appearances.
Does that make any sense? That’s beautiful. I never thought of it that way. Maybe it’s just something to leave in the air to think about.
Yeah, we can definitely see in terms of Krishna Leela that his sense of personhood as a small child is so endearing. And in fact, he, in a sense, subordinates his Godhood so that he can have reciprocations of love. So the devotees know he is God, but they don’t consciously stay aware of it so that they can reciprocate love.
And his personality is so multifaceted. But if we want to learn from each avatar, that would be interesting. If I mean, in just this direction, I didn’t think of in this direction, but I was going to explore this point that if you talk about personality, people are complex.
Like we ourselves, we may think we know someone, and then they behave in a very surprising or shocking way. And we say, did I really know this person? And that applies to us also. Sometimes we act in unexpected ways, sometimes unexpectedly good, sometimes unexpectedly bad.
So personality is itself quite complex. And in one sense, Vamanadev exhibits that complexity of personality. At one level, he says that I’m not greedy.
I don’t want anything. I just want something. And then he does something else.
So it’s like he has layers of layers to his personality or layers to his reasons for doing things. Like we say, Lord Chaitanya, the external internal reasons for his appearance. That’s like layers of.
So similarly, his external reason is that he is going to restore the kingdom to Indra. And that’s what he’s acting for. Explicitly, he comes from Indra after being with Indra, being felicitated by him.
And but he has an internal purpose going on. He wants to deliver Bali and not only deliver Bali, but then he wants to be with Bali. So that with respect to personality, that multiple things being happening or multiple purposes being served.
I think that’s aphorism, Vedic aphorism, that Lord does many things through one action. So he is delivering Indra at the level Indra can appreciate. But then he’s delivering Bali Maharaj to a far higher level of consciousness.
So yeah, that complexity of personality, that’s one thing I can think of. Am I in the direction you’re asking or you had something? Yes, I think it’s a good direction. And I like your point about Vamanadeva wanting to be with Bali Maharaj, which suggests that the reciprocation of bhakti is already before we come to Krishna, we’re seeing this with Vamanadeva.
That he’s actually having a motivation, we can say, of he wants to draw out Bali Maharaj’s devotion because he will enjoy that devotion, he will reciprocate with that devotion and it becomes mutual affection. That’s beautiful. So just a quick point with respect to this.
It seems this is the among the few avatars who stays for a long time. The Narasimhadeva just comes and disappears and I think that’s how it happens for most of the other avatars. We don’t really know what happens to Matsya or Kurma or afterward.
There is no disappearance pastime or something like that. In general, most of the avatars don’t have a disappearance pastime. But it’s clear that they are not around for a long time.
But Bali does seem to get the association of Vamana for a long time. And in some of the later literatures or some of the later retellings of the Ramayana, it is said that even when Ravana wanted to gain some wealth, he tried to meet Vamana at that time, Bali Maharaj. He tried to meet Bali Maharaj and that time Vamana was still his doorkeeper.
So it seems he was there for a very long time. Hmm. Now I have another question.
Maharaj, when you ask the question, I’m sure you must have had some thoughts about that personhood. So would you like to share whatever thoughts you had? Oh, well, I can’t say very much really, because it’s just the beginning, you can say, of what may be a longer investigation. Actually, I have my notes here.
But according to one scholar of Christian tradition, this is, you can say, Christian theology. She is Linda Trinkhaus-Zagzebski, wrote a book called Divine, well, I forget the title of the book, but here she’s talking about divine motivation theory, it’s called. And specifically here talking, what is a person? And she gives five features of personhood.
A person has a rational nature, meaning has capacities of reason and choice. And she points out this is going a step significantly further than Aristotle, who considered the ultimate reality, the unmoved mover. So having rational nature.
Second, a person possesses subjectivity. Which, another way of saying that is having self-awareness. And so God is fully conscious of himself.
A third principle is a person has relationships with other persons. A fourth is a person is free. And a fifth principle is that a person is what is called incommunicable.
And what that means is that you cannot just replace one person with another person, because they are, every single person is unique. And so in a technical way, this is said, that which distinguishes a person from an instance of a nature. So you don’t, we are not just instances of a nature.
We are more than that. We are persons. Now about relationships with other persons, that’s something we emphasize a lot.
We say, you know, bhakti is about relationship with the Lord. The Lord is a person. We are persons.
There is relationship. But in the particular context in which I’m reflecting on this, is with respect to our understanding of non-human beings, animals. Because I want to, I think I want to argue that animals are not only sentient, and they’re not only atma, self, but they’re persons.
And this is just beginning stages. I haven’t thought about this enough yet, and haven’t read enough yet. But it may be some preliminary work for a book, which would be a follow-up to the book I wrote about cows.
And that’s why I’m asking, what do we learn about personhood from Vamanadeva? And you’ve answered one nice point. There is complexity. We may say complexity of purpose.
So it’s not a singular, simple purpose, but a complex. Anyway, so that’s nice. So complexity of purpose might fall within relationships, like different relationships with different people.
If you want to take that fivefold framework. Yeah, that’s fascinating. And in a sense, we could, just thinking in that way, the Lord might always, Lord, of course, all his manifestations are persons.
But within the way he’s manifested, the personhood itself is seen much more in certain avatars or certain manifestations like Krishna or Ram, than say, for example, in Matsya or Kurma or even Varaha. Like we discussed, Varaha speaks. Kurma doesn’t really seem to speak also, from what, as far as we can see.
And Matsya, there is some speaking initially, but it’s very, very preliminary. So the personhood itself is manifested more. It is latent, always there.
But so in Vamana, personhood is manifested quite a bit in terms of the way he is reciprocating with different people. Yeah. So one other question I have.
Just one minute before I move forward. You know, Ishwar Krishna Prabhu, Itamar Theodore, he has written a book. I think you work with him quite often.
At least I think you are working some of your teaching in China and other places. So he has talked about his evolving conceptions of personhood in the Bhagavatam and cultivating and culminating in Krishna. So Vamana seems to be, if we consider the Bhagavatam’s descriptions of the avatars, so it’s roughly in the sequence of the Dasha avatars, not necessarily entirely.
But if you consider the 8th canto is Vamadeva, 9th canto is Lord Ramachandra and Parashuram and the 10th canto is Krishna. So there is a progression in the description of the avatars and also the level of personhood manifested by them with Krishna manifesting the most. Well, this is going to be, this is going to raise questions perhaps about our next avatar, which I think is Parashuram.
Yes. Because he seems to act in very wild ways. Wild, yeah, that’s true.
Anyway, I just have one more thought or question maybe to reflect on. We see with Nrsingadev, the worship of Nrsinga is very popular in our own ISKCON society, the Vaishnavas. We are inspired to pray to Nrsingadev for protection, for ourselves, for our community, for our mission and so on.
With Vamanadev, I don’t know, I don’t think there’s, maybe there’s some, but there don’t seem to be many temples dedicated to Vamanadev. And we don’t seem to hear much about, you know, prayer, about worshiping, offering worship to Vamanadev in the same way that we offer worship to Nrsinga or Lord Ram. So, of course, we can say the same about Varaha, Matsya, Kurma.
We don’t see a lot of worship of them. But because Vamana is, as you were just saying, kind of a step further from Nrsingadev, one might expect to be another additional level of worship going on, but we don’t seem to see that. Yeah, that’s interesting.
And then if we see that way, Parashuram also is not worshipped, he is venerated, he is respected, feared also. But we don’t see too many temples for Parashuram also. So, it does seem, you could say, from the perspective of history of religion, maybe there are particular contextual reasons why particular manifestations of Divine start getting worshipped and others don’t.
Maybe there is a pattern king who starts worshipping a particular manifestation of the Lord and then that goes on and perpetuates. Of course, that’s a mundane reason. But at least in Maharashtra, we see a lot of Ganesh worship and that has, you could say, historical reasons at a particular time, some prominent Maharashtrian leaders started recommending that worship as a way of uniting people.
And so, there is that level of… So, maybe it’s time to start promoting, maybe it’s time to start promoting worship of Vamanadeva, considering that there are some powerful rulers who could be helped in their spiritual progress, if they would get opportunity to surrender to the Lord as Vamana, something… Yeah, that’s true. That’s an amazing thought. Just to carry on this thread, Maharaj, that like what Bali Maharaj is very, at one level, respectful of Vedic culture.
But then there is the rising from ritual to, we could call it spiritual at one level. But while the Bhagavatam raises from ritual to spiritual, it doesn’t reject the ritual, in the sense that there is no condemnation of Shukracharya at the end of the pastime. In fact, when Vamanadeva meets Shukracharya, he asks him, still consider him like an expert, what was wrong with Bali Maharaj’s sacrifice? What went wrong? And then he has that famous verse, Mantratantra Chidram, that any sacrifice, however faulty it might be, if the names of the Lord are chanted, it’s all auspicious.
So, Shukracharya also is not, in a sense, depicted in any uncharitable way over here. He is also shown to be having devotional wisdom. And in general, the Bhagavatam, even when it shows Brahmanas doing things which are un-Brahmanical, it doesn’t condemn the institution of Brahmanas per se.
Even when they do something wrong, still they are to be respected. That’s what it shows. But, it’s like, respect them but don’t restrict your spirituality to them.
Something like that. Yes, respect them and put them in perspective. That seems to be what’s happening when, again, Krishna’s friends go to the Yajna Brahmins.
They’re sort of put into perspective. As you say, they’re not completely condemned. In fact, they condemn themselves.
But because they condemn themselves, they’re actually redeeming themselves. Beautiful. Yeah.
By condemning themselves, they’re redeeming themselves. And it seems Vishwanath Chakra Thakur says that, how did they get that realization by the time when their wives come back? That they’re condemning themselves. So, it seems their sacrifice is successful and the Devatas come and the Devatas tell him, you are such fools.
You are doing sacrifices for us. But our Lord had come to you and you didn’t give, offer him anything. So, it is that’s what gives them that realization.
That’s his explanation. So, that the very fact that Devatas came and gave them an explanation and give them that understanding, that also indicates that they are not to be condemned. They’re given an opportunity for redeeming themselves and they do the redeem themselves in that sense.
Yeah. Hmm. So, now does Bali Maharaj after that still have Shukracharya as his priest? That’s, I don’t think that’s not mentioned much in the Kanto where it’s just mentioned that.
So, the conclusion is like, if it’s a happily ever after, there are not many details of the ever after after that. No. Yes, Maharaj.
So, anyway, it’s a very rich pastime. It’s sort of reviewing the pastime of Aminadeva. Makes me appreciate him more.
And thinking of how he is, of course, a divine shapeshifter like some of the others, Matsya and Varaha. But he is showing this effort, how the Lord makes wonderful effort to facilitate surrender. He makes a very sweet invitation and then that’s all.
And all that Bali Maharaj has to do is agree. He makes his promise. Right? He pours, I guess, he pours the water indicating that he’s making a promise.
And then that’s all he has to do and the Lord does the rest. And then the only one more thing that Bali Maharaj has to do when, when, you know, it looks like he’s in trouble, as you said, Vishnu has come, they’re tying him up. All he has to do is bow down.
So, put your foot on my head. So, it’s bow down, mister. That’s beautiful.
Which ties the whole pastime in a way back to the process of Arjuna in which the, actually the final of the 16 upacharas is pranam, pranam to offer obeisance. It comes after welcoming, receiving, offering a seat, padyam, argyam, achmaniyam and so on. Then the final item is pranam, pranati, pranam, offering obeisance.
So, that’s what Bali Maharaj does. Now, just to take this from the other perspective, that, you know, in one sense, when the Lord creates the setting for surrender, there is this, just to take a parallel, like when Prabhupada came to America, in one sense, Prabhupada came at the right time when there was a cultural ferment. There’s also a time when, I think one academic scholar has, Satyaraj has written an article about this, at how the counterculture was a time when there was a receptivity to Eastern spirituality.
At that time, there were political changes by which the immigration laws were relaxed and Vatican II had just happened because of which the Christianity had also become open to other religions. So, in a sense, Prabhupada was setting the stage, Krishna was setting the stage for Prabhupada. At the same time, it is Prabhupada’s expertise that he danced so well.
So, it’s not taking anything away from Prabhupada’s greatness to consider the historical context in which, how the historical context was ripe for Prabhupada’s message and mission to spread. So, and that’s a principle. Similarly, in one sense, while the Lord makes surrender for Bali Maharaj, he gets, creates a setting, but that doesn’t take any credit from Bali Maharaj.
In one sense, we could say Bali Maharaj has, at one level, every reason to be angry with the Lord. I mean, you cheated me. You said you wanted three steps, you and you on top of that, you gave a discourse on not being greedy and now just see how greedy you are.
So, at one level, he has every reason to reject a Lord who is, who, who almost like double deals like that and yet he doesn’t do and on top of that, his teacher is telling him to reject the Lord. So, he has every reason to reject and he doesn’t reject. I think Prabhupada talks about that.
And instead he rejects his Guru. Yeah, he rejects his Guru. Prabhupada says, I think, in the connection with relationship with the Gopi’s love for Krishna that real love is when there is every reason for a relationship to end and still the relationship doesn’t end.
It’s I think one of the Paksa Sutras. So, here it’s Bali Maharaj’s surrender is, is incredible that, so the Lord very amazingly created this facility for him to surrender the setting and then he also gloriously surrenders in that setting. So, we could appreciate both of them from that perspective.
And the Lord is having a good time the whole time. Yeah, a good time the whole time. That’s true.
And just one observation I had, maybe before we, yeah, go to the conclusion that, you know, in the past, in the prayers that are offered by different personalities, like Brahma offers prayers and Prahlada offers prayers. So, their prayers seem to be, there is a substantial difference between them. So, Brahmaji is praying, my dear Lord, you are satisfied just by offering a little prayer.
You are so merciful. And Bali has offered everything to be satisfied with him. And Prahlada seems to be praying that, you know, you are so merciful to him.
So, Brahma’s emphasis is, if you are merciful, please release him now, it’s enough. But Prahlada seems to be appreciating that, you know, you are so merciful that, although there was some devotional inclination, but he was blinded by pride because of his opulence. Now, by taking away his opulence, you have let his devotion manifest.
Of course, I’m paraphrasing the prayers. But, so there is, we could also, if you want to trace back, there could also be the influence of Prahlada and his presence in his life, which would also have created some devotional appreciation and inclination in Bali Maharaj. Yes, that was, that I was trying to suggest earlier that the, Bali Maharaj’s journey to surrender begins with his being the grandson of Prahlada Maharaj and appreciating that, honoring his grandfather.
That’s true. So, there is a, we could say there might be one dramatic moment when that transformation manifests. But before that dramatic moment to come up, there is a long history behind it.
Exactly. Yes, Maharaj. So, now in, maybe just as a concluding reflection, you know, we also see like in our acquaintances or even in our outreach with our relatives, like people don’t seem to be receptive or interested in bhakti.
And then suddenly some things happen and they become so serious. In fact, they sometimes seem to be remarkably serious, more serious than somebody who might have been around for years. So, there is often a lot working.
So, it’s something like Krishna says that somebody has practiced bhakti in a previous life or pursued spirituality. It gets covered. And then at what point it will get manifest, it’s difficult to predict.
But when it gets manifest, it’s like they take off from the point where they were earlier, not from point zero. So, we’re not talking about Bali Maharaj having a previous life, history of bhakti. But that point of dramatic transformation that we also see sometimes in our outreach and we can’t really pinpoint, you know, this incident brought about this transformation.
But we do see it happens sometimes at a particular time. So, there is a big history behind it, maybe extending to a previous life also. But then, it’s wonderful to see the transformation happening whenever and however it happens.
Whenever and however it happens, it’s wonderful. And it’s those moments that we, it’s those moments that make it all worthwhile, that make our efforts in serving Lord Chaitanya all worthwhile, isn’t it? Yes, Maharaj. So, that’s the thing, nothing gives fulfillment of that level.
When we see that the soul comes to Krishna and maybe we played some small part in it. Small, small part. Yes, Maharaj.
Thank you. So, should I try to summarize, Maharaj? Please, it’s time for your summary. Thank you.
So, I think we started today by looking at some striking features of the past time before we went into it. So, one thing that came up was of crossing over. So, Bali Maharaj is a somebody who starts off almost like a demon, but then becomes a devotee.
Ritrasur is like that, but Ritrasur doesn’t have a personal relationship with a particular manifestation who has also appeared. And a significant part of our talk was tracing Bali Maharaj’s transformation. Before that, then you mentioned that even Vamandeva is crossing over because he, at one level, physically crosses over and extends into the entire universe.
And then he crosses over from Indra’s side to Bali Maharaj’s side to be with him eternally. For as long as Sutala is there. And then we discussed about when the transformation happens in Bali Maharaj.
So, in his own words, it is way late when he is expressing that, now you, you have punished me like no one has ever punished anyone, but you are merciful, oh Lord. That’s in the 22nd chapter, in the 21st, 22nd chapters. But before that, it traces back that it is right in the Amrit Mantra and Churning Ocean that he has contacted the Lord in his many manifestations.
And that has its seed, that has its influence. And he is, at one level, a very honorable Kshatriya. Use the word imperialist.
He’s expansionist, but there’s no evil tendency in him. And he has religious pride in giving charity and maintaining a reputation of being charitable. And then we had this discussion about the South Indian King in Kanchipur.
What is the name? Shantivarman? Yes, Kanchipuram. Nandivarman Pallavamala. South Indian names are quite difficult to remember, but you have got that name.
So Nandivarman, so it seems there’s like a reenactment of that, of the past time of Vaman and Bali in his life, where he considers his Acharya to be like Vaman and there’s architecture over there. So it seems that there’s a very well researched temple. And you said that it also shows some kind of upward mobility or mobility across the castes, across the Varanastra Pancharatra.
And the Krishna Consciousness Movement is in some ways carrying on that mission of elevating people beyond conventional Varanastra boundary, straight as. And then we also discussed about the fact that how his personhood manifested. So one thing is that he is, there is a complexity of levels of motivations.
Externally, he is fulfilling the prayer for which he has been sought, restoring the kingdom for the Devatas. So also that time, earlier we had discussed that this is also a past time which blurs material and spiritual boundaries, that the Lord is sought for material help and he does come. So however we call the Lord, that is auspicious.
And then he does more than what he is called for. So he gives himself to Vamandeva while he gives the kingdom to Bali. And Vamandeva’s surrender is that, so that was about the historical discussion.
And then also you mentioned that how the kings had this religious pride of building temples. And in the time of Bali Maharaj, it seems to be more of having huge sacrifices. And through it all, the Lord is personally creating a setting for Vamandeva, for Bali Maharaj to surrender, that he has to, he makes it, there is some latent devotion in his heart, but it’s not being expressed.
And by creating that setting where he can, he can, he can surrender, that the Lord very lovingly arranges for that reciprocation. Then from Bali Maharaj’s perspective, he is the grandson of Prahalad. So that also is a devotional influence.
And he rejects his guru, although the, so that’s also tension between ritual and spiritual. And the Bhagavatam, while showing how the ritual is inadequate, doesn’t condemn it. Shukracharya is still treated respectfully.
But you have to see it in perspective and see the bigger picture also. And then toward the end, we discussed about how, on one side, if we have Vamandeva creating a setting for Bali Maharaj to surrender, other is Bali Maharaj surrendering. There is everything that he could have said.
You didn’t walk your talk. You said you’ll be content and you are being greedy. But still he doesn’t reject the Lord.
He embraces that opportunity. And then after going through a dark phase where it seems everything is lost, he gains everything almost materially and spiritually. He gets a place more opulent than heaven.
And then he gets something transcendentally greater than heaven, that is the Lord himself. So he gives up this kingdom and he gives himself to the Lord. And the Lord gives the kingdom back and the Lord gives himself to Bali Maharaj.
So it’s as you said toward the conclusion, it’s a very rich pastime with lots of levels which we can analyze and relish. And you also mentioned that maybe it is time that we popularize the worship of Vamandeva so that some kings can also be redeemed by that surrendering to him. Yes, Maharaj.
Kings and other sorts of leaders. Other so yeah, today’s leaders. Yes, Maharaj.
Today’s leaders. Generally, they’re not kings, but they’re something that anyway, yes. Yes.
We also talked a little about divine disruption. Oh yeah, beautiful. Yeah, it’s divine.
The normal word you use for us, divine intervention with respect to the Amrit Manthan. But in this case, the divine disruption of the ritual order like happened in the Daksha pastime also. So that’s beautiful.
But it is a very sweet nonviolent disruption. Yes. So the Lord is coming as a Brahmana here and although he doesn’t fight, but he does act to settle political issues without fighting.
Yeah. Yes, Maharaj. In a very Brahminical way, he does it.
Yes, Maharaj. So the conclusion, especially with Prahlad Maharaj’s influence. So we are talking, I think conclusion is that we also see sometimes people dramatically transformed.
So there’s a long history behind it. And we may play a very small, small part, but still seeing that transformation gives us a great fulfillment. It makes all that we do worthwhile.
We are trying to share Bhakti. Yes, Maharaj. Yes.
Yes, it reminds us that we are also the light of the sun of Krishna is also shining on us. Whenever we see that. Krishna Surya Samaya Hoya Andhkar.
Yeah, it’s really shining on us and shining through us also for some others to be attracted. And shining through. Exactly.
Yes, Maharaj. So thank you very much for sharing your insights and sharing. It’s like almost encyclopedic scope of maybe integrated historical religious scholarship with, say, a devotional contemplation on Lord Vamandev.
It’s a remarkable discussion. Thank you, Maharaj. Yes.
We are churning. We are churning the ocean of Krishna Leela. Yes.
Thank you. Until next time. Next time is Parashuram.
Yes, Maharaj, Parashuram. Thank you. Okay.