The Monk’s Podcast 95 Krishna Kshetra Maharaj – Churning the Bhagavatam – Dashavatara 6 – Parashurama

Hare Krishna, Maharaj. Thank you very much for joining once again for the Wang's podcast. My pleasure.

Nice to be with you, continuing our series of Darshan Avatar. Yes, Maharaj, this is going on very relishably and today we are going to discuss Parashuram. It's quite a fierce and sometimes confusing manifestation of the Lord.

In some ways, all the manifestos of the Lord, in some ways they cross ethical boundaries, or at least they appear to cross ethical boundaries. And I think that happens in the most, you could say, sweet way in Krishna. We'll come to that, but in Parashuram it is there.

So with Parashuram, it's the most ghastly way. Yeah, ghastly, yes, true. So like the past, we could just go over the narrative and we'll discuss and then whatever points come up.

I suggest we start with the verse from Darsh Avatar Stotra. Oh, sure. Oh, Lord of the universe, oh Lord Hari, who have assumed the form of Rigupati, Parashurama, all glories to you.

At Kurukshetra, you bathe the earth in the rivers of blood from the bodies of the demoniac Kshatriyas that you have slain. The sins of the world are washed away by you. And because of you, people are relieved from the blazing fire of material existence.

Beautiful, yes. Yesterday, I believe, was the Tiruvavthiti of Jayadev Goswami, Sripad Jayadev Goswami. And it's nice to remember him on this occasion.

And it's interesting, I find that he began his Gita Govinda with the Darsh Avatar Stotra, because it has such a different sort of style, you might say, from the rest of the song. Yeah, in some ways, it's also, I believe, Jayadev Goswami is to be credited with popularizing this idea of 10 avatars, of Darsha Avatar. Yes.

Because, of course, in different accounts, there are different lists of avatars. The Bhagavatam has different lists and so on, and there are generally more. And then, with Jayadev, we have specifically 10 avatars.

And it seems like, I don't know what historians say, but I think they say that this marks the time from which we have this idea of 10 avatars as prominent, as sort of main avatars of Vishnu. Oh, okay. Yes.

And number six is Parashurama. Yeah. So, actually, I was going to come to this when you mentioned this.

This is also one reason why it is somewhat, you could say ghastly. So, it's called the blood like rivers to flow. You bathe the earth in rivers of blood from the bodies of demonic Kshatriyas that you have slain.

So, it seems that the broad Vedic texts are not squeamish or apologetic about violence. And nowadays, in today's world, religious violence is a matter of great concern. But there is almost a celebratory tone associated with violence.

This warrior is so glorious that by the way he shot arrows, rivers of blood flowed. So, that can… Rivers of blood are flowing and heads are rolling. Yeah, that makes it even more… Now, I read one, you know, one, you could say critic or whatever.

There are a lot of Christian missionaries who try to, who are very active in converting in India. So, now there is violence in the Bible also in the Old Testament, not so much in the New Testament. But they say that this scale of violence is not seen.

And now, you could argue about various things. But the celebratory tone about violence, it seems that it is, maybe we are perceiving from a particular cultural context and the scriptures are written in a different cultural context. That's why that this may jar some of us, but it may not jar anyone who is reading from a traditional perspective.

Would you like to comment on that? I haven't thought about it quite that way. But I was thinking more in terms of Rasa theory, where we have indeed a sort of ghastliness, which indeed, as you say, is seems to be practically celebrated. And I'm reminded of the fact that we are attracted or many people are attracted to horror stories, or horror films.

But what I find when I read about Parashuram making rivers of blood and making heads roll, is the tone is not really horror. It's not, you don't feel a cold chill go down your spine. It's more like, I don't know what it is.

It's more of virious, you know, it's not so much of, yeah, it's heroism more than horror. And it's good you mentioned that because I just came across this point in a book, which is a translation of the Gita Govinda, but it has a kind of extended introduction. And it's mentioned, indeed, that for this particular verse of the Dasavatarastotra, it's a kind of instruction that says, while depicting Parashurama, Viradrishti should be used.

This is referring, I think, to like in a dance performance. Because the Gita Govinda is performed, and particularly as dance. And so, Viradrishti would be, you know, a particular way of sort of sharply looking with the eyes.

Yeah, so I think it's, as you say, it's predominantly Virarasa. But we don't usually think of Virarasa as, you know, visions of blood flowing everywhere. I don't know.

It's almost like violence that's gone so, so over the top, you know, that it's reminding us that this is, it's beyond all human scale. And therefore, also, it's beyond all human scale of ethical judgment. Oh, beautiful.

That's seems like. So, now, we see similar descriptions, even in the Mahabharata, say when Arjuna is especially penetrating into the Kaurava army, on the 14th day, when he wants to neutralize Jaidrath, who's responsible for Abhimanyu's death. And there's not so much in the Ramayana, although it's there, but not that much.

So, there's also in Mahabharata, the, well, two occasions I'm thinking of. One is the burning of the Khandava forest. Yeah.

Which there, the violence is against the trees and the animals. So, it seems like a completely anti-ecology event. And in fact, if I remember, the animals are forced to stay within the forest.

They want to flee, but they're not allowed to, they're forced to be burned. Yeah, that's true. In fact, it said over there that Arjuna is actually fighting on three fronts.

One is that he's fighting with the Devatas who are trying to protect the forest from being burned, especially headed by Indra. And Arjuna has created like a umbrella with his arrows around the forest. So, the Devatas are attacking that umbrella and he's replacing that.

And also Krishna is taking him round and round. So, anybody who's trying to escape, he's preventing them from escaping. Yeah, yeah.

The other sort of uncontained violence event is, of course, Ashvatthama going into the Khandava camp after the battle, after the war and murdering, just, you know, without restriction, he's just murdering the sons of the Pandavas and so on. Yeah. So, now, that's both of them are really, they're graphic examples.

But overall, the Mahabharata stone with respect to the second does seem to be condemnatory. It is, before he goes there, Kripacharya who is with him at that time says, what he's saying cannot even be thought of, what to speak of doing it. And then, so at least that is there.

It is considered reprehensible. So, often I say that, and sometimes people try to equate the violence in the Mahabharata with, say, the religious extremism today. They say, if there is anything which is like that, it's Ashvatthama's killing.

The Kurukshetra war was actually never fought. No civilians were targeted. It was warriors fighting with warriors.

So, unarmed civilians being targeted like happens in terrorism today, that is the nearest that comes. The Kurukshetra main violence is not like that. It's Ashvatthama's violence and that is actually, it is condemned in the Mahabharata.

That's not at all the recommended way of fighting. Also, with Parashuram, he is killing Kshatriyas. He doesn't say that he was killing anyone else.

Yeah, that's also. So, and also it is said that they are demoniac Kshatriyas. And if we look at the context, even for the Kshatriya, the protectors become predators, then somebody has to act as, teach them a lesson.

So, who is going to do that? It seems in modern political philosophy, whatever it is, they say that the government should have a monopoly on the use of violence, that nobody else should use that. But if the government is violent against ordinary citizens or against Kshatriyas, then who is going to defend them? This is the basic argument, as far as I know, for this, what is it? Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, that the people who are defending the rights to carry arms. So, this was considered foundational for the U.S. government, that people can have their own arms.

And this is what they're arguing. And then now, too frequently, there is some serial killer event or some terrorist event. And then everyone gets excited and says, we have to make some restrictions, some gun laws.

And then the gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association, because they're such a powerful lobby, they silence it. It always happens. It happens again and again.

And they always point to the Second Amendment, where the argument or the reason for it is that citizens have to be able to defend themselves, possibly against state-sanctioned violence. And so it goes. Meanwhile, the violence increases.

Yeah. It seems that that amendment was made after the American battle for independence, because at that time, the British government, which was ruling, that was exploitative. And the American history, they seem there was some battle of Luxembourg, where they fought primarily to get gunpowder.

And if the British army had gone that gunpowder, they would have crushed the revolution. But they managed to defend it. And they managed to protect that village.

And they got the gunpowder themselves. And that's how this, what they say was like a disorganized, unarmed band of revolutionaries were able to win against the emperor at that time. You know your history better than I do.

No, nothing like that. Actually, it wasn't Luxembourg. It must have been Lexington.

Oh, okay. It's just a detail. Luxembourg is in Europe.

Oh, is it? Okay. Okay. Sorry.

Yeah. Anathaprao actually told me this when we were discussing. Oh, okay.

So one thing about, okay, you wanted to go through a kind of action scene, what happens with the pastime of Harishnarao? Why don't you go ahead? Yes, just before that, you mentioned the other pastime of Kandava. Probably, that does seem in today's world quite jarring, the anti-environmental thing. So the only way I find it reasonable explanation is that, explain that the Mahabharata is not just happening at the terrestrial level.

It's actually, there is things happening at a cosmic level also. And the beings residing over there are considered to be demoniac. And that's why that destruction is happening.

And the Pandavas, there are other incidents where, say for example, when the Pandavas are living in the forest, Vyasadev comes and tells them, don't stay in this place for too long. If you stay too long and you take too many fruits and other things from here, you will disrupt the ecology over here. So keep moving.

So it's not complete anti-environmental ethos in the Mahabharata. So you have any other explanations, Maharaj, for this? Nothing better than what you just said. So I feel some relief.

I was worried about that. But there is something of an echo in the kind of a forest burning. I'm feeling with the Jana Mejaya's snake sacrifice.

There's a sense in which there is a very intentional destruction of living beings. Although with the Pandava forest, there's no cause other than Agni's hunger. He wants to have a good meal.

So that's all. But of course, Jana Mejaya is wanting revenge against Takshaka for killing his father. Therefore, we're going to get Takshaka and we're going to get all the other snakes.

And then we have another echo of that in the Bhagavatam with Daksha going after the Yakshas. Because one Yaksha killed his brother. Now he's going to kill all the Yakshas.

So violence, even if it is, I mean, each of these could be contextualized in different ways. But there's some amount of indiscriminateness to the violence that comes up. But then most of the times, except for Ashwathama, nobody stops him.

With respect to Agni, it's Agni's hunger, but Agni also says that there itself that there are all these, this forest is populated by demoniac beings. So in that sense, there's some contextualization. So if we go over the pastime now, so overall, what if that Varshiram's violence is not indiscriminate, it's not against everyone, it's only against Kshatriyas.

And there is reason for it, which as we go through the narrative will come up. So this is described in the 9th chapter, 9th canto of the Bhagavatam, this basically chapters 15 and 16, which talk about this, Varshiram's pastime. And here at least the description begins with quite an interesting explanation of why he is, how a person with a Kshatriya spirit is born in the Brahmana family.

And it does seem in the Vedic times that people would be born more or less according to their dispositions. But in this case, the story goes that, you would like to tell that Maharaja, should I quickly go over it? You go ahead. Okay.

So there was a king Gadhi, who had a daughter named Satyavati. And Richika was a sage who wanted to marry his daughter. So then he arranged for a big dowry for her.

And then it's interesting here, the king asks, says that you have to give a dowry. So it's more like a bride price. He says that give at least 1000 horses.

So Richika, the word is still used as dowry, that is Prabhupada translates as dowry. But then he gets that and then he gets married to her. And then both.

Each horse has to have a black ear, right? Yeah. Just brilliant as, as a moonshine and each having one black ear either left or right. So some concession is given.

So then after that, it seemed that Richika, both his wife and his mother-in-law both desire a son. And then they offer him, they ask him to perform some yajna, do some oblation. And he prepares the oblation for both of them.

And then he goes out to bathe. So at that time, his mother-in-law, she thinks that, so now here the first time the daughter's name is mentioned is Satyavati. So Satyavati's mother says that, you know, you give your offering to me because she thinks that you have prepared a better offering for his own son rather than for anyone else.

So then they, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, for his, for his own offspring, basically, so through his wife. So then when they do that, then he comes back and he says that you have done wrong because he tells his wife that for her oblation, I had arranged that she would get a Kshatriya son and for your oblation, I had arranged that you would get a Brahmana son.

Now you will get a Kshatriya son who will kill everyone and your brother will be a scholar. So when she begs for forgiveness, she says, okay, not your son, but your grandson. So her son is, so Satyavati's son is Jamadagni and Jamadagni's son is, is born as Parashuram.

Jamadagni marries Renuka and then Parashuram is born from there. So, and as I understand, Renuka is the daughter of a king. So she's a Kshatriya.

Oh, okay. Just mentioned the daughter of Renu over here. Yes, but the implication must be that she's a Kshatriya.

So that the Kshatriya son could be born from her? Is that what you're saying? Well, you can say like that. The point is, as I understand, what it comes down to is, it's a mixture. It's, he's Brahman and Kshatriya, but the Kshatriya spirit prevails, you can say.

Yes. So, so you are saying that their marriage itself must have been Anuloma Prathiloma. It would be, it would be, I think, Prathiloma for a Brahmana to marry a Kshatriya, Brahmana man to marry Kshatriya wife, but either way, so there's no purport to this verse by Prabhupada, but it does seem that when there is some kind of deviation from the norm, there is a reason given for that.

So generally, if the culture was, if the culture was somewhat stratified and people were, there's not much intermarriage happening between the Varanas. Or here, in one sense, already the intermarriage has happened between the Kshatriya and a Brahmana, Kshatriya daughter and a Kshatriya girl and a Brahmana man, but it is presumed that their progeny would be a Brahmana, not a Kshatriya. But in this case, things change.

So, in some ways, the transcendental manifests through the genealogical and there is, we could find explanations at different levels. So, the Lord comes in independent of any material causation. He can come however he wants, but then he comes, there might be some material explanation also given for certain things or some material contextual explanation.

Yeah. In a similar way to, somewhat similar, that Krishna is Krishna's two Bhagavans, he is the original Supreme Lord, but he appears in this world through Lord Vishnu. Yes.

So, Vishnu is the maintainer. So, people pray to Vishnu and then in response to that prayer, he appears. So, we could say there is a, the Lord also seems to respond to, so there is a, there seems to be a response to a material situation when he's appearing and there's also his transcendental will by which he appears.

Yeah. Although with Parashuram, there's no prayers mentioned. People are not praying for Parashuram to appear.

Yeah. That's an interesting observation. If we go back, for which all avataras, the prayers are happening for the appearance? Till now, if we discussed, if we start with Matsya, as he himself, it's more like proactive, there is going to be a pralaya and he himself comes.

Yeah. Korma is, he's prayed for, but it's not expected he's going to appear in that form. Okay.

Yes. So, you're saying he's prayed for in the sense that when the Mandarpa starts sinking, they expect some help from him, from the Lord. Yeah.

They need help. Yeah. Yes.

And then we have Varaha, not exactly again a prayer. With Varaha also, he also just kind of appears when Lord Brahma is thinking what to do. Yeah.

So, he could take the thinking sort of the beginning steps of prayer and then the Lord just says. That's beautiful. In effect, don't, you don't have to waste, you don't have to waste your time.

I'll just come. Yeah. So, there are prayers for all the avataras more or less after they appear.

Satyavrat Muni offers some prayers. Then Korma, are there prayers specifically offered to Korma? They are all very busy, I think, churning. So, yeah.

And then after that they're celebrating and fighting over the nectar. So, yeah. So, Varaha, there are prayers offered.

Brahmaji offers prayers and asks him, please, my dear Lord, hurry up now. And then Narasimhadev. So, Narasimhadev.

After Hiranyakashyapu is dispatched, then the prayers of the demigods and Prahlad. So, although Hiranyakashyapu is terrorizing the world, the devatas, do they specifically pray to Vishnu for help? It is more like the devatas try to kill the child of Kayadu and Narada Muni comes and says he's going to be your deliverer. No, I'm saying after everything is over.

Yeah, there are prayers after, of course. I'm just wondering whether there are prayers before also. Not specifically as far as I remember.

Yeah, it seems like the classic case of prayers requesting the Lord to appear is specifically for Lord Krishna. Oh, yeah. At least the whole detailed narrative is there.

Even for Ramayana also, there is no description in the Ramayana, Valmiki Ramayana. Although there are some songs about Lord Ram, there is Ram Totashatanaam and Naam Ramayana, where they say that the devatas prayed to Vishnu at the side of the Kshira Sagar, but there's no description like that in the Ramayana per se as far as I've read it. Okay.

Then we have, of course, I don't think we have Buddha or Kalki, there are any prayers as such. So, only Krishna, that's nice. Parshuram, so are any prayers offered to Parshuram per se any time in his life? Oh, I don't know about, at least I don't see in the Bhagavatam, but of course there's quite a large tradition of Parshuram connected with culture in Kerala.

Yes, that landmass is considered to be reclaimed by Parshuram. Yes. So, I would assume that there's lots of literature connected with Parshuram in Kerala, maybe in Malayalam language, I don't know.

There's a book which has just come out very recently called The Second Rama. It's a study of the many accounts of the story of Parshuram, and it's basically tracing how the story of Parshuram develops over time, how it develops and changes. So, it's not a devotional book, it's more of an analytical approach.

That's nice. So, in some ways through the analytical, through this kind of analytical books, you might get some information, but then eventually what is nourishing for our devotion, what is compatible with our devotional, traditional understanding, we'll have to glean it carefully. Yeah.

That's nice. So, with that background, now when he appears, it seems that not all his, all their sons are of a Kshatriya disposition. He is youngest and he seems to be the only one having the Kshatriya disposition.

And he actually exhibits a lot of Kshatriya qualities also that way, when his father Jamadagni is angry with Renuka. So, because Renuka gets attracted to Gandharva for a few moments, and then he says, kill her. And then he asks his elder, his older sons to kill this and they hesitate and he says, kill them also.

Which I stumbled on that because it seems like an inconsistency on Jamadagni's character. Because just before this, at the end of the previous chapter, Jamadagni is scolding Parashuram for killing, what's his name? Kartavirajana. Yes.

Kartavirajana. Sorry. I'm thinking of Ashwatthama and whatever.

Yeah. He comes back, you know, saying, dad, look what I did. And dad, Jamadagni says, that's not good.

You know, we are Brahmanas, we are forgiving, we are peaceful, shanti, shanti, shanti. And then immediately after this happens this episode with the wife, Renuka, and suddenly he's, he's, where's the forgiving quality that was there before? Yeah, it's, it's somehow, it does seem that at least in, I don't know whether it is ethos of the times, but lack of chastity or even consideration of lack of chastity seems to be considered to be a very serious offence. And we see something similar in the Ramayana when there is Ahalya and Gautam Rishi.

So Ahalya has, so Indra gets attracted to Ahalya and Gautam Rishi, he impersonates as Gautam Rishi. And then he comes and they unite. And when Gautam Rishi comes to know, then he curses both Indra and Ahalya.

Yes. His body gets covered with, his body gets deformed and he gets reproductive organs, female reproductive organs all over his body and Ahalya turns into a stone. Yes.

So actually I have been writing a book on the Ramayana, so I did a little research, because this story is often used as a, as a example of, you know, how women were exploited. So it said that Ahalya was simply the victim of one man's lust and another man's anger. So Indra's lust and her husband's anger.

But then I read the Ramayana carefully and look at some of the Ramayana commentaries. There's one significant detail which is not told in the stories is that Ahalya herself was a yogini. And she recognized that this is not my husband, this is Indra.

Oh. But she felt that, she felt so, in a sense, feminine pride that the King of Gods is going through so much trouble just to be with me. And then she, she gave into that pride or that moment of weakness because of that.

So now, of course, the story has a happy ending in the sense that Lord Ram touches her, touches her and transforms her and restores her. There has to be a happy ending. Yeah.

So overall, it does seem that chastity is a very serious consideration. Not only in Indian culture, but traditional culture generally. In ancient Israel, adultery was a capital offense.

But it was a capital offense. I don't think it was a capital offense for the man, but it was for the woman. So it was a very one-sided thing.

Yeah. I think there was a stone to death. And that's why when Jesus' mother became pregnant without her husband as a virgin, then there was some suspicion initially because of that.

And then afterwards. So, yes. So, in my understanding, I mean, it is, some aspects of the traditional culture seem to be, as you said, biased in a particular way.

I say, but it was just, it could be in my understanding, the societal arrangement to protect social order. Because ultimately, a woman when she gets, a woman is going to bear a child. And usually the idea was that union is likely to lead to childbirth.

And if that union is going to happen outside the marriage, then it is going to lead to a lot of problems. So at one level, the men are also, there was polygamy where the men could take, men were expected to take responsibility for if they were to marry many people or if the king is going to unite with the maid servant also, they expected to maintain. But then if already marriage is there, then there has to be some amount of civilizing restraint.

Otherwise, society, so otherwise just violence can easily break about. So, of course, I'm not, I know that this is not like a complete explanation or a completely satisfying explanation. But one thing is that social order had to be maintained.

And especially when sex is to be, was like a union was going to likely to lead to procreation. So then some amount of regulation was important. Well, yes, but it does seem like an overreaction, isn't it? Yeah, definitely.

That is true. There was, there was no discussion. There was no like, you know, what were you doing? What was, how come you're late? None of that.

Nothing at all. Just cut off her head. It's quite extreme.

That is true. There are other versions. There are other versions, or we can say details, I came across about Renuka, which sort of highlights why this was significant that her chastity seemed to be ever so slightly compromised, was that her chastity, she was so known for her chastity, that she, she had a pot for water, which was made of sand.

In other words, it was an unbaked, it was an unbaked pot, or somehow was not what it was not what you would normally hold water in. So when she goes to the river, I guess to the Ganga, to get water for her husband, for worship, and whatever it was, and then she is distracted in this way by the Gandharva, or in another version by Kartaviryarjuna, Kartavirya. Oh, really? Okay.

Her sand pot, so to say, begins to leak. Oh, okay. Just as she's, you know, slightly contemplating this male as an object of attraction, or the fact that he's enjoying with these apsaras is, I think, the version in the Bhagavatam.

You know, there's some, some wavering, which becomes evident in the pot leaking. Oh, okay. And then the pot basically collapses, she no longer has this pot of water.

And then when she comes back, it's very clear to her husband that she is no longer holding her chastity in the way she was before. Anyway, that's the story. But my point is that the reaction of Jamadagni seems really over the top.

Yeah, it's just cut off her head. That's, that's pretty intense. Yeah, it's true.

It seems that overall the ninth canto, on all the cantos of the Bhagavatam, the ninth canto has quite a few provocative stories about human sacrifices and sages. A lot of things happen in the ninth canto, which are quite, we could say, morally complex. Yes, you could put it that way, morally complex.

Well, I think a lot of what's in the ninth canto are kind of summaries of stories in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, isn't it? Of course, the Ramayana is summarized in two chapters before that. But then there's various stories, including what we're reading now, I think is also in Mahabharata, isn't it? Yes, Mahabharata has a lot of ancillary stories and conversations where a lot of previous stories are talked about. Yeah, so a lot of that is summarized in the ninth canto.

Yes. Because, which goes to, I think, what Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur is saying, that the Bhagavatam is collecting together everything essential from all the Vedic literature. And he famously wrote in that essay on the Bhagavata in 1869, that all of the Vedic literature, if you extract, if you take the Bhagavatam, you keep the Bhagavatam, and you let all the Vedic literature other than the Bhagavatam be burned.

Like, he compares it to the fire of the Alexandria library. Ancient library famously completely burned down. He said, if you'd have such a fire of Vedic literature, nothing would be lost.

Nothing would be lost because you have the Bhagavatam. He was being a bit hyperbolic, but it's an interesting point he's making. And the basic idea is that the Bhagavatam is summarizing the essentials so that, for practical reasons, you only need one book, you don't have to carry a whole library with you.

If you're a traveling medicant, I guess. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. So, of course, the Bhagavatam itself is a big library also, with Prabhupada's purports.

Yeah. Well, yes, then you add the purports again, and then you have this huge multi-volume book. Yeah.

Yeah. I had also read somewhere that, let's say, the fifth canto, I think, I don't know if the Bhaktivinoda Thakur says this, but it says the fifth canto is meant to weed out the faithless people. So, the fifth canto, if people read the cosmology and then, if they're not able to put it aside, they're too rationalistic, then the fifth canto will block them.

If they're too moralistic, the ninth canto will block them. I don't know whether this is what Bhaktivinoda Thakur has said, but I've heard this in a class. I don't know.

It sounds interesting. Yes, Maharaj. So, sometimes I feel that certain pastimes are just described or they have a purpose in terms of glorifying a particular character.

So, for glorifying that character, sometimes other characters may, say, sort of act out of character. So, to glorify Parashuram's presence of mind and his intelligence, the over-the-top reaction of Jamadagni is there. I think there is a, not exactly similar, but in the Old Testament, there is a story where God asks, who is it? He asks Jacob to give his sacrifice to Abraham.

Abraham should sacrifice his son Isaac. Yeah. So, and he, it's something which is, and he has got that son after a very long time, in old age, unlikely, and then God asks him to sacrifice it.

And then finally, God intervenes to an angel and tells him, now, this was a test. So, in some ways, we can say that, what had Isaac done? Why is he being sacrificed like that? But, and why would God also demand something like that? It's, in some ways, to glorify Abraham's willingness to sacrifice what is most dear to him. So, maybe we could see that way that, that this whole pastime is to glorify Parashuram's presence of mind.

Because the seventh canto, if you see that it is said, Narada Muni was also submitting to Hiranyakashipu, or even the devatas are, Brahmaji and Lakshmi are not able to pacify, pacify Narasimhadeva, but Prahlad is able to pacify. So, it seems that when a particular character is to be glorified, at that time, other characters may be placed somewhat in, in somewhat uncharitable role, not uncharitable, unflattering roles. That's a good way to, that kind of helps, I think.

I mean, one might come back though, and ask, is this really a glorification of Parashuram that he is, you say, you say it's showing his presence of mind. Someone could criticize and say, it's showing his foolishly blind obedience. Yeah, the older sons, the older sons hesitate.

And we think, well, yeah, I would too. I would also hesitate. Not only would I hesitate, I would say, Dad, will you please calm down? And, you know, and, you know, just cool down and understand this is not what we do to what you do to your, your wife and our mother.

But they're just hesitant, but then Parashuram is not hesitant. I wanted to look for, there's a purport, Prabhupada speaks about this. Let's see.

I think the way it is a glorification is that he knows that his father has the power to revive even if he kills. And with that, he knows that he can't, that when his father is angry, he can't stop the anger, but he can actually get his father to undo the consequences of that anger. That's why it's not like a blind obedience.

It's, we could say, making the best of a bad situation by going along with it. Here's the verse and purport. I'll just share the screen.

Yeah, verse number, this is chapter 16. Yeah. Verse 6. Verse 6, okay.

Rama, son, then ordered his youngest son, Parashurama, to kill his brothers, who had disobeyed this order, and his mother, who had mentally committed adultery. Lord Parashurama, knowing the power of his father, who was practiced in meditation and austerity, killed his mother and brothers immediately. Purport, the word Prabhavanya is significant.

Parashurama knew the prowess of his father, and therefore, he agreed to carry out his father's order. He thought that if he refused to carry out the order, he would be cursed. But if he carried it out, his father would be pleased.

And when his father was pleased, Parashurama would ask the benediction of having his mother and brothers brought back to life. Parashurama was confident in this regard, and therefore, he agreed to kill his mother and brothers. So yeah, I guess in this account, we can say Parashurama is glorified because for two reasons.

One, you can say the more mundane reason is obedience to the father, which is also celebrated in the Ramayana, although it's also, in a sense, questioned in the Ramayana. If you're too obedient, that's also not good. The Chinese tradition has something to say about that, but that's another story.

So his obedience is one thing, but his second qualification, recognizing his father's powers, he immediately knows that he's going to please his father. Therefore, he'll be able to get a benediction, and he'll be able to ask his father to put all the heads back on, to replace the heads and bring them back to life. That's another topic also which maybe should be considered is how much, first of all, the fact that there's so much decapitation going on within this account, and it starts with Kartavirya Arjuna losing his head, and then Renuka loses her head, and eventually Jamundagni loses his head, and then Parashurama makes, quote, a mountain of heads when he goes back and begins his genocide against the kshatriyas.

It's said he makes a mountain of heads. And then we have the head-cutting program in the fourth canto of Daksha. Daksha loses his head.

I always like to say Daksha lost his head both literally and physically. Yeah, Daksha lost his head both ways. He lost his head, you could say, non-literally first and then literally later.

Yeah. And then Ganesha loses his head, and each time another head gets put back, in the case of Daksha, it's a goat head. In the case of Ganesha, it's an elephant head.

But with Renuka, she gets her proper head back. And also the sons, the brothers of Parashurama, they each get their heads back and don't seem to know that anything happened. Yeah, that's significant.

I never thought of this in terms of decapitation, that specifically the head being killed, head being cut off for killing. And of course, Shishupal loses his head to Krishna. Yeah.

Does the Bhagavatam say that their head is decapitated? Because he said just kill this woman, kill this sinful woman. So, Gnata is kill. I think maybe in the other, you said the other literature, it might be specifically decapitating.

Yeah. And also, doesn't it say, I don't have it here. No, you're right.

It doesn't mention about specifically the head. But elsewhere, I think that's the tradition that he cuts off the head. And then it says when they're brought back to life, it says if awakened from sound sleep.

Yeah, that's true. Now, okay, so just going back to one earlier point, which you mentioned about obedience. So, you said that even how much to obey, you're saying something about that in Ramayana also it is questioned.

So, well, I'm saying that everyone is very, very much upset that Rama has determined that he's going to be obedient to Dasaratha. Even Dasaratha doesn't want him to listen to him. He's determined to be obedient.

Bharata is against it. The whole Ayodhya is against his obedience. But Rama insists.

And you can say, and that's when all the trouble starts. He insists on being obedient. That means he's going to the forest.

That means all the trouble that happens. But of course, we understand this is the Lord's arrangement and so on. Yeah, to rid the world ultimately of Ravana.

Yeah. So, yes, my right. But more generally, we might also reflect on fathers and sons in the Bhagavatam.

That's an interesting reflection. Yeah, go ahead, please. Sorry.

Hiranyakashipu and Prahlad, of course, is a father's, it's a troubled relationship. Brahma and the four Kamaras is a troubled relationship. That's interesting.

Yeah. Even Dhruva and Uthanapada is at least sometime troubled. Yes.

What else? Yeah. Those three are clearly troubled. And there are others which are not troubled.

So, Svayambhuva Manu is a very obedient son to Lord Brahma. The only problem being that he has nowhere to realize, to perform what Lord Brahma has asked him to do. And that's why Varahadeva has to come.

So, here when the obedience is depicted and he pleases him and then they are revived. So, it seems that that incident is completely blotted from the memory. And then the sons of Bhagavati and Arjuna come to take revenge for their father's killing.

So, this is an indication that it is not just like one rotten apple, but it's almost like the entire bunch of apples is rotten. So, it was at one level, when any conflict starts, now we can keep tracing it backward to say who started the conflict and he said, you did this first and you did that first and you did that first. It can go on.

But it does seem that Kartavira Arjuna started the whole thing first by stealing the Kamadhinu cow of the sage Jamadagni. It all started with a cow. Oh! So, it must be the cow's fault.

Yeah, you know, if you want to scapegoat a cow, is there a word scapecow? Scapecow? Oh, no. Any idea why it is a scapegoat? I think it doesn't come from ancient Israelite tradition of sacrificing a goat. Oh, okay.

That's true. So, yeah, it's in the day of atonement, they used to offer a cow, a goat, a symbolic bearer of the sins of the people. The goat was sent into the wilderness.

So, we could scapegoat the cow. So, at least from a reasonable perspective, it is Kartavira Arjuna who starts it and then Parashuram goes and without even giving an opportunity to return, ask him for returning the cow or returning the cow, Kartavira Arjuna attacks him and then Parashuram kills him. So, now they are coming and here what they do is quite brutal.

They kill the sage and although Renuka is begging to save his, spare his life, they do nothing and that really sets Parashuram off. So, now he is actually defending his mother. He is being vengeful on behalf of his mother, we might say.

Yeah, in many times, if you look in our scriptures, the apparent aggressor is not the actual aggressor. Like the Kurukshetra war, it is called by the Pandavas, in one sense, Ram is going and attacking Lanka. But actually, it is something else which Ravan has done or the Kauravas have done beforehand.

So, who is, in one sense, shooting the first arrow or calling for the war and who has caused the war are two different things. Yeah. So, then Parashuram decides that the whole Kshatriya dynasty has to be taught a lesson and not just for one dynasty, but he said 21 generations.

Not one, not two, not three, not four, he just keeps going. Yeah. It seems 21 generations, whenever generations are talked about, 21 seems to be like a common figure.

In the 7th Canto, when it is said that Narasimhadeva says, Prahlad Maharaj said, Trisapta Pitaputa, that 21 generations of pure devotees yes, descendants would be liberated. I've thought about that. I've wondered about that too.

What's so special about 2021? Something about three times seven is very special. Yeah. I've also wondered with these Kshatriyas, generations of Kshatriyas, you'd think that after three or four generations, all the Kshatriyas would say, now wait a minute, we're all in trouble.

If we think Parashuram is not going to wipe us out, so we better make some plan to stop. But you don't hear about any plans to stop Parashuram. It seems like almost, it's like there's no resistance.

Yeah. Kshatriyas, you would think, are going to really fight, but you don't hear about them doing any resistance against Parashuram. It's almost like, come and take us.

We are Kshatriyas. We need to be wiped out. Hmm.

Now, is it literal? Because the Bhagavatam, at least traditionally, a tradition within ISKCON when I grew up, we always took everything literally. But then we also know the Bhagavatam is poetry. It has many poetic elements in it.

So, do you specifically think now the Bhagavatam, here, if I look, I'm just sharing the screen, the Sanskrit is, he read them down to 21 times from the surface of the earth. So, I don't know whether that is 21 generations because that's what we have heard normally. So, he made the earth Nikshatriya, without Nikshatriya, 21 times.

So, what does that mean? He went around 21 times and destroyed Kshatriyas or he waited for 21 generations to come and as soon as generation was born, then he killed them. Then who was ruling all the time? It doesn't say that he was actually ruling. Somebody has to be ruling, isn't it? Also.

It's very unclear, isn't it? Well, of course, Brahmins could rule if they have to. Yeah, that's true. So, it says that in the Mahabharata, Ramayana also it is said that when Dashrath Maharaj dies in separation from Ram and none of his sons are there.

So, Vishwamitra officiates as the king during, not Vishwamitra, Vasishtha Muni officiates as the king during that time till Bharat comes back. So, Brahmanas could rule. So, you know, there is a literal reading, but is a literal reading essential? I wouldn't say that we had to take it non-literally, but if somebody wants to take it non-literally, would you consider that incompatible or to make a stronger word, unfaithful? Would it be unfaithful to take it literally? To take it non-literally? I don't think it has to be because as you said, this is, how to say, we want to take, as Srila Prabhupada said, our literature from every angle of vision.

We want to discuss from every angle of vision, from all, he said, from all angles of vision. So, one angle of vision is a literal angle, you could say. Hmm, but it's only one.

There are other possibilities. So, in this case, I don't know what all the possibilities might be, so to say, in different Puranas, and it might be helpful to know what some of those are. There is another angle to this.

I wanted to bring up this whole story with, yeah, I don't know, maybe with some caution, I should mention it, whether it's nourishing our devotion or not, but there's a book, which I have here by scholar David Shulman, called The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry, and in one section, he is discussing this pastime, and he has two, he summarizes two versions, or he translates two versions. One is the Bhagavatam version, hmm, which he says is kind of one of the best in the sense of bringing it all together. But then he also gives an account from the Tamil poetry tradition.

This is something called the Kanchipuranam, and it's apparently a kind of Stala Purana of Kanchipuram as an explanation for, or it's telling a story of Renuka, specifically because there's a temple, or there's a shrine dedicated to Renuka within one of the larger temples, I forget whether it's the Vish, it's one of the large temples. So there's a shrine dedicated to Renuka, and this story is telling, this is telling the story in such a way to explain how she becomes a goddess. Oh, okay.

And in effect, as I remember, she requests blessing from, I believe it's Lord Shiva. Eventually, it's Shiva who is giving blessing to Parashuram, according to this account, to do all of this killing, which I thought is interesting because it kind of reflects the story of Ashwatthaman, which he tells later. But the main point I want to make is that Shulman, in his discussion of the whole story, taking both accounts and referring to others, the way he reads it is that it's an expression of the sort of inner conflict in the Brahman varna.

And what he means by that is that on the one side, the Brahman is the embodiment of peacefulness, of ahimsa. His concern is with self-realization, meditation, yoga, and so on. He is nivritti marga, not pravritti marga.

But on the other side, it seems to be always the case that the Brahman has to be engaged in the world, and specifically, what is his job? He's a priest. And he's a priest for what purpose? He's a priest in service to the kings, or he is legitimizing the kings. He's empowering the kings to use physical violence.

But how does the Brahman do this? He does this by performing rituals. And what is the specific ritual that he does is the fire sacrifice. And what is the fire sacrifice? Essentially, in the Vedic tradition, it involves the sacrifice of animals.

And so the Brahman is implicated in violence. Now, of course, there's the whole, how this is explained, you can say, well, it's not actually killing, because if the Brahman does it properly, then the animal is elevated, and so on. Sometimes those kinds of statements are taken as justifications.

The point is that the position of the Brahman is, he's saying it's deeply conflicted. And that conflict is embodied in the person of Parashuram. Parashuram is a Brahman, but he shows the violent side of the Brahman to the total extreme, to the radical extreme, to the beyond all compare.

And this highlights, therefore, the tenuous position of the Brahman, the problematic nature of being a Brahman. You want to be peaceful, but you can't really be peaceful, because, well, you have to be maintained somehow. And who's going to maintain you? It's going to be some king, and that's going to involve some violence.

That's quite a serious analysis that he is doing. I was reminded that Prabhupada says that for our movement, we want Brahmanas with the Kshatriya spirit. So in one sense, that is our challenge also.

We would like to just maybe study scripture, teach scripture, but we have to get involved in management, we have to get involved in counselling and dealing with people's practical problems. I never heard that, that he said that specifically, Brahmans with Kshatriya spirit. That's interesting.

Oh, really? I mean, I've heard it many times. I'll check for that. So, the expression that I heard is that if you only have a Brahman, if you're only Brahmanas, you'll be satisfied just by, okay, so you give a class, if people come, good, if people don't come, doesn't matter.

So, Brahmanas don't have like an active desire to change the world. If it changes, it's well and good. If it doesn't happen, okay, they're contented.

So, on the other hand, if it's only Kshatriyas, then the connection with transcendence is lost. You get too caught in changing the world. So, I thought this Brahmana, the Kshatriya spirit actually is, we could say, a Vedic way of expressing that.

Is it a biblical saying, be in this world, but not of the world? Yeah. Well, then with getting back to Parasharama, with Parasharama, it seems to get out of hand. Okay, that's true.

But the explanation is that this was necessary because the Kshatriyas were out of hand. There's another element here, which I kind of, yeah, I think it might be relevant. Going back to where this happens, it's said to, the blood bath happens at Kurukshetra, right? And so, the Samantapanchika, the five lakes created, which were created from this blood, from the 21 generations of Kshatriyas, is sort of all collected in this one place, which then at the time of the Kurukshetra war, by that time, I guess it's transformed into water.

But the Kurukshetra war is a sort of re-enactment of the same thing. And it's mentioned in the Mahabharata, as far as I know, that the war was a kind of runa yajna. It was a, it was a sacrifice, a battle sacrifice.

And the battle sacrifice meant blood is being shed. And this blood is what is being offered in the sacrifice. And it's being offered, instead of being offered up to the Devas, it's being offered down to the earth.

That's beautiful. And we usually think, you know, of the earth as mother earth, and she is very benign. But it seems that she also sometimes wants to drink blood.

Yeah. Nature is both benign as well as, I don't want to use the word cruel, but harsh, we could say or whatever. And there is that verse, which she says that Bhumi is laughing at those kings who think that they own the earth.

They say, their names will also not remain and the earth will continue on. So, that aspect is there. You know, I have read what you said about the Kurukshetra war being a sacrifice, that 424 in the Bhagavad Gita, Brahmaarpanam Brahmaavir, Brahmaagna Brahmanahutam.

So, that is the start of the section where Krishna talks about how everything can be seen as a yajna, how fasting is a yajna, how yoga is a yajna. So, there one of the Gita commentators says that Krishna is telling Arjuna to see the Kurukshetra war as a yajna. And in this, he says that you are the priest and your Gandiva is like the sacrificial ladle and the ghee that is going upward is the heads of the Kauravas.

And this whole, what do you say, the Kurukshetra battlefield is, the whole battlefield is like a yajna sthali. So, where the sacrificial pit or sacrificial arena. So, this is fascinating that this is Kurukshetra war like a reenactment.

Yeah, we could also say if both are dharma yuddha, they are fought for establishing dharma, then it is, it can also be said to be reenactment in that sense. I guess the question in my mind, because we see, I mean, repeatedly in Prabhupada's purports and in his preaching in general, especially when there's talk about yoga dharma and about sacrifice, he takes every opportunity to say that the form of sacrifice for this age is sankirtan, right? And then he'll sometimes, he'll often give the maha mantra and in particular we chant this mantra. And what sort of bothers me is that in the Vedic sacrifice, if we're saying that this is okay, look at it this way, it's often said that the Upanishads are about the internalization of the sacrifice, that the sacrifice is turned inward.

And with the sacrifice being turned inward, there's the violence is also turned inward. In other words, the practice of austerity is a kind of violence. Going further back to the Vedic sacrifice, I've read that, I've read an account that's explaining the Shatapada Brahmana, that it's not only animals that are killed in a sacrifice, but if animals are substituted with grains, even that, the words used are about killing.

The grain is killed. The soma is killed in the process of grinding it and squeezing, extracting the liquid. It's referred to as killing.

So, what is being, where is the killing in the Sankirtan yajna? That's beautiful. Well, I don't know if it's beautiful, but I'm wondering. Is it that we are just, we are killing material desire? Maybe.

Yeah, that's what I thought. So, because if you see in the past in Jagai and Madai, when Lord Chaitanya is about to drop off the head of Madai, Nityanand Prabhu says you are patita pavan. And so, in this age, you have not come to kill the sinful people, you have come to kill their sinful desires.

So, we could say that my understanding was always Sankirtan, the offering is the consciousness. And just as say the animal is offered a sacrifice and the animal evolves in a higher body. So, our consciousness is offered in the sacrifice of Sankirtan and the consciousness emerges purified.

So, in that sense, the impurities are burnt away or because the consciousness evolves or emerges transformed. So, you could say the killing is the impurities. There is the example, where is the fire of Sankirtan is often that metaphor is used.

Yeah. So, then I thought in the 11th Canto, there is a metaphor of how gold and fire, you know, when gold, I think the process of purification is compared to that. This is gold when placed in fire comes out brighter.

So, when the soul goes through the fire of tribulation or through the fire of purification, basically emerges brighter. So, we could say that fire can be Sankirtan yajna. And Chetodarpana Marjanam, that verse, Bhakti Siddhanta Thakur says is describing the seven, what is it? The seven tongues of the fire.

Seven prongs sacrifice, seven prongs or seven tongues. Seven tongues, I think. Yeah.

Okay. So, we can say that is where the violence goes. Yeah.

When I said beautiful, my point was that actually the idea of, I never thought that much about violence, even austerity is a form of violence. But we could say it is a violence that is leading to something good. It is a violence against the body's default impulses through which the body's desires become more disciplined.

So, and I think the austerity, the word is also tapa. Tapa is also fire. Yes.

Tapa is heat. Yeah. So, I never thought of that consistent connection of violence in that sense.

This is a beautiful contemplation, actually. Well, you see it go a step further, the internalization of the sacrifice in the Jain tradition. And I think that is where the Vaishnavas become critical of the Jains because of their extreme austerities going too far to the point of, yeah, a kind of self-destruction or what is regarded as a kind of self-destruction of personhood.

So, Vaishnavism seems to go with a kind of spirit of moderation at the same time. Like Krishna is saying to Arjuna in the Gita, don't overdo it, whatever it is. And he also talks about too much eating and too much sleeping and so on.

Moderation is somehow a virtue. And getting back to Parashuram, therefore I find it fascinating that we celebrate Parashuram as one of, not just one of the avatars, and I think he's usually considered as a Shakti Avesha avatar, but as one of the 10 avatars, one of the major ones, because he is so completely off the charts with his behavior in so many ways in terms of his violence. So, it's very interesting.

It's just to continue this point about off the charts violence, it also seems that he recognizes the excesses. So, for example, first when he kills Karthivar Arjuna, I think his father tells him that he should do some atonement and he does atonement. Yes, he goes away for a year.

He does Tirtha Yatra for one year purification. It's interesting that Karthivar Arjuna's sons don't come immediately to try to get even. They wait till he's come back.

Maybe they are just recovering from the shock or consolidating their forces. But then after that also, after he finishes the whole thing, it said that he gives the earth in charity to the Brahmanas. Then he renounces his weapons and again he performs austerities.

So, in that sense, violence is considered necessary and while it is happening, it is glorified. But afterward, there is also recognition that there is some kind of excesses that may happen and therefore, some rectification has to be done. Yes, I guess it's the violence of the surgical operation.

Also, then you can have the pain medication or something like that afterward. Yes. So, there we get to also the point of authorized and unauthorized violence.

So, in the analogy of the medical doctor, the surgeon, he or she is qualified by training how to make the incisions in just the right way for the sake of the patient. Yeah. So, we could say when the lord or his representatives are doing it or the Kshatriyas within a dharmic yuddha are doing it, then in a righteous world, then they are authorized.

Yes. Also, the Brahman is doing whatever he has to do. He's authorized because of proper training.

Yes, there's one issue over here. It might open a Pandora's box and if you don't want to, we can discuss separately. This one point I had in mind is that sometimes devotees equate Prabhupada's position about democracy with some soundbite like demon crazy.

But we do see in the Vedic times, if a king becomes tyrannical, there are systems for removing that king. And one of the systems is that the Brahmanas are very powerful. And the Brahmanas can just chant mantras like Vena, the Brahmanas can actually take weapons and overpower the Kshatriyas.

So, when that is not possible for or if they can't do that, they can directly appeal to the lord and the lord dissents. So, when that is not accessible for us today and on top of that, a prediction of Kali Yuga is that the kings are likely to become predators. The kings are likely to become thieves and plunderers.

So, then isn't it better to have a system of governance which has some, you could say, more robust or more human level of checks and balances? So, it's not necessary that democracy is the best form of government in all times. But in today's world, given the situation, three things, the likelihood of the kings becoming tyrannical, the unavailability of the traditional forms of checks and balances, and the presence of a system of government with, say, finite tenure and within democracy, which at least brings some amount of regulation. So, I'm not sure.

So, I'm not, you could say, I'm not defending democracy, but I would say I don't want to, I don't feel that we need to demonize democracy, saying that it is something which is to be dismissed. Any thoughts on this? Well, that is a bigger topic, isn't it? And I'm no political scientist, but it is a subject I think about, especially in current troubled times, especially with politics, the way they've been going in the country that I come from. And what strikes me perhaps more than anything about this is, yes, some, as you say, a form of checks and balances, which is on the human level seems necessary.

But part of the checking and balancing that seems essential, which is unfortunately sometimes neglected, is checks of qualification of the leader by some form of training. And what comes to my mind here as a possible indicator of what could be done comes from ancient China. Now, on the one side, China is this very heavy-handed, you know, system of control from the top.

But they had this system of examinations where anyone who wanted to work in the government had to pass a very difficult examination. And I think there were three different levels of that. But people would spend their years and years studying for that examination, which included a lot of qualifications, culture.

They had to know, you know, classical literature, poetry. They had to be very cultured people. And the criticism that I see, the Prophet's criticism of democracy, is that it ends up with Vaishyas and Shudras being in charge instead of Brahmins and Kshatriyas.

And I think what we would want to reflect on is how could that be guaranteed that those who are voted into a position have properly demonstrated their qualifications in other words you'd have a process of preliminary qualification and then maybe voting for them amongst those who have proven their qualification. I don't know. That makes sense.

Some way to overcome what we have seen, and I think we really did see this in America, where you had someone being voted as the leader of the whole country, who, I mean, in so many ways was really not qualified for the post. He just, you know, he just was not qualified. He was a Vaishya at best.

And I mean, aside from his other characteristics, it's very, the fact that he became, anyway, that's a whole another story. I think that's a big subject. But this question about this Chinese system, was it for the administrators or the politicians? Because even in India, there is an elaborate system of examination for the administrators.

But there's no such thing for the politicians, actually. Yeah, I mean, you didn't have politicians as such in China, you had rulers. And I don't know to what extent the examination system went up.

I think it was, as you say, mainly for administration. But what occurs to me is that such a system, if properly developed, could include also the, yeah, what we now call the politicians, they need to show their qualification. One thing I've seen, it's maybe just accidental, but I noticed some years ago that it was quite common that politicians in the country of Austria, which is next to Germany, it's a small country.

But it seemed quite common that I would see in posters when we were traveling, preaching in Austria, when an election was coming up, you'd see the posters of the competing politicians. And many of them had the title of doctor. They had some, you know, educational higher qualification.

Interesting. Now we have the first lady in America has a PhD in education. Yeah.

And there was an interesting exchange on the New York Times, I read that someone was putting her down, that she was not identifying herself in that way. And then there was a huge reaction against the critic as being, you know, sort of misogynist and whatever else. So I thought that's interesting that now it's kind of been accepted, okay, yes, actually, she is, you know, educated person, we respect that.

Yeah, it seems that at least in America, quite often when people have a doctorate, which is not a medical doctorate, they put it as a PhD after the name. They don't always put it like a doctor before. That's why I think the controversy was there.

Normally, when you introduce yourself, would you call yourself as Dr. Kenneth Valpy? Or just how do you put it? If you have a PhD? It depends very much on the context. In general, I would say we don't. We don't use either.

You know, it's just kind of understood. You have the degree, but it depends on a, you know, in your signature line, you'll have it and so on. But if you see a book, hmm, you know, you see a lot of self help books, and there will be some psychologists.

And on the front cover will be his name. Dr. So and so or else so and so PhD. You know, immediately that that is not an academic book.

Really? That's fascinating. Okay. So if you had to because an academic book, you would never put your title on the on the front.

That's fascinating. So it's presumed that you will be having a title if you had to put it. That means there's something something odd over there.

Yeah. That's interesting. Okay.

Now I think about it, none of the books I have seen, you put that PhDs. There's a straight name is there. Yeah.

That's true. Anyway, to conclude, so just that last point is, is Parashuram is, we will probably talk about this in the future avatars. He's among the few avatars who appears in along with many other avatars.

He will appear with Ram, he will appear with Krishna. And yeah, I don't think he appears with Kalki, but it said that he's still living. Yeah.

So maybe we'll revisit him in a future discussion, Maharaj. Yes. Parashuram is always with us.

Somehow he is not worshipped so much as a protector like Narasimhadeva is. Narasimhadeva is fears, Parashuram is also fears. But maybe Parashuram doesn't have one particular devotee.

So the devotee cannot identify so much with, like we can identify with Praladan's prayers. Parashuram doesn't have one particular devotee. Yes, Maharaj.

Apparently, Renuka is worshipped more in South India. Oh, is it? I don't know. But there are shrines to Renuka.

That's fascinating. Yeah, I was just before I talk, I was googling Parashuram temples. There are a few, but not a large number.

Certainly nowhere near, say, Ram or Krishna. Yes, Maharaj. No, of course not.

So should I try to summarize, Maharaj? Please do. You're an expert. How much we can.

So we started today by discussing about, you started with the Dasavatar Sutra and how Jayadeva Goswami seems to be the, his introduction is almost emphasizing the greatness of the Lord through Dasavatar and then he goes into sweetness. So the different mood which he sets over there and he is the person who seems to have popularized the idea of Dasavatar and popularized this particular list as the primary ten avatars. And then we discussed how there's a glorification of violence and we try to understand it from different perspectives.

So you discussed, I talked about rivers of blood and you say heads, rivers of blood flowing and heads rolling as you said. So there is a celebratory tone towards the violence. So then it's not exactly horror.

Is it virya? It is, maybe it's depicting the heroism of the warriors. And then we discussed the context. Here the Kshatriyas have become brutal to some extent and when the protectors become predators.

Then we discussed three other incidents also. Like Arjuna showering, Arjuna causing rivers of blood when Jaidat is to be reached and the whole Kaurava army is in between. Then that is of course celebrated and it's just caused because Abhimanyu has been killed.

Then you talk about Ashwatthama. That time also there is a lot of brutal violence but then that is talked about in a, it is considered reprehensible in the epic itself and he is cursed for that. So that is, if any violence in the epics is comparable to say modern terrorist religious violence, it would be Ashwatthama's kind of killing.

And then the Khandava killing is, it seems to be anti-environment but then if you see the bigger picture that there are demoniac beings over there who are being removed. Then we talked about violence as a part of the cultural, the violence is described in the epics but along with that if you look at the broader context then there is somebody who seems to be the aggressor but the actual aggression started with someone else and we discussed that in terms of Parshuram's killing of the Kshatriyas later. So then we started the story with this Sage Richika and how there was the exchange of the oblations because of which Gadi's daughter Satyavati, she got a grandson who would be a Kshatriya.

So through Jamadagini Kshatriya was born and then you mentioned the point about how two things that there is overreaction to Renuka's mistake. So and that seems to be, Jamadagini has just instructed Parshuram to be forgiving after he killed Karthikar Arjuna and then he himself seems to be unforgiving. So we discussed in general, it seems that it was, it seems to be the ethical codes were quite strict against women.

So I talked about the Ahalya story, how there was a moment of weakness on her part, you mentioned. In Israel there was a stoning of women for adultery. Then as mentioned about how eventually like say some characters might be portrayed in unflattering roles to glorify some other characters.

So this might be less a sort of anger of Jamadagini as a glorification of the presence of mind and his, of Parshuram and his faith in his father's prowess. Then we talked about how Parshuram goes about killing the 21 generations. We said you could take it literally or in a different perspective and it was a striking correlation that you made that Prabhupada said we should study from all angles of view.

And so literal could be one angle and other angles could be there also. And then you quoted that academic scholar who says that Parshuram represents at an extreme level the inner conflict within the Brahmanas who at one level want to be just renounced doing meditation and yoga, but then they are also priests who have to do animal sacrifices. And so in that sense the tension which is there, that may express itself sometimes.

So one expression of that is here in terms of Parshuram killing. But then even when he kills, both occasions, first he does atonement, second time he does atonement. So although that, so even though he is killing, we could say it is, it is righteous, it is to some extent righteous because Kartiveer Darjun's sons did not really stop.

They killed his father and then they killed his brother. They were brutal. So he had to rid the world of them.

But still there is a recognition that this is not to be done excessively. So if he has gone excessively, he does atonement. And then you talk about Samantapanchak and then in Kurukshetra seems to be a reenactment of the same fight that is there.

And there talked about how instead of the sacrificial offering going up through Agni, it is going down to the earth, in this case in the form of blood. And then, so the earth is both benign as well as harsh in some situations. And then that also can be related to the Bhagavad Gita, verse 424, about the whole yajna being in various forms.

Then we talked about, you said the Upanishads manifest the internalization of violence in the form of austerities and then… The internalization of the sacrifice, they usually say. So internalization of the sacrifice and then, so the violence is manifested in the form of austerities. And then in Sankirtan, so Sankirtan is also the form of sacrifice this time.

So where is the sacrifice, where is the violence over here? So you could say it is the violence in terms of the killing of the impurities within the heart. So just as gold gets purified, a lot of Chaitanya is told by Nityananda that you are the killer of not demons but demoniac desires. And then we had this brief reflection about… I think you mentioned the Chinese in two different contexts.

First was earlier about the limits of obedience. So was Parshuram being like uncritically, blindly obedient to his father, was Ram being blindly obedient to Dashrath? So we discussed that aspect. And then later you mentioned about checks and balances.

So here, if kings go bad, they had, we could say, supernatural intervention either by Brahmanas having mystical powers or invoking the higher beings including Supreme Lord. So when we don't have that, a system with some human checks and balances may be reasonable. But then you made the point was that it's not so much after a person comes to power to have checks and balances.

More important is before the person comes to power, can there be some means of training so that they have some qualifications? So then we discussed about Chinese system briefly about having exams. And when there is qualification training, then there is lesser likelihood of maybe the person, the king ruler going bad. And then we concluded by talking about how Parshuram is avatar who will appear along with the future avatars also, among the few avatars like that.

Any points you want to add or anything I left out, Maharaj? No, I think you covered everything. We might just end by inviting whoever is listening and watching to think about how you might compose a prayer to Lord Parshuram. What would be your way of glorifying Parshuram and what kind of blessing would you want to have from Lord Parshuram? That's a beautiful thought.

Actually, I never thought of it. This time you started with a prayer and you're also ending with a prayer. So the thought that came in my mind is something maybe you could also say that it's something like whatever power we have, we all have the tendency to abuse that power.

The Kshatriyas are abusing that power. So I can say that I have some intellectual ability. I would tend to abuse that to put down other devotees or to put down those who don't agree with me.

So you can pray that he destroy those tendencies within us to abuse whatever power we have. Very good. And next time we meet, we can look forward to discussing Lord Rama, Ramachandra.

Who in some ways I think of as just the opposite of Parshuram. Oh, I never thought like that. Yes.

He's an actual Kshatriya, but he has this sublimely sweet nature. Yeah. Oh, that way.

Yes. Kshatriya with immense restraint, although he fights, but his grace and restraint amidst adversity. That's what defines him.

Yes. It's dramatically opposite. Yeah.

Yes. I look forward to that. Thank you very much for your association.

Thank you. And the churning of the Bhagavatam, meditating on the Lord's various manifestations. Thank you.