The ninth canto contains many stories of shocking debauchery by sages such as Brihaspati – what is their point?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Jai Krishna one is that the Bhagavatam is is both transcendental and chronological it is transcendental in the sense that it is meant to help help Parikshit Maharaj remember Krishna but from the third canto onwards roughly from the third canto 11th, 12th chapters the Bhagavatam can also be read as the history of the universe within one day of Brahma so the Bhagavatam from the 3rd canto to the 7th canto is Swayambhu Manu then after that in the 8th canto there is a quick rapid moving forwards and 7 Manus are described over there in a very short and then in the 8th canto onwards till the end it is Vaivasat Manu that is described and currently Vaivasat Manu is going on so while this is happening what the Bhagavatam does is it is not describing exhaustively the history it is describing not everything that happened in Swayambhu Manu’s life it is describing highlights and usually the highlights centre on the descent of the Lord so in Swayambhu Manu’s he had a daughter named Devahuti and she had a son named Kapila and then Kapila’s story goes into very long almost his teachings go for several chapters so essentially the Bhagavatam is giving a chronology but with a divine focus and while describing that chronology sometimes the Bhagavatam also refers to some other stories in passing ok in this kalpa this also happened this also happened so it is a linear narrative and sometimes as a part of the linear narrative some things are mentioned which are not the emphasis but they are mentioned just to maintain the linearity of the narrative in this Manu’s period this does happen and some stories are just mentioned quickly over there, that’s one point the second point is that some of these stories are meant to illustrate how even great souls can get deviated from the principles of dharma so even a person like Brahaspati who is a great sage he might also get carried away by passion so like that the lower modes can influence anyone and everyone even people who are considered very great they can also be influenced that is what is illustrated through these pastimes and a third understanding especially the ninth canto it is explained that the ninth canto just comes before the tenth canto and in the tenth canto the transcendental pastimes of Radha Krishna are going to be talked about and they are actually at one level very similar to male-female interactions but at another level they are actually completely transcendental so in order to ensure that people do not misunderstand Radha Krishna’s pastimes to be like mundane lust the canto before the canto where those pastimes are described that canto repeatedly describes the ravages caused by lust so there is Shaubhari Muni’s story, there is Iyati’s story, there is Brihaspati’s story the point of all these stories is that the mundane passions like lust especially how much adharma they can cause and how cautious one has to be so before entering into the tenth canto, in the ninth canto there is repeated warning that is given that warning is there throughout in the Bhagavatam in one sense but it is through stories and through very strong emphasis that is given in the ninth canto before the tenth canto Radha Krishna pastime we are talking about so in and of themselves these pastimes may not seem very purposeful but seen in the context, both the chronological context and the thematic context thematic context is to focus on Krishna Leela from that point of view these pastimes serve