What happens to demigods when yajna is stopped?

From: Gadhadhar Pandit Group

Are they like tax collectors, who has their own salary & the offerings of yajna is just the tax (which is their additional perks)? Because during the reign of Hiranyakashipu it is said that demigods were starving. Please clarify.

Transcript

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Question from Gadadhar Pandit group of devotees from Skanpune What happens to demigods when yajna is stopped? Are they like tax collectors who have their own salary and the offering of yajna is just the tax which is their additional perk? Because during the reign of Hrindikashipu it is said that demigods were starving Please clarify Answer The demigods are representatives of Krishna and just like the cabinet ministers who are representing the government get their primary subsistence from the government Similarly demigods they get their nourishment in their life and their position by the arrangement of the supreme lord Indra drinks Soma and there are many delicacies that are there to be enjoyed over there. So it’s not that Indra’s diet is the yajna that are performed on this Mithya Loka Indra’s diet is opulently provided for him in Swarga and so same applies to all the demigods Now regarding the 7th canto references about the demigods condition when Hrindikashipu tried to disrupt the yajnas, there are several points to be considered First is that all the speech over there saying that if we disrupt all the sacrifices over here then the demigods will be weakened and eventually the idea that Vishnu will die and then Hrindikashipu’s plan, then I will become immortal and I will take revenge against Hiranyaksha revenge for Hiranyaksha’s death Now all this is being spoken in a machoistic mood by Hrindikashipu Hrindikashipu may be a scholar but he is not a Vaishnavacharya and he is speaking to his demon associates to inspire them to fight So what he is speaking over there is not essentially accurate reflection of cosmic economics It is said that the demigods were distressed the specific word is that they were distressed and they came to see what was happening So why are they distressed? For two reasons, one is that to some extent as the administrators who are representing the supreme lord it is their business to make sure that order is maintained and if the order is not maintained then they get disrupted and the second is that they are the persons who are honored through the yajnas so the yajna is an expression of affection and honor for the demigods just like say an a cake is cut on somebody’s birthday the cake may involve offering some food but when the food is offered through the medium of the cake, the cake is not the main diet of the person and the person is not going to die if the cake is not given to him so what is given specifically the cake is important but what is more important is what is conveyed through the giving of the cake what is conveyed is the idea of affection so affection and gratitude is what is conveyed to the devatas by the performance of yajna and second, so yajna involves it is said that when the when the proper sacrificial fire is ignited with the right ingredients and the right chanting of the mantras, the demigods come and accept the sacrificial offerings now it is not that they are practically drinking the smoke or something like that it is the offering is subtle and the essence of the offering is the expression of affectionate gratitude so in one sense the yajnas are like the preliminary stage of bhakti there is of course glorification of the devatas also which is done at that time by chanting of the appropriate mantras and that indicates the spheres of bhakti, it is not fully developed bhakti because the primary focus is not to develop a relationship with the demigods, the primary focus is to just get their gifts on a regular basis bhakti is centered on developing a relationship with the supreme lord, now moving forward for the demigods it is also a matter of honor to get the yajna performed for them, so just like when an incense or a diya is offered to welcome or honor somebody now in one sense some guest comes to the yajna, Maharaj comes then we may offer some flowers and sometimes the spiritual master comes on special occasions like the aarti may be performed also now the aarti is an expression of honor of offering one’s respect now it is not that the person’s livelihood or food is dependent on that, but his honor is involved, so the yajna is performed in a way that offers an honor to the devatas apart from this if we look at the other pastimes of Srimad Bhagavatam we will clearly see that when a particular devata is not given his share of yajna then that is not a food crisis for the devata, it is more of an ego crisis, and the typical example is Indra when the govardhan puja was not performed for him, he became angry not because that was going to create a shortage in his food govardhan it was a dishonor that he felt, that’s why he became angry, similarly when in the fourth canto we see that Dakshayani the wife of Lord Shiva Sati saw that affection of the sacrifice was not offered to her lord Lord Shiva, she felt it a great dishonor and she felt so mortified by that that she wanted to give up her body and her concern for giving up her body was not that her husband was starving to death her concern was that actually speaking it was a intolerable feeling for her to continue her life while seeing her husband dishonored, and therefore she felt that in such a case death was preferable to that dishonor and going further in the Chaitanya Charita Amrit Srila Prabhupada quotes in chapter 22 it is said that because Krishna was constantly performing various types of sacrifices and was inviting the demigods from the higher planetary system, the demigods were mostly coming to the earth to receive the sacrifices and so the demigods wives felt bereaved of their husband dissociation and therefore the demigod wives started praying to Buddha to appear quickly so that Buddha stops the sacrifices and when Buddha stops the sacrifices then their husbands will not go and when their husbands don’t go then they will have the association of their husbands so now that means their wives considered their husbands going to attend the sacrifices as a cumbersome botheration and they did not consider that if our husbands don’t go there they will starve to death or we will starve to death and Srila Prabhupada specifically adds over there also that if people ask why the demigods from the higher planetary system don’t come here so Srila Prabhupada says that because Yajna is no longer performed over here since the time of Buddha’s appearance and his deprecation of Yajna to avoid the unnecessary killing of animals since that time Srila Prabhupada says that demigods do not care to come here anymore Srila Prabhupada uses the word demigods do not care to come here that means it’s not necessary for them to come it’s not that it’s a matter of life or death for them to come it was out of their kindness that they used to come and accept the Yajnik offerings from us and in fact when Dashrath Maharaj performed Yajna in the Ramayana it is described that actually if the demigods come and visibly accept the offerings that is considered to be the greatest honor and if they don’t come visibly then also the sacrifice can be considered successful if the Brahmanas are actually able to see by the subtle vision that the demigods have accepted the offerings but if they come visibly and give their darshan that is considered most auspicious so again the indication is that there is a possibility that demigods may not come and accept the offerings and sacrifice also so in that sense the demigods are not absolutely bound by their very survival instinct to come for the sacrifices so then also the question will arise if we have to argue that demigods are dependent on sacrificing the earth then in Kali Yuga practically no sacrifices are being performed then are the demigods starving to death? no Sri Prabhupada says they do not care to come therefore when we see one section in scripture we have to first of all see who is speaking and what is the context in which it is being spoken and then look at other similar sections and see how this particular statement fits in the broader context so here in the Kshatriya school statements that the demigods and even Vishnu will die now obviously Vishnu is immortal he will never die but the demigods will be weakened and die is just a rhetorical statement made to inspire his demon associates to go all out and disrupt the yagyas it is not a statement of factual reality that reflects the cosmic economics