Why did Bhaktivinoda Thakura write a controversial book like Krishna Samhita?

Why did Bhaktivinoda Thakura write a controversial book like Krishna Samhita in which he gave a non-literal meaning to the Bhagavatam chronology, cosmology and geography?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question, why did Bhaktivinoda Thakur write a book like Krishna Samhita which contains elements that are contrary to our philosophy such as giving a relatively recent deeting of the Vedic literature and giving a non-literal understanding of Vedic cosmology and non-literal understanding of the hells and heavens as well as the demons in Krishna Deela how can an Acharya teach something that is not in accordance with the philosophy that we have received in the parampara? Answer, Bhaktivinoda Thakur actually did not teach anything that is contrary to philosophy because he did not write that as his only book and he did not even in Krishna Samhita say that he accepts this what he says in Krishna Samhita very clearly is that this is also one way that this can be understood for those who can’t accept the literal understanding of cosmology and the demons in Krishna Deela and the chronology that is given in the Vedic literature this is also one way that can be used to understand it he doesn’t say that he accepts it in fact he says that I prefer I accept the traditional understanding and and in the 1870s he published the first time Krishna Samhita then later on in the 20th century in 1907 or something like that time published a second edition of the second print of the Krishna Samhita and that time he gave a substantial footnotes which made it very clear if at all it was unclear in the previous edition to some people that he personally preferred accepted the traditional understanding but he also accommodated non-literal understanding for those who could not take up the literal understanding now can acharya do like that well the defining principle of Krishna consciousness whether it is individual practice or whether it is public outreach somehow or other fix the mind on Krishna so therefore we see throughout our Gaudiya history there have been acharyas who have according to time place circumstance presented the philosophy highlighting some aspects downplaying certain other aspects so once Shrila Prabhupada was asked by some devotees in Hawaii you know how do we and when we try to tell the scholars that there were so many millions and millions of people living in Dwarka and that Narayana Gurusen had millions of bodyguards and then they start laughing and they say how is it practically possible where were their where would they live where were their toilets where are the space for all this so now Shrila Prabhupada gave a surprising answer to this he said among all the 18,000 verses of the Bhagavatam is that the only thing that you found to tell the scholars about that how many bodyguards this Ugrasen have Shrila Prabhupada said you find out something which they can accept and help them to elevate themselves in Krishna consciousness so the point here is that the Vedic literature contain a lot of things and we need to teach we share knowledge according to the Adhikar according to the level of the people so we ourselves applied in many ways for us our own lives and in our outreach also now the scriptures say that the holy name and Krishna are not different from each other or the deity of Krishna are not different from each other now do all of us accept 100% in our hearts that the deity is not different from Krishna we may say yes but we don’t really understand the implication of this statement some of us may also have doubts about it so does that mean that we cannot come and take darshan of the deity or we can’t chant the holy names no not at all we may still worship the deity and gradually we will make some spiritual advancement by that so Bhaktivinoda Thakur again in his Jaiva Dharma and other places in his books he explains that the deity can be perceived at different levels by different people he says some people who are completely materialistic in their consciousness they may see the deity just as stone those are more advanced they may see the deity as nidarshan nidarshan is an indicator a pointer they say okay this is not actually God but this is helpful for me to remember God and then other at a others who are at a more high evolved level of consciousness they may see that deity is actually non-different from Krishna so he says that whether we consider the deity as an indicator or a pointer to Krishna as a direct manifestation of Krishna it’s okay if we just consider the deed to be stone then there is no spiritual advancement so he accepts that lower level also and certainly so many people come to our temples they may or may not accept the deity as Krishna but they take darshan they chant the holy names although they may not accept that the holy name is non-different from Krishna they’ll get purified the idea is somehow or other get people to fix their mind on Krishna so now in our Sampradaya our Acharyas have explained based on Shastra how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Sabhavatar Sarasivaraman he is not just an incarnation of God he is nonsense essence of all incarnations now what do we do if many people who come initially to Krishna Mahaprabhu can’t have their faith that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is God they may accept Krishna as God but they may not accept Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as God then do we have to tell them that anybody say somebody may quote from some Purana somewhere may or may not be there somebody who anybody who sees any difference between Gaurachandra and Krishnachandra that person is going to burn the fires of Kumbhipak for the rest of eternity this is absurd in fact if you look carefully what our Acharyas have said is the concept of offenses whether it be to the holy name or to the deity is only for practitioners non-practitioners to a large extent because they don’t know the glory of the Lord the concept of offenses doesn’t directly apply to them it doesn’t apply with at least as much gravity as it applies to those who are practitioners so we need to so we can always tell people that okay even if you don’t accept Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as God fine you can accept Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as a great saintly personality and if you read his life you can clearly see that he was God intoxicated God maddened practically speaking so so if somebody can accept Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as a great devotee and a great spiritual teacher and based on that understanding also starts chanting the names of Krishna practicing devotional service gradually that person’s faith will evolve and then that person will be able to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as Krishna as God so similarly if somebody doesn’t is not able to accept the cosmological or the chronological or other seemingly supernatural aspects that are given in Srimad Bhagavatam that person can still chant the holy names can still try to practice the process of bhakti yoga and the person will make some spiritual advancement and as the spiritual advancement takes place as the person sees for himself or herself that this process is benefiting me this process is purifying me this process works therefore this knowledge is valid and therefore if this knowledge this transcendental part of the knowledge is valid even this material part seemingly material part of the knowledge or at least what seems material like cosmology chronology and geography this may also not just be nonsense there might be some meaning in it and it might be something which the science doesn’t know or it might be at a different level of perception from what the perception that modern material scientists have so therefore if we cannot demand absolute faith in everything as a starting condition for bhakti and acharyas at different time and circumstances can decide which aspect of scripture needs to be emphasized which aspect of scripture can be downplayed and by that people can be attracted to Krishna’s lotus feet so this is something which is the discretion of the acharyas based on their own transcendental insight and the guidance of the super soul in their hearts so Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur did not compromise the philosophy he presented the philosophy in a way that people could understand it the ninth offense we say is to instruct a faithless people in the glory of the holy name now in one sense everybody is faithless in Kalyuga then should we not speak the glories of the holy name no the essential import of this offense against the holy name is that we should not speak those aspects of the holy name or the overall philosophy of Krishna consciousness for which people don’t have faith right now so just as we don’t teach triple integral calculus to a junior KG student no we don’t talk about the necessarily talk about the cosmological chronological supernatural aspects of the to people who are just beginning to believe in the existence of God and the understanding that that God is Krishna so therefore according to time-place circumstance we can understand what has to be focused and what has to be downplayed of course we may require a lot of experience to do this but the acharyas because of their spiritual maturity and preaching experience can understand this so Srila Prabhupada gave a simple example to understand this point that even when an acharya is speaking an acharya may speak something that based on contextual examples and those contextual examples may not necessarily be eternally true the principles that are being exemplified by those examples will be true but the example themselves may not be true Srila Prabhupada gave the example that if you take one point you can draw many many lines through that point but if you take two points you can draw only one line through that point if we have three points you can draw only one line again so he says that’s way if we take the words of one acharya then the words of one acharya can be interpreted in many ways and different people may get different understandings different people may understand differently what is more important what is related less important the acharya’s words also but if we look at the word of the current acharya we look at the words of the previous acharya those are like two points and we try to see what is the common thread between them then we will get the essential message the parampara has given us so that’s why those who try to approach Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s work without going through Srila Prabhupada and Bhaktivinoda Thakur they misunderstand Bhaktivinoda Thakur so we need to understand Bhaktivinoda Thakur through those who have understood him through his own son and the seven and the great ray of Vishnu and through that spiritual through his spiritual grand disciple or great grand disciple Srila Prabhupada so when we go through our acharyas to the previous acharyas then we get a proper understanding but this point remains that different acharyas will either downplay or highlight certain things depending on time place circumstance but the underlying unifying unchanging principle is to encourage people to begin the process of Krishna Consciousness to begin the process of spiritual advancement and there is a certain amount of freedom and license for this by the enakena prakarena that is there in Bhaktivinoda Amritsundu as well as in the Padma Purana somehow or the other Manakrishna Nivesha it takes the mind on Krishna so the acharyas know how far this enakena prakarena license can be extended actually Prabhupada said at one time to some hippies if you’re told that I just can’t give up drinking was it fine when you’re drinking remember that Krishna is the taste of everything so you remember that even the taste of that liquor is Krishna and if you think in this way of Krishna then gradually you will become a great devotee of Krishna one day we may not find this particular point stated by the previous acharya but Srila Prabhupada stated that it’s based on Shastra this is not to be taken as a license for drinking wine to think of Krishna for everyone but for those who are anyway thinking of any other drinking wine they can connect their wine drinking with Krishna so enakena prakarena gives a substantial amount of freedom in how to present Krishna Pachadi what to emphasize what to downplay and our acharyas use that according to time, place and circumstance so what should we apply in our life we should and then first of all our understanding of philosophy should come through our founder Acharya Prime Minister Srila Prabhupada and if you look at previous Acharyas and if you find some things which seem to be a little difficult for us to understand in their teachings a little controversial or confusing then we have to draw that line and see what is the commonality between these various Acharyas then we will get the essential message the parampara is giving us