Why did Lord Rama kill the shudra Shambuka for doing the pious activity of tapasya?

Transcript

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Question- Why did Lord Ram kill the Shudra Shambhuka for doing the pious activity of Tapasya? Answer- Firstly, not all Tapasya is pious.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna talks in 17th chapter of how even austerity can be in the three modes. It can be in goodness, passion and ignorance. And the examples of austerity where one tortures one’s body for just some political or social or material purposes, Krishna calls that austerity as demoniac.
So, we should not think that just because somebody is fasting that in itself is pious or religious or spiritual in any way. What makes the activity spiritual or even pious is the motivation. So, there are demons who perform a lot of austerity and that does not make them pious.
Ravana and Narakasura, all of them perform austerities. So, that’s the first point. Just because somebody is doing Tapasya, that is not pious.
Now, let’s look at the specifics of the incident over here. So, the story of Shambhuka comes in the Uttarkand of the Ramayana. So, one day when Lord Ram, Lakshman, Sita are all living in the city of Ayodhya happily, suddenly a Brahmin comes along with his dead son and starts screaming, blaming the Lord and then Lakshman comes out and says, what is the matter? And he says, see my son has died and it indicates that when the son has died before the father, that indicates there is something wrong.
Because in normal order, the older person should die first. And as far as I know, I have never committed sinful activities. Therefore, the fact that my son has died indicates that there is something wrong in the kingdom.
And something is wrong in the kingdom, that means the king is responsible. So, the king is responsible for the death of my son. So, Lakshman goes back and reports this to Lord Ram.
And then Lord Ram, at that time Narad Muni is there, he consults him. Lord Ram asks Narad Muni what could be the cause of this. And Narad Muni replies that, by his mystic vision he says, that someone in the kingdom is doing some activity which is not according to Shastra.
And it is actually disturbing the cosmic order. And because of that activity being done by that person, this Brahmin son has died. Immediately Lord Ram starts searching all over the kingdom.
And finally he comes to the bank of a river, where he sees a person who is performing severe austerity and is looking somewhat effulgent. And he asks him, who are you and what are you doing? He says that, I am a Shudra named Shambuka and I am performing austerity to attain heaven. And he says that, I want to attain heaven and I want to attain the post of Indra and thereby take his power.
So, Ramayan says that as soon as Lord Ram hears this, a sword comes, he takes out a sword and immediately cuts off the head of Shambuka. So, as soon as Lord Ram cuts off the head of Shambuka, at that time the dead son of the Brahmin comes back to life. And then the celestial residents also glorify Lord Ram for stopping this disturbance to the cosmic order.
So, now unfortunately this story has been used or abused in casteist terms. So, Lord Ram is said to be a Kshatriya and Shambuka is said to be a Shudra. And let’s see how the Kshatriyas oppress the Shudras.
Such a interpretation is purely self-serving and it entirely neglects the broad context of the story. So, now from our point of view, we may feel, what harm was that person doing? And even he was just doing some austerity and why should he be killed for doing austerity? But if we actually want to be intellectually honest in trying to understand the story, then we have to look at it in its full context. So, the Vedic culture implicitly recognizes that there is much more to the universe than what we perceive with our senses.
That there are subtle factors, there are subtle forces and there are higher personalities who are also interacting with the human realm and interacting with each other. And humans are not just the single conscious creatures who live on this planet or in the universe at large as modern metallurgy science thinks. But they share the universe and its citizenship with many other levels of being who live at different hierarchies in the universe.
And humans have to participate in the universal government according to their level in the cosmic hierarchy. And if humans don’t follow their role in the cosmic hierarchy, not only are they violating the cosmic order by doing what they are not meant to do, but they are also creating a disturbance for the whole cosmic order. Now, in a simple sense, we can say that we human beings have slowly started discovering that we can’t just play with the earth the way we want to.
That the whole phenomenon of climate change is making us realize that we just can’t indiscreetly keep exploiting the sources of the earth for our own purposes. Because in doing so, we disrupt the balances of nature. So just as we humans have begun to recognize now that we are not the sole player in the cosmos and that we have to cooperate with the setting of broader forces that operate in the cosmos.
Otherwise, we harm the planet and we harm ourselves in the long run. So the Vedic culture extends this understanding to a much broader level. And we see not just the earth, but the universe.
And not just the universe, but the various personalities are in charge of the various parts of the universe. And beyond that, the Supreme Lord is transcendental in the spiritual world beyond all universes. So all these form an interrelated and intertwining and interacting system of cosmic order.
So if we look at the full story, the essential point is not that Shambhuka was killed, but that the cosmic order was disrupted. So again, this story is used by those who want to launch a tirade, tirade means a criticism of caste system procedure. Just for the sake of a Brahmin’s son, Ashwadra was killed.
But let’s look at it again. What is described in the Ramayana is that as soon as Shambhuka was killed, the Brahmin’s son came back to life. Now would we experience something like this in our experience? No, because in different ages, the earth and its interactions, its mode of interactions with other aspects of the cosmos varies.
So if we look at the totality of the story, then it indicates that the cosmic order was disrupted and that had to be restored. So if we say that, oh, this idea that there is some sort of cosmic order like this and that is being disrupted, that is all mythological. Well, then treat the story of Shambhuka being killed also mythologically.
Why take only that part of the story and not the remaining story? That actually a Brahmin’s son had died and the Brahmin’s son came back to life after Shambhuka was killed. And even more than that, we have to understand that the dynamics in the Ramayana are entirely different. Imagine today somebody’s son dies and that person goes to the Prime Minister of India and says, because my son has died before me, therefore he ought to be blamed.
The Prime Minister will dismiss that person as a crackpot. But neither Lakshman nor Narad Ram nor Narad Bhumi even consider that possibility while interacting with the Brahmana and evaluating his accusation. Yes, something is wrong with the government.
That’s what the institutional conclusion was. That means the whole Ramayana is talking about an entirely different system of social order based on Dharma and the subtle factors that either contribute to or militate against that cosmic order. So, now the subsequent commentators on the Ramayana have described that this Shambhuka as he himself says that he wants to do austerity and attain heavens.
So, in the Vedic culture, the idea is that everybody’s progress is in a hierarchy. So, Shudra, by doing his duties properly, can move upwards in the hierarchy to become Vaishya and then a Kshatriya and then a Brahmana. And gradually he can advance upwards.
But if somebody, just by the sheer force of raw austerity, wants to usurp a higher position and disrupt the cosmic order and the fact that this is a serious violation of the cosmic order is indicated by the fact that somebody’s son died because of that. So, the dynamics of the cosmic order and its interaction with the actions of the human beings was very different at that time. And if we really think that Lord Ram was casteist, then let us look at Lord Ram’s dealings with Guha.
Guha was not even a Shudra. He was lower than a Shudra. He was a Nishada.
The caste Nishada, actually the tribe Nishada is an integral form in the caste system. But then that Nishada, Guha was treated very lovingly by Lord Ram and Guha loved Lord Ram. So, what does that mean? That means that the Lord had no ulterior casteist motivations in killing anybody or embracing anybody.
His motive is that he has come to establish Dharma. And in this particular situation, establishment of Dharma required the killing of someone who was disrupting that order. So, in the Vedic system, as far as the Yajna, Dāna, Tapakarma are concerned, they are restricted in their access for everyone.
Because these often give material power and material power can be abused by people. Just as in our society now we have the concern that anybody and everybody should not get nuclear power. So, certain religiously fanatical countries, if they get Muslim power, if hardline Islamic countries like Iran, if they get nuclear power, they may use it for disrupting the whole world order.
And now America and Europe, they are all concerned about this. So, the idea here is similar in the Ramayana, that those who are irresponsible, if they get material power, they may abuse it. And that will be to the detriment of the whole society at large.
So, the Vedic culture surely restricts access to material power according to one’s capacity to use it properly. So now, because Shambhuka was doing austerity, does that mean that he is qualified? Actually, austerity has been performed by demons also. And this demon’s capacity to do austerity does not indicate any special nobility.
It is the purpose for doing austerity that indicates nobility. So, he clearly says that I want to attain heaven and absorb the position of Indra. And eventually, of course, what does Indra do? He wants to enjoy with the Apsaras and wife of Indra and all those things fall over there.
So, because he is disrupting social order, that’s why he was punished by Lord Rama. But at the same time, even in Vedic culture, although it restricts everyone’s access to material power, it does not restrict people’s access to devotional advancement. So, yes, the Yajnadan Tapa is sometimes restricted for some people depending on their Adhikar, their capacity to use it properly.
But as far as Bhakti is concerned, that is open for everyone. And that’s why we have Lord Rama befriending and embracing and expressing his affection to an outcast person like Guha. And we also have the example of Lord Rama accepting the fruits, the berries offered by Shabari.
And Shabari, according to some commented in the Ramayana, it is very clear that she is not exactly a high caste lady. She certainly did austerity. And what was her austerity? Her austerity was not to assert somebody else’s position, but her austerity was to serve her Guru.
And by faithful service to her Guru and by her heartfelt devotion to the Lord, she herself offered berries which she had chewed and eaten. And Lord Rama accepted that. Shabari datta phala shana Rama.
The Ramayana says Shabari gave phala shana. Lord Rama accepted them. So if we look firstly at the broader situation in which this particular event of Shambhuka happens, and also if we look at the full Ramayana, we will see clearly that its concerns are far beyond the narrow casteist agendas or anti-casteist agendas that the critics of Lord Rama and Ramayana have.
Its concerns are the maintenance of the cosmic order and its concern is also the facilitation of transcendence of that cosmic order and attainment of the spiritual world through the process of bhakti. And when we see this broader context, then we understand that what Lord Rama did was for the protection of the cosmic order. And if such a person like Shambhuka, without guna, he may just do the karma.
He is doing the karma of austerity, but unless he has the guna of virtue, that power which he gets through his austerity, he will use it to harm others and eventually by doing bad karma, he will harm himself. So, therefore, the Lord protected Indra at one level, protected Brahmin son at another level, protected Shambhuka also at another level. And that is why there is absolutely nothing wrong.
And Svargata Shambhuka comes to the Ramayana. It is described that Lord Rama is actually praised for this activity. Thank you.