Why do the Puranas depict even the gods doing immoral things What kind of moral lesson is taught by that?

So now, moving on to the question about the Puranas. Yes, the Puranas can indeed be a confusing body of knowledge. Often, even exalted beings like the Devatas seem to act in morally questionable ways. Why is that?

In my understanding, three key factors are at play here.

1. Relatable Stories in Extraordinary Settings

The Puranas are filled with a multitude of stories that, while fantastical in terms of abilities and arenas, are deeply human in terms of emotions and dilemmas. Even the Devatas often behave like humans, making choices, facing temptations, and dealing with consequences.

As I’m writing in more detail in my upcoming book on the Ramayana, both the Ramayana and Mahabharata present characters with superhuman powers—shape-shifting, celestial weapons, and more. Their environments also seem extraordinary. However, what remains consistent is that every character, no matter how powerful, operates under certain constraints.

In today’s world, while we may have gained tremendous technological abilities, we too operate under limitations. And just like the characters in these texts, we make choices—and our choices have consequences.

2. Illustrating the Power of Maya Through Extremes

A recurring theme, especially in the Puranas, is the power of Maya (illusion). Even beings who are more powerful and virtuous than us are shown to succumb to temptation. These actions are not praised—in fact, they are often strongly condemned. But the primary focus is not to criticize the character, but to highlight the insidious potency of Maya.

It’s a cautionary lesson: if such elevated souls can fall prey to illusion, so can we. Therefore, everyone needs to be vigilant.

This leads us to a principle of effective storytelling and instruction: lessons are often best learned through extreme examples. Consider films that portray “common men”—they are usually portrayed by strikingly attractive actors. Or think of financial failures: if an ordinary person loses money, it’s not notable. But if a billionaire loses everything due to a poor investment, it becomes a striking lesson.

Similarly, when a highly respected Devata like Indra or Brahma falters, the lesson about vigilance against illusion becomes far more memorable and impactful.

3. Contextual Morality, Not Absolute or Relative

A long-standing debate in ethics is: is morality absolute or relative? For example, is lying always wrong? Or can it sometimes be the right thing to do?

Modern society leans increasingly towards moral relativism—what’s right for one may not be right for another. But even today, there are certain acts (like child abuse) that are universally condemned. Historical events like the Holocaust led to the recognition of moral absolutes—no excuse, including “following orders,” can justify mass murder.

In Vedic philosophy, morality is contextual, not entirely absolute nor wholly relative. There are universal principles, but their application must be understood in light of the context.

Thus, when the Devatas perform questionable actions, some may be contextualized, while others are simply wrong—and the tradition does not shy away from acknowledging that. However, the focus remains on learning from these events, not on permanently condemning the individuals involved.

Long-Term Perspective in Vedic Time

Another important point is the scale of time in which these stories unfold. The Puranas describe events across thousands or even millions of years—spanning different Yugas and Kalpas. If a police officer behaves inappropriately twice in a 40-year career, those incidents must be addressed, but we shouldn’t reduce the entire career to just those lapses.

Similarly, when we read about a Devata’s lapse, it must be seen in the broader context of their vast lifespan and service.

Summary of the Three Points:

1. Human-Like Choices in Superhuman Settings: The Puranas use relatable stories to show that even exalted beings face challenges, make choices, and deal with consequences.
2. Extreme Examples for Memorable Lessons: Stories of even powerful beings succumbing to Maya illustrate the universal danger of illusion and serve as cautionary tales.
3. Morality is Contextual: While some moral values are universal, their application is nuanced. The tradition acknowledges wrong actions, but emphasizes learning rather than lifelong condemnation.

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

So now, if we move on to the question about the Puranas. Yes, the Puranas can be a confusing body of knowledge. And often, people who are even supposed to be exalted, like the Devatas, may seem to, often seem to act in morally questionable ways.

So why is that? In my understanding, there are three different things going on over here. One is that the Puranas are, because there are a lot of stories, and often, it's a very humanly relatable setting. Even the Devatas, in many ways, behave like human beings.

See, what happens is, if you consider the stories, there are some similarities and some dissimilarities. I am writing this elaborately in my new book on the Ramayana. That Ramayana, the Mahabharata.

Now, what is it that is relevant in these books today? Because we will see that the abilities of some of these people are very different. They can change shape, and that can seem fantastical to us. And also the arenas, the places where they live, the description of those places can also seem far-fetched to us.

But what is common, so abilities and arenas are very different. But what is common is that everyone, no matter how powerful they may be, how many abilities they have, they operate under constraints. And today we have advanced technologically.

And we have lots of powers which people say a few hundred years didn't have. But we also have constraints. And then everybody is subject to the principle that they make choices and their choices have consequences.

So, what choices they made and what consequences they faced, that has been the focus of the tradition for us to learn from. Because they live in different arenas, they may have different constraints. The specific constraints may vary.

But they have constraints. And within those constraints, when they make choices, they have to deal with the consequences of the choices. Now, when we look at these texts, what is there for us to learn? That is to be seen broadly from a framework.

So that framework is this, that if we consider Indra's story, one of the key themes in the Vedas, sorry, in the Puranas, which is drawn from the Upanishads, is the power of Maya. And this power of Maya is illustrated through the fact that even beings more powerful than us, even more virtuous than us, can succumb to temptation, can succumb to illusion. And this, such actions are certainly not praised.

They are definitely seen as wrong. And sometimes they are strongly condemned. But more than condemning the characters themselves, the focus is on illustrating the potency of Maya.

That it is meant to be like a cautionary note for us, that if characters, like even these people, who have clearly done a lot of punya and have done a lot of virtue, that's how they have got to these positions. If even those characters can fall, then even we can fall. And therefore each one of us needs to be careful.

So that's the broad lesson. And now we could go into the specifics of some incidents to discuss the moral lapses and the moral dimensions of those lapses. But in general, that leads to another principle in teaching, is that generally lessons are best learned through extreme examples.

If, say, the movies showed, they may talk about the life of a common man, but actually the so-called common man will be a very good-looking hero, very good-looking heroine, that in general it is an ordinary story. If a person invested money and lost money, well, okay, it keeps happening. But if somebody was a billionaire, that person invested money and lost all of it.

Now that would actually be a signal tale that would have some emphasis that don't make bad investments, don't invest in fancy schemes, something like that. So in general, the more remarkable a character is, the more a lesson that is taught through that person's life becomes memorable. So the Puranas, in general, feature a drama that goes to the extreme.

So recently I was asked this question, is God accommodating or is God demanding? So is God very kind and is like a very liberal parent? Whatever you do is accommodating. Or is God demanding? So both is true, that God is accommodating in the sense that no matter how many mistakes we may have done, we are always given a chance. And God will always give us opportunities to turn towards Him.

So the story about that is that, say Ajamil, you probably know the story, Ajamil had done very sinful activities, but he chanted one name of Narayan, and that gave him a second chance and he saved his life. His life was saved through that. Now the same Bhagavatam, which is in the 6th Canto, has this story, has in the previous Canto, the 5th Canto, has the story which is almost the opposite.

So this Ajamil story shows how God is very accommodating. The Bharat Maharaj story in the 5th Canto shows how Bharat was a very successful and powerful king who in his youth renounced the world so that he could focus on spiritual pursuits. And then he got attracted to a deer, which was dying and he saved it.

Which is a good thing to do. But after that, he got caught in focusing on the deer, in caring for the deer. And then he died thinking about the deer and he became a deer.

So he had to go through two more lifetimes before he came to the human body and then he was elevated. So somebody has renounced the whole world and how could they fall for something like this? So the idea is that while Krishna will give us lots of support to help us turn towards him, to help us develop spiritual desire, but that spiritual desire is what we have to develop. Nobody else can develop the desire for us.

And if we develop some other desire, then we have to bear with the consequence. So both these are extremes. One exhibits the extreme of God's magnanimity, God's accommodating nature.

The other exhibits the extreme of what is required. Ultimately, if we desire anything other than God, what all we have done in the past, it doesn't matter. What is your desire now? We will go in that direction.

So the second point is that often lessons are given through extreme. And that's why if very respectable characters like Indra or Brahma, they come under maya, that becomes a very memorable lesson. Now the third point is that with respect to morality, there is a common question in ethics whether morality is absolute or is it relative.

So is lying bad? You can say it's bad. But can there be sometimes when it is not bad, when it is the right thing to lie? It's possible. So if you consider two extremes, morality is absolute or morality is relative.

So nowadays society is going more and more towards the idea that morality is relative. What is right for you? If you think it is right, it is right. But even in our society, there are some actions, like say child abuse or child sexual abuse, that is considered absolutely wrong.

So in modern history there are the Nuremberg trials where the Nazi generals were tried and some of them said that their defense was they were simply following orders. They were trained to follow orders and they were following orders. But then the idea came that are they responsible for killing several million Jews? The conclusion was that although they were following orders, we humans have to have a sense of morality by which there are some things which are absolute wrongs.

And killing innocent people, especially systematically killing, in the western historical memory, the Holocaust has a unique place because while there have been many genocides, many killings, but the Nazis brought industrial efficiency to mass murder and that had not been done before and that has not been done afterwards also. So my point is to say that morality is relative, none of us agrees to that if you go deeper into it. There are some things which even if you think you are right, they are not right, they are wrong.

We will see that. So the Vedic understanding of morality is contextual. It's not absolute, it's not relative.

There are aspects which are universal. At the same time we have to consider the context in which they are applied. So in the case of the Devatas, some of the actions which are… there is some level of context which can help us make sense of those actions.

But beyond that, there are actions which are clearly wrong and those wrong actions are condemned by the tradition. But they are used as more lessons for us to learn rather than statements about those characters themselves. So no matter how much wrong somebody has done, people are not condemned forever because of their actions.

And when we look at the Puranas, often they describe incidents that have happened over a long period of time, sometimes hundreds and thousands and thousands of years. So if there is a police person who has done something, has dealt too roughly with some criminals and say in a career of 40 years, they have done it twice. Those two incidents are still a problem.

But those two incidents cannot be highlighted so much that all that the police person has done is overlooked because of that. We cannot stigmatize them. So like that, even when we look at the questionable characters of the Devatas, they are over… The Vedic timescale is huge, for millions and millions of years.

There are different Yugas, different Kalpas. So therefore, they need to be seen in context. So three points.

First is that these questionable actions are used to teach us the universality of the danger of Maya and that nobody is immune from it. Second point is that the more extraordinary or exceptional the characters are there in some morality tale or some story, the more memorable the lessons become. And the third is that while there are moral absolutes, in general, morality needs to be contextualized.

And the context for understanding these questionable actions is that they happen… There are a few actions that happen over millions and millions of years.