SECTION TWENTY-THREE

 

             Therefore, although there are many scriptures, only the Çrémad Bhägavatam has been glorified in the following manner: "For those who are devoid of sight in Kali-yuga, this Puräëa has appeared like the sun" (SB. 1.3.44). The metaphor comparing the Bhägavatam to the sun indicates that no other scripture can properly illuminate the Absolute Truth.

            The Hayaçérña païcarätra, in the chapter classifying the scriptures, describes the "Tantra-bhägavata" as a virtual commentary on the Çrémad Bhägavatam. Other commentaries are the Hanumad bhäñya[i], Väsanä bhäñya, Sambandhokti, Vidvatkämadhenu, Tattva- dépikä, Bhävärtha-dépikä, Paramahaàsa-priyä, Çukahådaya, and so on, and there are numerous essays such as Muktäphala, Harilélä, Bhakti-ratnävalé, and others that are composed by persons famous in their respective schools of philosophies. The Çrémad Bhägavatam is also glorified in the Dänakhaëòa section of the Caturvarga Cintämaëi of Hemädré. His chapter dealing with 'giving Puräëas in charity' describes the Çrémad Bhägavatam with the same characteristics as defined in the Matsya Puräëa (53.20-22).

            In the Pariçeña khaëòa of the same book, Kälanirëaya section, while defining the appropriate religion for Kali-yuga, Hemädré quotes the Çrémad Bhägavatam (11.5.36), "The spiritually advanced people praise Kali...", and accepts only the religious principles established in Bhägavatam as appropriate for Kali-yuga.

            Çré Saìkaräcärya, an incarnation of Lord Çiva, understood the importance of Çrémad Bhägavatam, with its statements about the bliss of devotion, which surpasses even the joy of impersonal liberation and is superior to his doctrine of impersonalism. He did not dare to interpret it knowing it to be the divine exposition of the Supreme Lord on Vedänta. As will be explained later, he taught the doctrine of monism on the order of the Lord to conceal His identity. Still, to make his words successful, by giving a personal exposition on the Çrémad Bhägavatam, he touched on it indirectly by composing hymns such as the Govindäñöaka, which describes certain pastimes of Lord Kåñëa. These pastimes--such as Mother Yaçodä's amazement at the vision of Kåñëa's Universal Form and the stealing of the clothes of the young damsels of Vraja--are found only in the Çrémad Bhägavatam.

 

ÇRÉ JÉVA TOÑAËÉ COMMENTARY

             Although there are numerous Vedic literatures only the Çrémad Bhägavatam is compared to the sun, because it sheds light on the dense darkness of the Kali age. Just as when the sun rises rogues and thieves hide and ordinary people become fearless and active, similarly, by reading the Çrémad Bhägavatam one's heart is rid of lust and greed and one becomes qualified to engage in the service of the Lord. Hence the Çrémad Bhägavatam was revered by great saints and thinkers by their writing commentaries and essays on it.

            This practice continues in modern times. Among such contemporary saintly persons, the most noteworthy was His Divine Grace, Oà Viñëupäda Paramahaàsa Parivräjakäcärya  A.C. Bhaktivedänta Svämé Prabhupäda, who was not only a scholar of the Bhägavatam, but embodied its teachings to an extraordinary degree. He was a tireless teacher of its philosophy up to his very last moments. By translating the Çrémad Bhägavatam into English with elaborate commentaries, he made the message of the Bhägavatam unmistakably clear and accessible to the world. And, by his efforts, many souls who formerly indulged in every sort of rougish vice and sinful act have undergone a change in heart by reading the glorious Bhägavatam . They have left their degraded life and taken to the devotional service of Kåñëa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This experience leaves no room for doubting the potency of the Çrémad Bhägavata Puräëa.

            Çréla Jéva Gosvämé again refers to the Caturvarga Cintämaëi (seventh chapter, Dana khaëòa) of Hemädré, who recommends that one donate Çrémad Bhägavatam, set upon a golden throne and glorifies it as having the same characteristics as described in the Matsya Puräëa, section nineteen. While determining the religion for this age in the fourteenth chapter of Caturvarga Cintämaëi, Pariçeña Khaëòa, Hemädré chose a Bhägavatam verse (11.5.36):

"Those who are actually advanced in knowledge are able to appreciate the essential value of this age of Kali. Such enlightened persons worship Kali-yuga because in this fallen age all perfection of life can easily be achieved by the performance of saìkértana."

            Commenting on the word "saìkértana" Hemädré declares that "Hari-saìkértan" is the only way. Then he quotes the next verse (.11.5.37): 

"Indeed, there is no higher possible gain for embodied souls forced to wander throughout the material world than the Supreme Lord's saìkértana movement, by which one can attain the supreme peace and free oneself from the cycle of repeated birth and death."

            In this way Hemädré recognized the authority of Çrémad Bhägavatam in giving the principles of religion for Kali-yuga.

            Saìkaräcärya respected Çrémad Bhägavatam both by not commenting on it and by composing prayers based on its narrations. One such prayer is Govindäñöaka:

            O Mind, bow down to Govinda, the personification of supreme bliss, who is the Absolute Truth and knowledge, unlimited and eternal; who is non-different from the sky, yet He is the Supreme Sky; who effortlessly rolled and frolicked in the courtyard in Vraja, yet He appeared tired; who is formless, yet  He appears in various forms assumed by Mäyä, including the form of the universe; who is the shelter of the whole universe, yet appeared as if He needed shelter. 

            O Mind, bow down to Govinda, the personification of supreme bliss,  the Supreme Master of the universe, who, by Mother Yaçodä's chastisement, appeared frightened like a baby, when she asked, "Are You eating mud"; who opened His mouth to prove that He did not eat mud and thus showed the fourteen planetary systems including the Lokäloka mountain; who is the supporting pillar for the city-like three worlds; and who is beyond vision yet is the source of everyone's vision.

            O Mind, bow down to Govinda, who is the killer of the demons, the enemies of the demigods; who relieves the earth from its burden; who cures the disease of materialism and grants liberation; who eats butter although devoid of all eating; who devours the whole universe at the time of annihilation; who, although different from äbhäsa yet manifests in the purified våttis of the clean heart; who is most auspicious and peaceful.

            O Mind, bow down to Govinda, who is the protector of cows; who appeared in cowherd form to perform His pastimes on earth; who is a cowherd by birth; who protected the cowherders by lifting Govardhana Hill and thus enjoyed pastimes with the cowherd damsels; who was called Govinda even by the cows; who has unlimited names; who is distinct among the cowherd boys and is beyond sense perception.

            O Mind, bow down to Govinda, who enters the assembly of cowherd damsels and divides them into groups for is pastimes; who is different from everything, yet He is one with them; who  considers it His good fortune to always be smeared by the dust raised from the hooves of the cows; who is pleased with faith and devotion;  who is inconceivable, yet His pastimes are meditated upon; and who is like a transcendental touchstone.

             O Mind, bow down to Govinda, who stole the clothes of the bathing damsels and climbed a tree; who, when requested by the naked maidens for their clothes, called them closer; who is the dispeller of lamentation and delusion; who is knowledge personified; who is beyond intelligence and is pure existence personified.

              O Mind, bow down to Govinda, who is most beautiful; who is the original cause of  all causes, yet  has no cause for Himself; who is free from any superimposition; yet who danced beautifully on the hoods of the Käléya serpent in the Yamunä; who is time, yet is beyond  all divisions of time; who is all- knowing; who destroys the defects of Kali-yuga; and who is the cause of the past, present, and future.

              O Mind, bow down to Govinda, who is the reservoir of all worshipable qualities; whose blissful lotus feet are worshiped by all worshipable saintly people within their hearts; whom I worship and who is worshipable in the land of Våndävana by all the demigods and Çrémati Våndadevi; whose  beautiful smile appears spotless like a kunda flower, as if pouring the bliss of nectar; and who grants bliss to His cowherd friends.

              Anyone who, fixing his mind on Govinda, chants sweetly "O Govinda, Achuta, Mädhava, Viñëu, Gokulanäyaka, Kåñëa", who cleanses all his sins by the ambrosial water of meditation on the lotus feet of Lord Govinda, who then recites this Govindäñöaka, certainly attains Lord Govinda, who is the Supreme Bliss within the heart.

Thus ends the Govindäñöaka composed by Çré Saìkaräcärya.

            The Personality of Godhead ordered Lord Çiva to take birth as Çaìkara to propagate impersonalism. So Çaìkara wrote commentaries on Vedänta Sütra, eleven of the principle Upaniñads, Bhagavad-géta and Çré Viñëu Sahasranäma from the Mäyäväda viewpoint. He did not interpret the Çrémad Bhägavatam, however, because he considered it most dear to the Lord and His devotees, and nondifferent from the Lord. There can be no doubt about Lord Çiva's appreciation of the Bhägavatam, because in the Twelfth Canto he is described as the greatest Vaiñëava. As such, he is amply qualified to know that it is the supreme pramäëa and did not interpret it, out of respect.

            An account of the Lord Viñëu ordering Çiva to incarnate and propagate monism is in the Padma Puräëa, Uttarakhaëòa, (71.107):

The Supreme Lord said, "O Çiva, by writing speculative scriptures make people averse to Me and hide my glories, this will give rise to population."

            The import of this order is as follows: By Lord Buddha's teachings, which swept India, people became contemptous towards the Vedas and Vedic rituals. They became çunyavädés, or voidists, and Vedic religion was reduced almost to nil. If, therefore, the people were instructed about the personal features of the Supreme Lord, His transcendental, eternal, blissful form and His variegated abode, they might not have taken it seriously, the two extremes, voidism and personalism, been very wide and difficult to negotiate. They may have been offensive. Then they would have had no way to purify their hearts. The first task, therefore, would be to make them faithful to the Vedas and for that the easiest philosophical step for them would be monism, as an intermediate step. To go from the Buddhist "nästi" to the Mäyäväda "neti, neti", or "The Absolute is nothing" to "The Absolute is something, but has nothing in it," is a simple, incremental move, for there is neglible difference between the two ideas, but that step brought the populace back to the authority of the Vedas.

            Later, in the same Uttarakhaëòa of Padma Puräëa (236.7) Lord Çiva himself describes monism as veiled Buddhism, mäyävädam asacchästraà pracchanaà bauddhamucyate, "Mäyäväda is an improper explanation of the scriptures; indeed it is veiled Buddhism." This was the scheme of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for He knows that unless conditioned souls get spiritual knowledge from the Vedas, they can only speculate about the nature of transcendent reality and would have no hope of deliverance from the material world.

            Once monism replaced Buddhism and faith in the Vedas was re-established it was then possible to downplay monism and take people further along the path of knowledge to an appreciation for the glories of the Personality of Godhead. Thus later on stalwart Vaiñëava äcäryas, like Çrédhara Svämé, Rämänuja, and Madhva, came to drive out impersonalism. In its place they established the bhakti principles as the true spirit and intent of the Vedas and its corollary scriptures. Çrédhara Svämé, therefore, as the next stage in this progression gave a mixed commentary on the Çrémad Bhägavatam, to gently nudge skeptic impersonalists toward the perfect conclusion of the Bhägavatam.

            Still later the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself came in the garb of a devotee, as Çré Kåñëa Caitanya Mahäprabhu, and went a step further. He taught that even more advanced than vaidhi-bhakti is that of räga-bhakti, or spontaneous loving devotion to Kåñëa following in the footsteps of the residents of Våndävana, as explained in the Tenth Canto of Bhägavatam. This räga-bhakti is the ultimate expression of love of God, prema. Being that Mahäprabhu is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who can contest His siddhänta? Rather this progression from voidism to monism to räga-bhakti was all part of the Lord's plan for giving mercy to conditioned souls, for by such arrangement they have a chance to end the otherwise unending cycle of birth and death. Thus the Lord was not being cruel when He instructed Lord Çiva to appear and spread the doctrine of absolute oneness between God and the individual soul; He was being merciful.

            In later sections, Çréla Jéva Gosvämé shows many of the inconsistencies between Çaìkara's teachings and the conclusion of the Vedas. In the next section he explains the glories of the Çrémad Bhägavatam as revealed in the Bhägavatam itself.

[i]*None of these commentaries are available at present except the Bhavatha-dipika of Sridhara Swami.