jabdakhata

Vivekananda is worshiped nowadays as a patriot prophet. But was he truly concerned about India as a patriot would? Also did Vivekananda stood for Hinduism only? Was he himself sectarian, a term that he despised strongly and criticized vehemently? If we buy into the opinion of today's politicians and the so called secular liberals and some off the other detractors of Vivekananda these seem to be the case. They portray him as the champion of Brahminical Hinduism, militant Hinduism and aggressive Nationalism. He is given at best the status of a social reformer and a militant nationalist. He is also clubbed in the same bracket as a humanitarian. So how much true are these assessments? Let me make a bold claim here. Only Vivekananda's disciples and ardent devotees who follow his principles know him truly, rest are mere blind men seeing a part of the elephant and mistaking it as a whole. Two stories come to our mind, both narrated by Vivekananda as part of his lectures, one bei...

Therefore Shiva Linga is possibly contemporary to Vedic rituals, or even earlier than that. It is likely that the worship of Shiva which needs minimum of paraphernalia, was developed to suit the needs of the poor who could not perform costly Vedic rituals as performed by Kshatriya princes and therefore needed a low cost alternative. This is the reason why Shiva worship is so easy. it just needs some local flowers, some water etc as offering in contrast with Vedic sacrifices. In place of altars we have the lingams and the Yoni on which the Lingam is placed - depicting the eternal reunion between Shiva, the Brahman and the shakti, its power. This was possibly prevalent even among the so called non Vedic tribes like Kiratas, Chandalas, Nishadas and Yavanas. We have read in Mahabharata several examples of how Shiva or Mahadeva was the prefered God of all the so called non Aryan tribes including Rakshasas. This is because He was easy to worship, did not need any elaborate rituals and coul...

Swami Vivekananda attended Paris Congress in Aug-Sep 1900 as a delegate. Even though Paris Congress was merely a session of the scholars who were involved with several topic and themes like history of religion, it was important for two reasons - 1) It formed a platform for the scholars to come together and exchange ideas on a host of  issues and topics relevant for the modern age, possibly for the first time 2) It had a good visibility among all the leading intellectuals and formed one of the basis for further academic research of the later period into various aspects of the religious history. However it was neither as critical nor as important as the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, nor it enjoyed visibility. In his words in a letter written to Udbodhan -  Congress of the History of Religions recently sat for several days together. At the Congress, there was no room allowed for the discussions on the doctrines and spiritual views of any religion; its purpose was only to ...

Let us now try to describe Krishna and analyze his activities in Vrindavan. Unfortunately there isn’t much realistic information available on how Krishna looked like, even though there are a lot of poetic descriptions. So it’s really difficult for us to construct the human Krishna from the poet’s or devotee’s imagination. However there are some pertinent and relevant pieces assimilated from various sources. For instance, he had curly hair, his body colour had a greenish (like that of new born grass) hue and was not exactly blue as depicted in popular imagination, he had large eyes (like petals of a lotus), he was fond of yellow garments, used to wear ornaments possibly of wild flowers and used to carry peacock’s tail plume on his head and carried a flute. His eyebrows were thick but not bushy. Atleast that was his description from Vrindavan days and since we have been discussing the Vrindavan days so far let us focus on these descriptions and their inherent meaning. Krishna is dark i...

A word about Devas and their king Indra. In Mahabharata, Ramayana and Puranas there is copious reference to devas and Indra. In fact when we read these scriptures it seems to us that these devas were actually humans with more powers. For instance, they had constant fights with the danavas. The danava king Vrishaparva’s daughter Sarmistha was wife of Yayati. Yayati’s son Nahusha was offered the post of Indra in heaven. Devas were constantly mingling with the humans and even had human sons, like the five Pandavas. Devas and Danavas were inter related as both were sons of sage Kashyapa through his two wives Aditi and Diti. This leads us to naturally assume that these devas were actually a tribe like Nagas, who were more powerful than ordinary men. The same has been claimed by Swami Vivekananda in his East and West. He shows clearly on how the tribes of the Devas and Asuras evolved from human beings an. The word divine came from devas – derived from div or light. So possibly they had som...

The most important mysterious incident is however the lifting of the Govardhan hill in order to save Vrindavan residents from a possible deluge owing to incessant rainfall. The story goes like this – The residents of Vrindavan used to worship Indra for having rains at regular intervals when needed, Indra being the god of the rains. This included an elaborate sacrifice aimed at propitiating Indra. Krishna stopped this practice by influencing his people to worship Govardhan hills instead of a costly sacrifice to propitiate Indra because he felt that Govardhan and surrounding areas confer more benefits to a primarily agrarian community such as the Gopas as the hilly region provides the grasslands and forests with streams that help in nourishing the cattle and livestock. People accordingly stopped the sacrifice in honor of Indra and started a custom of Govardhan Puja. This angered Indra so much that he deluged Vrindavan for 7 days and nights. But Krishna protected the Gopas using Govardh...

So there is no reason to discard the special feats of Sri Krishna, although we need to be cautious about the possibility of loss of information over time and some exaggeration by ardent devotees and admirers which is quite natural. Gopas migrated to Vrindavan and thought that they were safe but Kamsa was not sitting idle. He had spies everywhere and he had friends who would attempt the assassination of Krishna and Balarama. One of them was Pralamba, who carried Balarama away, to be eventually overpowered and killed by him. Bankim thinks that the incident of Dhenuka involved actual wild asses who were very dangerous and reigned over the palm groves. Dhirendra Nath Pal seems to agree that Krishna possibly got rid of dangerous animals in the Vrindavan and made it safe for the habitat of the Gopas. The logic seems incorrect because mere slaughter of dangerous animals would not have earned Krishna the reputation that he earned. Kings usualy went in Mrigaya or hunting expedition and killed...

Here is what Sri Ramakrishna revealed about his vision on Swamiji, as recorded in Sri Sri Ramakrishna Leela Prasanga by Swami Saradananda (Translation - Ramakrishna the Great Master by Swami Jagadananda and Ramakrishna the Divine Play by Swami Chetanananda). He saw him to belong to the realm of akhanda or indivisibility, far above the realm gods and goddesses, a divine sage ever immersed in meditation, one of the seven ever pure, ever blissful souls who are ever immersed in the contemplation of the absolute. He himself of course was the divine child seen in the vision. But who were those seven sages - were they the saptarshis of the Hindu Purana or the four sages Sanaka etc. along with others like Kapila who had occupied a position far above gods and goddesses, i.e. were higher than brahmarshis who belonged to the realm of Brahma, below the realm of indivisibility. We do not know but below is the vision outlined. One day I found my mind was soaring high in  Samadhi  alon...

Here comes the tales of some extra ordinary feats of the baby Krishna. Some of them are corroborated in the Mahabharata in the Sabha Parva by Sishupala who was disparaging the achievements of Sri Krishna. Mahabharata in its present form misses some sections of the interchange between Bhisma and Shishupala during the Rajasuya sacrifice. Bhisma was perhaps recounting the exploits of Sri Krishna in order to justify his receiving the arghya and Shishupala countered them in his own style. The first exploit is that of killing of Putana. Putana was sent by Kamsa to kill suspected babies by poisoning. According to Vishnu Purana she was a child killer. According to Harivamsa she was the nurse of Kamsa, while Bhagavatam shows her as a demon or an ogre. Bankim Chandra thinks Putana was a bird. He cites the exchange between Shishupala and Bhisma where Shishupala dismisses Krishna’s feats esp. that of killing of a vulture as a child. Also Putana in Sanskrit means a bird. Dhirendra Paul while cons...

In the late nineteenth century we saw a huge decline facing Hinduism. Its people had forgotten the true meaning and purpose of religion and were fighting amongst each other as petty sects. Islamic rule had already crippled Hindu enthusiasm for reforms and orthodoxy became the bane which led to a mass disillusionment among the educated class. Scientific ideas and materialism held great dangers, esp. for the dogmas and Reforming religions like Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj placed formidable challenge. Christianity as state religion attacked almost every aspect of Hinduism which was looked down upon by Christian missionaries who launched a vicious propaganda as they saw a great opportunity to convert. Even the most educated scholars among Elite ruling class estimated that it would be a matter of time before Hinduism as a religion vanishes in thin air and Christianity becomes the religion of masses. But they underestimated the resilience of Hinduism. In a remote hamlet about 160 miles away...

While in America Swami Vivekananda had encouraged his brother disciples to go ahead and work tirelessly among people, to alleviate their suffering. Some of his brother disciples were skeptical in the beginning but then they began to see the truth as they were enlightened beings themselves. Some of them like Swami Akhandananda wholeheartedly jumped into the fire leaving aside everything else. And in this way his mission was born. Just as Buddha had established the Sangha to propagate the four noble truths and the eightfold paths and developed a monastic order for the first time in the world, Vivekananda developed Ramakrishna Math and Mission with the objective of spreading the doctrine of his guru Sri Ramakrishna. In this respect an interesting anecdote goes like this – One day Ramakrishna in Dakshineswar had been discussing the Vaishnava philosophy to his devotees and said that they (Vaishnavas) emphasize on three aspects – Vaishnav Seva (Service to the devotees of the Lord), Jive Da...

Swami Vivekananda had mentioned in many places that Lord Buddha was his Ishta Devata. In fact in his childhood he had a vision that a serene looking monk approached him while he was meditating in his room one day but he being afraid of the monk got up from his meditation and the monk just disappeared within him. He later realized that he must have seen the Buddha. He was devoted to Buddha for primarily two reasons – 1) Buddha’s struggle and search of truth in the early life resonated with his early life struggles to find the truth 2) Buddha’s uncompromising approach towards Truth and Rationality. Buddha rejected anything that was not rational or logical. He constructed his sermons on logic and rationalism and rejected conventional theories of Brahmanical Hinduism that advocated either physical austerities or life of enjoyment and luxury here and hereafter, material prosperity through sacrifices or Yagnas for the appeasement of gods. This quest for truth and lifelong devotion to ratio...

As per the facts from Krishna’s life – When Devaki and Vasudeva were married by the efforts of none other than Kamsa himself who loved them both, they were being driven in a chariot by Kamsa. At that point it was only he who heard a divine oracle that the eighth child of Vasudeva and Devaki will be his nemesis. He flew into a rage and decided to kill Devaki then and there but Vasudeva persuaded him to spare her life and reasoned with him. He also pledged his child to Kamsa as soon as it would be born and kept his words. His honesty and sincerity temporarily turned Kamsa into a better person and he set them free with dignity and respect. But sage Narada’s advise and the unholy company of bad men and associated ill advises again made him a cruel ruthless tyrant and he imprisoned Vasudeva and Devaki. Their children were killed one after another and finally the seventh one was mysteriously transferred to Rohini, the other wife of Vasudeva and he was none other than Balarama or Samkarshan...

Let us first start analyzing the facts that we know. The sources of information about Sri Krishna’s life are primarily four fold – 1) Mahabharata 2) Vishnu Purana 3) Srimad Bhagavata Purana 4) Harivamsa Purana Of these, Mahabharata primarily deals with an adult Krishna of Dwaraka and his relationship with the Kuru Pandavas. In Mahabharata Krishna Balarama does not appear until Draupadi’s swayamvara. We come to know some aspects of his childhood from his own statements in Sabhaparva and also that of the abuses of Shishupala. Harivamsa gives his exploits and the details about the Yadava dynasty and its kings. Vishnu Purana also has many interesting accounts. But the most comprehensive account of his life and childhood and found in Srimad Bhagavatam or Bhagavata Purana. It is said that there was an older version of Bhagavatam which was composed possibly before Buddhist period. But Bhagavatam underwent some fundamental changes and between 6 th and 8 th century AD it was transformed i...