Srimad Bhagavatam – 1.15.10 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | June 4, 2025 |
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
nama om vishnu-padaya krishna-preshthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracharine
nirvishesha-shunyavadi-pashchatya-desha-tarine
jaya sri-krishna-chaitanya
prabhu nityananda
sri-adwaita gadadhara
shrivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 1 Chapter 15 Verse 10.
ŚB 1.15.10
पत्न्यास्तवाधिमखक्लृप्तमहाभिषेक-
श्लाघिष्ठचारुकबरं कितवै: सभायाम् ।
स्पृष्टं विकीर्य पदयो: पतिताश्रुमुख्या
यस्तत्स्त्रियोऽकृतहतेशविमुक्तकेशा: ॥ १० ॥
patnyās tavādhimakha-kḷpta-mahābhiṣeka-
ślāghiṣṭha-cāru-kabaraṁ kitavaiḥ sabhāyām
spṛṣṭaṁ vikīrya padayoḥ patitāśru-mukhyā
yas tat-striyo ’kṛta-hateśa-vimukta-keśāḥ
Synonyms
patnyāḥ — of the wife; tava — your; adhimakha — during the great sacrificial ceremony; kḷpta — dressed; mahā-abhiṣeka — greatly sanctified; ślāghiṣṭha — thus glorified; cāru — beautiful; kabaram — clustered hair; kitavaiḥ — by the miscreants; sabhāyām — in the great assembly; spṛṣṭam — being caught; vikīrya — being loosened; padayoḥ — on the feet; patita-aśru-mukhyāḥ — of the one who fell down with tears in the eyes; yaḥ — He; tat — their; striyaḥ — wives; akṛta — became; hata-īśa — bereft of husbands; vimukta-keśāḥ — loosened hair.
Translation
It was He only who loosened the hair of all the wives of the miscreants who dared open the cluster of your Queen’s hair, which had been nicely dressed and sanctified for the great Rājasūya sacrificial ceremony. At that time she fell down at the feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa with tears in her eyes.
Purport
Queen Draupadī had a beautiful bunch of hair which was sanctified in the ceremonial function of Rājasūya-yajña. But when she was lost in a bet, Duḥśāsana touched her glorified hair to insult her. Draupadī then fell down at the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and Lord Kṛṣṇa decided that all the wives of Duḥśāsana and company should have their hair loosened as a result of the Battle of Kurukṣetra. Thus after the Battle of Kurukṣetra, after all the sons and grandsons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra died in battle, all the wives of the family were obliged to loosen their hair as widows. In other words, all the wives of the Kuru family became widows because of Duḥśāsana’s insulting a great devotee of the Lord. The Lord can tolerate insults upon Himself by any miscreant because the father tolerates even insults from the son. But He never tolerates insults upon His devotees. By insulting a great soul, one has to forgo all the results of pious acts and benedictions also.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So in this verse, Arjuna is explaining how when Draupadī was insulted or dishonoured, then Krishna took action. Of course, if we look at the larger scene, all of the different asuras and persons related to them were destroyed because they practiced adharma. Of course, we could say that, well, we see that Duryodhana, when he was ruling, he ruled quite nicely. There was an appearance of following all the rules. We find that is the case also of many other asuras. They seem to be following rules, they also hire Brahmana priests. We even see Hiranyakasipu giving a lecture on you are not the body, you are Atma.
So, though they are classified as demons and full of adharma, in many ways, they seem to be following Dharma very nicely. So, when we look at the details of their character and we look at their actions, then we see actually they are not practicing Dharma at all. Of course, the number one point is that, they never recognise Krishna as the Supreme Lord. In fact, they did the opposite, they insulted Him. So that was of course the very very big fault. As a result of that, then they show many other bad qualities. And particularly, they show bad qualities in relations to the devotees of the Lord. They don’t respect the Lord, consequently, they don’t respect the Lord’s devotees. And as Prabhupada points out in the purport, if the Lord gets disrespected, He doesn’t mind too much, but if the devotee gets disrespected, then He greatly minds.
So Draupadi was a great devotee. And how was that shown? When they attempt to disrobe her, she surrendered completely to Krishna. So she is glorified nicely for that quality. So, previously we talked about glorification of qualities. So, the devotees have qualities which get glorified eternally. And one of these great qualities is, they are completely dedicated and surrendered to the Lord. So, even though Gajendra did have material desires, he is glorified, because he surrendered to the Lord. So, Draupadi was in a dangerous situation, she also surrendered to the Lord. In both cases, the Lord helps the devotee. So, of course, that help went beyond simply supplying cloth for a saree. Dushashana’s offence was simply a symptom of a greater offence. In other words, the whole family of Dhrtarashtra was demoniac. And therefore, it had to be destroyed. Of course, not only Dhrtarashtra’s sons, but all of their allies also had to get destroyed.
So, this incident with Draupadi is a manifest, it shows the great adharma of all these people who were supporting Duryodhana. Because of their rejection of the Lord, they can manifest the worst qualities. And the demons praise those qualities. So, Krishna had made up his mind, they must all be destroyed. Of course, it is said, Krishna comes in the material world when there is too much adharma. So, definitely, when there is regular adharma, then there has to be some rectification.
But also, there is the highest dharma, Paro-dharma. That is Bhakti. So, of course, the Lord supports dharma, but He is most attached to Bhakti. So, the Lord is disturbed when there is adharma, but He is even more disturbed when the devotee is disturbed. Of course, in this appearance of Krishna, the two elements combined. So, the Pandavas represented dharma, but they also represented bhakti. So, on both accounts, the Lord had to act. On the other hand, we have demons. So, demons, of course, means adharma. They don’t follow the rules of Varanashrama. But then we have a worst demon, that is the person who insults the Lord. So, of course, often the two things combine. But of the two, then this rejection of the Lord is even worse. One may reject Varanashrama system, but if one rejects the Lord, that is even a worst crime. In the Bhagavatam, we see the great demons are both.
So, we have Hiranyakasipu. He was ‘daitya’, demon. So, he did not follow correctly the laws of dharma. Of course, he had his teachers teaching what looked like dharma. The teachers were teaching scripture. But what were they teaching? Artha and Kama. So, actually, it was an appearance of being a very learned, whatever, actually, it was the worst type of knowledge. But worse than that was Hiranyakasipu’s complete rejection of the Lord. Not only rejection, but hatred of the Lord. He hated Vishnu because Vishnu had killed his brother. So, his whole life was guided by that hatred. So, he was always contemplating, somehow or other, I have to kill Vishnu. So, it was not just a demon, but extreme demon. And even though these demons seemed to follow some aspects of dharma, they were the worst demons.
But not only did Hiranyakasipu hate the Supreme Lord, he began to afflict the devotee of the Lord. So, this became the cause of Narsimhadeva appearing. It’s okay, if Hiranyakasipu hates Vishnu, but when he starts afflicting Prahlada, then the Lord could not tolerate. So, Hiranyakasipu had hatred of Vishnu, that hatred extended to the devotee of the Lord, even if he is his own son.
So, in three ways he was a demon. He rejected the system of dharma with the kings appointed by Manu. He tried to conquer over the Devatas and everyone. Second, he rejected and hated the Lord. And third, he afflicted the devotee of the Lord. So, the Lord does not tolerate that. Most of all, He did not tolerate Hiranyakasipu afflicting Prahlada. Just as Hiranyakasipu was angry at Vishnu, Narsimhadeva was angry at Hiranyakasipu. Angry because he was afflicting Prahlada. He was so angry that He displayed the most ferocious way of killing Hiranyakasipu. But even after killing him, His anger did not subside. And all the Devatas were completely shocked. Even Lakshmi was afraid. The only thing that stopped the anger was Prahlada. So, when Narsimhadeva saw Prahlada, immediately He forgot all His anger completely. Anger against Hiranyakasipu was replaced with Prema for Prahlada. Just as the lion is ferocious against the enemy. But very affectionate towards his own children. So, this is the very nature of the Supreme Lord.
So, in the pastimes of Krishna, we will find this same principle acting. Because the Devatas went to the Supreme Lord, the Lord was obligated to help the Devatas and restore Dharma. But even more important than that was to establish Bhakti and protect His devotees. And that we see in this particular case. So, we will see many of the pastimes of Krishna which are described in Bhagavatam follow these principles. We have demons and then we have Krishna counteracting the demons. But ultimately the Lord likes to protect the devotee.
OK.
Q&A
1) Thank you Maharaj. This is in regard to… I need help in understanding Maharaj. In terms of surrendering and loving the Lord. Surrendering towards the Lord and loving the Lord. Does surrender includes love or love includes surrender? Or is it too independent how to understand Maharaj? Love and surrender. Loving towards the Lord. Loving relationship with the Lord and surrender. The word surrender is there. Does love include surrender? Does surrender include love? How does it understand?
In our Sampradaya, we take Bhakti as a process and it has different angas. One of those angas is surrender. Of course we have hearing, chanting, remembering etc. But then after some… I don’t know which number it is. Then Prapanna or Prapatti is one of the angas mentioned. Prapannam is analysed having the six qualities, such as doing what is favourable, rejecting the unfavourable, taking the Lord as once master etc., but then in Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna says that, surrender unto Me then, acharyas quote that verse as saying indicating one aspect of Bhakti.
In the Bhakti Sandarbha, Jiva Goswami when he lists the angas, he puts this as the first Anga of Bhakti. Not after hearing, chanting, remembering, deity worship, etc., then we have Prapanna. No, he puts the number one [Laughs]. So of course the reason he does that because there has to be some aspects of surrender in all of the process of Bhakti. Of course we can also practise surrender as separate anga. Of course why Surrender is put number one is because within all types of Bhakti, there must be obviously a feeling that the Lord is the master. There should be a feeling of complete dependence on the Lord. So therefore, Jiva Goswami puts it as number one anga. In the Sri Sampradaya, it is considered to be distinct from Bhakti itself. And also as an easier process than Bhakti. Because it does not involve constant practice of different engagement of the senses etc., At the same time, they do not deny that we do have to practice.
So it becomes somewhat similar to Jiva Goswami putting it as the first Anga of Bhakti. In this way, even if they put Surrender as a separate anga, it is similar to the way Jiva Goswami put Surrender as the first anga of Bhakti.
2) Maharaj you explained about Lord Narashinga’s ferocious way of dealing with Hiranyakasipu even after killing him he was so angry. One understanding maharaj, the Lord or His devotees have no enemies. So how to properly appreciate that Maharaj?
When we say, the Lord has anger or even He has love or attachment, these are not material emotions arising from Ahankara, a material identity. So, attraction for devotees or the devotees’ attraction for the Lord, this is part of Rasa. And we do have secondary Rasas, one of which is anger. However, the true secondary rasa of anger is not related to anger at demons. It is the devotees’ anger at the Supreme Lord.
So Radha becomes angry at Krishna, if He goes to see Chandravali. Nevertheless, the Lord also shows anger at demons. So this is not real Rasa. It is kind of a secondary, because it is not involving Krishna and the devotees. It is like Krishna and a demon. So it is not ultimately the same as the spiritual Rasa. It is still spiritual. Similarly, Krishna experiences a virya rasa with the devotees fighting Rasa.
So, Krishna has a wrestling match with His devotees, cowherd boys, and they experience virya Rasa. But then Krishna will also experience virya rasa with demons when He is fighting them, but it is different because it is not a devotee, it is not the object. So a demon may also show anger at Krishna, this is obviously not a spiritual anger. It’s not a secondary rasa at all, its just material anger and the demon will also have a virya Rasa, but it is not a real spiritual Rasa. However, the Lord, even though, He has rasa in relation to demons, we cannot label them as material. They are just lesser manifestations of his secondary Rasa.
So the nature of a secondary Rasa is that it is temporary and then it will disappear. When it disappears, the primary Rasa becomes strong. So, when Narasimhadeva saw Prahlada, then the primary Rasa of affection arose, and then the anger against the demon was finished.
3) Hare Krishna Maharaj, Maharaj you mentioned that Krishna will appear when the adharma is more prominent and Krishna appears only once in a day of Brahma in a yuga cycle. So in other yuga cycles, what will be the form Krishna appears Maharaj? In other Yugas?
So, the Lord appears in Satya, Treta, Dwarpa and Kali in Yuga avatar forms. And they spread different dharmas. And, of course, in Dwarpa Yuga, the usual dharma which is spread is Paricharya, deity worship. So, one thousand times in the day of Brahma, the Dwarpa Yuga avatar will appear, and He will distribute or teach deity worship. But, that form is not Krishna who is displaying pastimes like lifting Govardhana etc., It’s an expansion from the Manvantara avatar.
4) Relationship between the devotees are eternal. We see Jaya and Vijaya are eternal associates of the Lord. They take birth of every life together. Their attachment also causes to adhere to the Lord. So, how do you specifically understand that if the relationship between the devotees and Lord is eternal, then how Jaya and Vijaya with the eternal associate, they come back and then they took bath and then they associate again back?
Yeah. So, yes, the gatekeepers are eternal associates of the Lord. Through this pastime, they got cursed. But then, three lifetimes, they returned to their position. So, that position as eternal associate was not interfered with more than a few seconds in terms of long periods of time. So, that they became demons, we cannot take that as the same as normal Jivas in a conditioned state.
This was some arrangement of the Supreme Lord. It’s describe that, Jaya and Vijaya thought that, the Lord wants to fight, but in Vaikuntha, there is nobody suitable to fight and even in the material world, the demons are not really capable. So, we should take the role of big demons and fight the Lord. That will give them some virya rasa. So, therefore, the Lord fulfilled that desire.
5) Maharaj, question is that relationship with devotees, between devotees is eternal and that attachments are also eternal, Maharaj? Their attachment together also eternal? Devotees attachment together is also eternal and relation with devotees?
Well, you know, they knew each other. They were brothers as Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu. Friends in one sense.
6) Maharaj, how can be asuras so powerful so they can fight with Krishna and Vishnu? How?
Normal asuras in the material world, ultimately they have material powers only which are nothing in comparison to Krishna. Due to gunas and karma, then they may get strength or intelligence or what not. But it is always limited. Even the devotees, due to their karmas and whatever, they get some position. That’s also limited. Ultimately they have to die.
7) Shri Bhisma Deva is a Mahajana and is aware of all the dharmic principles. Being the case, based on what principle, he remained silent while Mata Draupadi was disrobed?
As far as the superficial reason is said, because he associated with demons. Of course, because he is an eternal associate of the Lord, he cannot really be affected by demons and thus we have to attribute it to arrangement of the Supreme Lord.
8) Earlier we had demons. But now, in Kali Yuga, the demonic nature is there. How long this will exist?
Well, the demonic nature is always in the material world. Sometimes it becomes strong, sometimes it is weak. So, the Lord, at least tries to keep a balance, so that there is a predominance of dharma over adharma.
When adharma becomes too strong, the Lord may personally interfere. Nevertheless, we will see that from the beginning of Brahma’s creation, there of course are devatas, but Brahma also creates demons. So, just as sattva guna is one of the gunas in Prakriti, so tamo guna is also one of the gunas of Prakriti. And sometimes tamo guna will become prominent. As long as we have a material world, there is going to be that tendency.
9) Why the Supreme Lord is performing pastimes mentioned in Srimad Bhagavatam in different planets?
Well, Lord is everywhere. So, He can perform pastimes in hellish planets or heavenly planets or on earth.
10) What is the difference between Vairaja Brahma and Hiranyakarpa Brahma?
So, the normal Brahma that we think with four heads, who manifests all the planetary systems, this is Vairaja Brahma. It is also described there is another very subtle form of Brahma. He doesn’t do any work of creation. He simply enjoys. So, this is another form of Brahma.
Devotees : Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatham Ki Jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki Jai!!!