Srimad Bhagavatam – 9.10.5 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | April 6, 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 Bhagavatham Canto 9 Chapter 10 Verse 15:
ŚB 9.10.15
कामं प्रयाहि जहि विश्रवसोऽवमेहं
त्रैलोक्यरावणमवाप्नुहि वीर पत्नीम् ।
बध्नीहि सेतुमिह ते यशसो वितत्यै
गायन्ति दिग्विजयिनो यमुपेत्य भूपा: ॥ १५ ॥
kāmaṁ prayāhi jahi viśravaso ’vamehaṁ
trailokya-rāvaṇam avāpnuhi vīra patnīm
badhnīhi setum iha te yaśaso vitatyai
gāyanti dig-vijayino yam upetya bhūpāḥ
Translation
My Lord, You may use my water as You like. Indeed, You may cross it and go to the abode of Rāvaṇa, who is the great source of disturbance and crying for the three worlds. He is the son of Viśravā, but is condemned like urine. Please go kill him and thus regain Your wife, Sītādevī. O great hero, although my water presents no impediment to Your going to Laṅkā, please construct a bridge over it to spread Your transcendental fame. Upon seeing this wonderfully uncommon deed of Your Lordship, all the great heroes and kings in the future will glorify You.
Purport
It is said that a son and urine emanate from the same source — the genitals. When a son is a devotee or a great learned person, the seminal discharge for begetting a son is successful, but if the son is unqualified and brings no glory to his family, he is no better than urine. Here Rāvaṇa is compared to urine because he was a cause of disturbances to the three worlds. Thus the ocean personified wanted him killed by Lord Rāmacandra.
One feature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Rāmacandra is omnipotence. The Lord can act without regard to material impediments or inconveniences, but to prove that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and was not merely advertised as Godhead or elected by popular vote, He constructed a wonderful bridge over the ocean. Nowadays it has become fashionable to create some artificial God who performs no uncommon activities; a little magic will bewilder a foolish person into selecting an artificial God because he does not understand how powerful God is. Lord Rāmacandra, however, constructed a bridge over the water with stone by making the stone float. This is proof of God’s uncommonly wonderful power. Why should someone be accepted as God without displaying extraordinary potency by doing something never to be done by any common man? We accept Lord Rāmacandra as the Supreme Personality of Godhead because He constructed this bridge, and we accept Lord Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead because He lifted Govardhana Hill when He was only seven years old. We should not accept any rascal as God or an incarnation of God, for God displays special features in His various activities. Therefore, the Lord Himself says in Bhagavad-gītā (4.9):
janma karma ca me divyam
evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma
naiti mām eti so ’rjuna
“One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.” The activities of the Lord are not common; they are all transcendentally wonderful and not able to be performed by any other living being. The symptoms of the Lord’s activities are all mentioned in the śāstras, and after one understands them one can accept the Lord as He is.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
This verse describes one of the many remarkable activities of Ramachandra, and that is, he constructed a bridge over the ocean to get to Lanka, to rescue Sita Devi and kill Ravana with the cooperation of the personification of the ocean, who is here speaking and telling Ramachandra, to please do this.
In the purport, Srila Prabhupada talks about, how the Supreme Lord is distinguished from the Jivas. Of course, ultimately, all we can do is, follow the scripture. And the scripture gives us a list of avatars of the Lord. So, the names of different avatars are given. However, everybody can say, “I’m so-and-so avatar”. So, therefore the scriptures also supply a description of the avatar. They may show his color and illustrate his activities.
Of course, even then, people can imitate the activities or they can imitate the form. We have a very famous example in the 10th canto of Bhagavatam. There was one demon called Paundraka. So, he sent a letter to Krishna says, “You are fake, I’m the real Vishnu [Laughs]. You give up your chakra, give up your club. This belongs to me”. So, when the messenger read this out and the people of Dwarka heard, they all began laughing [Laughs]. So ultimately there was a battle between Krishna and Paundraka. And Paundraka dressed up like Vishnu. But he only had two arms [Laughs]. So he made some artificial arms and stuck them on his shoulders [Laughs]. So, he was an imitation Vishnu. But of course, not only that he could not really imitate the activities of Vishnu. And thus, Krishna easily defeated him. So he could not compare with the Lord in his form or in his activities. So, the scripture describes a list of the names of the avatars plus their forms and their activities.
Scripture also gives the time, when the avatar appears. So, we have avatars appearing in the different yugas. So, Rama appears in a Treta yuga, of course in the 24th cycle of Vaivasvata Manvantara. So, someone in the present day cannot claim, I am Ramachandra. The time is completely wrong. And of course, then he would have to be green in color. And he would have to do activities like constructing a bridge over the water to Sri Lanka. So, in this way, the scripture prevents people from claiming they are avatars.
Of course, in the modern world, we have many inventions. So, it may be possible in the future to build a bridge to Sri Lanka. How many kilometers, is it?
Devotees: 40 kilo meters.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Okay, so in some places they have 20 kilometer bridges in the world [Laughs]. So eventually they may get a facility to build a 40 kilometer bridge to Sri Lanka. But Ramachandra constructed the bridge in a different way. He used rocks, but the rocks floated. So, therefore this cannot be done by our modern engineers. Of course, with great effort they may eventually to have a floating bridge also to Sri Lanka. But Ramachandra was able to do this without any effort at all. Simply by deciding to do it, build a bridge and they went, built a bridge [Laughs].
Of course, it explains here in this verse that it is not necessary for Ramachandra to build a bridge. He can go there instantly. We see in 10th canto, how Krishna took Arjuna outside the universe in his chariot! So that is very great distance. And 40 kilometers is very short. So there’s no problem for the Lord to use his chariot to go to Sri Lanka. But the Lord makes a bridge like this, in order to spread the fame of the Lord. The bridge becomes a symbol of the great power of Ramachandra. So the Supreme Lord is characterized by sarvajna – omniscience. He knows everything. And another word is omnipotent. He can do anything. He’s most powerful. He’s sarva-aishvarya. He has all powers. He’s so powerful that he creates and destroys the material universes. Because he can do that and no one else can do that, he is designated as Supreme Lord.
So of course, people reading scripture, they sometimes become confused. Who is supreme? The scriptures glorify Indra as supreme, and Vayu as supreme, and Agni as supreme, and Surya as supreme, and Brahma as supreme, and Shiva as supreme. So, they glorify everybody as supreme. However, if we go to the scriptures and we look very closely, then we see there’s actual description of what makes a person supreme. So, the Upanishads describe that the Supreme Lord was there before the creation of the material world. He’s there after it’s destroyed. And all the material elements and all the devatas are created and destroyed. So that person who’s there before and after, he is supreme. So he is the most powerful. And he is the most intelligent. By his intelligence, whole of material world is created. Through his intelligence, all the planetary systems and all the bodies of the living entities are created. So of course, a human being thinks he’s very intelligent. But even a scientist, cannot create a material body, even a simple material body, one-cell’d creature. Science cannot make that creature. So, it’s the Lord’s intelligence that creates everything in the material world – material and spiritual. So, the Lord is most powerful and he’s all-knowing. And thus, nothing is impossible for him when he appears in this material world.
So, in this way, the Lord could expand himself unlimitedly, even in the material world. Narada Muni was astonished when he saw that Krishna expanded himself into 16,108 forms in all the palaces in Dwaraka. Of course, Narada Muni is very familiar with the Supreme Lord because he’s eternal and he travels from universe to universe and sees all the Lord’s activities. But even Narada Muni was completely astonished by the powers of Krishna. So therefore, the Lord is in a completely different position from any other living entity.
For the inspiration of the human beings, the Lord performs pastimes. And through these pastimes, then the human beings appreciate the powers of the Lord. So, when people hear about how Rama built this bridge with floating rocks to Sri Lanka, everybody is astonished. Or when they see Krishna lift up Govardhana hill, when he’s seven years old, with the little finger of his left hand, people are astonished. So, such activities, as I said here, they spread the fame of the Lord. Fame is produced because of the qualities of the Lord. So, if the Lord displays his powers and his intelligence, that cannot compare to any other living entity, people are impressed. So if you can build a bridge to Sri Lanka very quickly and it floats over the water, people are very impressed with the Lord’s intelligence and power. This gives them more faith and therefore they will worship Ramachandra with more devotion. And thus, it says in the last line that even the great kings in the future will come forward and worship Ramachandra.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A
1) Hare Krsna Maharaj. Maharaj, it is mentioned in Bhagavatam that Itihasas are basically for less intelligent people. So during Treta yuga, during Rama’s time, people relied more on Vedas and Upanishads to understand the Supreme Lord? Should we understand that way?
So Itihasas like Mahabharata, actually written by Vedavyasa at the end of Dwapara Yuga only, and the Ramayana written previously is also in language which is simplified and full of stories and available for everyone.
The Vedic language is more difficult. And in order to hear it or to recite it or learn it or teach it, you have to be qualified. So at least, you have to be Dvija, you have to be second born. So, this excludes the sudras from hearing, speaking or teaching the Vedas. Of course, in Kali Yuga, sudras are the majority. So, they’re disqualified from hearing the Vedas.
In Satya Yuga there were no sudras. So we get the appearance of varnas in Treta Yuga. So therefore, the Vedas are used by the people in Satya Yuga, but as the ages progress, then gradually less and less people are qualified to learn the Vedas. But since knowledge should be available to everybody in all the yugas, the sages have written Puranas and Itihasas. So Puranas and Itihasas do not need qualification. So anyone with faith, no matter what varna or ashrama, they can hear, study or recite the Itihasas and Puranas.
2) Maharaj, when Krishna gave instruction both to Gopis and Arjuna, Arjuna took the instruction and acted accordingly, but Gopis didn’t take the instruction, they didn’t act on Krishna’s instruction. So similarly, when we should take instructions and when we should reject instruction of Krishna?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: So, you’re saying that the Gopis didn’t follow Krishna’s instructions?
Devotee: They rejected when Krishna told to go to their home during rasa panchadyaya.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Oh okay. So of course, some of the instructions are not, let’s say, absolute instructions. Some of the instructions are there as part of pastimes. For instance, Krishna tells Rukmini, oh you go and marry somebody else. I’m not qualified to be the king. But of course, Rukmini took that seriously and she almost fainted. And then of course Krishna explained, this was just a joke.
So Krishna told the Gopis, oh you go home, it’s a forest, there’s wild animals, people will talk, so better you don’t stay here, you go home. But that was just a test. And when the Gopis didn’t go home, Krishna was very pleased. So in this way, in spite of the discouragement even from Krishna himself, the Gopis’ love for Krishna remained very very strong. So that was a sign of their intense prema.
3) Hare Krishna Maharaj. In Ramayan, Lanka is mentioned as 100 yojana in distance. Roughly 800 miles or 1200 kilometers. But from southern tip of India, it is 40 kilometers approximately. What does 100 yojana refers to?
Of course, in some places, the direction of Lanka is also different. And based on that, some people will claim that Sri Lanka is not the actual Lanka that Rama went to [Laughs]. It’s somewhere else in the ocean [Laughs]. In any case, the geography of the world has changed a lot. And Rama was actually existing 16 million years previously. So, the islands and the continents and the oceans have moved a lot in 16 million years.
4) Thank you, Maharaj. There was another related question which is again based on the distance like the bridges only about 14 kilometers. But Hanuman has flown 100 yojanas. So, is that also we can understand the same way you mentioned?
Yeah.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatham ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami maharaj ki Jai!!!