Thursday, February 15, 2007

BG7

Today the same sloka was dealt with.In practical life a slave never bosses over the boss but here it is happening because this is to show by the Lord that if anyone surrenders to Him , He will be at the beck and call of His devotees.
Here an anecdote is narrated.PeriaNambi, who was still in the grahasthasramam had Sri Alavandar, a sanyasin, as his guru and Sri Ramanuja, another sanyasin, as his desciple. Once Ramanuja, who had about 700 sanyasins and about 12,000 grahasthas as sishyas ,was coming around the temple streets. At one place PeriyaNambi, his guru appeared and suddenly, PeriyaNambi prostrated to Ramanuja, his sishya, when all Ramanuja's sishyas were seeing. One would have expected Ramanuja to hurriedly rush towards his acharya and stopped PeriyaNambi or Ramanuja also should have returned by prostrating to his guru PeriyaNambi. Ramanuja did neither and moved as usual and reached his ashram. Some sishyas were aghast at seeing this scene and asked Ramanuja why he did not do either of the possiblities and turned a blind eye. Ramanuja explained that if he had acted either way it would have shown that he has recogonised the falling at his feet by the Acharya and actually he never wanted such an action. So he was indifferent to that action.The same sishyas went to PeriyaNambi and questioned as to why he fell at the feet of his own desciple.Came immediately the reply from PeriyaNambi: to him Ramanuja appeared as his guru Sri Alawandar.
In Srimad Bhagavatham Sri Ambareesha tale is told. Ambareesha observes ekadasi vratham and on next day dwadasi, after performing pooja he completes the vratham by taking food. Once on such an occasion, on the dwadasi day as Ambareesha is performing pooja sage Durwasa arrives and after offering swagatham Ambareesha, the Ikshwaku king requests him to take food with him and help him to complete the vratham. Durwasa agrees and says he will finish his bath and come for food. But the sage wantonly delays to test the king. The king waits and seeing that the sage has not come and also noting that in the next very few minutes dwadasi thithi would end and if he did not take food before that all the ekadasi vratha efforts will go in vain, Ambareesha consults the pundits and takes water, though this was not a food yet it satisfied the conditions for the vratha and so the vratha got fulfilled, Durwasa was waiting for this and he immediately arrived at the spot and accused the King of inviting a guest and taking food before his arrival.The king's explanation went unheeded and Durvasa as usual in his anger cursed and he created a demon to devour the King, who respectfully with folded hands accepted the punishment. But earlier Sri Vishnu in appreciation of His devotee's sincerity, Had placed His Sri Sudarsana Chakra [Discus] in the custody of Ambareesha for protection. Now when the Durwasa created Demon was coming near the king, Sudarsana could not remain idle at the injustice and so the Chakra reduced the demon to ashes and started chasing Durwasa. Scared , the sage went all over to Sri Paramasiva and Sri Bramha for help and all expressed their inability. Finally, he went to Sri MahaVishnu reclining on the Serpent mattress and wit Sri MahaLakshmi seated by Him, and appealed to withdraw His Chakra. For this Sri Vishnu replied that He can not do anything and it is better Durwasa surrenders to Ambaresha for redressel. At that time He says I am Bhaktha aparadheena meaning He is bound by the wishes and orders of His devotees. Durwasa goes back to Ambareesha and falls at his feet and he was saved. Here, in Bhagavatham it is told just like a husband is enslavened by a dutiful Pathivratha wife, so is the God is slave to His devotees.

2 comments:

Raghu Saranathan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Raghu Saranathan said...

The Ambareesha story also narrates the virtue of Sudarshana Aalwar. The name Sudarshana, when split, meants "Su" - right or correct - "Darshanam". During this entire process Sri Sudarshana Aalwar did not attack Maharishi Durvasa even once, even when he could have. The idea was to give proper direction to the sage, so that he could do the right thing - in this case apologize to King Ambareesha.
This has been very eloquently explained by Sri U.Ve. Sadakopan in this eBook on Sudarshana-ashtakam. http://www.sundarasimham.org/ebooks/7SDSN.pdf (refer to page 20).
The commentary also has reference to Sri Mukkur Swamy as well, please read this if possible.