By Shri Kesava Rao Tadipatri
Question and Answer from October 31, 2020
1. A.R. Chudamani avaru asked the question - Did Dasharatha end his life on his own?
1A. No, he had a curse from the aged and blind parents of an ascetic youth, by name Shravan Kumar. Before Dasharatha was married, as young prince, he went on hunting expedition. On the bank of Sarayu river, in the darkness, he hears the sound of water, being filled into a kumbha or pitcher. Mistaking it for the sound of an elephant drinking water, he shot an arrow, which hit the ascetic youth Shravan Kumar. Dasharatha tells him how it happened and at his request takes the water to his parents, as the ascetic's life ended. Shravan Kumar's parents, hear the details from Dasharatha and they also passed away. Before dying, Shravan's father cursed Dasharatha that he would also die from the putrashoka or separation from his son. In Ramayana, Dasharatha narrated this to Kausalya in his last hours of life.
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2. Sri Sreenidhi Murthy avaru asked the question - If Hari makes us do everything, why do people do wrong? Why Hari not stop us before we do wrong?
2A. Two things. Hari created everything and gave taste to all. Why did He not make all sweet and tasty? Why did he make margosa bitter? Why make sugarcane sweet? That is because, He is the one who protects the properties of all things and inherent nature of all the beings. If he makes the margosa also taste like sugarcane, then He practically killed Margosa and in its place created sugarcane. That will be a flaw. So, if he makes all the bad svabhAva people into good svabhAva, that is as good of killing the bad svabhAva and creating new svabhAva. Secondly, if He makes the bad people do good, he is showing varying types of favors and so He is partial to them. That will be another flaw in Him. What ever the Lord does, it will be svabhAvAnuguNa and impartial.
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3. Sri Muralidharan on behalf of Sri Urapaakkam MAruthAchAr asked that in Gita 18- 59 to 63, Sri Krishna gave conflicting (contradictory) msgs. First He said that no freewill at all and then He said "yathechChasi tathA kuru". (Do as you will it).
3A. It is a wrong understanding lot of people have. All the Acharyas prior to Madhvacharya did not even realize that there is contradiction between verses 59 to 61 and verse 63, leave alone trying to give an answer. If they did not see the contradiction, then that indicates that they did not even have that realization. If they saw the contradiction, but did not give a resolution, then that indicates that they had no clue how to resolve and so just ignored it. But our Acharya explained it and gave a beautiful resolution for that in Gita-Tatparya and Rayaru explained the same in Gita-Vivruti following our Acharya. Unfortunately lot of Madhva scholars are also quoting to indicate that there is a small amount of svAtantrya.
A brief explanation given below.
yadahaN^kAramAshritya na yotsya iti manyase |
mithyaiSha vyavasAyaste prakR^itistvAM niyoxyati || 18-59||
मिमिथ्यष व्यवसायस्त प्रकतितिस्त्वा निनियोक्ष्यतिति॥ १८-५९॥
Meaning: Even if you refrain from fighting by adopting the egoistic position "I will not fight", your endeavor will be futile only as the will of the Lord will make you do that act certainly.
svabhAvajena kaunteya nibaddhaH svena karmaNA |
kartuM nechchhasi yanmohAtkariShyasyavashopi tat || 18-60||
स्वभावजन कौन्तय निनिबद्धः स्वन कर्मणा।
कर्तुं नच्छसिसि यन्मोहात्करिरिष्यस्यवशोपिपि तत॥ १८-६०॥
Meaning: Oh son of Kunti, you are bound by your own karma, resulting from your own inherent nature. Whatever you do not intend to act upon owing to your deluded attachment to your own relatives, you will perform that due to lack of your control and subjugated to outside your will, and completely under the control of Lord Sri Hari.
bhrAmayansarvabhUtAni yantrArUDhAni mAyayA || 18-61||
भ्रामयन्सर्वभूतानि यन्त्रारूढानि मायया ॥ १८-६१॥
Meaning: Oh Arjuna, the All-controlling Lord is engaging all the living beings into actions, who are mounted on the machine-like bodies like puppets, by residing in the hearts of all the living beings.
tameva sharaNaM gachchha sarvabhAvena bhArata |
tatprasAdAtparAM shAntiM sthAnaM prApsyasi shAshvatam || 18-62||
तमेव शरणं गच्छ सर्वभावेन भारत ।
तत्प्रसादात्परां शान्तिं स्थानं प्राप्स्यसि शाश्वतम् ॥ १८-६२॥
Meaning: Oh Arjuna, surrender to and seek refuge in that Lord in all the ways. From His grace only, your intellect will be firmly placed in the Lord and you will obtain the permanent VaikunTha, etc.
vimR^ishyaitadasheSheNa yathechchhasi tathA kuru || 18-63||
इतिति त ज्ञानमाख्यात गह्याद्गह्यतर मया।
विविमश्यतदशषण यथच्छसिसि तथा करु॥ १८-६३॥
Meaning: In this way, I have spoken to you the most secret knowledge. By analyzing this completely, do as you will it.
The message given in 18-63 seems to go against what was told in 18-59 to 18-61. Acharya resolves this in Gita tatparya by saying that "yathechchhasi tathA kuru" is an AkShepa or challenge placed before Arjuna - "Let me see if you can do as you will". One may wonder as to how can we make such a claim.
Acharya says - "yathechchhasi tathA kuru ityAkShepa-parihArAya kariShye
vachanaM tava ityanusarati bhagavaMtam" - "यथच्छसिसि तथा करु इत्याक्षप-परिरिहाराय
करिरिष्य वचन तव इत्यनसरतिति भगवतम"
If that were not an AkShepa, there was no need for Arjuna to utter the following words as an answer to that AkShepa (challenge).
Arjuna says -
naShTo mohaH smR^itirlabdhA tvatprasAdAnmayA.achyuta |
sthito.asmi gatasandehaH kariShye vachanaM tava || 18-73||
स्थितोऽस्मि गतसन्देहः करिष्ये वचनं तव ॥ १८-७३॥
"Oh Achyuta, my delusion is obliterated. Due to your grace, my memory is restored. I am standing here with m doubts erased and I will do as per your words (which is to fight the war.)
What is the delusion? Thinking that one can go against the will of the Lord. All of us do not know the will of the Lord, but for Arjuna He is fortunate that the Lord is standing there and he had already shown VishvarUpa and told Arjuna -
mayaivaite nihatAH pUrvameva
nimittamAtraM bhava savyasAchin || 11-33||
मयैवैते निहताः पूर्वमेव
निमित्तमात्रं भव सव्यसाछिन् ॥ ११-३३॥
(All these are already killed by me earlier itself (meaning the Lord already willed it and it is going to happen. Oh SavyasAchi, you just be mere instrument.)
In the entire Gita, except the one line "yathechChasi tathA kuru", there is not another line which even apparently says that there is svAtantrya for Jiva and it does not make sense to take this apparent meaning and reject rest all statements and especially when AchArya gave resolution as well.
Sri Purandara Dasaru says -
hari chitta satya, nara chittake bandadu lava-lesha naDeyadu, hari chitta satya.
ಹರಿ ಚಿತ್ತ ಸತ್ಯ, ನರ ಚಿತ್ತಕೇ ಬಂದದು ಲವ-ಲೇಶ ನಡೇಯದು, ಹರಿ ಚಿತ್ತ ಸತ್ಯ.
Note that our shAstras are so perfect that there are no ambiguous or mutually contradicting messages especially when major principles are given. The same understanding has to be held wrt Mahavakyas. It is completely puerile to draw identity (Jiva Brahma aikya) with a small bunch of statements which are partially extracted and quoted out-of-context by labeling them as Mahavakyas.
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4. Sri Ravindra Vijayindra asked the question that Dhritarashtra may have had some indications about loss in war, children. Still why was he not ready to accept the real facts?
4A. The answer above answers this also. It is not in the control of Dhritarashtra. His karma, His svabhAva and the Lord who controls all these will do accordingly. Dhritarashtra has no control not only on the outcome, but also he had no control in showing the reactions. He was just helpless.
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5. Sri Venkatesh Kalludi Srinivas asked the question "Were Dhritarashta and his sons aware Krishna is Paramatma?"
5A. Note that Dhritarashtra is a gandharva by his svarUpa and Duryodhana is Kalipurusha and likewise his brothers are also inherently daityas. Daitya svabhAva will not accept all-Supremacy of the Lord and in fact they have hatred for Vishnu. Dhritarashtra was aware that Krishna was Paramatma, but still he became victim of Kali prabhava (Kali purusha being his own son now) and did what ever Kali wanted him to do.
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6. Sri Purushottama Rao asked - Why Dhritarashtra did not listen to his own brother Vidra's advice?
6A. That is because of Kali prabhAva. His own son is Kali amsha. So, he was a victim of Kali full extent.
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7. Sri Sushmasri Rao asked a question - As parents, sometimes we face the situation as Dhritarashtra, despite our best efforts, we may not be able to bring them to understand and appreciate our dharma so are we pretenders?
7A. If we act like Dhritarashtra, then we are pretenders only. Note that Dharma tells us what to do. It does not mandate that we should be successful in every endeavor. "karmaNyevAdhikAraste...". If our children are on the wrong track and we do not do enough efforts to correct them, then it is our fault. If we do enough effort and they still are not OK, it is not our fault. If they are on the path of adharma, we should not support them. In Dhritarashtra case, he got right advice from so many people - starting from Sri Vedavyasa, Vidura, Bhishma, Dronacharya, KripAcharya, Sanjaya, et al. We find it hard to find one good Guru, one right adviser. He had so many wonderful advisers and he ignored every one of them. What else? He had to pay the heavy price. There is no point in hiding behind the curtain - my children dont listen to me. What can I do? One has to ask himself "Am I listening to my good advisers?".
Are any of our children as bad as Kamsa? Ugrasena did not listen to Kamsa and condemned his actions and so he was imprisoned by Kamsa (Of course Kamsa was Kalanemi amsha and was born of a daitya, who came in the guise of Ugrasena). But eventually Ugrasena was crowned by Sri Krishna after killing Kamsa.
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8. Sri Vijay Agnihotri asked a question - compassion has ativyApti. How can we show to All - Duryodhana does not need compassion.
8A. The definition does not have ativyApti - because "it is not blind compassion to ALL", but it is for "All good people". Why not show on Duryodhana? Because showing compassion towards Duryodhana will hurt many good people and so it will be harmful to the good people. Note that compassion should be such, which upholds dharma. Daya is one of the PAda-s of Dharma. The litmus test is if Daya upholds Dharma, then it is right and if it does not uphold Dharma, then it is not right.
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