Bh.P. 1.1.1. Deliberations on the First
Shloka of Shrimad Bhagavatham
– At the 17th
World Sanskrit Conference, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver,
Canada. 9-13 July 2018
When I heard that the 17th World Sanskrit Conference (2018)
is coming to Vancouver, I was excited. This world-wide event is the premier
conference in Sanskrit that occurs only every three years. Major universities and
organizations take turns in conducting this and there is a stiff competition of
sort in getting the conference venue approved for a city, quite like the
selection for the Olympics venue. Last year’s conference was in Bangkok and the
one previous to that was in New Delhi.
The next conference is scheduled to be in Canberra, Australia, in 2021. I
didn’t register for it as I thought that the conference would be academic in
nature with a lot of ‘dry’ discussions on grammar, usages, and ancient textbooks in Sanskrit which may not have any relevance to our day to day life or
would be of my taste. I couldn’t attend the conference in full but I was
privileged to attend a few paper sessions and a wonderful theatre performance
of Koodiyaattam – the longest surviving Sanskrit drama form preserved
mainly in Kerala. The performance and lecture demonstrations given by the Nepathya
troupe was really wonderful. They demonstrated how an unbroken artistic tradition
of more than one thousand years of the classical culture of India has been kept
alive for centuries. The conference was inaugurated by the Indian Human Resources
Development Minister Prakash Javedkar and attended by many eminent
personalities including the famed ‘slumdog millionaire’ author Vikas Swarup
who is the High Commissioner of India to Canada. Some six hundred scholars
attended the conference where more than five hundred papers were presented on
various themes. Bhagavatham was one of the streams where scholars
presented their views and postulated their theories.
In the Bhagavatham session, I was captivated by the fact that
the academicians – two professors from Japan and two from the United States of
America took the first shloka of Bhagavatham and went into the minute details
and purport of the shloka corresponding to various schools of spirituality –
namely advaita, vishshta-advaita, and dvaita with a number of
variations attributed to each of them.
The first shloka of Bhagavatha Puranam (Bh.P. 1.1.1) is as
follows:
janmādy asya yato ’nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ svarāṭ
tene brahma hṛdā ya ādi-kavaye muhyanti yat sūrayaḥ
tejo-vāri-mṛdāṁ yathā vinimayo yatra tri-sargo ’mṛṣā
dhāmnā svena sadā nirasta-kuhakaṁ satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi
One meaning of this shloka can be summarized as follows: In this world,
the creation, maintenance, and destruction are occurring due to a complex, but well-ordained integration and disintegration of matter. The power that makes these
three folded activities possible is indeed the consciousness that is pervading
each and every living being. It is the same force that gave the creator Brahma
the knowledge of Vedas which in turn imparted the ability in him to
create the world. Even great scholars retreat from defining or explaining this baffling
phenomenon, as words fail in doing so. In a desert, we see water in a mirage. Although
it is merely an illusion, we feel that it is for real. Likewise, the five basic
elements- the space, air, fire, water and earth – interchange, combine and
conglomerate with each other mysteriously to project various scenarios and
images in front of us that look and feel very much real to us. In the same way,
the world made up of three basic qualities – the sattva, rajas , and tamas also appear before us as real.
Let us meditate upon this power, the eternal self-effulgent ultimate truth,
untainted by illusions.
Professor Tomohiro Manabe (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science)
presented a paper on Bh.P 1.1.1. with the various interpretations of dhimahi.
He used Madhusudana Saraswati’s commentary for this and explained the
importance of the term dhimahi in the Advaita, Satvata and Bhakthi
schools of philosophy. The shloka
inspires the reader to meditate upon the ultimate truth and he postulates that
the process of meditation differs in accordance with the three points of view.
Also, the three schools have different takes on the meaning of ‘highest truth’.
Dhimahi is contemplation (nidhidhyasana) as per advaita
philosophy and it is veneration (upasana) in Satvata tradition
and meditation (dhyana) according to Bhakthi school. There is
also a fourth meaning of dhimahi brought up by Madhusudana i.e.,
comprehension (pratipatti). The professor postulates that this
interpretation of dhimahi as comprehension makes more sense as the
‘highest truth’ is understood differently by different schools. He goes on to
argue that meaning and essence of the whole 12 books of Bhagavatham are summarized
in the word Dhimahi. Listening,
thinking, and contemplating on Brahman = atman is the essence of the advaita
tradition and the highest truth is “That Thou Art” (tat tvam asi).
In the Satvata school, a variation in the advaitic
tradition, the Vyuha theory is considered with four states of supreme atman,
with deities Vasudeva, Samkarshana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha. The
highest truth is the supreme atman, represented by Vasudeva who
is the pure unconditioned consciousness. Here the ‘dhimahi’ of highest
truth is in the sense of veneration (upasana). An opposing view for this
is presented by posing a question that how can you do upasana of the
unconditioned truth? The answer to that is: by meditation on the other three - Samkarshana,
Pradyumna and Aniruddha to get to Vasudeva. In the Bhakthi
school, the dhimahi is considered only in terms of dhyana with an
implied meaning of the same interpreted as contemplation (pratipatti).
Here the highest truth is Krishna. “krishnatu bhagavaan swayam” and he
is none other than Vasudeva, the unconditioned supreme atman. The
paper concludes with a statement that the dhimahi is different for
different schools depending on the definition of the ‘highest truth’ although a
lot of similarities can be seen.
Professor Kiyokazu Okita of the Sophia University, Tokyo, presented a
paper quoting the commentaries on Bh.P 1.1.1 by Madhva and Vijayadhvaja
where they reject the concept of absolute monism. Basically, the school of
dualism rejects the advaita school of thoughts. It is stated that
Madhva’s commentaries predate advaitic commentaries of Sankara. Madhva’s
commentary includes two basic tenets of dualism – absolute independence of
Vishnu and the reality of the world, thus rejecting the concepts of absolute
monism and the idea that the world is illusory. Here the highest truth is
Vishnu, who is supremely independent with the eight-fold powers to create
maintain, and destroy the world. Dhimahi here is taken in the sense of ‘I
reflect’ (chintaye). In conclusion the professor comments that Madhava’s
interpretation didn’t get the attention it deserves among the scholars and he
wants this interpretation as an alternative to the often held perception of
Bhagavatam as advaitic in general.
The third paper presentation I attended was that of
Professor David Bucha of Brown University, USA. He was talking about the 18th-century
Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta theologian, Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, who composed
a commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in which the influence of several sources
can be demonstrated. Professor Bucha’s paper examines Baladeva’s commentary on
the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s theologically dense opening verse, Bh.P 1.1.1.
identifying sources and highlighting his departures from his predecessors. The
paper suggests that Baladeva, who played a central role in defending the Gauḍīya
Vaiṣṇava tradition in Jai Singh’s court sought to engage an audience
outside of that tradition.
The fourth paper is by Arun Brahmbhatt St. Lawrence
University (New York, NY, USA) gave an interpretation of Bh.P. 1.1.1 in
accordance with the Swami Narayana Tradition. In that tradition, Sanskrit
commentators have encoded Sahajānand Svāmī’s unique interpretation of
the first verse of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Sahajānand Svāmī’s interpretation is
focused on the latter half of the verse, including a reading of the word “dhāmnā”
that emphasizes the ever-present manifest form of God on earth. This is
critical to the Swami Narayan sampradāya’s teaching that Sahajānand
Svāmī himself is the manifestation of parabrahman.
Shrimad Bhagavatham is a unique scripture as it satisfies
the needs of anyone who ponders over life– whether he is a theist or
atheist. It is not just a scriptural
text- it is the Lord Himself! Among the spiritually inclined - all the three
categories of them, dvaitins (the Lord and I are separate), vishishta-advaitins
(Lord and I have a special bond) and advaitins (there are no two- Lord
and I are one) – use Bhagavatham to explain and promote their positions as they
all take Bhagavatham as their authentic text. If you ask a Krishna-devotee,
he sees the Bhagavatham as “Krishnastu bhagavan swayam” (Krishna is God, present in/as Bhagavatham). For an advaitin
the holy book is full of metaphors that take him to the deeper realms of
contemplation and meditation to seek and reach the ultimate divine, the Brahman.
In essence, Bhagavatham is the scripture extraordinaire in that it contains
references to everything that one can imagine. Geography (details of Jambudweepa
for example) to astronomy, astrology, and physics to metaphysics, human
psychology, and their divine interventions are all subject matter of
Bhagavatham.
Being a scripture written by the Master Sage Vyasa, there is
no wonder that the literal and poetic quality of the book is awe-inspiring and
incomparable. Having composed all the Vedas and Puranas, Sage Vyasa was
apparently not content with his contributions!. He felt that he still lacks
something that is hard to describe in words. The story goes that the celestial Sage
Narada came to his counsel and asked him to write yet another book
extolling the virtues of ‘knowledge’ that is full of glories (Bhagas) of
the Lord. Yes, the Bhagavatham is a book
that is full of eternal glories of the Divine-Ultimate or God. It is also known
as the 5th Veda- the first four being Rig, Yajus, Sama & Atharva
Vedas. It is an encyclopedia of spirituality. Having done this enormous task of
writing scripture with 18000 verses in 12 Cantos comprising of 335 Chapters,
the Sage was content!.
What we have seen here in the World Sanskrit Conference is
just the study of the first shloka of Bhagavatham and the work is still not
complete. Within the Bh.P. 1.1.1, we see that the world scholars have brought
up various insights and commentaries and I am sure the study is still underway
at various parts of the world to come up with more and more insights. However,
throughout the conference, I felt that the deliberations of the Bhagavatham
session to be purely academic in nature and the presentations were quite ‘dry’
in their deliberations.
