Story of Mirabai

Mirabai and Akbar:

Bhakti and Syncretism

in Medieval India

Radha and Krishna and the Gopis of Vrindaban--Rajasthan Miniature Painting

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

Medieval India saw a number of traveling poets and saints who inspired what has become known as the “bhakti movement.” They espoused a kind of personal religion—devotion to God—that stood above the rules and regulations of mundane religion. Where varnashram-dharma  offers a safe set of moral and ethical codes for daily living, bhakti  was a fresh alternative: a personal devotion to God. In this sense also, the so-called bhakti movement  mirrors evangelical Christianity by promoting a personal relationship with God.

The idea that one may have a personal connection with divinity overthrows the caste system, since it does away with the hierarchy of social classes.

Of all the saints and bhaktas  whose songs illuminated the popular idea of bhakti, none is so famous as Mirabai. The oral tradition of Northern India has kept her memory alive by created a wide body of work attributed to her. Her story is as compelling as a Disney movie—she is the perfect heroine—and her hero’s journey culminates in divine love.

Painting of Mirabai in Rajasthan Style

Her story is told in the 17^th Century Bhakta-mala of Narayana Das, a book which describes the biographies of many of the saints of Northern India.   

Mirabai (1498-1548?) was a Rajput princess from Pali in Rajasthan who showed great devotion to the worship of the deity of Krishna even in childhood. Historical records from the court of Mewar show that Mirabai was later married to the Rajput King Bhoj Raj, the crown prince of Mewar. And yet, even while married, Mirabai always considered herself to be the bride of Krishna. In fact, Before her own wedding, Mirabai took vows of marriage to Krishna before a tiny deity of Krishna that she kept on her person, swearing to be faithful to Krishna only.  

Mirabai’s ostensive husband, Bhoj Raj was wounded in a battle in the war of the Rajputs against the Delhi Sultanate who ruled Northern India until they were defeated by Babur. Bhoj Raj died in 1521. Mira’s own father as well as her husband’s father were also killed in wars against the Mughal army of Babur, who replaced the Delhi Sultanate as India’s ruling power.  So it was that Mirabai became both widow and an orphan. But as the widow of the former king, she was recognized as a rival to the throne of Mewar.  So it was that the envious family of her husband tried to murder her. Legend has it that Mirabai’s mother-in-law had her poisoned by sending her a glass of nectar.  Miraculously she survived the poisoning attempt. Later she was given a basket of flowers that hid nest of asps. But Mirabai survived   these attempts at murder by poison. She rejected the company of men, accepting only Krishna Himself as her lover and husband and leaving aside ordinary men as so many poisonous snakes. 

Her poetry or song describes how she left the royal caste and abandoned the status of a married princess, and  how she defied religious convention to become Krishna’s bride. 

According to the legends surrounding Mirabai, the Emperor Akbar himself traveled on pilgrimage to listen to her song. The emperor of the Mughals along with his court musician Tansen visited her disguised as a common hermit. Akbar, the story goes, falls at her feet and offers her a necklace of pearls to complement the pearls which are her divine words in song. Since Mirabai is said to have died in 1547, this story is considered apocryphal, since Tansen wasn’t present in the court of Akbar until 1562.

But so much of the story around Mirabai is apocryphal, since events from the 16^th Century are difficult to document completely. Another legend has it that she visited Vrindaban and confronted the leader of the Chaitanya movement there. In one version of the story she is said to have met with Rupa Goswami—in other versions it is Jiva Goswami, his nephew, many years later.

In fact the meeting never took place. Jiva Goswami was a renunciant—an ascetic monk living in strict conditions of austerity. He never met with women, but was cloistered under a vow of celibacy. When Mirabai was informed that, as a man, the saint held no meetings with women, she famously retorted, “There is only one man in Vrindaban—my Lord Krishna.” Whether this famous retort ever took place, it is often cited as an example of Mira’s rejection of male authority. It reflects her view that mysticism is personal and has no need for any patriarchal religious hierarchy. 

 Mirabai’s memory, her legend and the poems attributed to her have encouraged generations of bards and singers who succeeded her to compose in her style and to sing ecstatic bhajans glorifying Krishna. The poetry and song of Mirabai is something like that of Homer, in that it is impossible to know what the original bard may have penned, and what has been written later. No manuscripts of her work survive and all of her songs have been passed down in the oral tradition. As a consequence the earliest versions of poems said to have been written by Mirabai date from the 18^th Century, hundreds of years after her passing.

Many of the songs of Mirabai are something like “fan-fiction,”  songs written in her “style.” Writing on Mirabai, John Stratton Hawley points out that “When one speaks of the poetry of Mirabai, then, there is always an element of enigma there must always remain a question about whether there is any real relations between the poems we cite and a historical Mira.”

And yet, various towns throughout Northern India  maintain oral traditions that include songs said to have been written by Mirabai.  And of all the saints of the 16^th Century bhakti movement, she is still perhaps the most famous and revered.

Akbar the Great

These traditions play into our previous point about syncretism. Akbar’s interest in forging a religious synthesis that could harmonize Islamic and Vedic tradition was moved by practical considerations. He could not rule effectively in the midst of a religious civil war. If Sufi mysticism finds common ground with Hindoo mysticism, why not promote the syncretic harmony of the two?

On its face, Mirabai’s bhakti  would seem to exclude any nexus with Islam. But her focus on union with God—even erotic union with God—bears deeper scrutiny. The idea of a personal union with God is appealing. If we can leave aside the rules and rituals of Islam, Christianity, and Vedic dharma, what are we left with if not union with God. And if that is the essential goal, what need of so many differences.

In the time of Akbar, the world was ablaze with religious turmoil. The 16^th Century saw the rise of the Spanish Inquisition and the burning of heretics and Jews at the stake. The “Discovery” of the Americas was underway with the conquest of Mexico and the wholesale destruction of the ancient Mayan, Aztec, and Incan civilizations. Martin Luther had begun the Protestant movement with his 99 theses, demanding a Reformation of the Catholic Church. And in India, wars had torn the country apart between Hindoo and Muslim factions. Why not look for a more spiritual path that would go beyond superficial differences and unlock the door to spiritual harmony?

Mirabai’s bhakti  and the way of the Sufi mystics seemed to offer just the key. If her mystical experience is real, then union with God through devotion is a universal truth. Anyone can do what Mirabai did and achieve union with God through personal realization. Of course, Mirabai is interested in a personal God, but this problem can be finessed. In the end, once we achieve enlightenment through bhakti (or any other kind of mysticism) the personal God dissolves into the oneness of the Sufi mystics.  This is the promise of Akbar’s syncretism and the harmonious solution offered by the superficial approach to bhakti  so favored by the impersonalist or Shankar school of Vedanta.

Not that Mirabai’s “devotion” is entirely false or invented. There is no doubt that her religious sentiment is genuine. But her actual “devotion” to Krishna is vague, as we shall see. Her “mystical” experience is real in the sense that it moves her closer to divinity—but her “personal” view of divinity has more in common with Shankar’s Vedanta than with the more well-defined bhakti  of the bhagavat  school promoted by Jiva Goswami whom she famously rejected and insulted.

It is risky to say anything critical about saints—especially when universally revered. But let’s take a closer look at Mirabai’s bhakti.  

Let me give a simple example. I remember when The Beatles visited Southern California  to play a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964. At 13 years old my sister was a big fan of John Lennon. She heard that the Beatles were staying at the Bel Air hotel and went there with her friend Lydia. Before she was detained by hotel security, she managed to climb the back wall surrounding the hotel garden and catch a glimpse of John and Paul lounging around the swimming pool with reporters. She maintained a lifelong crush on John Lennon and wept when he died.

My sister hated Cynthia Lennon with a passion. She hated Yoko even more. She imagined herself married to John Lennon for the longest time. None of this made John Lennon aware of her existence.

My point is that we may imagine ourselves as “married” to God, but this may be news to God Himself. God may have a personal aspect; it is not impossible.  And Krishna may be the Supreme Personality of Godhead; after all, He is Divinity as pure beauty and joy. It is often said that “God is Love” and the Krishna conception is the idea of God as the embodiment of love. 

And yet,  it seems that the Infinite is not so easily attained.  Simply imagining oneself married to divinity does not make it so.  Anymore than imagining oneself married to John Lennon makes it so. 

If God is a person, and if Krishna is God, then one would have to respect the details of his Godhead. Jiva Goswami was occupied in doing just that. A king does not operate without a court. The Christian God has angels and saints. The Hindoo God Krishna has his entourage, his personal associates and servitors in Vrindaban, including divine lovers such as the gopis of Vrindaban. One does not become an intimate of God simply through imagination, even if one is capable of great poetry. 

Love of God, Love for Krishna is not a cheap thing. It is not that simply by singing a few songs and declaring oneself to be Krishna’s wife or lover that it becomes so. But if it is not love that we aspire to but “one-ness” everything changes.

Mirabai’s bhakti is distinct from that of the followers of Shri Chaitanya and the bhagavat-bhakti school in the sense that Mirabai’s bhakti  excludes Krishna’s entourage. Mirabai is not willing to allow anyone else to be Krishna’s lover, any more than my sister permitted the existence of a Cynthia Lennon or a Yoko Ono. 

But if one is not truly serious about aspiring to devotion, to dedication, to the bhakti  of the bhagavat  school—if one is merely interested in liberation from material existence and oneness with the divine, then Mira’s path makes perfect sense.

Mira is praised for her rebellious nature. She rejects all hierarchies and relies only on her own personal mysticism, her own insight into divinity. She foregoes taking shelter of any guru. But real bhakti  is not possible without submission to a spiritual mentor. 

After all, how do we know whether or not our so-called “love” is mere sentiment? True spiritual realization will look to historical examples of realized souls. We are not alone. We are not the first to walk on the spiritual path. Among those who have gone before us are great saints who have recieved revealed truths. Some of these have written their revelations in the form of scriptures. Revealed scriptures, the traditions of saints, living saints and spiritual mentors are the checks on our own frivolity. Guru, shastra and sadhu are the threefold traditions that will help seekers on any path to find their way forward.

Mirabai eschews all these. This is one of the reasons for her popularity. She teaches that you don’t need a guru or teacher; you don’t need any scriptures; you don’t need to take help from any other realized soul—all you need is love.

Unfortunately, real love implies sacrifice—not merely words. Mirabai herself may have had a deep religious experience; we can never truly know. But to imitate her path by eschewing guru, shastra, and sadhu is dangerous.  One who wants to understand the true meaning of bhakti must not reject Jiva Goswami and his followers as superficial.

But in the time of Akbar, her example and message seemed a useful piece of the puzzle needed to bring society together harmoniously. In rejecting gurus, scriptures, and social norms, Mirabai teaches that we can find a personal religion in the same way that the Sufi mystics found God. The idea of a mystic path that avoids so much formality appeal to rules like Akbar as a solution to the fanaticism of both Muslims and Hindoos. 

Scholars in the time of Akbar and since have seen that the mysticism of Vedanta coincides with the Islamic Sufis in the idea that enlightenment is found in oneness with divinity. 

In this view, we are all spiritual essence; we are like drops of water in an infinite sea of divine energy. Enlightenment is found when the drops of spiritual energy merge into the Divine Ocean.  The Infinite is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. In this sense, the universal consciousness of the Sufi mystics has much in common with the Brahman of the Hindoos. And if the goal of spiritual essence is to become one with the divine light of infinite consciousness, why fight over the details of religion?

Mirabai’s appeal is that we can dedicate our lives to the service of an imaginary personal god even while embodied in our materialistic forms, finding liberation within this worship when achieving the final goal of oneness. 

The ideal of oneness in Sufism and in the inchoate bhakti  of such early saints as Surdas, Kabir, and Mirabai supported the syncretism sought by Akbar in order to create a more harmonious India. As a tactic, his curious harmony held. Akbar ruled the Mughal empire successfully from 1556 to 1605 and extended power over most of the Indian subcontinent. His search for religious harmony and tolerance preserved the empire during his lifetime. He formed alliances with the Rajput kings, uniting India as a people, based on new and universal truths.

But, syncretism is not the final word in theism. The analysis of divinity offered by the Vaishnavas of the Bhagavat school headed by Rupa, Sanatana and Jiva Goswami find that while such mystic experience as Mirabai’s might have validity, it is but one aspect of theistic realization.

The Bhagavat thus holds:

वदन्ति तत् तत्त्व-विदस्

तत्तं यज् ज्ञानम् अद्वयम्

ब्रह्मेति परमात्मेति

भगवान् इति शब्द्यते

vadanti tat tattva-vidas

tattaṁ yaj jñānam advayam

brahmeti paramātmeti

bhagavān iti śabdyate

Seers of the truth have found that the One Truth may be seen in three aspects: Indivisible Oneness, God Within, and the Personality of Godhead, or Bhagavan.

(SB 1.2.11)

In other words, oneness is a possible realization of divinity, but incomplete. The discovery of God within is superior. But best of all is to achieve complete realization in eternal consciousness and bliss in a personal relationship with the Supreme Person.

To be continued… 

From Babur to Mirabai

Mysticism 

and Medieval India

finding harmony amid conflict

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

The 16^th Century in India was bookmarked by two important events: the invasion by Tamurlaine in 1398 and the conquest of India by the Mogul dynasty headed by Babur, Tamurlaine’s grandson in 1528. During this time there was a constant struggle for power that transformed the sub-continent. The Sultanate of Delhi represented the old-school, established center of Islamic power in India. This center was displaced and defeated by the invading Babur, who began the Mughul empire.

The warrior King Babur rose from the principality of Farghana in Afghanistan to control the area. When he was forced to retreat by his rivals in the Fergana valley, he marched his men across the rugged passes of the Hindu Kush towards Hindustan. India’s greatest protection was natural; this mountainous terrain is practically impassable. And once this natural defense was breached, Babur had to confront the formidable armies of the Sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi, who ruled the Gangetic plain from Delhi to Kooch Bihar. 

1st Battle of Panipat

The  powerful armies of the Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi outnumbered Babur’s hardened Afghan, Persian, and Arab fighters.  The Sultan had nearly 100,000 men, armored elephants, cavalry archers, and infantry. But Babur’s gunpowder stampeded the elephants. His tactics were superior. He had been fighting with cannon and matchlock rifles for over twenty years from Samarqand to the Khyber pass. The Sultan’s forces were no match for Babur’s conquering hordes. The Sultan himself was killed in battle and Babur took Delhi.

The Delhi Sultanate’s rule was finished. Babur began consolidate the power of the Mughals throughout Northern India. 

So it was that when Babur finally defeated the Sultan at the First Battle of Pranipat in 1526, India was effectively his. 

But while the Mughals had begun consolidating political power in Delhi and its vassals, they were not alone on the subcontinent.

At that time, the most powerful opposition to Islam and the Mughals came from the Rajput kings and princes who controlled the "Hindoo" areas of the subcontinent. These were led by Rana Sanga of Mewar. So it was that the soul of India was caught in a tug-of-war between "Hindoo" and Muslim cross-currents. 

It’s important to keep in mind that the nation state had not achieved the same ascendancy in Asia as it had in Europe. Westerners and Europeans often make the assumption that kings enjoyed monolithic power in the past. In fact, the power of the Sultans and Maharajas was fragmented and might have been limited to the particular City-State over which they ruled. Outside their immediate influence, rural areas may have been treated with a great degree of laissez-faire, as long as taxes or tribute was forthcoming. 

The tug-of-war between "Hindoo" and Muslim influences is often seen as a brutal and bloody conflict. Writing about the Lodi Sultanate and its cruelty at the end of the 15^th Century, Táríkh-i Dáúdí remarks

He [Lodi] was so zealous...[as a Musulman] that he utterly destroyed diverse places of [infidel] worship... he entirely ruined the shrines of Mathura, [and] the minefield of heathenism. Their stone images were given to the butchers to use...as meat weights,[and all the Hindus in Mathura were strictly prohibited from shaving their heads and beards, and from performing ablutions. He stopped the idolatrous rites of the infidels there. Every city thus conformed as he desired to the customs of Islam.

Certainly, atrocities were performed. But, a generation later, the grandson of Babur, Akbar, proved to be capable of harmonizing the different communities. Akbar the Great is considered to have been a strong but benevolent ruler, perhaps the greatest of all the Mughal Kings. He knew how to make allies and was both an expert 

Babur

It was his son Akbar, who proved to be the greatest Mughal ruler. An able governor and astute leader, under his authority the Mughal empire grew to include almost two-thirds of the Indian subcontinent. Among one of his tactics was to create alliances through marriage with the Rajput kings.

Akbar, of course, comes later than the period under examination. He ruled India for the second half of the 16^th Century from 1556 to 1605. But his effective rule may be seen as the culmination of a centuries-long process of syncretism.  The extremism within both Islamic and "Hindoo" communities became tempered by the need for cooperation. 

Akbar’s rule is exemplary in that his governance became successful not by annihilating the "Hindoo" communities and the Rajput kings but through coexistence with them. One wonders how this might be possible, given that Islamic extremism and Hindu fanaticism seem so mutually exclusive.  But the ascendancy of Akbar in the 1550s was made possible by a trend that began in the generation before him. 

Both Islam and Vedic dharma have strong ethical and moral traditions, expressed in Islam through Sharia law and in Vedic tradition through the laws of Manu. These often come into clash, as for example the Vedic insistence on vegetarian diet or the Muslim insistence on the law of the Prophet. 

Scriptural considerations of sin and piety and good and evil drive the ethical and moral considerations that control daily life. I this way ur values, and ideas of right and wrong are integrated with our standards of behavior in the community.

But above and beyond what we accept as law, tradition, and “religious” conduct, there is our own personal spiritual experience. In all religious communities there are men and women whose experience of spirituality is especially profound. These “saintly” persons and their experience have created an entirely distinct response to both Sharia law and Vedic dharma. They are mystics, and the religious experience of mystics works outside the tradition even while reinforcing it.

In early 16^th Century India, mystics within both Islamic and “Hindoo” traditions became prominent. Of course, such mystics had always existed, but it was as if their poetry, music, and profound spiritual understanding was being discovered for the first time by a larger society. 

The constant seesaw between Vedic dharma  and Islamic culture apparently had an effect on the very soul of India, making people question the superficiality of both traditions and spurring them to seek something deeper-a more direct connection with divinity.

Beginning with the latter half of the 15^th Century in India and running through the reign of Akbar, then, there was a rise to prominence of Saints and mystics in India within both Islam and Vedic dharma that transformed daily life and led to a great degree of harmony between the two communities. This harmony made it possible for Akbar’s rule to promote coexistence between Hindoos and Muslims—even to seek alliance by marriage with Hindoo kings and princes and Muslim princesses.

History and politicians often lose sight of this harmonic relationship. During the worst of the atrocities committed by Aurangzeb, Akbar’s descendant, it was reported that he not only destroyed many Hindoo temples, but ordered his men to bring him a pound of brahmin threads before breakfast every morning. There have been numerous examples of extremism on both sides that have led to fragmentation—but any attempt for harmony profits by studying examples of what has worked.

It may be argued that the fundamentalism we have seen from both communities in these times has uprooted the essential syncretism that runs deep in the soul of India. But Indian civilization was profoundly affected  by the mysticism of both these cultures. Perhaps this is best seen during the rule of Akbar, but the movements underlying this synthesis emerged in the generations before his rule. 

In the generations just before and after the beginning of Mughal rule, the most powerful mystic tradition operating within the Islamic  was that of Sufism. And the most powerful trend within Hindoo dharma  was that of bhakti-marg,  the path of divine love, especially with reference to the followers of Krishna. 

In his article, “Hindu-Muslim Syncretism in India,” JJ Roy Burnan cites the work of Rasheeduddin Khan:

“According to Rasheeduddin Khan, Indian civilisation has been profoundly affected by two fundamental traditions: the Indo-Aryan cultural stream which provided Vedic philsophy, and the Indo-Muslim strand of culture—based on the intertwining of ‘bhakti marg’ and Islamic Sufism. ‘It is not surprising, therefore, to realise that the composite culture in in India originated in an environment of reconciliation, rather than refutation, co-existence rather than mutual annihilation of the politically dominant Islamic strands.’ Khan, thus, strongly refutes the history advanced by the orthodox scholars who view the medieval period in India as being marked by religious intolerance and communal wars between the Hindus and Muslims.”

While there were certainly territorial wars in the seesaw of power between different principalities, Sultanates, Mughals, and even Bandit Kings, One cannot assert with certainty based on the historical literature available that these were based on religious hate between the communities. Rather they were economic struggles where the real conflict was local and financial.

I use the word “Hindoo” advisedly and so have left it in quotes and archaic spelling. This is a term widely bandied about by the Arabic, Persian and British conquerors to make the people of India sound more exotic, weird, and superstitious.

In the above-cited article, Khan points out that the notion of Hindu religion is a misnomer. According to him, the term includes peole of different religious ways, “which gives Hinduism a flexibility and resilience and a tradition base wide enough to cover the syndrome of Indian culture.”

More to the point is how the insight of the 15^th Century saints and mystics transformed India, especially with the development of the bhakti-marg. The Muslims recognized the validity of Pirs or Sufi mystic saints—who didn’t necessarily follow all the tenets of the Sharia law, but who clearly had spiritual vision. This recognition spilled over to a wider acceptance of sādhus, or those who had been accepted by the Hindu community as saints.

Burman’s article goes on to point out that “Many scholars feel that the bhakti movement in India has been to a large extent responsible for promoting eclectic faiths and lessening the religious orthodoxy. Lokhand states,  ‘The Sufi and bhakti movements blurred the differences between the two religions so much that it was very common till very recently to have a sadguru or a pir having a common following of Hindus and Muslims. And no Pir or sadguru ever forced a Hindu or Muslim to give up his religion for any other. The medieval age was the period when sufi and bhakti thought coalesced at many points.”

In my own experience, I found that when I visited Shridhar Maharaja, a well-known sadguru in Bengal, his advice and opinion was often sought out not only by his Hindu followers, but by the Muslim chieftains of local villages whenever they had to resolve a difficult dispute. 

Shridhar Maharaja was a modern follower of the most prominent of all the saints and mystics of the late 15^th and early 16^th Centuries in Bengal. This was Shri Krishna Chaitanya, who established the path of divine love for Krishna as the highest yoga-marg throughout India. His followers were legion.  Many of them wrote important books, creating the first true literature in the Bengali vernacular. Among them were Vrindaban Das, whose Chaitanya Bhagavat is not only a record of the life of Shri Chaitanya and his fellow spiritual revolutionaries such as Nityananda, Adwaita, Shrivas, and Gadadhara, but also an authentic record of quotidian life in India and Bengal at the beginning of the 16^th Century. Shri Chaitanya’s followers included Sanatana and Rupa Goswami who lived in Vrindaban and composed in Sanskrit.  A renaissance in Bengali literature was led by  Krishna das Kaviraj whose Chaitanya Charitamrita is a classic theistic thesis in Sanskrit and Bengali. 

If the spiritual revolution brought about by bhakti-marg was led from Bengal, it found other manifestations in other parts of India as well. 

The most prominent among the Hindu devotional poets of North India were Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir. Surdas wrote scores of lyrical poems in Hindi glorifying Krishna. Kabir’s work is mysterious and seems to be a synthesis of Sufi mystical values and Krishna bhakti. While the original texts of Chaitanya’s followers were carefully preserved, the same cannot be said for these North Indian poets. Their work has traditionally been passed down through the oral tradition, so critical editions are nearly impossible. We know Kabir almost exclusively through the translations offered by Rabindranath Tagore, or through the Kabīr Granthāvali. 

In the case of Mirabai, recent scholarship by C.L. Prabhāt and Kalyāṇsiṃh Śekhāvat is responsible for bringing out a 1999 critical edition called Mirā: Jīvan aur Kāvya. But since Mirabai failed to publish any authorized version of her own poetry during her lifetime in the 16^th Century, many of these poems are as apocryphal as the bad Quartos of Shakespeare. It is literally impossible to define what is “interpolation” what was truly written by the hand of Mirabai and what are merely traditional songs attributed to her.

One of the problems of assessing Mirabai’s theistic contribution is just this: while the poems attributed to her may express a certain passion about the “Dark Lord,” or Shri Krishna, it’s hard to know what exactly was her mystic experience. And the very syncretic tradition that may have led to greater harmony between different religious communities may weaken her message. The poets who copied her style may have also contaminated her message by making it blander and more acceptable. We may admire what is represented as fragments of her poetic sentiment but we may never truly know her inner heart. Just as India itself is a riddle inside an engima riddle wrapped in mystery, the poems of Mirabai reveal many different “Miras.”

To be continued…

Warriors and Justice in Vedic Mythology

Meaning in the Mahabharata

Different Aspects of the Parashuram Avatar

by 

Michael Dolan/ B.V. Mahayogi

The story of Parashurama is told in different parts of the Mahābhārata as well as in the different Pūrānas, including the Bhāgavata. Parashurama is considered an avatar, a descent of the Godhead. In this case the avatar  embodies a particular divine power--that of justice.

यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत |
अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् ||4.7||

yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānaṁ sṛijāmyaham

The descent of the avataras is discussed by Krishna in Bhagavad-Gita: “Whenever and wherever there is a decline in dharma, O Bhārata, and a rise of adharma—at that time I descend Myself.” 

Dharma is a flexible and subtle concept. It does not mean “religion” in the sense that we in the West normally understand it. Western religion in the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic sense is highly moralistic and focuses on “sin.” The Eastern view of dharma is quite distinct, where the idea of right and wrong is tied to one’s role in society. The same rules do not apply for all, since we all have a distinct nature.

Nevertheless there are societal norms, as explained in the Manu-saṁhita which sees society as fulfilling different roles. These roles are divided into the secular social orders called varnas and in monastic society into distinct spiritual orders called ashramas.

When the different aspects of society function in harmony, there is no need for divine intervention. According to Vedic law society is harmonious when the social body is healthy.  The Law of Manu sees four social groups which function together like the fingers of the hand. These groups are called varnas.

They  are the Brahmanas, or the wisdom teachers Kshatriyas, the rulers who protect social values, Vaishyas, who drive the economics and Shudras, or proletarian classes.

This is again confirmed in the Bhagavad-Gita.

चातुर्वर्ण्यं मया सृष्टं गुणकर्मविभागश: |
तस्य कर्तारमपि मां विद्ध्यकर्तारमव्ययम् || 13||

chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛiṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ
tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam

Krishna says, “The four categories of occupations (varnas) were created by divinity according to people’s qualities and activities. Although I am the creator of this system, know me as divinity to exist outside this mundane consideration of time and space.”

It is crucial to note that while Vedic political theory might classify society into divisions, these four categories of occupations are not according to birth, but according to nature. This is the real meaning of dharma. To classify people according to their birth is against dharma. This is tantamount to racial discrimination and goes against the Laws of Manu. The idea of dharma  is to maintain harmony and balance.

Spiritual harmony and balance is maintained when people work according to their nature and when society functions accordingly. A strict interpretation of Bhagavad-Gita and the laws of Manu will discover that to artificially force people into categories or “castes” has nothing to do with Vedic political theory. The so-called “caste system” where people denied social mobility and are forced into roles defined at birth is patently unfair and is not real varnashrama dharma  as it is formulated in the ancient wisdom traditions of India.  

On the other hand, the analysis of society as conforming to different classes defined by occupations and abilities exist in every society. Even in egalitarian political systems, this social diversity is undeniable. Marx did his best to posit a “classless” society, but even in the Communist Soviet Union there were the philosophers who are the communist party think-tanks, the military men to protect the country, there are the farmers who engage in agriculture, and factory workers who supported the “classless” society on their backs.

Vedic political theory approaches the division of society from a deeper point of view. Acting in dharma means acting in harmony with our spiritual self-interest. Adharma,  then is a loss of balance; a loss of harmony. Instead of conceiving of “religion” as properly following a list of rules and avoiding sin, Vedic thought sees us as either living in harmony with our true self or living in darkness and self-denial.  Self-denial of spiritual life (adharma) is found where there is a greater investment in materialism. Denial of the self means deeper involvement in the material energy.

In creating a political analysis of social groups, it may seem naïve to connect the dots between spiritual life and material energy. Materialism teaches us that if soul exists it must be a product of matter. In this view, there is no need for any spiritual consideration when creating a social organization. But, while the materialistic paradigm pervades our modern understanding, Vedic wisdom held that consciousness is inseparable from material nature.  Any analysis of the social organism which avoids spiritual considerations would be superficial.

If dharma is light, adharma  is darkness. Western religion and thought has traditionally seen the world in terms of light and dark, sin and piety, good and evil.

But the Vedic analysis points out that just as light has different degrees of shade and color, so does our experience. We do not live in a black and white world.

The degrees or frequencies are divided into the primary colors which give us all the colors and shades of human perception. Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow combine to create all the colors seen by the eye. According to the Vedic analysis, material existence is not a simple exercise of black and white, good and bad karma.

In the ancient system of understanding practiced by the seers of the Vedas, existence and nonexistence are not simple questions, but involve the subjective evolution of consciousness.

In this view, consciousness is not a product of material energy. Consciousness permeates material energy in a myriad of subtle ways. But just as color theory can break down millions of hues by reducing them to a combination of primary colors, the relationship between consciousness and material energy can be divided into three main influences called gunas. Just as the different frequencies of light in primary colors combine to give us all the different shades of the spectrum,  these “influences” or subtle shades of consciousness and its degradation combine and evolve to give us the varieties of material experience. The three influences or levels of consciousness are called sattva guṇa (the influence or mode of goodness), rajo guṇa (mode of passion), and tamo guṇa (mode of ignorance).

The influence of these three “modes” or “gunas” have been seen and analyzed on many levels—biological, psychological, medicinal—when they are applied to human society they inform Vedic political analysis.

In this sense, brahmanas are those members of society who are under the influence of preponderance of sattva-guna, or the mode of goodness. It is not a question of birth or appointment to a political position.  According to Manu’s analysis, those members of society who  are predisposed toward teaching and worship, thinking and inner reflection, are brahmanas. They are further characterized by compassion, kindness, truth-telling, cleanliness, and austerity. They cannot avoid these characteristics. It is their nature.  

Those who are predisposed towards leadership, who are given to rule, are Kshatriyas. Kshatriyas are noble, since they are also influenced by sattva-guna—the quality or mode of goodness; but as a social class, they have a preponderance of raja-guna the mode of passion. Kshatriyas are naturally inclined toward public service and leadership, towards administration and management.

According to the Vedic social analysis,  the entreprenuerial, business, and agricultural class called Vaishyas are more influenced by rajo-guna  or the mode of passion and creativity and their consciousness tends more towards tamo-guna, or the mode of darkness. form the business and agricultural class. Again, one does not become a Vaishya  or Kshatriya  by birth, while this may be a consideration. The idea is that some people prefer to live and work as entrepeneurs than in public service.

The great majority of the population are the working class, the proletariat or Shudras, who are predominated by the mode of darkness. They form the working or productive classes. Thomas Hobbes described their lives: "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

Again, this classification was a question of Vedic political theory, it was neither meant to be according to birth, nor was it unchangeable. Krishna clearly explains in this verse that the classification of the social system was meant to be according to people’s qualities and activities,not according to birth and political considerations.

Krishna also explains here that these social considerations have evolved apart from his personal position as “creator.” That is, while God is responsible in some sense for the nature of material reality, He is remote, he is the non-doer.

Śrīla Prabhupāda explains this as follows:

“Just as rain water falls equally on the forest, yet from some seeds huge banyan trees sprout, from other seeds beautiful flowers bloom, and from some thorny bushes emerge. The rain, which is impartial, is not answerable for this difference. In the same way, God provides the souls with the energy to act, but they are free in determining what they wish to do with it; God is not responsible for their actions.”

We have seen an idea of the Vedic social analysis and how it is supposed to unfold. Plato saw the ideal Republic as one presided over by philosopher-kings. The Mahābhārata tells of just such a golden age. Enlightened kings took spiritual instruction from disinterested sages and did their best to follow dharma according to the teachings of the Vedas.

And yet, even a world as harmonious as the ancient Vedic society saw conflicts between the different social classes. Dharma became adharma. Enlightened kings became despots, and despots became tyrants. Kartavirya-Arjuna is just such a tyrant. Violating the rules of dharma he steals the mystic cow, Kamadhenu, from the gentle brahmana, Jamadagni. This abuse of dharma triggers the advent of Parashuram, the avatar of God as justice. Parashuram does justice for the brahmanas who practice nonviolence. Jamadagni and his followers have forsworn violence and will not resist a tyrant with force. Parashuram has no qualms about nonviolence. Whenever brahmanas are insulted by tryants Parashuram appears as a godly avenger.

Parashurama’s appearance in the family of brahmanas is the result of a curse. He has been cursed to be a warrior among brahmanas. He must struggle against anger. His father tests him by having him behead his own mother, Renuka. Renuka’s head is restored by mystic mantra. She has no memory of the crime. Is it all a dream? Ram must discover inner peace in the mountains with Shiva before fulfilling his destiny as a warrior.

He confronts the tryant Kartavirya, punishing him by severing his arms. It is said that Kartavirya had thousands of arms--it may be that he was expert in many weapons-arms. When the sons of Kartavirya revenge themselves on Ram’s father, Ram rages against all despotic kings and princes.

The idea that Kartavirya had thousands of arms may seen in the modern sense. Parashurama was an advocate for “arms control.” When tyrannical power rages against innocent and peace-loving citizens, divinity may appear, even in a terrible form, to punish the evil-doers.