mAyA sItA - 2

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SrI:

SrImate SrI Lakshminrusimha ParabrahmanE namaha

SrI Lakshminrusimha divya pAdukA sEvaka SrIvaNN ShatakOpa -

SrI nArAyaNa yateendra mahAdESikAya namaha

 

Dear devotees,

namO nArAyaNA. pranAmams.

 

Lets discuss about the philosophical implications of the mAyA sItA

episode.

 

The kidnapping of sItA pirAtti by rAvanA will not be tolerated by

any devotee. For that matter, the same feelings arise when one hears

about how virAdhA also kidnapped pirAtti earlier. The most important

thing is that PerumAL and PirAtti performs all these avatAra leelAs

for

the sake of the devotees who deeply relish all their leelAs ,kalyAna

guNAs exhibited etc. The divya dampati induces the "ruchi" (taste) of

bhagavad anubhavam for the baddha jIvAtmAs through their avatAra

leelAs. If one feels heavily and cries for the kidnapping of pirAtti

by

rAvanan, then that leelA of pirAtti is a success !! All these acts of

the divya dampati makes a jIvAtmA easily pour out their love towards

them and all such loving reciprocation is what bhagavad prEmai is all

about. This is the unique speciality of vibhava avatArams of PerumAL.

Ofcourse, the archA avatAram scores over vibhava avatAram in many

a ways and our AzhwArs and poorvAchAryAs have elaborated on this.

 

The question now is whether sItA pirAtti is really affected very badly

by

the touch of rAvanan , who is a materialist with lusty desires. Well,

what

about PerumAL? Is He affected too by the touch of materialists ?

 

The answers to these questions become much simpler if the answer to

the

following question is got :

 

Qtn : Sriman nArAyaNA, the Para Brahman pervades everywhere

ie. nArAyaNA (divya Atma svaroopam) is everywhere. Will

prakruti (matter) then affect Him ? How can PerumAL be

inside

materialistic objects and simultaneously be not affected by

them ?

 

A slight Elaboration of the Qtn :

The three principal names used in the vEdAs for denoting the

 

Para brahman is nArAyaNA, vAsudEvA and vishnu. All these

refer

to sarva vyApakatvam ie. all pervasive nature of PerumAL.

Hundreds of pramAnams like "Sarvam kalvidham brAhma" ,

"vAsudEva sarvam iti ..." , "antar bahischa tat sarvam vyApya

 

nArAyaNastitaha" etc speak about this esoteric aspect . So,

PerumAL

is in and out of prakruti.

 

Apart from this SrIman nArAyaNA also has "prakruti" as an

attribute

as per the sarIra sarIri bhAvam ie. PerumAL is the sarIrI and

 

prakruti is the sarIrA ( prakruti is supported and controlled

by Him,

prakruti exists solely for His pleasure). This is declared by

sruti as

"yasya pruthvi sarIram" etc .

 

We all know how much this prakruti is affecting a jIvAtmA.

Since there is such an intimate connection between SrIman

nArAyaNA

and prakruti, won't prakruti be affecting Him?

 

One may have a doubt as to how come then nArAyaNA is

not affected by the changes in the prakruti , if He is

physically inside it (as a jIvAtmA, its dharmabhoota

jn~Anam is affected by prakruti viz.animal body,plant

body,human body,old aged body, youthful body etc ,

eventhough its swaroopa jn~Anam is unchanged.similarly

,won't the dharmabhoota jn~Anam of nArAyaNA be

affected?)

 

ans : Ofcourse one knows that prakruti can't affect nArAyaNA

because He is the Supreme God."prakruti" acts as

"prakruti" only because of His sankalpam. "Fire" acts as

"fire" as we know , because of nArAyaNA's sankalpam .

When PrahalAdA was pushed into "fire", nArAyaNA changed

His sankalpam to make the "fire" behave oppossite to its

nature, which was set by His sankalpam previously and thus

 

His bhakta was not at all affected. So, prakruti can't

affect

nArAyaNA .

 

The following analogy is usually told to drive the point

in. After a person eats some halwA which had excessive

ghee in it , he uses some powder/solution to remove the

ghee sticking to his hands. But , the ghee also had

contact with his tongue which he never botherd to clean

with the powder/solution since ghee didn't stick to it.

Similarly , though nArAyaNA is present everywhere , the

changes in prakruti doesn't affect Him.

 

Sri KarunAkaran swAmy in one of his upanyAsams

narrated a wonderful pastime of Bhattar :

 

While Bhattar was delivering heart melting

kAlakshebam on bhagavad vishayam esp. the

kannapirAn's (KrishNA's) Govardana giri lifting episode ,

a

disciple asked as to how come perumAL would have saved

the AyarpAdi vAsIs from the torrential rain caused by

Indran (deva) if that malai (hill) was not present there

..

Bhattar gave a brilliant answer as usual : "PerumAL

would have saved the gopAs and gopIs from the rain

using the rain itself " . This has very deep meaning .

The rain acts according to its nature because

of perumAL's sankalpam . If perumAL changes His

sankalpam then the same rain can act as the umbrella for

the devotees !!!! ( difficult to visualize . But the great

fact put forth through this statement can be understood ).

 

Thus, perumAL ( divyAtma svaroopam) though pervades

everywhere and has "prakruti" as His inseparable attribute

, it doesn't affect His essential nature of being

transcendental

to "prakruti" . Sriman NArAyana being transcendental to

prakruti

doesn't mean that He should not have any contact with prakruti

..

This is obvious since if not so , then it will result into the

absurdity

that prakruti is more powerful than even perumAL and can

even affect His dharma bhoota jn~Anam . Infact, even nitya

sooris and muktAs won't be affected by prakruti and their

contact with prakruti won't make them bounded by karmA.

Only the baddha jIvAtmAs are affected by prakruti.

According to the karmA, particular jIvAtmA is forced to

have some achEtana as being favourable to it and some

being totally unfavourable to it.

 

A pig eats stool and such stuff ; germs and worms live in

sAkkadai; fish lives in water etc. But this is not the way

we are. Do's and dont's of sAstrAs are strictly for those

baddha jIvAtmAs which has taken the human body.

In accordane with sAstrAs, one should have his/her likes

and dislikes.

 

The bottomline is that , for the Divya Dampati , muktAs

and nitya soorIs, prakruti is also auspicious and not

something abominable , while baddha jIvAtmAs are

bound by it and has some form of matter(prakruti) as

favourable and some other form of matter as unfavourable.

-----------------

 

PerumAL takes avatAram solely for the pleasure of His devotees.

The body perumAL has is made up of suddha sattvam and not

prakruti. Thats why it is referred to as Divya mangaLa

vigraham.

( only in archAvatAram, the thirumEni is composed of the

mixture

of prakruti and suddha sattvam).

 

Similarly, pirAtti also has suddha sattva sarIram (divine

body).

"Suddha Sattvam" as a material is made up of "jn~Anam"

similar to how a jIvAtmA is. But , "Suddha sattvam"

doesn't possess the "dharmabhoota jn~Anam" & thus can't

percieve anything outside of itself . Thus , it doesn't

belong to

the category of "chEtanA" because a "chEtanA" is an

entity which can "know"/"percieve" ie. a chEtanA must

necessarily have "dharma bhoota jn~Anam" .

 

Any materialist cannot contaminate suddha sattva sarIram of

sItA PirAtti. SwAmi Desikan explains that pirAtti is vibhu

ie.

all pervading , similar to how PerumAL is. Similar to

PerumAL,

pirAtti is also transcendental to prakruti .

 

So, rAvanan / virAdhan cannot contaminate pirAtti by their

touches.

Rather, they played their role in the leelA performed by the

Divya

Dampati. Thus, though a mAyA sItA might have been employed by

PerumAL ( ofcourse, according to vAlmIki rAmAyanam, it is not)

,

the reasoning that touch of a materialist is contaminating and

thats

why mAyA sitA was present is not appropriate. It is the

sankalpam

of the Divya Dampati alone, if at all, mAyA sItA was there in

one of

rAma avatArams.

 

In conclusion, there is nothing contradictory in PerumAL

having

prakruti as His eternal attribute and simultaneously prevade

inside

it.

 

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan

ananthapadmanAbha dAsan

krishNArpaNam