Lady Subhadra...

[Guest guest]

The answers by HH Suhotra Swami:

 

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Text 444711 (13 lines)

Suhotra Swami

12-Oct-96 11:54 SST

Refernce: Text 444679 by Nrsimha Kavaca (das) IDS

(Have) Danda (Will Travel) [604]

Sarasvati

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There is a spiritual Sarasvati who presides over transcendental knowledge.

This is the Bhakti-devi, the consort of the Supreme Lord. The original form

of Bhakti-devi is Srimati Radharani. The Sarasvati who is the consort of

Brahma is the material reflection of the transcendental Sarasvati.

 

Sometimes it is asked how Draupadi can be Laxmi, yet be the husband of the

Pandavas, who are not Visnu. The answer is that Draupadi is the Svarga-laxmi,

the Laxmi of the material heaven; i.e. Saci-devi, the wife of Indra. The

Pandavas are said to be 5 Indras in the Mahabharata. So anyway, this

Svarga-laxmi is the material reflection of the spiritual Laxmi.

 

And similarly, so it is with Sarasvati.

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Text 591354 (75 lines)

Suhotra Swami

10-Apr-97 14:12 SST

Refernce: Text 589959 by Vipramukhya Swami (Vancouver - CAN)

Vipramukhya Swami (Vancouver - CAN) [3174]

(forwarded: 10-Apr-97 14:21),

(Have) Danda (Will Travel) [807]

Subhadra devi

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Thanks for writing in, Maharaja. I've not been so attentive to

the Danda conference lately because I am still in India. Here

I'm keeping my COM correspondence down to essentials. Recent

inquiries to Danda that I've not answered so far will probably not be

answered, so it is best that the inquirers put their questions

into other Q&A conferences. I won't be able to answer questions

until next month.

 

But how can I refuse Vipramukhya Maharaja? To get to the bottom of his

question about Subhadra devi, I did a bit of research in the Mayapur

Academy Library.

 

The Mahabharata Adi Parva has a section called Subhadra-karana

Parva. Therein we find that Subhadra devi is the favorite daughter

of Vasudeva and the sister of Lord Krsna. But note: here Krsna tells

Arjuna that Subhadra is the "uterine sister of Sarana" (in Sanskrit,

*saranasya sahodara*). To be more clear, Subhadra is born from the

same womb as Sarana. I consulted another book that gives a

list of wives and children of Vasudeva (Krsna's father) that

is taken from the Padma Purana. According to this, Sarana was born

from the womb of Vasudeva's wife Rohini. Thus Subhadra would be

the maternal sister of Balarama, and the paternal sister of

Lord Krsna, whose own mother is Vasudeva's wife Devaki. This

could be verifed by checking the original Sanskrit

of the Padma Purana. Unfortunately the book I consulted does

not give a chapter and verse reference for that Purana, and

I don't have the time to hunt for the original reference myself.

 

In a book about Jagannath Puri prepared by the "Jagannath

Temple Managing Committee," it is mentioned that some people

say that the Subhadra deity is originally a Durga murti that

was added to the altar of Jagannatha and Baladeva after the 7th

century AD, when the Sakta religion (i.e. the worship of Durga)

became very popular in India. Then later, under the influence

of popular Vaisnavism, Durga was worshiped as Krsna's sister

Subhadra. I should hasten to add that the authors of this

book do not attempt to argue that this account is accurate. They

disclaim it as only being a story. I mention it here to suggest

that the controversy about whether Subhadra is really Krsna's sister

or Durga-devi can be traced to the friction between the

Saktas and the Vaisnavas. There was a similar controversy

during the time of Ramanuja about the identity of the Balaji

Deity in Tirupati. The Saivites claimed Balaji is Kartikkeya;

but Ramanuja established Balaji is 4-armed Vasudeva. No doubt

there are still Saivites who go around grumbling that Balaji

is really the son of Lord Siva, but is worshiped as Visnu by

the clever Vaisnavas. No doubt there are impersonalists who

say, "No matter, Visnu, Siva and Kartikkeya are all one." So

I suppose from that side we may hear that Subhadra and Durga

are one. By the way, Bhadra is a name of Durga. "Su", as

Srila Prabhupada explained when he gave me my name, means

"very nice." "Bhadra" means auspicious. So if Durga is

auspicious, Subhadra is very nicely auspicious. I would

say that means she is transcendentally auspicious.

 

Anyway, to me the claim that Subhadra is actually "just" Durga does

not make sense when you consider that there are other

sakti-tattva deities worshiped in the greater Jagannatha

temple complex. Vimala devi (after whom Srila Bhaktisiddhanta

Sarasvati Thakur was named Vimala Prasada) is accepted by

everyone, including Gaudiya acaryas, as Durga herself. She

is worshiped by the Jagannatha pujaris during Durga puja.

Jagannatha prasada becomes Mahaprasada after it is offered

to her. There is likewise a Laxmi mandir in the complex.

She is worshiped as Lord Jagannatha's consort (Her yearly pastime

with Lord Jagannatha, in which she obliges Him to return to

Puri from the Gundica Mandira, is described in Cc). Besides

Vimala and Laxmi devis, there are temples to Sarasvati (Brahma's

consort) and Bhubanesvari (Siva's consort). So again, it seems

senseless to identify Subhadra devi as Durga (who is there

as Vimala), or even as Lord Jagannatha's consort (who is there as

Laxmi), or as Sarasvati or some other demigoddess.

 

As usual, the only sensible conclusion is Srila Prabhupada's:

Subhadra is Krsna's sister.

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Text 771498 (53 lines)

Suhotra Swami

01-Sep-97 20:06 SST

Refernce: Text 771404 by (Bhakta) Robert Kowalski (Wroclaw - PL)

(Have) Danda (Will Travel) [892]

Subhadra vs Radharani

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First I shall quote part of an answer I gave in this conference to a

similar question about five months ago.

 

[[see above...]]

 

The internal potency is one--Yogamaya. But within the Yogamaya category

there are unlimited spiritual saktis who consort with unlimited forms of

Godhead. The original sakti (Adyasakti) is Srimati Radharani. Laksmi

and Subhadra are Her expansions for serving the Lord's different

pastimes. Radharani Herself serves Him in His conjugal pastimes in

Goloka. Laksmi serves as His wife in Vaikuntha. Subhadra serves as

His sister in Dvaraka. It appears that the Durga of the material world

is an expansion of that Subhadra. The great Minakshee temple in Tamil

Nadu is dedicated to the Minakshee form of Durga, the consort of Lord

Siva. Minakshee is the sister of Lord Visnu. Visnu presides over the

material world as its maintainer. So it seems His sister is the "material"

Durga; and just as He is an expansion of Krsna, so His sister is an

expansion of the "spiritual" Durga, Krsna's beloved sister.

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