Guest guest Posted January 9, 2002 Report Share Posted January 9, 2002 Festival Lectures/Govardhana Puja Lecture-New York Nov.4 1966 Indra-y€ga-ktodyam€n. According to Vedic system, there are different types of sacrifices to offer respect and obeisances to the demigods. Just like the sun is supplying light, the moon is supplying moonshine. Similarly, Indra is supplying the cloud. Similarly, there are different demigods. And in the Bhagavad-g…t€, devan ya yajayant… deva-bhavan—these things are described. In the Vedic literature it is prescribed that “You should satisfy these demigods by sacrifice, deva-yajan.” So in the village of that Vnd€vana, the father of KŠa, foster father of KŠa, Nanda Mah€r€ja and his associates, they were yearly performing the Indra-yajña. Because they were agriculturists, they depended on rain, sufficient rains. And he had many cows. Nanda Mah€r€ja was a farm man. He is agriculture and cows. The mercantile people, the vaiya community, they are recommended three things: ki-go-raksya-v€Šijyam [bg. 18.44]. Ki means agriculture, and go-rakya means cow protection, and v€Šijyam means trade. So Nanda Mah€r€ja belonged to the vaiya community. So he was well-to-do man, very rich man, and he had 900,000’s of cows. 900,000 of cows he was protecting. Formerly, according to Vedic civilization, a man was considered to be rich man in proportion of his stock of grains and livestock, cows. That’s all. Dh€nyena dhanav€n. A man was considered to be rich man if he has sufficient quantity of grains in his possession. Similarly, if one has sufficient number of cows in his possession, he was considered rich man. Not that bank balance. There was no such bank, neither this paper money. They actually possessing the foodstuff and milk. And actually this is economic solution. If you have got sufficient milk, then you can make so many nice nutritious, full of vitamin values preparation and grains. There is no question of economic starvation if you have got simply grains and cows. So that was the standard of economic solution in days yore. So they were preparing just to satisfy the demigod Indra, because he was supposed to... Not supposed. Actually he supplies rains sufficiently. Without rains you cannot have successful agriculture. So they were preparing that sacrifice. So this preparation was being observed by KŠa and Balar€ma. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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