Dasavatara and Bhagavatgita

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Balaramavathara

 

It is difficult to distinguish Balamramavathara from

Krishnavathara as Balarama was always together with Krishna

as adisesha. It is due to his superhuman powers he is elevated to the status of

a separate avathara and also because he is considered to be the personification

of sankarshaNa, one of the four vyuha forms of the Lord , Vasudeva,

SankarshaNa, Pradhyumna and AnirudDha The weapons of Balarama , the plough and

the mace signify viveka and vairagya. The mind is ploughed with viveka and the

hard lumps of earth in the form of desire are broken by the mace of vairagya.

 

Krishnavathara

 

It is a voluminous

task to point out the significance of Krishnavathara. In short He is the

embodiment of Gita as He is called yogesvara and jagathguru. He showed Himself

to be jagathguru from His birth itself when He gave His instructions to

Vasudeva. Each and every incident of His life

is pregnant with meaning. Bhagavatham says, Krishnasthu bhagavan

svayam. It is the poornavathara in which the divinity was manifest

throughout. But not all understood Him as he Himself said in Gita janma

karma cha me dhivyam evam yo vetthi thathvathaH thyakthvaa punarjanmam na ethi—(BG.4.9)

"the one who knows My birth and actions in reality is not born again after

leaving hia body.," as it requires devotion and insight to understand His real identity. naaham

prakaasah sarvasya, "I am not manifest to all" He says in the Gita, (BG.7.25) Those who are ignorant considered

Him as a human being. avajaananthi maam mooDaaH maanusheem thanum

aaSritham (BG.9.11) the fools

consider Me as he one who has a human form.

 

Krishna

manifested Himself as the son of Devaki and was not born. No mother

could give birth to a son with four arms wielding sankha chakra etc! Desika

says in his Yadhvabhyudhaya that the Lord was born to Devaki as the Sun to the

eastern direction which means that just as the Sun only appears in the east

Krishna also appeared as the son of Devaki. His killing asuras means the

destruction of evil impulses The

Mahabharatha war was .the eternal conflict between the good and the evil that

is happening in the mind always. The Lord is on the side of dharma and the

actions of Krishna in making Pandavas win the

war were only the act of the Lord who sees that the punishment is meted out to

the evildoers. One who does adharma will meet his end through adharma only. So

there was nothing that could be termed as adharma on the part of Krishna who was only acting as the dispenser of the

result of karma karmaphaladhaatha. This is what he meant when he said `aham

paandava pakshapaathee,' in Mahabharatha. The Lord has no partiality as He

says samoaham sarvabhootheshu na me dhveshyo asthi na priyah(BG>9.29), I

am impartial to all beings . There is no one dear to Me nor an enemy," in

the Gita. His retribution is for redemption as the mother punishes the child

for stopping it from evil.

 

The meaning of the word Krishna

is the one who gives the greatest joy besides the meaning that he is the one

who attracts.karshathi ithi krshNaH. krshirbhoovaachakaH Nasthu nirvrthi

vaachakaH; nithaanthnirvrthH krshNaH ithi vishNoH krshNa naama. KrishiH

means earth and the particle `Na' denotes joy. Limitless joy is

KrishnaH and hence the Lord Vishnu is called Krishna.

 

 

Brahman is defined as sath chith ananda. Ramavathra

is the sath, vaamana is the chith and Krishna

stands for ananda, pure unalloyed joy. anandalahari.

 

The common notion that one should act like Rama and listen

to Krishna is absurd and forwarded by those

who are ignorant of the significance of Krishnavathara. The love of gopis and

Radha towards Krishna , the main reason for

this misconception is full of meaning.

 

When the mind is fully

engaged in the Lord it becomes the flute in His hand, a hollow tube with full

of holes through which all the impurities have been washed off. Then His

fingers move through the holes and fills it with divine music. When the mind

wants to unite with Him but is not able to do so due to egocentric impulses

that separates it from Him , the resulting sorrow is depicted as the viraha

of the gopies and Radha.

The gopies went to meet Krishna but they

were never missed at home, says Bhaagavatha Puraana. Their union was one of

spirit and not of body. When the thought is centered on the object of love it

is the union of the spirit. When every thought that occurs is centered on the

Lord the devotee's mind becomes a stage for Rasleela. Each thought is the

gopi having Krishna as its object. This

idea is brought out beautifully in the sloka anganaam anganaam anthare

Maadhavo Maadhavam Maadhavam anthare anganaa there was a Krishna between

each gopi and there was a gopi between each Krishna.

Then what happens is the divine music played by Devakinandhana, sanjagou

veNunaa dhevakeenandhanaH, When all thoughts merge into one like the

big fish swallowing the smaller ones or like a big wave absorbing the

small waves, the mind is filled with only one thought which is

represented by the concept of Radha, who is the jiva, the individual soul.

She represents the yogi described in the Gita, as yoginaam api sarveshaam

madhgathenaanthraathmanaa sraddahaavaan bajathe yo maam sa me yukthathamo

mathaH (BG.6.47) "Of

all the yogis the one whose mind and intellect is engrossed in Me, one who

contemplates on Me with faith is integrated in yoga, in My opinion"

When the jiva

turns towards the Lord it finds that it is unable to do so blinded by ego born

out of ignorance. Then the Acharya advises the jiva to shed its ego and

approach the Lord with humility and love. This is the part played by the sakhi

friend of Radha, in the legends of Radha-Krishna. The Lord is ever merciful and

ready to receive the jiva with outstretched arms and He is as eager

to unite with the jiva, if not more, as the jiva

itself

The story of Gitagovinda, a

lyric by Jayadeva, depicts the above idea beautifully. We go away from

the Lord due to our ignorance and start blaming Him for our troubles which are

all due only to our separation from Him. When He tries to contact us we spurn

Him thinking that He does not care for us. But He does not mind our

rebuff and patiently tries to bring us back to where we belong. Finally we come

to realise that He had been kind to us all along though we were not aware of it

till now.

The gopis and Uddhava are the examples of bhakthiyoga described in the Gita. Macchitthaa

madhgathapraaNaaH bodhayanthah parasparam kaThyanthaScha maam nithyam

tushyanthi cha ramanthi cha (BG.10.9) "With mind engrossed in Me, with

their lives centered in Me, they communicate with each other and talk about Me

always and enjoy that with contentment."

The rasleela was told by

Sukha , a realized soul and heard by Parikshith who had given up all desires

and ready to leave the world, and others who were present were the rshis. So it

is of highest philosophical and devotional import.

Kalki avathra.

Nothing much is known about

Kalki avathara but that the Lord will

incarnate as Kalki with sword as His weapon to destroy the evil in kaliyuga and

set up the krthayuga again. It signifies

the destruction of desire, which is the root cause of evil, born out of ignorance,

by the sword of jnana, as said in the Gita, paapmaanam prajahi hyenam jnaana

vijnaananaaSanam (BG.3.41), kill this (desire) which is the root of

sin and which destroys both knowledge and realization

As a wise man will learn

from every experience in his life the stories in the Puranas and Ithihasas are

full of meaning for those who care to look for it.