Chinna Katha - Pundarika

[Guest guest]

Dear Obedient Children of Parents in TBP,

 

Love and Love alone....

 

Here is a Chinna Katha of Pundarika. Kindly go through and serve

your parents to the best of your ability.

 

Love and Love alone....

 

P. Gopi Krishna

 

 

Pundarika

 

Seva to parents alone is enough! Every person by birth becomes

rini / runa to five. They are Deva, Rishi, Pitru, Manushya, and

Bhootas:

 

They are known as :

 

Deva Runa

Rishi Runa

Pitru Runa

Manushya Runa

Bhoota Runa.

 

Of all the runas, Pitru runa is the most important. That does not

mean that one can neglect the other. It only means that more

emphasis is laid on Pitru Runa. Without Pitru (Parents) the very

existence on this earth would not have been possible.

 

Devatas for all the panchabutas, rains, nature etc. and Rishis for

giving us puraanas, shastras, mantras, Vedas, etc. Manushya is to

the society at large and Bhoota is to insects, birds, animals, etc.

Of these, the runam of parents cannot be paid back easily and is

virtually impossible. Hence one needs to at least do seva to them,

listen and adhere to their words and give them a lot of respect.

This is the least one can do to them. Our puraanas also show that

one can attain moksha just by doing seva to parents.

 

Once upon a time, there used to live a great Bhakta of Krishna. He

had a wife, who deserved to be his ardhaangi. However, they had a

son, Pundarika, who had all kinds of vyasanas. In the attraction for

a mere vaaraangana, he drives his parents out of his house, does not

love his wife and finally loses all his money. The vaaraangana,

whose love he thought was eternal, left him once his money was over.

In the sorrow of being apart from the vaaraangana, he walks into a

forest and finally reaches a lonely kutir of a great person by name,

Kukkuta muni. He sees the following wonder when he reaches the place:

 

Three very ugly looking old females, suffering from terrible

diseases, will be cleaning the ashram. After doing all the cleaning

required, they go inside the kutir and to his surprise, three very

beautiful, young women with the tejas of sun come out. Out of his

usual attraction to women, he goes and holds the hand of one of the

women and immediately she turns ugly like before. The woman tells

Pundarika, because people like you take dip in our holy waters

everyday, we get these ugly forms and have to bare with such

dreadful diseases. We are Ganga, Yamuna and Sarawathi. Everyday we

clean the kutir of Kukkuta muni and have his

darshan to relieve the loads of paapas you maanavas leave with us

and get back our divya shariraas. She again has darshan of Kukkuta

muni and all the three leave the place (They wondered why a common

human, that too a bad person, was able to see them in human form at

the first place).

 

Pundarika, just to see what is there inside, goes into the kutir. He

sees nothing great, no jewels, no big furniture nothing. He sees a

person totally immersed in pressing the legs of his father. The

person was totally engrossed in it and the only other thing he had

in mind was the thought of Lord Siva. Seeing Kukkuta muni, Pundarika

asks him many questions about the woman etc., but sees that the muni

gave back no reply, since the muni was totally engrossed in the seva

to his father. Not able to bear the rejection, out of ahankaar, he

tries to kick the muni and immediately falls on the ground losing

both his legs. Pundarika cries for help and the muni gets disturbed

by his cries and attends to his help. Pundarika begs the muni to

pardon him and the muni immediately pardons him. Pundarika realizes

all the mistakes he has done in his life and asks the muni for

prayaschittam. The muni says that there is nothing that can help him

except the seva to his parents and even a bhrashta can achieve

moksha by serving his parents. Immediately Pundarika, pulling

himself with his hands, sets off in the search for his parents, whom

he drove away from his house. He truly and wholeheartedly repents

for his past mistakes and continues his journey to meet his parents.

 

He does not think about food, water, his bleeding legs, the only

thing he has in his mind is to search for his parents, beg them to

pardon him and do their seva. He does not care about thorny paths,

heat of the sun, steep mountain cliffs etc., and continues his

journey. When he falls off a cliff, Lord Krishna holds him safely

and lets him move on. At all stages, Pundarika' s heart was filled

only with the want of doing seva to parents, and hence Krishna

bhagavaan helps him all along. Finally, he reaches the kutir of his

parents and falls on their feet. He begs them to pardon him for

being so cruel to them and pleaded them to grant him the chance of

doing their seva. The parents immediately pardon Pundarika and

Pundarika again gets back his legs. From that day onwards, he always

used to be busy doing seva to his parents and always think of

Krishna paramaatma in his mind.

 

Unable to bear the separation from his bhakta, one day Lord Krishna

comes to see Pundarika. He waits at the door of Pundarika's kutir

and calls for him. Pundarika sees Krishna, the paramaatma for whose

darshan even great munis spend their entire lives in tapas, standing

at his door. But Pundarika was at that time pressing the feet of his

parents, who were asleep, with legs in his lap. Krishna asks

Pundarika to come and take Him inside. Pundarika, seeing the Lord

becomes very happy, but asks Him to wait a bit, since he cannot stop

seva to his parents and he will come after taking their permission.

Lord Krishna waits at the door and by being touched by his lotus

feet, Indra who was lying in the form of a stone because of the

curse of Lord Siva, takes back His original form and leaves to

Indraloka.

 

Meanwhile Pundarika's father wakes up and asks him what happened.

Pundarika says that Lord Krishna had come but he was unable to

receive him. Immediately Pundarika's father runs to receive the

Lord, but does not see Him. He then asks Pundarika to call Krishna.

Krishna appears immediately on the call of Pundarika and bestows

moksha on Pundarika, his wife and his parents. Krishna also stays

permanently at the house of Pundarika to bless His bhaktas and it

became the well known kshetram of Pandaripur. The kshetram is so

ancient that the legs of the Pandarinath's idol are half eroded just

by the touching of bhaktas!

 

Morals in the story:

 

1. Only because Pundarika did true seva to his parents, did Krishna

wait for him at his door and immediately come when called by

Pundarika. This shows the importance of being obedient to parents

ans doing their seva.

 

2. Seva of parents is the most basic thing that the Indian culture

prescribes. A person going against the word of his parents will not

be liked by God.