Origins of Brahma Samhita

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

Question:

"Was Brahma Samhita authored by Lord Brahma?"

Answer:

The Brahma Samhita contains prayers offered by Lord Brahma to Lord Krishna prior to his act of creation. This text was lost for thousands of years, and was only rediscovered aproximately 500 years ago when Sri Chaitanya found it in South India. Sri Chaitanya was visiting the Adi Keshava temple in Kerala, and after chanting and dancing before the Lord, He was invited to visit the house of a brahmana devotee. When Sri Chaitanya took His seat in the house of the devotee, He began to feel ecstatic symptoms (bhava). He told the devotee to begin digging under His seat. Within the mud they found an ancient manuscript of the Brahma Samhita which had been almost completely eaten by white ants. All that was left was a single chapter out of the 100 chapters.

Since this book was lost for many thousands of years, naturally there is no reference to it in the writings of the acharyas. Thus it is not possible to either confirm or deny its authenticity based on historical statements. Since the text was found within one sampradaya, it is natural that that sampradaya will utilize it most, whereas other lineages will not. This is not the only instance of an ancient vedic text being rediscovered. Sri Madhva rediscovered the Aitareya Upanishad, and because of this the Madhva sampradaya gives great importance to it, whereas other lineages do not.

In such cases we can authenticate the text based on several secondary aspects. First, we must see what is the qualification and authority of the personality finding the text. In the case of Brahma Samhita, we should see who is Sri Chaitanya. We have mainly three possible circumstances:

First, Sri Chaitanya may be a cheater and may have manufactured this text Himself.

Second, Sri Chaitanya may be honest, but He may have been fooled by a false text.

Third, Sri Chaitanya may be honest and the text may be authentic.

The first possibility indicates Sri Chaitanya was a fallen conditioned soul polluted by lust, envy and greed. His aim was to mislead the public.

The second possibility indicates Sri Chaitanya was not influenced by lust, anger and greed, but still He was ignorant and covered by illusion, just like the common man.

There are four defects of a conditioned soul: He possesses a cheating propensity, has imperfect senses, is subject to commit mistakes, and is invariably illusioned. The first two possibilities above are symptomatic of a conditioned soul.

To overcome the first two possibilities, we must establish that Sri Chaitanya is not an ordinary man. His minimum qualification must be that of a realized saint, situated above the four defects of conditioned consciousness. Our actual contention is that Sri Chaitanya was not just a saint, but the direct incarnation of Lord Krishna, the Kali-yuga avatara. We shall substantiate this claim with references from the scriptures. If Sri Chaitanya is established as an incarnation of the Lord, then the authenticity of this text is automatically established.

Another aspect that we must judge is the consistency of the author. If Lord Brahma is offering prayers to Lord Krishna, we should compare it to other texts where Lord Brahma offers prayers. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, tenth canto chapter fourteen, we find prayers offered by Lord Brahma to Lord Krishna. Lord Brahma tried to bewilder Krishna by stealing His cowherd friends and calves. But by a slight exhibition of Krishna's own mystic potency, Brahma himself was completely bewildered. Subsequently, Brahma surrendered to Lord Krishna and out of humility and devotion began composing prayers glorifying the Lord. If one studies these prayers from the Bhagavatam, one will see that they contain the same conclusions as found in the Brahma Samhita.

A third aspect we must judge is the authenticity of the subject matter in a text in relation to other established scriptures.

There are two categories of authenticity to a pramana (evidence). The first authenticity is that it is accepted as pramana in other books, which are themselves accepted as pramana for various other reasons. For example, there may be a reference to Bhagavata Purana found within Matsya Purana. This is one type of evidence to establish the authenticity of a scripture. The second authenticy is that the conclusions present within established scriptures are presented and harmonized within the text in question. Though the Brahma Samhita is not mentioned in other texts (because it was lost), the prayers offered by Lord Brahma in Brahma Samhita perfectly establish and harmonize the Bhagavatam's descriptions of the Lord.

The tree of Vedic literature is extremely vast, yet what is available to us today is but a fraction of the original texts that existed in the past. If we take different categories of books, such as Upanishads, we find that there are thousands of upanishads among which 108 are considered chief. Most of these Upanishads exist today in name only. In the category of texts known as Puranas it is a similar case. There are 18 maha-puranas, each of which has 18 subsidiary upa-puranas. Each upa-purana has 18 subsidiary upakhyanas. Thus the category of texts known as Puranas contain thousands of books, but most of these are lost. Even if we take a single text like Srimad Bhagavatam, we find that there are various versions given for different species of humans. Our Srimad Bhagavatam has only 18,000 verses, but the Srimad Bhagavatam given to Yama has millions of verses. The same is the case for all Vedic scriptures. The inhabitants of the higher planetary systems have much larger texts, whereas we have the abridged versions. Our Srimad Bhagavatam describes only 24 categories of incarnations. The Srimad Bhagavatam possessed by Yama describes the Lord's incarnations in all 8,400,000 species of life. There is a mosquito incarnation, a chicken incarnation, a worm incarnation, we can only imagine it! Such is the nature of Vedic knowledge. Thus one cannot deny a text's authenticity simply because it isn't common and well-known. The situation surrounding its appearance must be systematically studied, and then a proper conclusion may be had.

If one has the blessed association of a liberated soul (muktatma), this entire process becomes much simpler. With guidance from a guru situated beyond illusion one can receive perfect knowledge, for he has actually seen the truth. This is Lord Krishna's instruction in Gita:

upadeksyanti te jnanam
jnaninas tattva-darsinah

"The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth."

This is the Vedic method. Either we can rely on our own imperfect senses to judge truth from illusion, or we can learn to see truth as revealed by the saints. 

[animesh]

Dear JNDas ji,

I reall wonder that if the amount of knowledge of vadas and upanishads which is preserved is so vast, then how vast must have been the complete knowledge. I am sure that lots of information must have got lost in due time. Because of saints like Sri Chaitanya, some of them could be rediscovered. But there have to be many more which are still to be rediscovered. I feel that whatever informations are known should be preserved in such a way so that our future generations will not have trouble in utilizing those, e.g. reproducing them in books of good quality paper, making CDs on them etc. etc. I really do not know how to go about searching for the information which have been lost.

 

I firmly believe that if we read our scripures with analytical mind, then we will find there a huge amount of information which will be helpful for humanity (including science). For example, consider the following: -

 

Maha Vishnu gives the energy which is latter converted to matter.

 

This is an excellent example of mass-energy equivalence.

 

We do need to study vedas and upanishads with open and analytical mind to extract information out of them. Only memorizing will not help. I have found some people making fun of scientists by saying that whatever they have discivered and invented were already known. Without causing offence to anyone, I want to say that this is not the right attitude for the following reasons:

 

1)Science has really helped us in so many ways that it is impossible to appreciate all of them just in words. This website we are using is just one example of that.

 

2) A large no. of scientists who have given great theories did not have knowledge of our scriptures. So, it is obvious that they did not simply copy from our holy books.

 

3) Simply saying that vedas have complete knowledge is not good enough. We should be able to describe that knowledge in such a way that people can understand.

 

To achieve this, we have to have knowledge of both our holy books as well as science. Also, we should study these books and see if we can gather useful scientific knowledge out of them. As a first step, we can try to find out the things which are already known to science. Of course, this will not give anything new to science but at least, it will help us understand our scriptures in a better way. A time will come when we will find many new information which we should write down in such a way which people of present time can understand. Lots of knowledge in vedas are in poetic form in the form of shlokas. There is nothing wrong in that. But we should also be able to describe that in the form in which modern people can appreciate it. Also, if possible we should make it more quantitative. This way, more and more people can benefit from this vast knowledge.

 

I have given example of mass-energy equivalece. I can give many more, but I will give just one more:

 

When Maha Vishnu exhales, then numorous universes are created from pores in his body. When he inhales then these are again destroyed. It is obvious that when anything springs out of a pore, then initially it has to be of small size which will expand latter. So, we find that universe was of microscopic size initially which expanded (experiments say that it is still expanding). This is an excellent reference to big-bang theory. Now come to multiple universes part. One modern interpretation of quantum physics is multiverse theory. (Please note that the term 'multiverse' is the short form for 'multi universe').

 

So, combining big bang and multiverse theories we find that there are innumerable no. of universes. In each of these big bang is applicable.

 

Hope that you did not find my comment boring :-)

 

Wish regards,

 

Yours truly.

[Gauracandra]

Haribol Animesh,

 

I agree completely with you. Also, I think it is important that somehow a trust fund should be set up in which many denominations and organizations set aside money strictly for the cultural preservation of India. There are many great temples that are thousands of years old, bathing ghats, art etc... that will be lost without some proactive measures to preserve that cultural heritage. Government can do some but I think privately it would be great to unite those who are interested in such matters to preserve that heritage.

 

With regard to science it is interesting what you have said. I once saw a program with the famous astronomer Carl Sagan who said that of all the religions of the world only Hinduism comes close to accurately dating the age of the universe. He then said it was just a coincidence but was very interested in the ideas of kalpas, and life of Brahma etc.... Also, the idea right now of multiple universes is very common but that is just a recent development within say the last 50-100 years. Think about the fact that thousands of years ago people had these ideas. You are also correct that today the idea that the universe is expanding and will one day contract only to expand again is found in Vedic literature. There is also the idea of relative time. Somewhere I read a story (maybe on this website) where someone visited Brahma, and Brahma told him "You have spent only a moment in my abode, yet when you return all your family for many generations will have died". This fits entirely with Einsteins theory of relativity. As you go faster towards the speed of light, time slows down. If you return to earth, what seemed like a moment will have been many years (if you've seen the movie Contact (the book by the way was written by Carl Sagan) this point is explained. Anyways, I'm starting to ramble. Haribol.

 

Gauracandra

[animesh]

Dear Gaurachandra ji,

I have not seen the movie, but I have read the book "Contact".

Time is relative not only because of speed but also because of gravity (General theory of relativity). Clocks run slower when there is higher gravity. This has been confirmed by many expeiments.

 

You have mentioned about a story which says that one day of Brahma is equivalent to many generations on Earth. I remember having read this story when I was in 7th std. After having the statues (made by Vishwakarma himself) of Jagannath, Balbhadra and Subhadra in Jagannath Puri, King Indradyumn wanted Lord Brahma to be the priest. He went to Brhama with Narad muni. Before leaving, he had promised his wife that he would be back in less than one day. When he came back, he found that everything was unfamiliar. Meanwhile many generations had passed.