Personified Vedas.....

[livingentity]

Can someone explain the Personified Vedas? Who are They? etc.

[gHari]

Living (Somewhere Else) Entity,

 

This is from SB 10.87.14P:<blockquote>According to SrIla JIva GosvAmI, the twenty-eight verses of the prayers of the personified Vedas (SB 10.87.14–41) represent the opinions of each of the twenty-eight major zrutis. These chief UpaniSads and other zrutis concern themselves with various approaches to the Absolute Truth, and among them those zrutis are supreme which emphasize pure, unalloyed devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The UpaniSads direct our attention to the Personality of Godhead by first negating what is distinct from Him and then defining some of His important characteristics.

SrIla VizvanAtha CakravartI interprets the first words of this prayer, jaya jaya, to mean "please reveal Your superexcellence." The word jaya is repeated out of either reverence or joy.

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Krishna Book 87:<blockquote>Sanandana said, "After the dissolution of the whole cosmic manifestation, the entire energy and the whole creation in its nucleus form enter into the body of GarbhodakazAyI ViSNu. The Lord at that time remains asleep for a long, long time, and when there is again necessity of creation, the Vedas personified assemble around the Lord and begin to glorify Him, describing His wonderful transcendental pastimes, exactly like servants of a king: when the king is asleep in the morning, the appointed reciters come around his bedroom and begin to sing of his chivalrous activities, and while hearing of his glorious activities, the king gradually awakens.

"The Vedic reciters, or the personified Vedas, sing thus: "O unconquerable Lord, You are the Supreme Personality. No one is equal to You or greater than You. No one can be more glorious in his activities. All glories unto You! All glories unto You! By Your own transcendental nature You fully possess all six opulences. As such, You are able to deliver all conditioned souls from the clutches of mAyA. O Lord, we fervently pray that You kindly do so. All the living entities, being Your parts and parcels, are naturally joyful, eternal and full of knowledge, but due to their own faults they try to imitate You by trying to become the supreme enjoyer. Thus they disobey Your supremacy and become offenders. And because of their offenses, Your material energy has taken charge of them. Thus their transcendental qualities of joyfulness, bliss and wisdom have been covered by the clouds of the three material qualities. This cosmic manifestation, made of the three material qualities, is just like a prison house for the conditioned souls. The conditioned souls are struggling very hard to escape from material bondage, and according to their different conditions of life they have been given different types of engagement. But since all engagements are based on knowledge supplied by You, the conditioned souls can execute pious activities only when You mercifully inspire them to do so. Therefore, without taking shelter at Your lotus feet one cannot surpass the influence of material energy. Actually, we, as personified Vedic knowledge, are always engaged in Your service by helping the conditioned souls understand You.' "

This prayer of the Vedas personified illustrates that the Vedas are meant for helping the conditioned souls to understand KRSNa. All the zrutis, or personified Vedas, offered glories to the Lord again and again, singing, "Jaya! Jaya!" This indicates that the Lord is the most glorious. Of all His glories, the most important is His causeless mercy upon the conditioned souls in reclaiming them from the clutches of mAyA.

 

SB 5.1.7P: To convince Priyavrata that it was necessary for him to follow the Vedic injunctions and accept the responsibility of ruling over the world, Lord BrahmA also brought with him the personified Vedas, his constant associates.

 

SB 10.29.9P: Throughout the Tenth Canto, SrIla VizvanAtha CakravartI ThAkura gives elaborate poetic commentaries on Lord KRSNa's pastimes. It is not always possible to include these extensive descriptions, but we will quote in its entirety his comments on this verse. It is our sincere recommendation to the learned VaiSNava community that a qualified devotee of the Lord present the entire commentary of SrIla VizvanAtha CakravartI on the Tenth Canto as a separate book, which will undoubtedly be appreciated by devotees and nondevotees alike. The AcArya's comments on this verse are as follows:

 

"In this context we will make our analysis according to the method described in SrIla RUpa GosvAmI's Ujjvala-nIlamaNi. There are two categories of gopIs: the eternally perfect (the nitya-siddhas) and those who have become perfect by practicing bhakti-yoga (the sAdhana-siddhas). The sAdhana-siddhas are of two categories: those who belong to special groups and those who do not. And there are also two classes of the gopIs belonging to special groups: namely the zruti-cArIs, who come from the group of the personified Vedas, and the RSi-cArIs, who come from the group of sages who saw Lord RAmacandra in the DaNDakAraNya forest.

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gHiri Govardan

 

[Guest guest]

I can't claim to fully understand these things. How can eternal knowledge be a person? Its like when you hear that Shiva's body is time itself. We think of a body based on carbon, but can a body be made of time? I don't understand, probably never will, but its interesting.

[Guest guest]

Dear Guestji,

 

We have to see that body is a word only to describe a certain container. For our gross senses, the only 'body' we can evaluate is a carbon based one, as you said.

 

This is our limitation, those senses. Knowledge cannot come from some dead matter. How can a nothing become something? That's why we say that knowledge is a person, that is inconceivable to our limited senses.

 

This whole material world is some kind of body also, the Universal form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

 

Carbon and time are 2 energies only. A body can certainly be made of time, but we just can't explain it due to our limited experiences of time. Can we actually say we know everything that time is? I cannot.

 

I'm pretty sure this is confusing the issue more.

[Kulapavana]

personified Vedas = sages who know the Vedas perfectly and fully. with their mystic powers they can impart the Vedas to others directly or by the akhasic record process

[livingentity]

my delay in responding. My sad excuse is that I am working at Amazon.com and the hours are very long and the job is physically demanding.

 

That said...

Thanks to everyone for their responses to my question. I do have a clearer understanding now but have more questions and will post these a bit later today.

[Guest guest]

thanks to our latent impersonalism it is very difficult to understand that everything in the material and spiritual universes is personal not only energetic or conceptual

 

radhe, foe example, is the embodiment of the love for krsna and the "servant" feature of god... but she's a complete person too (actually the most complete and various personality) not only a symbol or a concept

[theist]

I was wondering. Since veda means knowledge and the soul is composed of eternity bliss and knowledge doesn't this mean that we are in our pure fully realized state, personfied veda?

[Guest guest]

we say that the consciousness comes from a book bhagavatam explained by a bhagavata person.. so when one is realized he is as good as the vedas, like the spiritual master is as good as god because he repeats purely the god's message