Miscellaneous - Religion   

Cause of dharma

CHENNAI : In the confrontation between evil and good, the victory of good is ensured only by divine intervention and the Lord's incarnations at specific points of time are for this purpose. The story of Prahlada narrated in the Bhagavata Purana besides illustrating this truth establishes the power of unflinching devotion even when it is pitted against life threatening challenges. Sri S. B. Kalyanarama Bhattachariar pointed out in a lecture that as in the Bhagavad Gita where the Lord states that it is His duty to establish righteousness whenever it is at risk, He gives assurance to the terrified celestials who were persecuted by Hiranyakasipu that He would do the needful at the appropriate time.

The Lord proclaimed, "He who entertains hatred and prejudice against the celestials, the Vedas, Vedic scholars, the cows, righteousness and Myself will not thrive and will be destroyed. When Hiranyakasipu is determined to harm his own son Prahlada, I will kill him. That is the time for Me to act."

Hiranyakasipu's enmity to the Lord was due to his brother Hiranyaksha's death and he had consoled the bereaved family and vowed to kill the Lord who was responsible for it. He performed the most severe and austere penance to obtain a special boon from Brahma that insulated him against death arising from any being created by Brahma.

But his son Prahlada grew up into a realised soul and deemed the Lord as the Absolute Reality and refused to toe the line of his preceptors who tried to tutor him about Hiranyakasipu's sovereignty. So when his father asked him what was it he had learnt from his preceptors, he stated with utmost clarity the truth of the Lord's supremacy and of the instability and evanescence of life that is the cause of fear in human beings. Seeking peace of mind through worldly objects is a futile pursuit while banking on the Lord can confer it for sure.

Hiranyakasipu, caught up in the headiness of his apparent supremacy, failed to see the deep wisdom in his child's words. Instead he tortured Prahlada so much that the Lord incarnated as Narasimha and killed him.

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