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Privileged devotee

CHENNAI: In His descent in human form as Krishna the Lord while teaching the supreme truth to Arjuna (the Bhagavad Gita) declared, “My birth and activities are divine. He who knows this in reality is not reborn on leaving this body, but comes to Me.” The two epics — the Ramayana and the Mahabharata — and the 18 Puranas were written to highlight this truth of the Lord’s incarnations and they have the stated purpose of enabling humanity to realise the goal of liberation from transmigration. Among them the Bhagavata Purana has a special status in spiritual tradition as it was narrated to King Pareekshit by a man of wisdom like Sage Suka when he wanted to realise God in a week’s time.

In his discourse, Sri B.Sundar Kumar said the Padma Purana expounded the glory of the Bhagavata Purana. While the result of listening to the exposition of the Puranas is stated to be liberation from bondage, in the case of the Bhagavata it says that it is only by the merit done in previous innumerable lives that an individual becomes fortunate to listen to this Purana. If an individual develops the ardent desire to listen to the Bhagavata Purana that itself is the end because the Lord enters his heart and enables him to experience Him, here and now. Pareekshit is a standing example. He was the only heir of the Pandavas who survived the Mahabharata war and Aswatthama’s attempt to exterminate the Pandavas’ lineage. Pareekshit was a posthumous child for his mother Uttara, the wife of Abhimanyu (Arjuna’s son), who died in the war, was expecting him then.

When the missile Aswatthama hurled came towards Uttara, she sought refuge in Krishna who was about to leave for Dwaraka. Krishna then saw the Pandavas reaching for their arrows and in order to prevent the calamity of His kinsmen and devotees, the Lord wielded His discus and protected them. Krishna could have stopped with saving Pareekshit but He did not. He blessed Pareekshit with His vision while in the womb of his mother then, and thus he was blessed even before he was born. Perhaps this was a cue that Pareekshit would be the one privileged to listen to the exposition of His glory in the Bhagavata Purana.

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