Appearance of Lord Parasurama - Part 1

Date: 2016-05-08 Author: Narahari das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.

Today and tomorrow Parasurama Jayanthi is celebrated all over the planet. Tomorrow is also the auspicious day of Akshaya Trithiya. Lord Parasurama is the warrior incarnation of the Lord and is famous for exhibiting extra-ordinary power. Srila Prabhupada explains this in the purport of Srimad Bhagavatam(1.3.28) "Originally the Lord is full of all opulences, all prowess, all fame, all beauty, all knowledge and all renunciation. When they are partly manifested through the plenary portions or parts of the plenary portions, it should be noted that certain manifestations of His different powers are required for those particular functions. When in the room small electric bulbs are displayed, it does not mean that the electric powerhouse is limited by the small bulbs. The same powerhouse can supply power to operate large-scale industrial dynamos with greater volts. Similarly, the incarnations of the Lord display limited powers because so much power is needed at that particular time. For example, Lord Parasurama and Lord Nrsimha displayed unusual opulence by killing the disobedient kṣatriyas twenty-one times and killing the greatly powerful atheist Hiranyakashipu. Jamadagnya displayed the Lord's power to kill all the disobedient kings powerfully situated in their respective states."

Lord Parasurama started His divine mission by killing Kartavirya who had 1000 arms. Some people misunderstand that the Lord killed Kartavirya Arjuna to revenge the killing of His father sage . However this is not true. The Lord killed him only to fulfill the boon sought by Karta-virya Arjuna. Karta virya worshipped Lord who is also an incarnation of the Supreme Lord by doing penance for 10000 years and received 4 boons. These boons are nicely described in Hari Vamsa (1-33-11,12,13) as follows.

pūrvaṃ bāhusahasraṃ tu prārthitaṃ su mahad varam adharme vartamānasya sadbhiḥ tatra nivāranam ugreṇa pṛthivīṃ jitvā dharmeṇaivānurañjanam saṃgrāmān subahūñ jitvā hatvā cārīn sahasraśaḥ saṃgrāme vartamānasya vadhaṃ cābhyadhikād raṇe Hari Vamsa

First boon is that, in all battles whenever his arms are cutoff, they should grow again. Second boon is if he stray away from the path of dharma the person who snubs me should be a saintly person. Third is though he conquers the whole world with great ferocity, his ruling of the country should be pleasurable for his subjects. Though he fights battles killing thosands of enemies, his end should come at the hand of a warrior more powerful than himself and his end should come in a war only.

If these boons are to be fulfilled, then only the Supreme Absolute Truth who is all powerful and has no rival only should appear. This is because Kartva virya arjuna was literally undefeatable and the most powerful on the planet. So the Lord took incarnation as Parasurama in the family of great Jamadagni as a saintly brahamana (as the boon was that only a saintly person can kill Karta virya). Now a question may be raised why He should be born as son of Jamadagni? He could be born in any brahmana race? Krishna willing we shall try to meditate on this in the subsequent offering. Hare Krishna. Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Narahari Krishna das Chennai. Appearance of Lord Parasurama - Part 2

Date: 2016-05-11 Author: Narahari Krishna das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.

This is in conclusion of the previous offering titled, "Appearance of Lord Parasurama", wherein we were meditating on the glories of Lord Parasurama. We were discussing about the pastime of Lord Parasuram killing Kartavirya. We shall see further.

After Kartavirya attained greatpowers, Agni the fire god became one of his close friends. Once Agni was suffering from severe thirst. So he asked Kartavirya a way to quench his thirst. Kartavirya arjuna pointed to him many fields, forests and some villages under his control and asked Agni to consume them by fire. Agni started burning everything given by Kartavirya and no one could stop him as he was having the friendship of Kartavirya arjuna. There was a certain beautiful forest in which a sage Apava (the son of , rain god) was meditating. So Agni was scared to enter the forest and again approached Kartavirya arjuna for help. Kartavirya arjuna wanted to stick to the promise he made to Agni and hence accompanied him to the forest and Agni consumed the forest because he gained courage in the company of Kartavirya. But in the process, he also burned hermitage of Sage Apava. The sage was very much offended by this and said to Kartavirya, "You have been neglectful and burnt my ashram and for this offense you will meet your end in the hands of someone other than me. One Rama, the unlimitedly powerful son of Jamadagni, an ascetic Brahmana in the Bhargava lineage will defeat you and your army in the fight. He will cut all your thousand arms and exterminate you."

The Supreme Lord never tolerates injustice done to sages and Kartavirya out of pride of his powers, did not care to protect the sage's ashram. So to prove the words of Apava true, Lord Parasurama killed Kartavirya. And when He looked around, the world was burdened with irreligious kshatriyas and he killed their dynasty 21 times and made the land of Bharatavarsha free from fallen kings. Righteous kings Janaka, Dasaratha who were religious were spared. Now from this pastime of Parasurama, we can understand the Lord's great power which is glorified in the Harimvamsa ( parva 33.36,37) as follows:

yasya bāhusahasrasya babhūva jyātalasvanaḥ yugānte tv ambudasyeva sphuṭato hy aśaner iva aho bata mṛdhe vīryaṃ bhārgavasya yad acchinat rājño bāhusahasraṃ tu haimaṃ tālavanaṃ yathā Harimvamsa

The twangs of his (Kartavirya Arjuna) bow when drawn by his thousand arms are like the clapping of thunderbolts erupting from dark-clouds that emerge at the time of universal destruction...But, what an astounding valour of the descendant of Bhrigu, -Rama, in combat!!!! He felled the thousand arms of Kartavirya-arjuna which looked like golden palmgrove, and ended him in a combat.

The pastime also highlights an important lesson which is the danger of pitfall of pride. When we become successful in material pursuits, the tendency is to become arrogant and disrespect others. This danger is there even in spiritual life. When our preaching, service and efforts in spiritual life becomes successful and we start getting good recognition and glorification, sometimes pride crops up and we bash whoever does not align with us and call them as "not bonafide" or "insincere". Sometimes we become proud of the austerities we do in spiritual life and mock at those who are not able to do the same. Though Kartavirya was powerful and very religious in performing sacrifices, he was overcome by pride and earned the curse of the sage. But since he was a pious king, he understood the danger of pride well in advance and prayed the Lord to destroy him when needed. In the same way, every devotee can pray to Lord Parasurama to curb the pride when it crops in our spiritual life. The Lord is called Darpa-haari (one who takes way the pride) . It will be extremely painful when the Lord smashes our pride (since it’s a direct hit on our ego). But in the long run it will benefit us.

I pray at the lotus feet of our dear spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada and Lord Parasurama so that by their mercy I will accept the Lord's actions in levelling my pride, without grudging.

Hare Krishna. Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Narahari Krishna das Chennai.