Bhagawata : Tatparya

When I was in south, happened to listen to one of the famous Bhagawatakara (bhagawatist J). In his speech spoke about the importance that should be given to the bhagawatakara etc. when I heard this I thought, in the Brahma Sutra bhagawan vyasa and Bhagawan Bhashyakara during the discussion of the importance of bhagawata matha as a siddhanta to be greater than that of the Vedanta, which both duly negate. So, in this case, if one needs to give them that importance, we should understand the importance that should be accorded to the Vedantins.

But, there is another important point which I want to discuss here. I though am a devotee, and ardent at that. Do not prescribe to the staple dosage of bhagawata as a story, the way these people present it. This essentially negates the idea of the puranas being an aid for moksha for the less qualified people. And personally, these stories are no less dramatized for greater effect, playing with the emotions of people, which one receives when one watches the heart wrenching last portion of Shankarabharanam movie. Though there is a bhavana which is associated with the story, when one says Krishna stole butter or the dress of the Gopis one feels odd, to see the thief as a God or God as a thief.

What is the tatparya, real purport of this, then? Butter is Navaneetham in Sanskrit. (And there is a text called Kaivalya Navaneetham, both in Sanskrit and Tamil, a Vedanta treatise.) Navaneetham, means, Nava – new and Neetham – taken to. On is taken to a new level of understanding. Krishna gives them (us) the essence of the Scriptures, which is the realization. That is not correctly understood by the people, who collect the knowledge / preach without understanding (like collecting the butter or selling it).

What about the dress stealing episode. Dress is something which is the symbol of duality, separation. When one feels the other to be different he / she feel insecure without any cover. And this cover maybe a dress, a wall or a boundary, though an imagined one. So, Krishna removes this veil of ignorance.

Also see : When Shuka brahma rishi comes out of the womb and runs into the forest thereafter in his birthday suit (naked) who is followed by His father Sri Vyasa, with his dress on. The apsaras, celestial damsels who are bathing skimply dressed did not feel any shyness when the son goes through that area, but when the father is seen in the near about, they feel shy. And, the famous biblical story of Adam and Eve also shows this very same idea.