On Narada Bhakti Sutras  – 15

Part – 14  

6.  FROM MARKANDEYA PURANA:

Narada happened to go to Indra’s court at a time when the celestial damsels Rambha and others were giving a dance performance.  After a while Indra enquired from Narada as to whose performance was like best by him. Narada responded by saying that the performance of that girl who danced with passion, emotion and agility was the best. The dancers were debating within themselves as to who did better, when Indra intervened and requested Narada to declare the winner. Narada announced that that girl who could excite the Sage Durwasa would top them all. A damsel by name Vapuvu accepted the challenge.

7.  FROM BRAHMAVAIVARTA PURANA:

The sons of Daksha were about to commence creation. Narada met them at that time and directed them to work for liberation instead of getting stuck with the cycles of birth and death. He successfully dissuaded them from creation.  Coming to know of the role played by Narada, Daksha complained to Brahma. Daksha then cast three spells on Narada – that Narada would take birth in the womb of Daksha’s daughter, he would be a wanderer without a stable place of stay and he would not have a wife. Continue reading →

Part – 13  

4.  FROM ADBHUTA RAMAYANA:

The Musician Kaushika was singing melodious tunes in the Heaven. Goddess Lakshmi along with her cohorts, several Sages, Narada, Tumbura and several others visited the Heaven at that time. Goddess Lakshmi requested Tumbura to sing along with Kaushiki. After the duo performed, she honored them and bestowed gifts to them. Narada felt slighted by her action. He cursed her to  be born to wicked people and be punished by them.

Lord Vishnu then cajoled Narada and told him that Tumbura achieved special accomplishment because of his devotional singing. Vishnu asked Narada that he should go to the Manasottara Mountain range and learn singing from a bird living there if he desired similar abilities. He went to Manasottara Mountain and learnt the singing under tutorship of the bird. When he returned and met Tumbura, he discovered he was no match and felt very jealous of Tumbura. So he went back to Vishnu. Vishnu promised to teach singing to Narada when Vishnu takes birth as Krishna.

Narada approached Krishna and requested him to teach him singing. Krishna directed him to learn the singing for a year from Jambavati. After that Krishan directed him to go to each of his wives for a year and learn singing. Even then he could not master singing. Finally he was taught by Krishna. He became very skilled in singing, he became free of his jealousies and lived happily.

5.  FROM LINGA PURANA / SHIVA PURANA:

It was a time when Narada was observing askesis on the Himalayan Mountains. In order to disturb his austerities, Indra sent a few celestial damsels to distract him.  But Narada was a great devotee of Shiva. Because of the power of that devotion to Shiva, his mind was very stable and did not get lured by the damsels. Narada felt proud of his own achievement. He thought that it was because of his prowess that his mind did not waver and he did not fall for those girls’ wiles. After completing his austerities and meditation, he went to Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. Even though Vishnu that it was due to Shiva’s power, Narada was boastful of his ability to control his mind in not being beguiled by the celestial damsels. Vishnu decided to teach him lesson.  Narada took leave of Vishnu and proceeded on his onward journey.  Vishnu created a city at a place on Narada’s route. He also generated an attractive palatial building in the city. A voluptuous and beautiful woman by name Shrimati was also created and placed in that palace. Narada fell for her charm. He wanted to win her hand. So he went back to Vishnu and requested him to bestow the Vishnu’s looks on him.

Narada and Parvata were on a tour of the world. They reached the city where Ambarisha lived. Ambarisha received them with befitting honors. They saw the melodiously singing Shrimati at his house. They enquired about the girl. Ambarisha told them that she was his daughter. Both of them requested him to give that girl in marriage to them. As it was not possible for both of them to marry her, he agreed to give her to one of them whom she chose.  A date was fixed for Shrimati to meet both and select one of them.  Narada and Parvata met Vishnu separately without the knowledge of one another and each of them prayed to Vishnu to convert the other’s face to look like that of a monkey. Lord Vishnu fulfilled the desire of both of them. Both of them came to attend the function where Shrimati would express her choice.  Vishnu also went to witness the goings on. Everyone laughed looking at the mokey-like faces of Narada and Parvata. Shrimati chose Vishnu as her husband because of his comely features. Vishnu took her along with him.

Narada and Parvata were outraged. They cursed Ambarisha that he would become a womanizer as he failed to stick to his word of marrying Shrimati to one of them.  But Vishnu’s weapon chased them both and they had to run away.  They went to the Heaven and they saw Shrimati at Vishnu’s place. They cast a spell on Vishnu accusing him for having deceived them by making their faces look like monkeys and winning the girl of their love.  They said that Vishnu would be born as a human being, would suffer separation from his wife and would be able to join back with her with the help of monkeys. Vishnu revealed that everything happened the way it did because of the power of Shiva. Because of that curse, Vishnu eventually took birth as Rama, got separated from his wife, and could get back his wife with the help of monkeys.

(To continue …. Part – 15).

Part – 12  

2.  FROM DEVIBHAGAVATAM:

Once Narada went to visit Vishnu. Noticing that Narada was approaching them, Laksmi, the consort of Vishnu, moved away from being near to Vishnu.  Narada wondered why she had to move away seeing him who was just an aged Saint. When he enquired the reason, Vishnu remarked that it would always be better to keep distance from other males as anything might happen under the power of illusion. Narada requested Vishnu for a demonstration of his power to create illusion.  Vishnu then took Narada on a ride on his Vehicle Garuda and reached Kanyakubja. Vishnu asked Narada to have bath in a pond there. When Narada came out of the pond, he got transformed into a beautiful lady. Vishnu quietly left the place.

A King by name Taladhwaja saw the lady and fell in love with her. He took her along with him to his city. He made her his queen. They had a few sons. In course of time, some enemy kings pillaged his city. They killed all the sons. The queen was extremely grief-stricken at these developments. Lord Vishnu went to her in the guise of an old Brahmin and consoled her. He taught her about the impermanence of relationships in this world and instructed her on spiritual Knowledge. He took her along with him. He asked her to have a bath in a nearby pond. Immediately after the bath, the queen got back her original form of Narada. Narada prostrated to Vishnu and realized His powers of illusion. Continue reading →

Part – 11  

We will now take a brief look at the Stories of Narada appearing in different purANa-s. Some of the stories repeat themselves in different purANa-s with slight to significant alterations.

Shri Vemuri Srinivasa Rao

What I write in the next 3-4 Posts will be a copy paste type of job from the magnum opus in the Telugu language authored by my Father, late Shri Vemuri Srinivasa Rao, a Lawyer. The reference is:

“pUrvagAthAlahari – An Anthology of the Stories of all People and Topics Arranged in an Alphabetical Order from the Eighteen purANa-s,” by Vemrui Srinivasa Rao, Venakatrama &Co, 1958.

1.  FROM BHAGAVATAM:

Narada was the son of Brahma. He originated from Brahma’s thigh. He had neither a family nor any offspring. He never stayed in one place. The reason for that was the curse he received from Daksha. He wandered through all the worlds playing devotional songs on Lord Vishnu on Mahati (Mahati is Narada’s vINa – a stringed musical instrument). Continue reading →

Part 10: 

In the last ten Posts, we have had a quick synoptic view of the contours of the subject matter that we will be discussing in the coming days.

We touched on the efficacy as well as the infirmities of the only tool we have, namely the mind, to explore the various nuances of Narada’s teaching. We found that we are easily deceived by our sensory apparatus which shows us what is needed to be known at the moment in the interest of the preservation and perpetuation of the body-organism but it goes only to hide the absolute reality that exists out there. In other words, the sensory apparatus has no capacity to know what actually exists.

We have come to know that a lot of processes go on within our mind-brain system beyond our conscious awareness of the activities that go on inside our brain to show a world that is projected for us to see. We have also discovered that ‘things’ out there in the world lack physicality and even the “me” who we think “I am” is only a ghostly imaginary entity.

We had a brief look into the way our mind fantasizes a “me,” an “other,” and how it conceptualizes a savior, a world etc. The mind imagines that its unhappiness in the world is due to some “lacks and limitations.”   It tries to compensate for these lacks by conceiving a protecting Godhead in which those “lacks” don’t exist. Devotion is the way by which it gets connected to the God of its conceptualization and it hopes to get its wants fulfilled by deference to him. Continue reading →