Religion scholar Huston Smith once noted that spiritual discipline—purposeful practices undertaken in pursuit of a connection with ultimate reality—is needed when one recognizes that “never for long are we exactly where we should be” (1984:67). Such a sense of being mostly in the wrong place surely propels much of what we think and do, and also what we choose to read. India has a long history of responding to this impulse with literature that maps paths of self-improvement to reach one or another ultimate goal. Among the many textual tracks of this history, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa holds a remarkable place, and this text itself “makes tracks” still today, inspiring and guiding seekers for whom the bhakti mārga, the “path of devotion,” is prized. Followers of this path, who from early centuries of the Common Era (and possibly earlier) may have been known collectively as Bhāgavatas, came to regard the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as preeminent in showcasing persons resolved to follow the path of the Bhagavat, or Bhagavān (the Supreme Lord, identified in the text as Krishna, who exhibits numerous expansions, principally Nārāyaṇa and Vishnu).1Ravi M. Gupta and I, in our introduction to this volume, introduced the Bhāgavata’s Ocean Churning episode as an aid to entering “the world of the Bhāgavata.” In somewhat similar fashion, to provide greater access into the Bhāgavata’s world, I here present a guided tour of another key episode in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa—the story of Nṛsiṃha, the Man-Lion avatāra (descent) of Vishnu and his bhāgavata devotee, Prahlāda.2 Millions throughout India are familiar with and have been moved and guided by this story, and with its dramatic characters and didactic lessons it deserves the attention of a wider readership. We may lack any familiarity with the Purāṇic literature in general and with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in particular, or we may have some familiarity with the tradition and appreciate this text’s conduciveness to rereadings as rediscoveries; whether possessing or lacking previous knowledge, readers are invited to accompany me along one important narrative pathway of the rich network of narratives that make up this work.
Before commencing this short “Purāṇic reading trek,” I should say a word about my own experience in reading the Bhāgavata, especially the particular episode with which we will be dealing. Some years ago, after reading the Man-Lion episode of book 7 (in English translation), while traveling in India I had heard that a concentration of temples dedicated to this striking form of Vishnu could be found in the south-central state of Andhra Pradesh. My curiosity piqued, I transited through Hyderabad, where I hoped to meet Sampat Kumar Bhattacharya—a learned brāhmaṇa priest of the Śrīvaiṣṇava bhakti tradition—to learn more about this story and these particular temples. The priest graciously welcomed me into his home, and when I told him of my wish to visit some Nṛsiṃha shrines in the area, his eyes brightened, and with sonorous voice he rapidly recited from memory several of the Bhāgavata’s Sanskrit verses that recount this special avatāra’s advent. Bhattacharya recalled how, by virtue of extreme austerities, the tyrannical demon Hiraṇyakaśipu is granted—by powerful lord Brahmā—multiple benedictions amounting to supposed immortality; how, overcome by arrogant belligerence, the demon harrasses his young bhāgavata son Prahlāda for showing allegiance to his archenemy, the divine Vishnu; how the child Prahlāda becomes a teacher of bhāgavata wisdom to his demon classmates, driving his father to attempt to kill him; and how, in challenging Prahlāda to find protection in Vishnu from his (Hiraṇyakaśipu’s) deadly attack, Nṛsiṃha dramatically bursts forth from a pillar in Lord Indra’s palace and mauls the demon to death in such a way that Brahmā’s benedictions are left intact.
Since that brief but memorable visit with an orthodox brāhmaṇa reader of the Bhāgavata I have myself returned frequently to read portions of the work (sometimes in English translation and, more recently, also in the original Sanskrit). But unlike this well-versed priest, for whom the Bhāgavata Purāṇa was clearly a vibrant, comprehensive part of his life that articulated much of his brahmanical tradition–shaped worldview, I am acutely aware that my cultural home is far removed from that of the text and most of its readers. Still, careful reading sharpened by patient self-questioning of assumptions (no doubt including a share of orientalist notions) have helped me to enter the Bhāgavata’s world.3
What I have also found helpful in reading the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is to think of its model bhāgavatas—model “pathfinders”—as so many important saints of Indic tradition. And while hagiographical accounts of saints tell us a great deal about the ideals of cultures out of which they emerge, such works can have a more immediate use to contemporary readers for reflecting on the values of one’s own culture. Further, as Edith Wyschogrod has shown, in our postmodern condition of moral uncertainty, saints—even as represented in premodern hagiographic narrative—can inspire people to enact selflessness and Other-directedness in ways that cut through and transcend all limited forms of moral reasoning. Wyschogrod writes: “the addressees of saints believe that understanding hagiography consists not in recounting its meaning but in being swept up by its imperative force. The comprehension of a saint’s life understood from within the sphere of hagiography is a practice through which the addressee is gathered into the narrative so as to extend and elaborate it with her/his own life” (1990:xxiii).4 With a sympathetic attitude to such practice, reading the Bhāgavata can be a rewarding experience.
I have chosen the story of Nṛsiṃha and Prahlāda as our point of entry into the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s world, and this will place us quite in the middle of the work (in the seventh of its twelve books). Leading into the Bhāgavata’s Nṛsiṃha episode, a doubt voiced by Parīkṣit (the king who hears the Bhāgavata Purāṇa) prompts his teacher Śuka’s protracted response, taking the form of an illustratory narrative set within the frame of another, reportedly earlier dialogue (one of several links the Bhāgavata makes with the grand epic Mahābhārata).5
But now let us get on with the story, making a few pauses along the way to notice important themes and salient contours.
STORYTRACKING
The first chapter of book 7 opens with King Parīkṣit questioning his teacher Śuka about a seeming contradiction in the character of the supreme being, Bhagavān: “O brāhmaṇa, Bhagavān himself is the equipoised dear friend of living beings. How is it that, as if partial to Indra’s interest, he killed the demons?” (7.1.1).6 Śuka’s initial theological response is to insist on the existence of divine equanimity: “Although unborn, unmanifest, devoid of temporal qualities, and beyond nature, the Lord (Bhagavān) enters his own creation, resorting to that place of the dominator and the dominated” (7.1.6). Bhagavān is essentially neutral, being aloof from the world; but he occasionally becomes involved in his own creation, which, by its very nature, is characterized by power differentials. (We will see that the management of power differentials is a theme running through this episode and, indeed, much of the Bhāgavata). Still (Śuka goes on to say), although involved in the world, Bhagavān is changed neither by affection nor by animosity, and this is to people’s advantage: “By persistent animosity toward the master appearing in human form—Lord Krishna—those purified of sins attained him” (7.1.26–29). This idea is pivotal to the Bhāgavata, that emotions of all kinds, whether “good” or “bad” from an ordinary perspective, can lead one to ultimate liberation when such emotions are directed toward Bhagavān. We will return to this theme later.
Chapter 2 begins the story proper (the mythic-narrative answer to Parīkṣit’s question), with Diti’s son Hiraṇyakaśipu (Golden Cushion) turning vengeful against Bhagavān for having slain his brother Hiraṇyākṣa (Golden Eye) as Varāha, an avatāra as Cosmic Boar who embodies Vedic sacrifice (BhP 3.18–19). And who are these two “golden” brothers? We must briefly backtrack: As recounted yet earlier in the Bhāgavata (3.8–9), they are Jaya and Vijaya—doorkeepers at the innermost gate of Vishnu’s (Bhagavān’s) empyrean realm, Vaikuṇṭha—whose overprotective if well-meant obstruction of naked child-sages, the Four Kumāras, earns them a terrible curse. They shall suffer three lives each in the mortal world as antigods (demons; BhP 3.16.26) opposed to the ways of dharmic order and opposed to Vishnu. The Bhāgavata will trace each of these three cycles of demonic life to the antagonists’ destruction at the hands (or weapons) of Bhagavān. The first pair are, as just mentioned, Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu—adversaries of Bhagavān as Vishnu (appearing as his avatāras Varāha and then Nṛsiṃha); the second pair are Rāvaṇa (Screamer) and his brother Kumbhakarṇa (Pot Ears)—enemies of Bhagavān as King Rāma; and the final pair are Śiśupāla (Babysitter) and Dantavakra (Crooked Teeth)—avowed opponents of Bhagavān as Krishna.7
Driven by vengeance, a desire to secure for himself world sovereignty, and a hope to gain corporeal immortality, Hiraṇyakaśipu undertakes tapas—extreme ascetic practices (7.3.1–5). Ascetic practice is a prominent theme throughout the Bhāgavata, and indeed it is arguably central to Vedic and post-Vedic tradition. The word tapas (from the Sanskrit verbal root tap, “to heat”), with its rich associations centered in asceticism, denotes a key principle for understanding Upaniṣadic as well as later epic and Purāṇic religion (Kaelber 1989:1–6, 143–74). Especially throughout epic and Purāṇic literature one finds several accounts of ascetic endeavors undertaken for one of two general sorts of reasons—either for acquisition of personal power or for winning release from worldly bondage. Notably in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, although these same purposes are represented, the text’s overarching bhakti teaching assures that asceticism’s ultimate reward is bhakti. A well-known instance of this pattern is the story of the child Dhruva (BhP 4.8–12). Aspiring to gain a kingdom greater than that of his father, Dhruva undertakes extreme practices of fasting alone in a forest while reciting a mantra in praise of Vāsudeva (Vishnu). When his fiercely determined asceticism succeeds in bringing the Lord to his immediate presence, Dhruva becomes instantly so devotionally enthralled that he is overcome with shame for his initial mundane aspiration.
Like Dhruva, Hiraṇyakaśipu is rewarded for his extreme ascetic feat, but in a markedly different way. The cosmically destructive force of Hiraṇyakaśipu’s ascetic practice compels the demiurge Brahmā to comply with his demands for a long list of boons with conditions and subparagraphs not unlike modern legal business contracts. And while the boons granted—a set of guarantees meant to secure immortality—put an embarrassing bind on Brahmā, they will later provide the opportunity for Vishnu to outwit the mischievous fellow. Hiraṇyakaśipu shall never be subject to death from any creature, whether human or animal (7.3.35); nor shall he “ever be subject to death within or outside (a building), nor during the day or the night, nor by weapons, nor on the ground or in the sky” (7.3.36). All these conditions will be scrupulously met by Nṛsiṃha, who as we shall see will nevertheless slay Hiraṇyakaśipu once the latter’s harassment of his own son, Prahlāda, has come to a head.
Prahlāda (Great Joy), the ideal bhāgavata, is in all respects the opposite of his troubled, evil father, and the Bhāgavata text clearly delights in highlighting Prahlāda’s contrasting goodness (e.g., 7.4.31–42, 8.3–4). As a whole, and specifically here, the Bhāgavata questions the validity of parentage as the sole basis for social attribution. Prahlāda is born of Daitya (demon) parents, but in him the expected demonic traits are thoroughly absent in favor of an abundance of pious—or rather devotional—virtues.8 Further, an intriguing peripheral theme that we cannot pursue here is the Bhāgavata’s portrayals of father-son relationships.9 Suffice it to say that in this case relations become increasingly strained between father and son as Prahlāda shows gracious indifference to Hiraṇyakaśipu’s threats, harassment, and indoctrinating schemes to have him abandon his devotion to Bhagavān. Although, or rather because, Prahlāda is opposite in character to Hiraṇyakaśipu, he is not opposed to him. Prahlāda refuses to take an adversarial position, never considering his father to be his enemy no matter how much he is subjected to his father’s wrath and torture.
Nor is Prahlāda afraid to speak his mind, proffering advice that will provoke Hiraṇyakaśipu’s increasing anger. Echoing folktale structure, three confrontations between father and son take place, each initiated by Hiraṇyakaśipu’s fatherly questioning. In the first instance, the father asks, “Dear boy, do tell what you consider good” (7.5.4). Prahlāda replies frankly and boldly, “Best of Daityas, I consider it good for embodied beings who are distressed due to grasping the unreal to give up the blind well of the home into which the self has descended and to go to the forest and take refuge in Hari (Bhagavān)” (7.5.5). This is not what his father hopes to hear! After being sent back to school for further indoctrination in politics and diplomacy by teachers who have been warned not to allow the boy to mix with Vaiṣṇavas (followers of Vishnu), Prahlāda is again questioned by his father. Again the boy is unequivocal, identifying as most learned a person who pursues nine devotional practices for becoming sheltered in Vishnu (7.5.23–24),10 and critiquing worldly persons for their incapacity to grasp that such practices constitute their true self-interest (7.5.30–32). His anger now unleashed, Hiraṇyakaśipu orders his son to be killed, comparing him to a diseased bodily limb requiring amputation (7.5.34–37). But as all attempts by his minions to kill Prahlāda fail, despite (or because of) the latter’s utter passivity and his constant remembrance of Bhagavān, Hiraṇyakaśipu becomes momentarily thoughtful. He then agrees to the teachers’ suggestion that the boy remain in their custody to receive further instruction on the three “human aims”—duty (dharma), wealth (artha), and worldly pleasure (kāma) (7.5.39–53).
At this point in the story the Bhāgavata takes the opportunity to present one of its most central themes. As already hinted previously by Prahlāda when speaking to his father, he now expounds to his classmates (who are all sons of the demons who are associates of Hiraṇyakaśipu) on the worthlessness of worldly life and the value of spiritually awakened life. Arguing a logic of subtraction—that an ideal life duration of one hundred years is steadily reduced by the preoccupations of sleep, childhood, youth, midlife, and old age—while their teachers are away from the school Prahlāda urges his classmates to recognize the futility of mundane endeavors and to undertake instead the pursuit of human life’s higher purpose (7.6.1–19). That higher purpose is, says Prahlāda, to resort to the supreme Bhagavān (referred to here as Nārāyaṇa), who brings complete satisfaction to his devotees (7.6.25–27).
The track of Prahlāda’s story, like Hiraṇyakaśipu’s, begins prior to his birth. In this case, the Bhāgavata has Prahlāda explain to his classmates how he had obtained his wisdom from the sage Nārada (who now relates this entire Nṛsiṃha episode to Yudhiṣṭhira, the Pāṇḍava hero of the Mahābhārata) while Nārada had counseled his mother, Kayādhu, during her pregnancy with Prahlāda (7.7.1–17) and during Hiraṇyakaśipu’s absence for practicing tapas. Noteworthy here is the initiation motif: Nārada as the guru teaches transcendent truths to one whose physical birth, by virtue of the unusual venue for education, points to a widespread initiatory ritual element, namely, rebirth following a period of “incubation.” In turn, Prahlāda’s birth will precipitate the “birth” of Nṛsiṃha from a pillar in the portico of Indra’s palace (serving Brahmā’s boon that Hiraṇyakaśipu would be immune to death either within or outside a building), leading to the “death” of Hiraṇyakaśipu that is but one step in his sequential initiation through three lives into atemporal life in the transcendent realm of Bhagavān, Vaikuṇṭha.11
Before we proceed to the story’s denouement, we may also note that Prahlāda’s prebirth education, by infusing him with prebirth bhakti, represents an important feature of the Bhāgavata’s characterization of model human beings, namely, that several bhaktas (or bhāgavatas) are portrayed as having been so either always or since prior to their present birth. This is in contrast to other Purāṇas, which often feature accounts of non-bhaktas becoming bhaktas by force of circumstances in which a deity is encountered, typically for the first time.12 Whereas Prahlāda is thus a “natural” (naisargikī) bhakta (although “born in a dreadful family”; BhP 7.9.8), his teachings to his Daitya classmates are geared to encourage intentional development of Bhagavat bhakti—devotion to the supreme divinity—by attentive pursuit of the nine practices previously mentioned. In other words, Prahlāda’s teachings largely represent the Bhāgavata’s aim to be a manual for persons not qualified by the standard measures of orthodox brahmanical society, especially birth in a brāhmaṇa, or at least “twice-born,” family. The implication is that, in its original setting, the Bhāgavata represented a system of religious upward mobility that involved formal initiation (ritual rebirth) and guidance in a set of practices from a guru considered highly accomplished in traversing the bhakti path.13
In this portion of the account, Prahlāda takes the role of a bhāgavata guru to his classmates, and while teaching them to distinguish between the temporal and the atemporal—the unreal (asat) and the real (sat)—he exemplifies the teaching in his interactions with his troubled father by demonstrating one of the Bhāgavata’s most celebrated virtues, namely, “equal vision.” This key virtue—seen especially in Prahlāda’s refusal to differentiate between friends and enemies—bears moral superiority over the adversarial vision represented by Hiraṇyakaśipu. Adversarial vision, according to the Bhāgavata, is a product of “grasping the unreal,” and throughout the text the unreal is to be diligently distinguished from the real. Such diligence is rewarded minimally by liberation (mokṣa); but far superior to this celebrated fourth human aim according to the Bhāgavata is the attainment of a position in relation to Bhagavān, a dynamic, transtemporal relationship constituted by bhakti, devotion free from selfish motivation.14
We come to the third and final confrontation between Hiraṇyakaśipu and his son Prahlāda. Notified by the teachers that their plan to indoctrinate Prahlāda has backfired, Hiraṇyakaśipu resolves to himself kill the boy for having become a “breaker of family tradition” (7.8.5). His previous show of affection now vanished, once more Hiraṇyakaśipu poses a question to Prahlāda: “O fool, what is this power (by which) my rule is overstepped?” In the first exchange, Prahlāda had declared what he considered “good” or “excellent” (sādhu), namely, to abandon worldly ways and resort to a life of spirituality. In the second exchange, Prahlāda had elaborated on the self-disciplined nature of such a life. Now, in his third response, Prahlāda voices the Bhāgavata’s theistic nondualism,15 as follows: “O king, it is verily he (Bhagavān) who is the strength of the strong, not only of me, but also of you and of others. It is by him that superior, inferior, moving, and stationary beings from Brahmā on down are subject to control” (7.8.7). Prahlāda elaborates on the manifold character of the Lord’s power and concludes by advising his father to abandon his demonic mind-set and to assume an attitude of equanimity (7.8.8–10). Fine words indeed, but now Hiraṇyakaśipu loses any remaining composure. Threatening and cursing, he rises from his throne, sword in hand to kill Prahlāda, and pounds his fist against a nearby pillar.
Moments before, amid his curses and threats, Hiraṇyakaśipu had mocked Prahlāda’s belief in an all-powerful God, rhetorically asking, “If he is everywhere, why is he not seen in this pillar?” (7.8.11). As irony and divine justice must have it, it is from this very pillar supporting the demon’s residential portico (“neither inside nor outside a building”) that Bhagavān emerges, roaring with awesome anger, in a form that is “not animal, not human” (7.8.17). Then commences Bhagavān Nṛsiṃha’s battle with Hiraṇyakaśipu, culminating in Nṛsiṃha’s setting the demon supine on his knee (neither on the earth nor in the sky) and deftly ripping out (with his claws—not considered to be weapons) Hiraṇyakaśipu’s heart and intestines. The Bhāgavata delights in describing the horrific details of the tyrant’s death as Nṛsiṃha triumphantly extracts his entrails to wreath himself, as if with a flower garland (7.8.30).
In the final scene of this episode, several celestials attempt to placate with encomia the enraged lionine divinity. But only Prahlāda is able to pacify him, with beautiful prayers of praise and submission. Prahlāda outshines all the celestials (whom the Bhāgavata oft portrays as inept, even if well-meaning), for although they are the presumed confidantes of Bhagavān by virtue of their powerful positions under his sovereignty, Prahlāda actually wins the supreme divinity’s heart by his guileless trust. And whereas we, as readers, may have felt disgust and even horror at Hiraṇyakaśipu’s abusive behavior toward his son, we may now be charmed by the ideal parent-child relationship seen in fierce Nṛsiṃha’s gentle affection for Prahlāda.16 Nṛsiṃha voices his affection for Prahlāda by offering boons, but Prahlāda asks not to be tempted: “One who desires boons is not a servant, he is a merchant” (7.10.4). For himself he wishes nothing (nor had he ever, unlike Dhruva), but in his saintly spirit of freedom from resentment, he requests a benediction for his deceased father—that Hiraṇyakaśipu become fully purified of his faults and transgressions so as not to suffer their consequences in his next life. Nṛsiṃha then assures Prahlāda that Hiraṇyakaśipu has already been purified due to his being related by kinship to Prahlāda, a model bhāgavata, and due to the touch of his own (Nṛsiṃha’s) divine (hence pure) body at the moment he had killed him (7.10.18–22).17
With these two explanations of how Prahlāda’s father has been sanctified, the answer to Parīkṣit’s initial question about the seeming partial behavior of Bhagavān is complete: The Lord’s apparent opposition to the enemies of the gods is his way of thoroughly sanctifying them and thus including them in his transcendent realm, Vaikuṇṭha. Yet there is also a rather obvious subtext to this story: Do not mess with bhāgavatas, for they are divinely protected, having relinquished all effort to protect themselves, since they refuse to see others as enemies. The corollary to this subtext is that while on one level Bhagavān is impartial, there is an implicit tension between the ideal of impartiality and divine favor, for obviously the Lord does favor his devotees due to their impartiality in the world as well as due to their partiality toward Bhagavān. Both devotee and demon are sanctified, as in this episode both Hiraṇyakaśipu and Prahlāda are given a place on Nṛsiṃha’s lap, but Nṛsiṃha’s mood in the two cases is radically different.
Finally, ending this scene and the Nṛsiṃha episode as a whole, in typical Purāṇic fashion the Bhāgavata announces benefits for those who hear or read the story: one will “go to the realm that is free from fear on all sides” (7.10.47), that is, to that same atemporal, nondecaying, sublimely joyful realm of Vishnu, Vaikuṇṭha. In this way the Bhāgavata reminds its audience of its metamessage, namely, that the persistent hearing or reading of the text in a spirit of openness to its wisdom has powerful, transformative effect.
STEPPING BACK
Having taken a brief guided tour of this representative episode in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, we can now step back to consider where we have come—into what sort of world we have entered.
Like other Purāṇas, the Bhāgavata is concerned with the restoration and preservation of a cosmic order—encapsulated in the term “dharma”—that is perpetually threatened, and the task of restoration and preservation typically falls to Bhagavān’s (Vishnu’s) avatāras. This is a world that seems divided, with gods and antigods ever vying for the upper hand (here, Indra and the gods temporarily succumb to Hiraṇyakaśipu and his minions); Bhagavān comes to the rescue, but not without a good fight or use of tricks (both employed in the Nṛsiṃha episode); and good most certainly wins over evil, though good persons and evil persons may be found in unexpected places. Indeed, in the Bhāgavata, Nṛsiṃha’s dharma-recovery enterprise proves tangential to (or indeed accomplished by) his purpose of protecting Prahlāda, the latter taking center stage as an ideal bhakta of Bhagavān, a model bhāgavata. As one of the text’s outstanding bhāgavatas, Prahlāda, arguably more than Nṛsiṃha, is the hero of this episode. More pronouncedly so than in other Purāṇas, Prahlāda is portrayed as an iconically virtuous, saintly person—the exact opposite, ironically, of what his kinship identity should dictate as a son of the most villainous of the demon class, Hiraṇyakaśipu.
Like those of other Purāṇas, the Bhāgavata’s world is one in which language is powerful: words can change lives by a curse or a blessing. As Parīkṣit had been cursed to die in seven days for his short-tempered transgression against a sage, Jaya and Vijaya are similarly cursed, for a similar reason. Hiraṇyakaśipu is blessed by the words of Brahmā to become apparently invincible, yet these words are trumped by the roar of Nṛsiṃha as he bursts forth from the palace pillar.
Language is most powerful when properly heard: Prahlāda in the womb of his mother is able to hear and assimilate the spoken precepts of Nārada, and Prahlāda’s classmates are similarly able to receive the same wisdom from Prahlāda’s mouth. Whereas Hiraṇyakaśipu’s fault is his inability to hear his son’s good advice (to abandon his adversarial mentality and to seek higher spiritual vision), Prahlāda’s virtue is his ability to listen and to speak truth, but also to find strength in silence while being tortured by his father. This power of silence mirrors and complements the Bhāgavata’s power of language to effect a vision of unity grounded in equanimity that opens readers and listeners to the world of bhakti, in which word and meaning converge in transcendent devotional emotion.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s world is one in which there is considerable violence, a reality that is questioned by saints—the bhāgavatas—who are the work’s heroes. The Bhāgavata’s heroes, such as Prahlāda, are compelling not because they face off against fate, as in Greek tragic drama; rather, theirs is a heroism of success in traversing beyond the limits of temporal existence by means of passionate longing for connection (yoga) with Bhagavān combined with or arising from deep compassion for all living beings. In the case of Prahlāda, the Bhāgavata portrays him as experiencing intense devotional feelings for Krishna even as a small child prior to the appearance of Nṛsiṃha (7.4.38–41). And after Nṛsiṃha appears and kills Hiraṇyakaśipu, Prahlāda’s prayers include this declaration (7.9.43): “O Lord, I am not fearful of the untraversible river of worldly existence, for my mind is absorbed in the vast ambrosia of singing your glory. Rather, I am concerned for those fools whose minds are distracted by the fleeting pleasure of sense objects, their lives carried away by the burden (of false existence).” It is this notion of selfless concern for others that identifies Prahlāda and other bhāgavatas as saints, and it is this quality that elevates them beyond the realm in which violence is the logical outcome of power differentials, the unavoidable consequence of unrestrained worldly desire. From this perspective, Prahlāda embodies not mere worldly indifference (which even Hiraṇyakaśipu exhibits during his period of ascetic practice), but the comprehensive transcendence of worldly desire by means of intense, single-minded devotion to a supreme, devotionally reciprocating deity. It is this emphasis on attentive practices of a devotional character that many students of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa find most compelling.
The Bhāgavata as a whole is a didactic work that has both theoretical and practical dimensions, blending Sāṁkhya and Vedānta philosophical orientations, and yoga with bhakti paths of Indian spirituality. Deftly weaving these elements together, the Bhāgavata exhibits a remarkably clear and consistent aim to inspire and teach its listeners or readers how to themselves become bhāgavatas. This is to be accomplished by devotional recitation and hearing: By virtue of its Purāṇic form the Bhāgavata is first and foremost a work to be recited and elaborated by adepts for astute listeners (who typically are already familiar with the work, yet are eager to hear it again and again), and such public recitation of the Bhāgavata thrives in and beyond India to the present day (see Wilczewska’s chapter in this volume). But the Bhāgavata is regarded as more than a standard Purāṇa. Indeed, some Vaiṣṇava traditions honor it as śruti (“that which is heard”—the same category of revelation as the Ṛgveda and other Vedic collections), superseding smṛti (the “remembered tradition” represented by Purāṇas and other works). Other Vaiṣṇavas regard the Bhāgavata as holding a privileged position even beyond both these textual categories (Holdrege 2006:31–70). Why this is so is strongly hinted by our selected episode: Prahlāda, as a model bhāgavata, teaches a compelling message that urges his audience to pursue a vision of reality that sharply questions the status quo embodied in the pursuit of the four “human aims” (puruṣārthas) generally espoused in both śruti and smṛti literature. The vision afforded by the bhakti path, he argues, leads to questioning one’s assumptions about what is of value and meaning in human life, and it calls for a readiness to recognize, minimally, that at present we are not “exactly where we should be.”
Thus, though the Bhāgavata’s world of sometimes extraordinary beings (such as human-lions and child-saints) may initially appear improbable from the perspective of our skeptical postmodern sensibilities, we may yet find that the Bhāgavata’s vision can serve as a welcome subversion of conventional wisdom. As I became aware when listening to my friend Bhattacharya recite the Nṛsiṃha story, in the Bhāgavata, Hiraṇyakaśipu represents the conventionality of thought that places one’s own “golden cushion–” comforts first. As “Golden Cushion” needed to be violently slain to overcome his misconception of himself as a psychophysical body designed for the pursuit of temporal pleasures, so, the Bhāgavata urges, we risk rude awakenings if not schooled in the visionary ways of the likes of Great Joy (Prahlāda).
As traditional cultures worldwide have prized their saints, sages, and shamans, so India has prized its bhāgavatas as cultivators and purveyors of spiritual vision. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa in particular holds for its readers and listeners not only the hope of following the path of such bhāgavatas, but of becoming bhāgavatas themselves by the practice of bhakti. This theme reverberates throughout the Bhāgavata as it builds its case for the emotionally intense bhakti that comes to full blossom in book 10, in the accounts of Krishna and his childhood intimate associates in Vraja (see Holdrege’s and Schweig’s chapters in this volume). What we have encountered in the story of Nṛsiṃha and his bhāgavata son Prahlāda is an important theological preparation for the later Krishna accounts: because Bhagavān is impartial, seeing neither friends nor enemies since his very being transcends such dualistic perceptions, one can approach him with any attitude—even passionate animosity. And because it is toward Bhagavān that one’s fervent emotions are directed, the all-powerful Bhagavān will ultimately grant such a person liberation from temporal existence.18 With this basic understanding, and with the text’s profuse representation of Bhagavān as the supreme object of devotion, readers and listeners are readied to step into the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s full picture of bhakti, in which liberation is a by-product and perpetual loving exchange with Bhagavān Krishna is revealed as the place “exactly where we should be.”
NOTES
1. See Colas (1989:230–33 and 239) for a historical overview of Bhāgavatism; see also Hudson’s appendix 1: “Who Are the Bhagavatas?” (2008:491–502), which includes an overview of several passages within the BhP (especially book 11) that define the behavior and practices of bhāgavatas.
2. Second in length only to the story of Krishna’s exploits (in book 10), the book 7 story of Nṛsiṃha’s appearance spans chapters 1 through 9.
3. For a useful overview of the varieties of orientalism, see Heehs (2003), who distinguishes six “styles” of colonial and postcolonial orientalist discourse.
4. This is quoted from Wyschogrod’s summary of eight “contentions” that she develops in her book Saints and Postmodernism, in light of six “impulses” to be found in postmodernism (1990:xvi–xxiv). She defines saints as “those who put themselves totally at the disposal of the Other,” and her central argument is “for the saint’s recognition of the primacy of the other person and the dissolution of self-interest” (xiv), which, I would suggest, can well be applied to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s representations of bhāgavatas.
5. See Valpey (2009:257–78). Indeed, Parīkṣit, whose dialogue with Śuka constitutes the structural outer frame of the Bhāgavata, is identified as the grandson of Arjuna and the only surviving heir to the Mahābhārata’s heroic family, the Pāṇḍavas.
6. From the ancient Ṛgveda hymns onward, Vishnu (“the Pervader”) has been seen as an ally to Indra, the thunderbolt-bearing leader of the gods (see Soifer 1991:8, 20, 34–36, 99–101, 131–33). Whereas some incidents described elsewhere in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa confirm this connection, in the episode Lifting Govardhana Hill (BhP 10.25), Krishna opposes Indra. Still, the text also argues for Vishnu’s (or Krishna’s) impartiality.
7. The battle between Varāha and Hiraṇyākṣa is narrated in BhP 3.18–19; Nṛsiṃha’s confrontation with Hiraṇyakaśipu is found in BhP 7.8; BhP 9.10 provides a very brief summary of Rāma’s battle with Rāvaṇa and Kumbhakarṇa (derived, presumably, from the Sanskrit epic Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki); Śiśupāla’s death is recounted in BhP 10.74; and Dantavakra’s death is mentioned in BhP 10.78.
8. Similar role reversals are found elsewhere in the Bhāgavata, e.g., the encounter between the demon Vṛtra and the celestial Indra (6.10–12), and the encounter between Bali and Vāmana (8.19–22).
9. See Goldman (1978) for a discussion of father-son relationships in the Sanskrit epics, from a Freudian perspective. In the Bhāgavata, other examples of father-son exchanges are those of Vyāsa and Śuka (1.2.2); Brahmā and Nārāyaṇa (2.9); Uttānapāda and Dhruva (4.8–9); and Jaḍa Bharata and his father (5.9). As Goldman also notes, guru-disciple relationships can function as father-son relationships. Sometimes these overlap in the Bhāgavata.
10. The nine practices are hearing (śravanam), glorifying (kīrtanam), remembering Vishnu (Vishnu smaraṇam), serving the [Lord’s] feet (pada-sevanam), worshipping (arcanam), praying (vandanam), assisting (dāsyam), befriending (sakhyam), and offering oneself (ātma-nivedanam).
11. Kaelber (1989:4–5) identifies two major groups of initiation symbols found widely throughout the world (and well represented in Indic traditions), namely, “gynecological and obstetrical,” involving womb, embryo, and birth, and “dramatic,” containing “striking images involving death” prior to rebirth, as well as images of passage and narratives of ordeal. The triple death and rebirth of the Vaikuṇṭha doorkeepers Jaya and Vijaya may be read as a narrative of initiation by progressive stages, culminating in recognition of Bhagavān’s identity as the supreme divinity.
12. Greg Bailey outlines a nine-part pattern of Purāṇic “conversion” narratives, of becoming a bhakta. We may note that Prahlāda’s spiritual accomplishment is marked by his childhood absorption in thoughts of the Lord.
13. On the notion of qualification (adhikāra) in Indic thought, see Halbfass (1991:66–75). Regarding initiation, see Hudson (2008:504–5) on the “Man-lion Consecration” ritual of the Sātvata aspect of the Bhāgavata tradition.
14. A further reason Prahlāda serves as an important exemplar in the Bhāgavata is that equal vision with respect to temporal qualifications highlights the Bhāgavata’s bhakti-based scale of qualification or “competence” (adhikāra) over and above the brahmanical scale of adhikāra based largely on birth. See also the previous note.
15. For an overview of the Bhāgavata’s concept of theistic nondualism, see Sheridan 1983:136–43.
16. I allude here to rasa aesthetic theory, elaborated in Schweig’s chapter in this volume.
17. As mentioned previously, Hiraṇyakaśipu’s life is the first of three lives as a demonic being, so the means mentioned here that purify him are understood to be interim steps toward the final and complete restoration of transcendent consciousness that comes with his death at the hands of Krishna in the third and final round of demonic life. According to the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (4.15.1–10), only as Śiśupāla does he recognize the Lord and thus become liberated (my thanks to Barbara Holdrege for pointing this out).
18. Paul Hacker (1960:106–7) notes that the Viṣṇu Purāṇa also identifies hatred as a means to approach Vishnu, but the Bhāgavata adds that other “negative” emotions, such as fear, may serve a similar liberative purpose.