SrI: SrImate SrI Lakshminrusimha ParabrahmanE namaha SrI Lakshminrusimha divya pAdukA sEvaka SrIvaNN ShatakOpa - SrI nArAyaNa yateendra mahAdESikAya namaha Dear devotees, namO nArAyaNA. pranAmams. Lets discuss about the philosophical implications of the mAyA sItA episode. The kidnapping of sItA pirAtti by rAvanA will not be tolerated by any devotee. For that matter, the same feelings arise when one hears about how virAdhA also kidnapped pirAtti earlier. The most important thing is that PerumAL and PirAtti performs all these avatAra leelAs for the sake of the devotees who deeply relish all their leelAs ,kalyAna guNAs exhibited etc. The divya dampati induces the "ruchi" (taste) of bhagavad anubhavam for the baddha jIvAtmAs through their avatAra leelAs. If one feels heavily and cries for the kidnapping of pirAtti by rAvanan, then that leelA of pirAtti is a success !! All these acts of the divya dampati makes a jIvAtmA easily pour out their love towards them and all such loving reciprocation is what bhagavad prEmai is all about. This is the unique speciality of vibhava avatArams of PerumAL. Ofcourse, the archA avatAram scores over vibhava avatAram in many a ways and our AzhwArs and poorvAchAryAs have elaborated on this. The question now is whether sItA pirAtti is really affected very badly by the touch of rAvanan , who is a materialist with lusty desires. Well, what about PerumAL? Is He affected too by the touch of materialists ? The answers to these questions become much simpler if the answer to the following question is got : Qtn: Sriman nArAyaNA, the Para Brahman pervades everywhere ie. nArAyaNA (divya Atma svaroopam) is everywhere. Will prakruti (matter) then affect Him ? How can PerumAL be inside materialistic objects and simultaneously be not affected by them ? A slight Elaboration of the Qtn : The three principal names used in the vEdAs for denoting the Para brahman is nArAyaNA, vAsudEvA and vishnu. All these refer to sarva vyApakatvam ie. all pervasive nature of PerumAL. Hundreds of pramAnams like "Sarvam kalvidham brAhma" , "vAsudEva sarvam iti ..." , "antar bahischa tat sarvam vyApya nArAyaNastitaha" etc speak about this esoteric aspect . So, PerumAL is in and out of prakruti. Apart from this SrIman nArAyaNA also has "prakruti" as an attribute as per the sarIra sarIri bhAvam ie. PerumAL is the sarIrI and prakruti is the sarIrA ( prakruti is supported and controlled by Him, prakruti exists solely for His pleasure). This is declared by sruti as "yasya pruthvi sarIram" etc . We all know how much this prakruti is affecting a jIvAtmA. Since there is such an intimate connection between SrIman nArAyaNA and prakruti, won't prakruti be affecting Him? One may have a doubt as to how come then nArAyaNA is not affected by the changes in the prakruti , if He is physically inside it (as a jIvAtmA, its dharmabhoota jn~Anam is affected by prakruti viz.animal body,plant body,human body,old aged body, youthful body etc , eventhough its swaroopa jn~Anam is unchanged.similarly ,won't the dharmabhoota jn~Anam of nArAyaNA be affected?) ans: Ofcourse one knows that prakruti can't affect nArAyaNA because He is the Supreme God."prakruti" acts as "prakruti" only because of His sankalpam. "Fire" acts as "fire" as we know , because of nArAyaNA's sankalpam . When PrahalAdA was pushed into "fire", nArAyaNA changed His sankalpam to make the "fire" behave oppossite to its nature, which was set by His sankalpam previously and thus His bhakta was not at all affected. So, prakruti can't affect nArAyaNA . The following analogy is usually told to drive the point in. After a person eats some halwA which had excessive ghee in it , he uses some powder/solution to remove the ghee sticking to his hands. But , the ghee also had contact with his tongue which he never botherd to clean with the powder/solution since ghee didn't stick to it. Similarly , though nArAyaNA is present everywhere , the changes in prakruti doesn't affect Him. Sri KarunAkaran swAmy in one of his upanyAsams narrated a wonderful pastime of Bhattar : While Bhattar was delivering heart melting kAlakshebam on bhagavad vishayam esp. the kannapirAn's (KrishNA's) Govardana giri lifting episode , a disciple asked as to how come perumAL would have saved the AyarpAdi vAsIs from the torrential rain caused by Indran (deva) if that malai (hill) was not present there . Bhattar gave a brilliant answer as usual : "PerumAL would have saved the gopAs and gopIs from the rain using the rain itself " . This has very deep meaning . The rain acts according to its nature because of perumAL's sankalpam . If perumAL changes His sankalpam then the same rain can act as the umbrella for the devotees !!!! ( difficult to visualize . But the great fact put forth through this statement can be understood ). Thus, perumAL ( divyAtma svaroopam) though pervades everywhere and has "prakruti" as His inseparable attribute , it doesn't affect His essential nature of being transcendental to "prakruti" . Sriman NArAyana being transcendental to prakruti doesn't mean that He should not have any contact with prakruti . This is obvious since if not so , then it will result into the absurdity that prakruti is more powerful than even perumAL and can even affect His dharma bhoota jn~Anam . Infact, even nitya sooris and muktAs won't be affected by prakruti and their contact with prakruti won't make them bounded by karmA. Only the baddha jIvAtmAs are affected by prakruti. According to the karmA, particular jIvAtmA is forced to have some achEtana as being favourable to it and some being totally unfavourable to it. A pig eats stool and such stuff ; germs and worms live in sAkkadai; fish lives in water etc. But this is not the way we are. Do's and dont's of sAstrAs are strictly for those baddha jIvAtmAs which has taken the human body. In accordane with sAstrAs, one should have his/her likes and dislikes. The bottomline is that , for the Divya Dampati , muktAs and nitya soorIs, prakruti is also auspicious and not something abominable , while baddha jIvAtmAs are bound by it and has some form of matter(prakruti) as favourable and some other form of matter as unfavourable. -------------------------------------------------- PerumAL takes avatAram solely for the pleasure of His devotees. The body perumAL has is made up of suddha sattvam and not prakruti. Thats why it is referred to as Divya mangaLa vigraham. ( only in archAvatAram, the thirumEni is composed of the mixture of prakruti and suddha sattvam). Similarly, pirAtti also has suddha sattva sarIram (divine body). "Suddha Sattvam" as a material is made up of "jn~Anam" similar to how a jIvAtmA is. But , "Suddha sattvam" doesn't possess the "dharmabhoota jn~Anam" & thus can't percieve anything outside of itself . Thus , it doesn't belong to the category of "chEtanA" because a "chEtanA" is an entity which can "know"/"percieve" ie. a chEtanA must necessarily have "dharma bhoota jn~Anam" . Any materialist cannot contaminate suddha sattva sarIram of sItA PirAtti. SwAmi Desikan explains that pirAtti is vibhu ie. all pervading , similar to how PerumAL is. Similar to PerumAL, pirAtti is also transcendental to prakruti . So, rAvanan / virAdhan cannot contaminate pirAtti by their touches. Rather, they played their role in the leelA performed by the Divya Dampati. Thus, though a mAyA sItA might have been employed by PerumAL ( ofcourse, according to vAlmIki rAmAyanam, it is not) , the reasoning that touch of a materialist is contaminating and thats why mAyA sitA was present is not appropriate. It is the sankalpam of the Divya Dampati alone, if at all, mAyA sItA was there in one of rAma avatArams. In conclusion, there is nothing contradictory in PerumAL having prakruti as His eternal attribute and simultaneously prevade inside it. adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan ananthapadmanAbha dAsan krishNArpaNam
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