User talk:Prabhakar P Rao

User : Prabhakar P Rao,

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Please join the discussion at Talk:Hinduism. Thank you. GizzaChat  &#169; 07:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

nAbhAga - ‘Not-Not-a-Lone Part’
Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavatha, these trios form a well known set of ancient (puranic), Hindu literature. The first two develop around certain continual stories whereas the Bhagavatha appears to be a compilation of varied bits of narrations. It is said here that after completing Mahabharata, the sage Vyasa felt it to be too analytical; since majority of simple minded humans would rather be at home with Bhakthi, a devotional temperament, he proceeded on writing the BhAgavatha ! At (9.4) here we have an interesting story of a young student by name, nAbhAga:

The famous king Manu had a son, nabhaga who in turn had a few children, youngest of them was nAbhAga. He whiled a little longer with his teachers at a Guru Kula, an academy. He returned home after completing his courses to find to his dismay that his brothers had shared, cornered all his parental assets amongst themselves. When he sought his share, they remarked, “Oh, all our father shall be yours”. The perplexed youngster reported the matter to his father, who in turn consoled him: “Dearest son, your brothers are mistaken; a father never gets to be a share for his children. Now, don’t worry; I’ve a plan for you to earn your livelihoods”, he proceeded: “The revered sages, angirAs are currently engaged with an auspicious sathra, yajna, a project at a temple in the neighboring town. No doubt, they are all well learned and wise, experts;  yet, as the rituals get to ends on the sixth day, they wouldn’t know how to close them rightly and would be confused. You proceed there soon and at right moment present the following two sonnets venerating the ‘vishwEdEvAh’, ‘universal deities’ to them. They would be relieved and reward all wealth, left over the sathra, to you!”. Bowing to his father and learning the two sonnets from him, nAbhAga hurried to the temple: on the sixth day as the angirAs appeared perplexed, he stood up, introduced himself and having prostrated to the Fire on the altar, he sung the two sonnets. The angirAs, convinced of a befitting termination for the Sathra, were thrilled and rewarded all remnants around to nAbhAga and proceeded to swarga, the heavens. Overjoyed, nAbhAga began collecting all wealth scattered around into a bag hung to his shoulders. In a while he was distracted by a tall, dark man approaching him from the North.

“Hai, naughty youngster,” that man addressed him, “What are you doing here? All these pieces are mine!” nAbhAga was perplexed; he placed his bag down and countered, “The sacred angirAs awarded these wealth to me as I was told by my father.” “Well, I own all these pieces; go and get it verified from your father”, the dark man ordered.

nAbhAga rushed back and detailed the developments to his father who appeared understanding. “Yes, my dear son, He is right;” he continued, “He is Mahadev, the eternal Time! Yes, an agreement has been worked at an ancient Daksha Yajna that He shall own the remnants of all subsequent Yajnas everywhere. Often He acquires His shares in absentia; but, now that He has presented himself to claim His stakes, blessed you are; plead from Him for a share of the wealth for you to earn your livelihoods”.

nAbhAga returned to the temple; offering his obeisance to the dark man, he appealed, “my father now taught me of You, the revered One! Would You please spare a share of these wealth for me to earn my livelihoods?”. The dark man was appeased; yet He enquired, “Okay; but why did the angirAs reward these wealth to you?”. “I sung a couple of sonnets venerating the vishwEdEvAh for their pleasure”, replied the boy. “Good, dear boy, retain those stanzas ever in your mind and choose all pieces from here as you can use!”. nAbhAga re-scanned all around; then picked his bag with its contents and returned to his father.

In due course, nAbhAga became a well known Kavi, a Littérateur.

NOTES:

angirAs: In ancient Hindu literature, different sages, Rishis are allegoric Representations who take on varied explicit roles in sacred Sathras: Often, ‘angirAs’ represent specialist Rishis, who subjectively and whole heartedly get self-immersed in any sathra, inhering all intricacies of the ritual at hand, somewhat like a farmer ploughing his land behind his oxen under Sun and rains, a sculptor shaping an idol off a stone or a researcher tending to knobs and burners day and night like a burning log of wood on the high altar.

VishwEdEvAh (Universal Deities): Two important stages in accomplishment of any project, sathra, are, first, its expert execution and next, its apt reporting or documentation. These stages call for explicitly different skill sets: experimentalists often tend to elaborate on methods in their reporting whereas general readers, ‘vishwEdEvah’, would look for elaborations on contexts, results, conclusions and possible application scenarios. We subsume here that, nAbhAgA’s acquisition of stanzas addressed to vishwEdEvAh metaphors his acquisition of 'reporting skills'. Convinced of his expertise here, angirAs gladly reward all remnants around the altar to him and proceed on to their Swarga lok.

‘Remnants of any ritual’: Most important part of such wealth is obviously, any new results, knowledge, or expertise acquired out of the Ritual, project.

Mahadev: The Mahadev, the Time is believed to be the Supreme Teacher, particularly in acquiring physical skills such as swimming or driving a car etc: He is supposed to co-operate with us to be self-aware and be attentive, the critical temperaments called in learning. (It is believed that one comprehends verbal narrations, ie, series of sentences, also in terms of serially related ‘physical events’ that each sentence represents.) The practices of recording the minutes of a meeting, or recapitulating the gist of a text that has been read etc before proceeding on to a next task helps one consolidate any new knowledge in his memories. We subsume, this practice metaphors ‘offering the remnants of one’s tasks to Him, the Time’.

‘nAbhAga’: Two facts are is noticeable here, first, that the act of ‘sharing the parts’ has been repeatedly encountered, and second, the word ‘nAbhAga’ can be split as: na- + a- (as in ‘up’) + bhAga; each of the first two prescripts means, closely related ‘negatives’, and bhAga means ‘a lone part’. In effect the word could mean ‘not-not-a lone part’. It looks an odd and funny coincidence; let us hunt for any embedded information:

As narrated above, the angirAs subjectively execute the task at hand and then realize the task would be complete only when it is documented aptly, wherein they are not well equipped – they are happy to find nAbhAga, well versed with vishwEdEvah, at right time: they reward all remnants of Yajna to him. The boy began collecting the wealth into his bag but the ‘physical expertise’ that the angirAs had gained could obviously not be inherited by him; we contend that the ‘Mahadev intercepted here, i. to acquire that part, his share of the riches, ii. to highlight the fact that words fail to convey any physical experiences directly as well as iii. to reassure the boy to go ahead with his task even under above lacuna. Now then, as nAbhAga proceeds with his task, he would find his task also would be complete only when certain interested reader(s) accepts and understands it. Thus, although each participant in a team-work contributes his might fully to the task, the total task can be full only when all compatible contributions are appropriately collated. Thus each contribution to any task is full as well as a part, nAbhAga, depending on the viewers’ angles. Well, it looks, all societal citizens may share, partake with this generic name, nAbhAga, depending on the extent of their deliberate participation in ‘pulling the juggernaut seating the jagannAth, the lord of all worlds’. As Max Muller has put forth, some of the concepts embedded in these literature appear rather funny and childish, yet rather complex too.


 * Om, kAlAya thasmai namah  ||   Praises be to the Revered  TIME   ||

Search for Elixir
We were on a Tour around various US Cities a few months ago. Our Tour package included Princeton Univ NJ also. I had a surprise there: on a spacious yard at the entrance to Arts & Archeology Museum, they have a sculpture showing ‘Scores of well-dressed, but decapitated (!) Gentlemen on a March’; we could not get anyone around to explain its significance. It reminded me of a stanza in Bhagavatha (8.10.40, the well known, Hindu Scriptural Narration)

kabanDhaasthathra chOthpEthuh pathithaswashirOkShiBhih  | udhyathaayuDhadhOrdhanNdairaaDhaavanthO BhataanmruDhE | 8.10.40 ||

The context and text of the stanza are as follows:

It seems, the deities and demons (goodies and baddies?) were once coaxed to join together to churn the Ocean of Milk to squeeze out the ‘elixir’ ; in the process, first they got, Kaala Koota Poison – literally, the ‘Time-arresting’ poison. It was suggested, only Mahadev, the third of the Trinities, the Lord of Destructions, could stand this poison; but his Consort, Parvathi, froze it at his neck. Eventually when the ‘Elixir’ did emerge out, Vishnu, the mid of the trinities, the Preserver, in the form of Mohini, a female damsel, tricked only the deities, the goodies to share it. Following that a great war between the deities and demons ensued, so terrible that: in the middle of the battle field somewhere, there were ‘numerous well armed but decapitated bodies rushing about hither and thither, swinging their maces wild and raised high with their hands, and pounding down the enemies, envisioned by the wide open eyes in their heads that were chopped out and fallen down, some time ago, somewhere else’.

VAANAPRASTHA ASHRAM
The Hindu religious texts profess for each Hindu a four fold Developmental phase on his way to salvation, viz baalya, the babyhood to toddlers, kaumarya, the puberty to youth, yauvana, the adulthood and vrudhdhapya, the oldies. However, a closer look at these ways points to a twine that holistically binds the four ways into a unified fifth holistic passage, termed   ‘vAnaprastha’, which literally means ‘living in the forests’. What is this ‘vAnaprastha? dhwAvimauw purushauw lOkE ksharah cha aksharah Eva cha |

ksharah sarvANi BhUthAni kUtasthO aksharah uchyathE | Bhagavad Geetha :15:16 ||

We live out a dual role – individuals and socials; as formers, we’re ksharas, mortals or temporals that are bonded together via ‘relations’, (father, son, director, worker, teacher, student, priest, customer et al, kUtastAh, members of a Group), the eternals, aksharah, which intertwine to form a Society. The society is thus a forest composed of all us, the ksharas, the trees; Thus, ‘vAnaprastha’ is broadly getting to know and to act on one’s role in the holistic, samashti of Society; I suppose it is fairly clear enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.32.235 (talk) 14:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a journal
I have noticed that you have periodically been uploading your random thoughts on to Wikipedia. Though it is done on your own user-page, it is, according to me, not correct.

Wikipedia being an encyclopedia, your comments - even in the user page - should be related to an article in Wikipedia.

There are a lot of avenues other than Wikipedia for you to communicate to the webusers. A blog would be ideal for your sort of work. Here is the link to a popular free blog service.

https://www.blogger.com/start

Bye

Truebhakthan (talk) 05:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)