CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR The Deliverance of Śiśupāla at the Rājasūya Sacrifice

Śrīla Prabhupāda renders Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira’s statement as follows: “My dear Kṛṣṇa, O eternal form of bliss and knowledge, all the exalted directors of the affairs of this material world, including Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva and King Indra, are always anxious to receive and carry out orders from You, and whenever they are fortunate enough to receive such orders, they immediately take them and keep them in their hearts.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes: “[Yudhiṣṭhira said,] ‘O Kṛṣṇa, You are unlimited, and although we sometimes think of ourselves as royal kings and rulers of the world and become puffed up over our paltry positions, we are very poor in heart. Actually, we are fit to be punished by You, but the wonder is that instead of punishing us, You so kindly and mercifully accept our orders and carry them out properly. Others are very surprised that Your Lordship can play the part of an ordinary human, but we can understand that You are performing these activities just like a dramatic artist.’”

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes in Kṛṣṇa: “[King Yudhiṣṭhira said,] ‘Your real position is always exalted, exactly like that of the sun, which always remains at the same temperature, both during the time of its rising and the time of its setting. Although we feel the difference in temperature between the rising and the setting sun, the temperature of the sun never changes. You are always transcendentally equipoised, and thus You are neither pleased nor disturbed by any condition of material affairs. You are the Supreme Brahman, the Personality of Godhead, and for You there are no relativities.’”

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī quotes a similar statement from the Vedic mantras: na karmaṇā vardhate no kanīyān (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 14.7.2.28, Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa 3.12.9.7 and Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.23). “He is not increased by His activities, nor does He become lesser.” As explained here by King Yudhiṣṭhira, the Lord is one without a second. There is no other entity in His supreme category, and thus it is simply by His causeless mercy that He agrees to carry out the orders of His pure devotees, like Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. There is certainly no loss of status for the Supreme Personality of Godhead when He thus extends His causeless mercy to His surrendered devotees.

An ordinary person thinks, “I am so attractive, intelligent and wealthy that people should simply serve me and do what I want. Why should I obey anyone else?” This proud, separatist mentality is also found in animals who battle one another for supremacy. Such a mentality is conspicuously absent in the mind of an advanced devotee, and it is certainly absent in the sublime, omniscient mind of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The great Bhāgavatam commentator Śrīdhara Svāmī explains that the proper time for the sacrifice mentioned here was the spring.

King Yudhiṣṭhira invited all these exalted brāhmaṇas to act in different capacities as priests, advisers and so on.

Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira was universally famous as a great devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and thus nothing was impossible for him.

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes in Kṛṣṇa: “According to the Vedic system, whenever there is an arrangement for sacrifice, the members participating in the sacrifice are offered the juice of the soma plant, which is a kind of life-giving beverage. On the day of extracting the soma juice, King Yudhiṣṭhira very respectfully received the special priest who had been engaged to detect any mistake in the formalities of sacrificial procedures. The idea is that the Vedic mantras must be enunciated perfectly and chanted with the proper accent; if the priests who are engaged in this business commit any mistake, the checker, or referee priest, immediately corrects the procedure, and thus the ritualistic performances are perfectly executed. Unless it is perfectly executed, a sacrifice cannot yield the desired result. In this Age of Kali there is no such learned brāhmaṇa or priest available; therefore, all such sacrifices are forbidden. The only sacrifice recommended in the śāstras is the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes: “Another important procedure is that the most exalted personality in the assembly of such a sacrificial ceremony is first offered worship.… This particular ceremony is called agra-pūjā. Agra means ‘first,’ and pūjā means ‘worship.’ This agra-pūjā is similar to the election of a president. In the sacrificial assembly, all the members were very exalted. Some proposed to elect one person as the perfect candidate for accepting agra-pūjā, and others proposed someone else.

As the great ācārya Jīva Gosvāmī points out, text 15 of this chapter states that the members of the assembly were not astonished at the opulence of the sacrifice, since they knew that King Yudhiṣṭhira was a devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Still, text 18 now states that the assembly could not select the most deserving candidate for being worshiped first. This indicates that many of the brāhmaṇas present were not fully realized transcendentalists but rather conventional brāhmaṇas uncertain of the supreme conclusion of Vedic wisdom.

Similarly, Ācārya Viśvanātha comments that the undecided members of the assembly were the less intelligent ones, and not such exalted personalities as Brahmā, Śiva and Dvaipāyana Vyāsadeva, who thought, “Since today no one is asking our opinion, why should we say anything? Furthermore, here is Sahadeva, who is renowned for his sharp skill in analyzing all sorts of circumstances. He can help appoint the person who is to be worshiped first. Only if he somehow fails to speak or cannot understand the situation will we speak up, despite no one’s having inquired from us.” Having made up their minds in this way, the greatest personalities remained silent. This is how Viśvanātha Cakravartī advises us to understand what occurred in the assembly.

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes as follows: “[Sahadeva said:] ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is superfluous to speak about Kṛṣṇa, because every one of you exalted personalities knows the Supreme Brahman, Lord Kṛṣṇa, for whom there are no material differences between body and soul, between energy and the energetic, or between one part of the body and another. Since everyone is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, there is no qualitative difference between Kṛṣṇa and all living entities. Everything is an emanation of Kṛṣṇa’s energies, the material and spiritual. Kṛṣṇa’s energies are like the heat and light of the fire; there is no difference between the qualities of heat and light and the fire itself.… He should therefore be offered the first worship of this great sacrifice, and no one should disagree.… Kṛṣṇa is present as the Supersoul in every living being, and if we can satisfy Him, then automatically every living being becomes satisfied.’”

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes: “In that meeting, King Śiśupāla was also present. He was an avowed enemy of Kṛṣṇa for many reasons, especially because of Kṛṣṇa’s having stolen Rukmiṇī from the marriage ceremony; therefore, he could not tolerate such honor to Kṛṣṇa and glorification of His qualities. Instead of being happy to hear the glories of the Lord, he became very angry.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī mentions that the reason Śiśupāla did not object when Sahadeva proposed Kṛṣṇa for the agra-pūjā is that Śiśupāla wanted to ruin King Yudhiṣṭhira’s sacrifice. If Śiśupāla had argued earlier against Lord Kṛṣṇa’s receiving the first worship and another person had been selected, the sacrifice would have then proceeded normally. Therefore Śiśupāla allowed Kṛṣṇa to be selected, waited until the worship was over, and then spoke up, hoping in this way to demonstrate that the sacrifice was now spoiled. Thus he would ruin the endeavor of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. In this regard the ācārya quotes the following smṛti reference: apūjyā yatra pūjyante pūjyānāṁ ca vyatikramaḥ. “In the place where those who are not to be worshiped are worshiped, there is offense to those who are actually worshipable.” There is also the following statement: pratibadhnāti hi śreyaḥ pūjyapūjya-vyatikramaḥ. “Improperly understanding who is to be worshiped and who is not to be worshiped will impede one’s progress in life.”

The great commentator Śrīdhara Svāmī has analyzed Śiśupāla’s words as follows. The term go-pāla means not only “cowherd” but also “protector of the Vedas and the earth.” Similarly, kula-pāṁsana has a double meaning. Śiśupāla intended it to mean “the disgrace of His family,” which is its meaning when divided as above. But the word may also be analyzed as ku-lapām aṁsana, giving a totally different meaning. Kulapām indicates those who prattle with crooked words contrary to the Vedas, and aṁsana, derived from the verb aṁsayati, means “destroyer.” In other words, he was praising Lord Kṛṣṇa as “He who vanquishes all misguided and frivolous speculations about the nature of truth.” Similarly, although Śiśupāla wanted to compare Lord Kṛṣṇa to a crow with the words yathā kākaḥ, these words may also be divided yathā a-kākaḥ. In that case, according to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, the word kāka is a combination of ka and āka, which indicate material happiness and misery. Thus Lord Kṛṣṇa is akāka in the sense that He is beyond all material misery and happiness, being on the pure, transcendental platform. Finally, Śiśupāla was right in saying the Lord Kṛṣṇa does not deserve merely the puroḍāśa rice cake, offered to the lesser demigods as a substitute for the heavenly beverage soma. In fact, Lord Kṛṣṇa deserves to receive everything that we possess, since He is the ultimate proprietor of everything, including ourselves. Thus we should give Lord Kṛṣṇa our life and soul, not merely a ritualistic offering of rice cakes.

Śrīla Prabhupāda comments: “Actually, Kṛṣṇa does not belong to any caste, nor does He have to perform any occupational duty. It is stated in the Vedas that the Supreme Lord has nothing to do as His prescribed duty. Whatever has to be done on His behalf is executed by His different energies.… Śiśupāla indirectly praised Kṛṣṇa by saying that He is not within the jurisdiction of Vedic injunction. This is true because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That He has no qualities means that Kṛṣṇa has no material qualities, and because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He acts independently, not caring for conventions or social or religious principles.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī gives the inner meaning of the words of Śiśupāla to show how he continued unintentionally glorifying Lord Kṛṣṇa and His Yadu dynasty: “Even though the Yadus were cursed by Yayāti, they have been relieved [bahis-kṛtam] of this curse by great saints, and consequently they have been raised to a position of royal sovereignty by such persons as Kārtavīrya. Thus they have become absorbed in pāna, protecting the earth. Considering all this, how does Kṛṣṇa, the chief of the Yadus, deserve useless [vṛthā] worship? Rather, He deserves opulent worship.”

The words brahmarṣi-sevitān deśān (“holy lands inhabited by saintly sages”) allude to the district of Mathurā. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes: “Śiśupāla went crazy because of Kṛṣṇa’s being elected the supreme, first worshiped person in that meeting, and he spoke so irresponsibly that it appeared that he had lost all his good fortune.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains the Lord’s action as follows: If Lord Kṛṣṇa had done nothing, there probably would have been a savage fight on the sacrificial grounds, and thus the whole ceremony would have been drenched in blood, spoiling the sanctified atmosphere. Therefore, in order to protect the Rājasūya sacrifice of Kṛṣṇa’s beloved devotee Yudhiṣṭhira, the Lord immediately severed Śiśupāla’s head with His razor-sharp disc in such a way that not a drop of blood fell within the sacrificial grounds.

The above translation is taken from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

In this connection, the ācāryas remind us that Śiśupāla is actually one of the Lord’s eternal associates playing the part of a belligerent demon. Thus to most observers it appeared that Śiśupāla achieved the impersonal liberation of merging into Lord Kṛṣṇa’s bodily effulgence. In fact, after being liberated from his mortal frame, Śiśupāla returned to the side of his master, the Supreme Lord of the spiritual world. The following verse further explains this.

Śiśupāla and his friend Dantavakra, who will be killed by Kṛṣṇa in Chapter Seventy-eight, were previously Jaya and Vijaya, two gatekeepers in Vaikuṇṭha. Because of an offense, the four Kumāras cursed them to take three births in the material world as demons. The first birth was as Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu, the second as Rāvaṇa and Kumbhakarṇa, and the third as Śiśupāla and Dantavakra. In each birth they were completely absorbed in enmity toward the Lord and were slain by Him.

Śrīla Prabhupāda explains the position of Śiśupāla as follows: “Although Śiśupāla acted as the enemy of Kṛṣṇa, he was not for a single moment out of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He was always absorbed in thought of Kṛṣṇa, and thus he got the salvation of sāyujya-mukti, merging into the existence of the Supreme, and finally became reinstated in his original position of personal service. The Bhagavad-gītā corroborates the fact that one who is absorbed in the thought of the Supreme Lord at the time of death immediately enters the kingdom of God after quitting his material body.”

The Third and Seventh cantos of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam elaborately describe the incident wherein the Lord’s personal associates were cursed to come to the material world as His enemies. In this connection, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī quotes the following verse (Bhāg. 7.1.47):

“These two associates of Lord Viṣṇu — Jaya and Vijaya — maintained a feeling of enmity for a very long time. Because of always thinking of Kṛṣṇa in this way, they regained the shelter of the Lord, having returned home, back to Godhead.”

Although Lord Kṛṣṇa is the master of all masters of yoga, such as Lord Śiva, still He was controlled by King Yudhiṣṭhira’s pure love. Thus the Lord personally saw to the successful completion of the King’s sacrificial performance. And after that He agreed to stay with His dear friends in Indraprastha for a few more months.

According to Śrīdhara Svāmī, the term khecarāḥ here refers to the pramathas, mystic yogīs who accompany Lord Śiva.

Śrīla Prabhupāda writes: “Duryodhana by nature was very envious because of his sinful life, and he appeared in the dynasty of the Kurus as a chronic disease personified in order to destroy the whole family.” Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī mentions that Duryodhana hated pure religious principles.