GOPAL DEFEATS THE DIGVIJAYA PANDIT
Sometimes great authorities will teach asat sastra, a teaching which is not
actually bona fide, but is just something to beat the heads of the atheists and
kick them out. There is one story of Gopala Bhar. He was employed by king
Krsnacandra, who lived about 300 years ago in Bengal, and Gopala was the joker.
He was also very intelligent, and very bold. There was a digvijaya pandita, who
came to Bengal. At that time, the main king or emperor of Bengal was a Muslim,
but in different provinces there were also Hindu kings, and Maharaja Krsnacandra
was one such Hindu king, he was king in that area of Navadvipa. So this
digvijaya pandita had been going all over India defeating all the panditas, and
getting it written down, "I have defeated this one, I have defeated that one."
So he came to the muslim emperor, saying, "I am the great digvijaya pandita, I
have come now to Bengal and I'm making a challenge. You bring your best
pandita. I will defeat him." What he expected was that whoever he defeated had
to become his disciple. So he made a very strong challenge. The muslim emperor
turned to his adviser and said, "What should we do?" The minister replied,
"Well, you know all our best panditas are down in Navadvipa." That was the
centre of learning. So a message was sent to Maharaja Krsnacandra that a big
pandita has come to the muslim emperor and given challenge. "Send your best
panditas, and if I defeat them they must become my disciples." So it was very
heavy for Maharaja Krsnacandra, because he knew, "The muslim emperor is
expecting that I send some panditas that can defeat him. It is all now on my
shoulders." So then, together with his advisers, he decided to bring in the big
panditas. They explained to the panditas what was going on, but all the
panditas in Navadvipa said, "No. We're not getting involved in this." They
didn't want their prestige to be diminished, they were thinking, "If we go there
and he defeats us then it means we have to become his disciples, and then our
prestige will be diminished. So we'll just stay out of this." The king was
very much worried, because he was a kshatriya, he cannot force Brahmins to do
his will. He can only ask, and if they say no then he's in a helpless
situation. So he was very worried. Then Gopala Bhar came in, and saw the king
sitting there very morose. "Hey king! What's wrong?" "Oh Gopala, look don't
bother me now." Gopala said, "Oh, come on, What's the matter." The king was
very sober, "Look Gopala, we don't want to laugh now. We don't want to hear
jokes. Please come back another day." "No no," Gopala said, "Why don't you
just tell me?" "All right," the king said, and then he explained everything.
Then Gopala said, "All right, then I will go." "You?" the king asked. "Yes, I
will go, and I will defeat this pandita. No problem." So then Gopala went
home, and he dressed himself up like a big Brahmin. Cut his hair with a big
sikha, huge tilaka and a harinam chadar, looking very bonafide. And Brahmins
used to carry their sastra in a roll, a scroll wrapped in silk cloth, under
their arm. So he was looking for something to wrap up, and he had in his house
one old broken bed. So in Bengal these beds are strips of cloth which are woven
together, like a deck chair, and in Bengali they call such a bed a kata.
Because the English settled India, many English words come from the Indian
language. In English such a bed is called a cot. So he took a leg from that
old broken bed, and he wrapped in cloth. He went back to the king, and showed
himself. Everyone was astonished. "Wow, he looks like a real heavy Brahmin."
He was really getting into the role. "What is this sastra?" the king asked, and
Gopala replied, "This is my Khatvanga Purana." "But we never heard of this
sastra," everyone was saying. "When I come back I will tell you," Gopala said,
and then he left. Actually what it was, was that khata means "bed", anga means
"part of" or in this case the leg, and purana means "old." So it was "an old
leg of a bed," or "Khatvanga Purana." So this was his sastra. Then he went to
the emperors palace, and he came walking in. "Oh, what great pandita is this?"
"My name is Gopala Bhar Das Pandit Maharaja. I have been sent by the king
Maharaja Krsnacandra to defeat this so-called digvijaya. I am master of the
four Vedas, and especially my field of expertise is the Jyotir-Veda (which
includes astrology." He was speaking so confidently, and he was looking
fearless. Everyone was very impressed, and even this digvijaya pandita was
thinking, "He's not at all afraid of me. He must be a heavy one." So the
digvijaya pandita saw this scripture that Gopala was carrying, and he asked,
"What is this scripture, may I ask?" "This," Gopala replied, "Is my Khatvanga
Purana, of which I am a master." The pandita was saying, "Wait a minute, I've
heard of Visnu Purana, Skanda Purana. I've never heard of Katvanga Purana. May
I see this?" Then Gopal Bhar exclaimed, "Ohh!" He was looking into the sky and
going, "Ohhh! I have just noticed the angle of the sun, and I am remembering
now the date today. We have just now entered a most auspicious moment,
according to the Jyotir-Veda. Anybody who takes a hair from the head of this
pandita," pointing to the digvijaya, "will immediately be granted with long
life, and wealth in this lifetime, and liberation in the next. All auspicious
result will come in this life and the next, simply by taking a hair from such a
great digvijaya pandita as this." So then immediately everyone in the court ran
and was taking hairs from the pandita. The pandita was being driven, and they
were taking from his beard and everything. He went running and they were all
chasing him. He was gone. Gopala Bhar returned to Navadvipa with his head in
the air. "Don't worry King, he is gone. That pandita has run off. He's
completely defeated, completely finished." "Oh!" the king said. "How did you
do this?" "As you were saying, I have this Katvanga Purana. I am a master of
the learning of this." And when he opened it he showed a leg of a bed, and
everyone was astonished. Then he explained the story, and they could all
understand that he had just played a big joke, that's all. Then they asked him,
"How is it that you could go so confidently, so boldly into that courtyard of
the muslim emperor, simply dressed up like a brahmin and carrying an old bed leg
under your arm. How were you so sure that you could defeat him just by a
trick?" Gopala replied, "As soon as I heard that this pandita was going to the
muslim king and declaring that he is a great learned scholar, and that he would
defeat any other scholar, then I knew that he must have been a fool. He must
have actually been a kind of rascal because what do muslims know about Vedic
learning. Why did he go to the muslim, why didn't he come down here or go to
another Hindu king. He was going to the muslim king, so I knew that he must
just be a rascal, trying to make a big show, so I did not think I had anything
to fear when I went there."
MORAL: The digvijaya pandita was just actually a rascal, which means not really one who's situated on the platform of knowledge, just someone who's trying to gain some name and fame. That's a rascal. Rascals can be defeated by rascal means.
PS: I humbly request all the devotees to please forward moral / instructive stories they hear so that everyone can be benefited.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment