Friday, April 4, 2008
Re: Greatest Vaishnava
Adi-lila, Chapter 6,Text 79:
"ananta brahmande rudra -- sadasivera amsa
gunavatara tenho, sarva-deva-avatamsa
TRANSLATION
Rudra, who is an expansion of SadaShiva and who appears in unlimited universes, is also a gunavatara [qualitative incarnation] and is the ornament of all the demigods in the endless universes.
PURPORT
... Sometimes it is found that Rudra is compared to Brahma and considered a living entity. But when Rudra is explained to be a partial expansion of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he is compared to Sesa. Lord Shiva is therefore simultaneously an expansion of Lord Vishnu and, in his capacity for annihilating the creation, one of the living entities. As an expansion of Lord Vishnu he is called Hara, and he is transcendental to the material qualities, but when he is in touch with tamo-guna he appears contaminated by the material modes of nature. This is explained in Srimad-Bhagavatam and the Brahma-samhita. In Srimad-Bhagavatam, Tenth Canto, it is stated that Lord Rudra is always associated with the material nature when she is in the neutral, unmanifested stage, but when the modes of material nature are agitated he associates with material nature from a distance. In the Brahma-samhita the relationship between Vishnu and Lord Shiva is compared to that between milk and yogurt. Milk is converted into yogurt by certain additives, but although milk and yogurt have the same ingredients, they have different functions. Similarly, Lord Shiva is an expansion of Lord Vishnu, yet because of his taking part in the annihilation of the cosmic manifestation, he is considered to be changed, like milk converted into yogurt. In the Puranas it is found that Shiva appears sometimes from the heads of Brahma and sometimes from the head of Vishnu. The annihilator, Rudra, is born from Sankarsana and the ultimate fire to burn the whole creation. In the Vayu Purana there is a description of SadaShiva in one of the Vaikuntha planets. That SadaShiva is a direct expansion of Lord Krsna's form for pastimes. It is said that SadaShiva (Lord Sambhu) is an expansion from the SadaShiva in the Vaikuntha planets (Lord Vishnu) and that his consort, Mahamaya, is an expansion of Rama-devi, or Laksmi. Mahamaya is the origin or birthplace of material nature."
lowerthanarat
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