Sunday, October 5, 2008
Re: Secret of Shiva
Haridham wrote: Hare Krsna. Please accept my dandavat pranams. All glories to your service. I just had a simple question from something that I read on ur site. It was regarding the "actual Secret of Lord shiva" where Lord Shiva explains to Parvati that he was ordered by Lord vishnu to come as sankarcarya and spread the false philosophy of advaita. My question is what about those who state that the verse we are reffering to from padma purana is intorpalated(sp) and is not in any current editions of the padma purana and therefore not a bonafide section of the padma purana. They think some vaisnavas may have added this verse or something. Have you come across that? What is the best way to respond to that.
Answer by BR Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada:
I think this pastime (chapter) may be found in many of the current editions of the Padma Purana. One has to purchase a Padma Purana copy printed by neutral publishers and this chapter may still be there.
The present publishers of the Puranas, both Nag and Motilal base their publications on the original Puranic texts published by Venkateshwara Steam Press in the early 1900s in Mumbai. Unfortunately there is no trace of the authentic Puranic editions before that. It is said that the Venkateshwara Steam Press editions of the Puranas do have many Puranic sections and missing due to unavailability. The 18 Puranas have a total of 400,000 verses and the Venkateshwara Steam Press editions and the present editions do not have all these verses which proves that some Puranic portions have been permanently lost. Some of our previous Acharyas around 200-500 years ago like the six Goswamis (Hari Bhakti Vilasa etc), Shrila Vishvanatha Chakravati, Shrila Baladeva Vidyabhushana have quoted verses from the Puranas which cannot be found in the Puranas nowadays but that does not mean they never existed. They were an integral part of the Puranas but those authentic sections were lost or were deliberately removed by selfish and unscrupulous people at some point of time. We are fully certain about the integrity and divine character of our Acharyas because they has no selfish interests. They would never ever add quote and attribute a verseto the Puranas if it did not belong there in the first place.
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