(1.1.4)
naimiṣe
‘nimiṣa-kṣetre
ṛṣayaḥ
śaunakādayaḥ
satraṁ
svargāya-lokāya
sahasra-samam
āsata
One possible Translation:
(naimiṣe):
In the forest named Naimiṣa;
(animiṣa-kṣetre):
the place belonging to Animiṣa (Lord Viṣṇu);
(ṛṣayaḥ):
sages;
(śaunakādayaḥ):
viz. Śaunaka etc.;
(āsata):
were seated;
(satram):
for a fire-sacrifice;
(sahasra-samam):
that would continue for a thousand years;
(svargāya-lokāya):
for attaining the Supreme Lord, who is known as svargāya-loka;
[About the verse: Now that the first
three verses have repeatedly invoked the Supreme Lord as well as described the
purpose of the literature as well as the four introductory topics, the
narration of the Śrīmad-bhāgavatam begins].
Q.1) What
is the meaning of the term “naimiṣe”?
Ans) Naimiṣa or Naimiṣāraṇya is the name of an ancient forest where the narration
of the Bhāgavatam took place. The term araṇya
means ‘forest’. Therefore naimiṣa-araṇya
or naimiṣāraṇya is the Naimiṣa forest. This place is currently known
by the Hindi name Nīmasāra and is
situated at a distance of about sixty yojanas (~ 500 kms.) from the Vṛndāvana forest in Uttara-pradeśa, India.
This name Nīmasāra appears to be a corruption of
the name Naimiśāraṇya. Śrīla Śrīdhara
Svāmī says that this verse has two readings for the name of the forest — naimiśa and naimiṣa. Both names have a slight difference in pronunciation. The
‘ṣ’
in Naimiṣa is retroflex whereas in Naimiśa it is the palatal consonant ‘ś’.
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī describes two different histories for these two different
names.
Q.2) What
are the histories behind these two names?
Ans) History of naimiśa — Śrīla Śrīdhara
Svāmī quotes a history from a text named vāyavīya.
According to this history, Lord Brahmā said that he would create a wheel within
his mental frame and then release it. Lord Brahmā declared that the location
where the rim (nemi) of this wheel would land (śīryate) would be a place
auspicious for performing tapasyā (austerities).
Having said
this, Lord Brahma then created the mental wheel, which was as brilliant as the
sun. Having paid his obeisance to Lord Shiva, he released the wheel. Śrī
Śukadeva in his commentary adds the detail that Lord Brahma created this wheel
because he was requested by various twice-born sages to suggest a suitable
forest for performing austerities. These sages were delighted on the sight of
the wheel and they paid their obeisances to Lord Brahma and went after the
wheel released by him. Therefore the place where the rim [nemi] landed [ś]īryate
became nemiś or nemiśa. This nemiśa later became known as naimiśa.
The term nemi is etymologically formed using the Uṇādi-sūtra (4.43) — ‘niyo miḥ’
and it is used to denote the rim of a wheel.
History of naimiṣa — Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī says that
the history of this name can be seen in the Varāha-purāṇa
(Chapter 11). In that purāṇa, the
Supreme Lord appeared in front of a sage named Gauramukha. The sage Gauramukha requested
the Lord to kill the demoniac king named Durjaya, who was attacking his
hermitage. On his request, the Lord’s Sudarśana-cakra
killed the demoniac king and his armies in the blink of an eye (nimiṣa).
The Lord then said — “Since the demoniac forces were killed here in the blink
of an eye (nimiṣa), this forest will be known as naimiṣa. In the future,
this place will be a bestower of great results on the brāhmaṇas.”
Śrī Vijaya-dhvaja-tīrtha
however says that there was a sage named ‘nimiṣa’ and he used to perform his
austerities in this place, and due to him the forest became known as ‘naimiṣa’.
Alternatively, he also suggests that nimiṣa can refer to a special tree
whose fruit is useful in many ways to the sages. He also quotes a statement
from an unknown literature which says that this tree is also known by the name nemi.
My further research in this direction led me to the Ayurvedic lexicons named Dhanvantarīya-nighaṇṭu and Rāja-nighaṇṭu. In both these lexicons,
the term nemi-vṛkṣa (nemi-tree) is used to denote the
‘Senegalia Catechu’ tree, whose fruit has various general and medicinal uses. Therefore,
another possibility is that the term nemiṣa refers to this tree whose
fruit (catechu) has various uses for the sages. Śrī Vijaya-dhvaja-tīrtha also
suggests that another meaning of the term naimiśa could be a place where the
rim (nemi)
of the sudarśana-cakra of the Lord
fell (śīryate). This sudarśana-cakra
was requested by the demigods to locate a suitable auspicious place.
However, he does not mention the source of this history.
Q.3) Are
there any other variant readings of this name?
Ans) Śrī
Vīrarāghavācārya says that another alternate reading is ‘naiviśa’. The meaning given by him is as follows — niviśanty atra maharṣayaḥ iti niviśaṁ, tadaiva naiviśam — ‘The great sages
enter into this forest (to reside here), and therefore it is called as niviśa
and similarly it is also known as naiviśa.’
Q.4) Are
there any spiritual implications of these names?
Ans) Śrīla
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura gives some spiritual implications of these names.
According to him, the term ‘naimiśa/naimiṣa’ is placed in this verse for a
very good reason. However, before that it is important to know that in Śrīla
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura’s edition of the Bhāgavatam, an ‘oṁ’ is placed before this verse.
This means that the first three verses of the bhāgavatam were invocations and now the bhāgavatam has begun with the auspicious sound ‘oṁ’.
Why is this ‘oṁ’ considered so auspicious? Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura
quotes a smṛti which says:
oṁ-kāraś
cātha-śabdaś ca
dvāv etau brahmaṇaḥ purā
kaṇṭhaṁ bhittvā viniryātau
tena māṅgalikāv ubhau
“In the beginning of the creation, two sounds came out piercing the throat of
Lord Brahma. These two sounds were — ‘oṁ’ and ‘atha’. Therefore these
two sounds are considered as auspicious.”
[Translator's Note: Super-commenting on this verse, Śrī Vaṁśīdhara Śarmā asks the question “How can piercing of the throat be considered auspicious?” He replies by saying ‘mahatāṁ dūṣaṇaṁ bhūṣaṇam’ — the faults in great personalities become renowned as auspicious qualities.
He gives the example of Lord Shiva, whose throat got a blackish-blue complexion because of drinking poison, but that blackish-blue throat added to his reputation in this world and he became known as Nīlakaṇṭha (the one with the bluish throat).]
Usually
therefore, many Sanskrit compositions begin with one of these two sounds. For
example, the Vedānta-sūtras begin
with the term ‘atha’. The Nārada-bhakti-sūtras
also begin with ‘atha’.
Also, Śrīla
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that the term ‘naimiśa’ has been placed in this verse for a special reason. Since
the first three verses were invocations, the bhāgavatam is technically beginning from this verse. ‘Naimiśa’ is the first word placed in
this verse. The history behind this name (as already explained above in Q.2) is that Lord Brahma’s mentally created wheel landed here. In other
words, it attained stability at this place. Thus, this is a place where even
Lord Brahma’s mental wheel attained stability.
Śrīla
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura uses this fact to say that this literature Śrīmad-bhāgavatam also has a similar
nature. Various devotees have various devotional desires and moods. The bhāgavatam is like a desire-tree that
can fulfill all these varieties of devotional desires and moods. Whatever
devotional desire one has, one will find that by studying different sections of
the bhāgavatam, these various desires
will be fulfilled and once these desires are fulfilled, the mind will attain
stability in devotion by reading that particular section. For example, someone
may desire to serve Krishna as a parent. Their desire will be fulfilled by
reading the various narrations in the bhāgavatam
in which the Lord’s parents served him. The wheel of their mind will become
stabilized (naimiśa) in that location
within the bhāgavatam. That is the deep
significance of the term namiśa.
If the
alternate reading (naimiṣa) is
selected, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura still says that this reading too
has a deep significance. The history behind the term ‘naimiṣa’ is that it is ‘a place where demoniac forces were
destroyed in a moment’. Similarly, by placing the term ‘naimiṣa’ in the beginning of the bhāgavatam, it is indicated that one’s deep-seated demoniac enemies
like lust, anger etc. will be destroyed quickly (naimiṣa) in this literature, and therefore one should reside here
in the association of this literature.
Q.5) What
is the meaning of the term ‘animiṣa-kṣetre’?
Ans) The term animiṣa-kṣetre is an adjective for the
term ‘naimiśe/naimiṣe’ and it means —
‘in the forest of Lord Vishnu.’ According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, the Lord Viṣṇu
is animiṣa because his eyes do not
blink. According to the Śrīmad-bhāgavatam
(Canto 9, Chapter 13) and other purāṇas,
king Nimi was cursed by the sage Vasiṣṭha to lose his body. Since king Nimi did
not want to take another body, he was granted a place in the eyelids of all
conditioned living entities. Due to this, all conditioned living entities have
eyes that blink. Due to king Nimi’s presence in the eyelids of all embodied
conditioned souls, the time period for which an eye blinks is called as nimeṣa. However, Lord Viṣṇu’s eyes never
blink, and hence he is known as a-nimiṣa.
His forest is known as animiṣa-kṣetra.
Śrī Vallabhācārya also says that animiṣa-kṣetre
means ‘forest of Lord Viṣṇu’. He says that Lord Viṣṇu has no faults in him
and only spiritual qualities and therefore, he is known as animiṣa.
Q.6) What
is the significance of the term ‘ṛṣayaḥ’?
Ans) This term
indicates that those who were staying in the forest of naimiśa/naimiṣa were sages. The term ṛṣayaḥ is the plural of the term ‘ṛṣiḥ’. The term ‘ṛṣi’ is
derived from the Sanskrit verbal root √ṛṣ.
The meaning of this term is popularly understood as follows — ṛṣati prāpnoti jñānena saṁsāra-pāram iti ṛṣiḥ — “A ṛṣi is one who takes us beyond the material world by the dint of
his knowledge.”
Śrī
Vijaya-dhvaja-tīrtha says that ṛṣi here
means a tri-kāla-darśī, or 'a person
who can see the past, present and future'. Alternatively Śrī
Vijaya-dhvaja-tīrtha and Śrī Vallabhācārya say that it can also mean a mantra-draṣṭā, or ‘a seer of a mantra’.
Q.7) What
is the significance of the term ‘śaunaka-ādayaḥ’?
Ans) The term śaunaka-ādayaḥ means ‘śaunaka etc.’ It can also mean ‘headed
by śaunaka’. Mentioning only śaunaka and including all other sages in
the term ‘ādayaḥ’ implies that the
sage śaunaka was the leader of all
the other sages in the forest. This term ‘śaunakādayaḥ’
is an adjective of the term ṛṣayaḥ. The
leader of all the ṛṣis was Sri
Shaunaka. Śrī Vaṁśīdhara Śarmā says that according to the literature named ‘Līlāvatī’, śaunaḥ sarva-vivekaḥ syāt — “A person who possesses all wisdom is
known as śaunaka”. He further says that
only a devotee of the Lord can have all wisdom because such a devotee
understands the all-pervading Lord as he is.
Another meaning
of śaunaka given by Śrī Vaṁśīdhara
Śarmā is śunasya apatya — a descendant
of śuna. He quotes the Śrīmad-bhāgavatam (9.17.3) — śunakaḥ śaunako yasya bahvṛca pravaro muniḥ —
‘Gritsamada’s son was śunaka and śunaka’s son was śaunaka who was a leader expert on the Ṛg-veda.’
Q.8) What
is the meaning and significance of the term ‘satram’?
Ans) Śrī Vaṁśīdhara
Śarmā gives a definition of the term ‘satra’
in his commentary. He says — ‘yatra
bahu-kartṛka-yāgas tatra satra-śabdaḥ prayujyate’ — ‘Wherever many priests
are involved in performing a sacrifice, it becomes denoted as satra.’
He also gives a
definition as follows:
bahubhyo
dīyate yatra
tṛpyanti prāṇino bahu
kartāro bahavo yatra
tat-satram abhidhīyate
“Wherever
charity is given to numerous people; wherever numerous living entities are
satisfied by offering food, water etc; wherever many people are involved in
performing the sacrifice, it is known as a satra.”
He also says ye ṛtvijas ta eva yaja-mānāḥ — a satra is a sacrifice in which the hosts
themselves are the performers. Usually, a sacrifice is hosted by a king or a
householder and the priests are invited to perform it. In this sacrifice
however, the hosts were the performers. Śrī Vīrarāghavācārya says that alternatively,
the term ‘satra’ here refers to a brahma-satra. He says that the
characteristics of a brahma-satra are
given in the Śrīmad-bhāgavatam (10.87.11):
tulya-śruta-tapaḥ-śīlās
tulya-svīyāri-madhyamāḥ
api
cakruḥ pravacanam
ekaṁ śuśrūṣavo 'pare
“All the sages
present were equal in learning, austerity and good behavior; all of them were
equal to friends, enemies and neutral parties. Yet they organized a brahma-satra where one of them was the
speaker and the others were eager listeners.”
[Note: There are two types of satras — karma-satra and brahma-satra.
When various sages of equal qualifications gather and appoint one among them as
a host (yaja-māna) and the remaining
become priests (ṛtvijas) in a Vedic
sacrifice, then such a sacrifice becomes known as karma-satra; and when various sages of equal qualifications gather
and appoint one among them as a speaker (vaktā)
and the remaining become listeners (śrotā)
in a discussion on the absolute truth, then that too is a sacrifice known as brahma-satra.]
Śrī
Vīrarāghavācārya also says that the words — āsīnā
dīrgha-satreṇa kathāyām in Śrīmad-bhāgavatam
(1.1.21) indicate that the satra was
actually a brahma-satra, which is
nothing but a discussion on the absolute truth among great sages. Śrī
Vīrarāghavācārya indicates that this particular satra was special because it was bhagavad-guṇānubhavātmaka — replete with topics regarding the
divine qualities and experience of the Lord.
Q.9) What
is the meaning and significance of the terms ‘svargāya lokāya’?
Ans) Śrīla
Śrīdhara Svāmī says that the term ‘svargāya’
means ‘Hari’. He derives it as follows — ‘svaḥ
svarge gīyata iti svargāyo hariḥ sa eva loko bhaktānāṁ nivāsa-sthānaṁ tasmai
tat-prāptaya ity arthaḥ’ — “The term svaḥ
means heaven and he who is glorified (gīyate)
in svaḥ (heaven) is svargāya (= Hari). The term ‘loka’ means ‘abode’, so ‘svargāya-loka’ means ‘Hari who himself
is the abode of all the devotees’. Thus, svargāya-lokāya
means ‘to attain Hari, who is the abode of all devotees’. In this way, Śrīla
Śrīdhara Svāmī says that svargāya-lokāya are
not two different terms but a single samāsa
(compound term).
Somebody may
question this unique interpretation of svargāya,
since the literal meaning of ‘svargāya
lokāya’ would be “to attain heaven”. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura defends
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī’s stance by saying that the term ‘svargāya’ is grammatically similar to the term ‘urugāya’ found in the Vedas and in the Śrīmad-bhāgavatam (2.3.20). Since urugāya in that verse is also an
adjective of Lord Krishna, similarly svargāya
in this verse can also be considered as an adjective of Lord Krishna. The
exact grammatical derivation of svargāya is
(svaḥ + √gai + ghañ).
Śrī
Vallabhācārya is known for speaking out against some portions of Śrīla Śrīdhara
Svāmī’s commentary. While interpreting ‘svargāya
lokāya’ too, he disproves Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī’s definition of svargāya-lokāya as a single compound
term and sticks to the traditional meaning of svargāya lokāya i.e. ‘heavenly abode’, and says that Śrīla Śrīdhara
Svāmī’s definition is incorrect because the Vedas already have passage saying, ‘svargāya vā etāni lokāya hūyante’ — ‘The
sages perform sacrifices to attain the heavenly abode.’ In this Vedic passage,
the terms ‘svargāya’ and ‘lokāya’ are separated and not joint
together in a compound term. Thus, according to Śrī Vallabhācārya, Śrīla
Śrīdhara Svāmī’s interpretation is incorrect. The aim here seems to be
disproving Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī’s explanation and establishing his own opinion
as superior. It is also interesting to note that although Śrī Giridhara-lāla is
a follower of Śrī Vallabhācārya, he ends up accepting Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī’s
definition. He also gives another proof that the term ‘svar loka’ means Vaikuṇṭha.
He says that in Śrīmad-bhāgavatam (11.7.1), a similar term ‘svar-vāsam’ has been
used to refer to Vaikuṇṭha.
Śrīla
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that the sacrifice of the sages was
initially for attaining heaven. However, they heard the various other Purāṇas from Romaharṣaṇa and became more
inquisitive about the Lord. Thereafter, they got the association of Śrīla Sūta
Gosvāmī and became interested in bhakti-rasa,
or the mellows of devotion. Thus, they said:
karmaṇy asminn anāśvāse
dhūma-dhūmrātmanāṁ bhavān
āpāyayati govinda-
pāda-padmāsavaṁ madhu
We have just
begun the performance of this fruitive activity, a sacrificial fire, without
certainty of its result due to the many imperfections in our action. Our bodies
have become black from the smoke, but we are factually pleased by the nectar of
the lotus feet of the Personality of Godhead, Govinda, which you are
distributing. (Śrīmad-bhāgavatam 1.18.12)
Thus, Śrīla
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says that although the sages began performing a
sacrifice to attain heaven, the purpose of the sacrifice was lost in due course
of time and they all began to focus on Hari alone.
Śrī Vaṁśīdhara
Śarmā says that ‘svargāya-lokāya’ can
also mean ‘to attain Hari’s abode, Vaikuṇṭha’.
Śrī
Vīrarāghavācārya also says that ‘svarga’
means a place of unsurpassed joy and it indicates the parama-pada or Vaikuṇṭha.
Śrī Vīrarāghavācārya also adds that the sages cannot be aiming for the heavenly
planets found in this world, because their leader Śaunaka is a topmost devotee
(parama-bhāgavata).
Śrī
Vijaya-dhvaja-tīrtha also gives an interpretation on similar lines.
Śrī
Vīrarāghavācārya and Śrī Śukadeva also quote a passage from the Kaṭha-upaniṣat (1.13) which proves that
those who stay in ‘svarga’ are those
who have attained true immortality. The passage is as follows — ‘svarge loke ‘mṛtatvaṁ bhajante’ — “Those
who reside in that abode named svarga
experience true immortality’. Thus, even from this quote, it can be established
that svarga means ‘the place of true
immortality’, or Vaikuṇṭha and ‘svargāya
lokāya’ can mean ‘to attain that Vaikuṇṭha’
Q.10) What
is the meaning and significance of the terms ‘sahasra-samam’?
Ans) Śrīla
Śrīdhara Svāmī says it means ‘a thousand years’. Śrī Vaṁśīdhara Śarmā accepts
this but raises a question that in the Mahābhārata
(9.36.40), there is a phrase which says ‘satre
dvādaśa-vārṣike’ i.e. a satra is
of dvādaśa (twelve) years. How can
these two be reconciled?
Śrī Vaṁśīdhara
Śarmā says by defending Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī that in this case, the term dvādaśa in the Mahābhārata should be interpreted as ‘dvābhyāṁ bindubhyāṁ adhikā daśa’ i.e. two zeroes after 10 (=1000).
Thus by this novel definition, the contradiction is resolved.
Or Śrī Vaṁśīdhara
Śarmā says that the Mahābhārata must
be speaking about some other day of Lord Brahmā, where the definition of a satra was different. Or he says that sahasra-samam can mean ‘thousand months’.
This is because in the Vedas as well as in the commentaries of the Mahābhārata, there is a statement that
sometimes, a month can be considered as long as an year.
Śrī
Vīrarāghavācārya, Śrī Vijaya-dhvaja-tīrtha, Śrī Vallabhācārya and other
commentators agree with the interpretation of Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī.
Q.11) What
is the meaning and significance of the terms ‘āsata’?
Ans) According
to the commentators, this is a prefix + verb. ‘ā’ is the prefix and ‘asata’
is the verb. The intention of this verb is to say that “they performed”. It is
interesting to note that ‘asata’ a
form not to be found or derived according to Pāṇini’s rules easily, and thus
this verb gets interpreted in various ways by various commentators. Śrīla
Śrīdhara Svāmī says that it means “they performed”. Śrī Vijaya-dhvaja-tīrtha
says that it means “they were seated”, or “they were initiated in”.
Most
commentators say that the meaning of some verbal forms is determined mainly by
looking at their prefixes. They give examples of verbal forms in the Vedas such
as ‘ā-labhante’, ‘nir-vapanti’, ‘upa-yanti’, all of which mean “they performed”. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī says that in
many such verbal forms, a suitable prefix is used to give the same meaning i.e.
“they performed”.
In Sanskrit Grammar too, there is a rule “bahvarthāḥ
api dhātavaḥ bhavanti” — “Sometimes, verbal roots can take many meanings.”
(Mahā-bhāṣya on Pāṇini 1.3.1). This seems to be the case here with this verbal
form. It has taken various meanings according to the mood of various
commentators.
