Last fall, Malati Manjari dd was asked by Srila Acharyadeva to transcribe relevant parts of his lectures and interviews and organize them into an anthology. Thus, for approximately one year, she has been transcribing his material and categorizing them into various topics. 

The following is an excerpt from the anthology, taken from the "On Vedic Culture" category:

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“So in a literal sense, Vedic Culture means a culture which is conducive to knowing Krishna.”

 If we understand Vedic in an extremely detailed, ethnic sense, this movement is going to go nowhere, in this country. If you are waiting for Americans to become Indians, don’t hold your breath, because you’ll die young.

(Lecture- "Why Should They Become Hindus?," June 14, 2002, New Vrindavan)

What is Vedic culture? We often hear of one man marrying several women, but here we have a case of polyandry , one girl marrying several men.[1] A more famous case is Draupadi and the Pandavas which startled Draupadi’s father.

There is a crucial distinction in Vedic Culture, and if we don’t make that distinction, we are going to often speak and appear in silly ways. That distinction is between basic principles and details. If we confuse these two, we will walk and talk like religious fanatics. I don’t mean to say that we should ignore the details. They are often essential for our spiritual well being. We cannot take a frivolous attitude towards the details, especially those details given by Srila Prabhupada, but still, we should know that details are details, they are flexible. They change according to time and place.

Sometimes, when we say, “This is Vedic culture,” we are talking about something which is not necessary. It is just a detailed application for a specific time and place. We start to become a little pompous and self-righteous and we seem that way to people, in general. What we are calling a spiritual science starts to look very ethnic and specific. To give an example, is it Vedic culture for a man to marry more than one wife or for a woman to marry more than one husband? You can say that, in Vedic culture, several men don’t marry one woman, but then you have cases of it, like in the Mahabharata.

Sripad Madhvacarya, the one to whom we trace our lineage, states that the Sanskrit text of the Mahabharata is thoroughly corrupt. Madhvacarya wrote a book on the Mahabharata called the Mahabharata-tatparya-nirnaya, which means, figuring out what the Mahabharata means. In that book, he says that the text is corrupt, “sarvasha” – throughout. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t really five Pandavas and that there was no Draupadi. We have the Srimad Bhagavatam, which is not corrupt, according to Lord Caitanya. In the Bhagavatam, we have the basic story of the Mahabharata. So we know that the basic story, as we have learned it, took place. All the details are something else. Madhvacarya says that there are three types of corruption in the text, which are the three kinds that any scholar would point to, namely interpolation –sticking things in that weren’t there before; extrapolation – taking things out, that were there; and transposition of text – getting things in the wrong order. If you actually read the entire Mahabharata, and not little versions that you get in temple book stores, you know what Madhvacarya is talking about.

So what is Vedic Culture?  We can start with the most basic principle:  It is that culture which is meant to help us know Krishna. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita, vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyah, “By all the Vedas, I am to be known.” If we take seriously this word, Veda, which means knowledge—and Vedic culture, literally, is a culture which is based on knowledge—knowledge of Krishna.  According to the Gita, Krishna is the object of knowledge, the vedya. So in the literal sense, Vedic culture means a culture which is conducive to knowing Krishna. What does that means at different times and places?

Here we have a case of polyandry, of several men, actually a lot of men—I think 10,000—marrying a girl. This is probably unique in the annals of marriage. If you look at the Mahabharata, you find, after Sukracarya accidently swallowed his own disciple…  you know that story…

The demigods and the demons were at it again, as usual.  They were fighting and the demons, or rather their guru, Sukracarya, had a secret weapon that could bring the demons back to life. So when there’s a war and one side has an extraordinary weapon that the other side doesn’t have, that will often tilt the balance of the war. Consider how WW II ended, with one special weapon. So, the demigods were in anxiety because they lacked this weapon, so they decided that they had to send some innocent person over to Sukra, to become his disciple, to learn this art.  So they sent Brhaspati’s own son, Kacha and in order to ingratiate himself with Sukra, he “flirted” with Sukra’s daughter, Devayani. She, a young girl, fell in love with him and then Sukra was pleased with him because he thought Kacha was attached to his daughter.  The demons knew exactly what was going on—the whole plan to get this technology, so they killed Kacha and ground him up, into powder. They took this ‘Kacha powder’ and put it into Sukra’s martini because in those days people sometimes would drink, including brahmanas. So Sukra literally drank his poor disciple. When he became lucid again, he felt something rattling around in his stomach. Kacha, in his subtle body, still had his wits about him and so he began speaking from inside Sukra’s stomach.  “Excuse me, gurudeva … we have a problem here.”  He convinced Sukra to teach him the sanjivani.  He said, “Please teach me this power to bring people back to life and bring me back to life.  Sukra had said, “I’d like to bring you back to life, for my daughter, but then you will burst out of my body and kill me,” but Kacha said, “Hey, if you teach me that sanjivani, then I can burst out of your body and then I’ll bring you back to life.” Anyway, they agreed, and Kacha faithfully brought Sukra back to life. As soon as he came out, he wanted go home, “I think I hear my mother calling…” and he also had to deliver this knowledge to the demigods.  Devayani said, “What about me?” and Kacha said, “You, mataji?” He pulled the old mataji trick. He said, “Since I have so much respect for my guru and since you are my guru’s daughter, so you are also like my guru.” She was so satisfied with his answer that she cursed him.

The point here is, after this whole episode was over, Sukra realized, what a mess, and it all came about from drinking.  So Sukra simply stood up and solemnly declared that, henceforth, it shall be a law, a dharma, that Brahmans don’t drink, and if they do, all kinds of horrible things will happen to them. So here we see the creation of Vedic culture, right before our eyes, and there are other stories even more scandalous.

In the Mahabharata, when Pandu was trying to convince Kunti that it was no problem for her to call some Brahmin to beget a son, since he was cursed not to beget a son—and he was desperate—Pandu was telling Kunti, “It is not a big deal. In the olden days women were free to be with many men.” What are we to make of that? Is this part of the corrupt Mahabharata? (see Mahabharata)  Pandu then said that the Northern Kurus, who live in the mountains and have mystic powers, still practice that custom. Women basically are allowed to satisfy themselves wherever and whenever they need to. Pandu, according to this version of the Mahabharata, tells Kunti a story to explain how monogamy came about, whereby a woman should only have one husband. He said that there was once a young Brahmin named Çvetaketu.  One day, another brahmin came along and started to lead away this boy’s mother by the hand, because he wanted to have a relationship with her. This boy became outraged by this, but his father Uddälaka said, “These things are alright,” but the boy, who was a very powerful Brahmin, declared a Dharma, namely that people must be monogamous and that there would be all kinds of terrible punishments visited upon those who are promiscuous. So you have these stories about Brahmins creating new laws and you have Madhvacarya saying that the text of the Mahabharata is corrupt … so is this law a sanatana-dharma, an eternal law, that was just brought back?

All I mean to say is that we need to develop a little more careful way of talking about Vedic culture to the public—and quoting.

Another example is, let’s say we quote the Puranas. If you read the writings of the Goswamis  and even of Madhvacarya, you’ll find that they quote from the Kurma Purana or the Manu Samhita etc., and then you go to a bookstore and buy that book today, and you can’t find that verse. Does it mean that they made it up? No. It does mean that the text has been further corrupted, even in the last 400 years. The favorite one of all is the Bhavisya Purana, which, by now, must have a prediction of the Apple Computer Company. What are we to make of this?

Here is the good news. There is one text, which both recognized authorities, and even scholars, recognize as a text which is not corrupt, and that is the Srimad Bhagavatam. The Srimad Bhagavatam shows all the signs, both spiritually and materially, of being a pure text. Lord Caitanya personally approved it in the version which has been commented upon by Sridhara Swami. We still have his commentaries, which are not like Prabhupada’s purports, where there is actual preaching, and the philosophy is explained. Sridhara Swami’s commentaries are more like Prabhupada’s synonyms, where he simply explains obscure words and syntactical relationships, and the proper word order, because, in Sanskrit, there can be ambiguity. So we have the Srimad Bhagavatam, but as far as other texts, Madhvacarya says Mahabharta is a corrupted text, and we know that the Puranas are somewhat questionable.

(Lecture, “Why Should they become Hindus?,” June 14, 2002, New Vrindavan)

[1] Referring to:

O sons of King Pracinabarhisat, the heavenly society girl named Pramloca kept the lotus-eyed daughter of Kandu in the care of the forest trees. Then she went back to the heavenly planet. This daughter was born by the coupling of the Apsara named Pramloca with the sage Kandu.