In2-MeC

IBSA (ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Sadhana Asrama), Govardhana, India
31 January 2004

Bhavisya Purana and Jesus Christ

Bhavisya Purana, composed 5000 years ago, looks ahead to the period several decades after the birth of Jesus Christ. At that time a king names Shalivahan ruled Bharatavarsa. His kingdom was called Sindhustan. Mlecchas by this time were very populous, and Shalivahan brought order to their society by given them laws and codes to follow.

Once Shalivahan visited Himatunga (the Himalayan region). The king came to the land of the Hunas amid the mountains and there saw an auspicious person of white complexion, strongly built, clothed in white cloth. Shalivahan was pleased and inquired as to the man's identity. He replied iishaputra ca maam vidhi kumaari garbha sambhavam --"I am Ishaputra, a son of God, born from the womb of a virgin girl. "

Ishaputra told the king he was a preacher to the mlecchas. Among those fallen people he had established the path of truth. The king asked Ishaputra to kindly explain the principles of his religion. That saintly person replied that he was know n as "Masiha" (the Messiah) among the mlecchas because he restored their faith in God and the conduct of goodness that had greatly declined among them. That his doctrine would be accepted by the mlecchas, Ishaputra had even taken initiation from a mleccha guru. His doctrine featured these principles:

maanasam nirmala krtva malam dehe shubhashubham
mind and body are to be kept pure

naigamam japamaasthaaya japata nirmala param
one should be strictly situated in japa --internal chanting or prayer

nyaayena satyavarcasaa manasaikyena maanavah
people should speak truthfully and control their minds

dhyaayena pujayediisham suryamandalasamsthitam
acaloayam prabhuh saakshaattathaa suryocalah sadaa
one should attentively worship the Lord who is constant like the sun

tatvaanam calabhutaanaam karshanah sa samatatah
The Lord attracts to Himself the flickering living entities and assumes control of them

Summing up, he told the king:

iishamurtihyandi praaptaa nityashuddhaa shivakarti
iishaamasiiha iti ca mama naama pratishitam

I keep the form of the Lord in my heart. That is why I am known as Isha Masiha, Jesus the Messiah, ever-pure and auspicious.

iti krityena bhupaala masihaa vilaya gataa

Because of his teachings, the authorities put the Messiah to death.

At www.tombofjesus.com, evidence is offered that Jesus lived in Kashmir after the authorities in Palastine had him crucified. I've never visited this website so I have no opinion about the claims made there. But several times Srila Prabhupada mentioned that because Jesus was a great yogi his persecutors could not kill him, though they thought they killed him; and several times Srila Prabhupada mentioned that Jesus lived in India. As we have seen, Bhavisya Purana reveals that after the attempt on his life, Jesus stayed in the Himalayas. About the account of Jesus this Purana gives, Srila Prabhupada specifically said, "Everything is accurate there. "

The Vedic Background of the Western Religious Tradition

By the term "Western," the lands to the northwest of India are meant: the Middle East and Europe. The predominate religions of that area are derived from scriptures originally spoken in the Semitic languages of Hebrew and Arabic. Semitic means "descended from Shem," a son of Noah. The Western religions are monotheistic. They all give respect to Abraham and Moses as founding personalities. The Western religions are basically counted as three--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--although there are countless subsects.

The goal of Western religion is salvation, which for the most part is equated with ascension into heaven. This concept of salvation is traced through history by scholar Henry Corbin to the pre-Biblical "paradise of Yima" described in the Zoroastrian scriptures of Persia (ancient Iran). Scholars identify Zoroastrianism as the prototype Western religion, though its scriptures are not linguistically Semitic. Actually the language of Zorastrianism is close to Sanskrit. The name Iran is related to the Sanskrit arya, as in aryadesa, "the land of the Aryans. "

Yima, a form of the name Yama, was said to be the ruler of an underworld heaven. Just as Vedic Yama is the son of the sun-god Vivasvat, so Zorastrian Yima is the son of Vivanghant. Yama is described in Srimad-Bhagavatam and other puranas as a fearsome judge and punisher of sinful souls. But there are verses in Mahabharata that describe Yama's sabha (assembly palace, where he associates with his companions) as heavenly. Yamaraja is designated in Srimad-Bhagavatam 5. 26. 6 as Pitr-raja, the king of the Pitrs (the departed ancestors, who are pious karma-margis enjoying their heavenly reward).

The karma-marga, the path of fruitive work leading to heaven, is unarguably prominent in the Western religious tradition. That does not mean that bhakti is entirely lacking. Great souls were undoubtedly sent by God to turn the attention of Western people away from their hopes for heavenly reward to selfless loving service to God. Thus we find in the Old and New Testaments:

Have you never learned that love of the world is enmity to God? Whoever chooses to be the world's friend, makes himself God's enemy. (James 4:4)

Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. (II Corinthians 11:14)

Stand up to the devil and he will turn and run. Come close to God and He will come close you. (James 4:8)

In heaven the angels do always behold the face of my heavenly Father. (Matthew 18:10)

As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God. (Psalms 42:1,2)

Whoever wants to be great must be your servant. . . like the Son he did not come to be served but to serve. (Matthew 20:27-28)

Offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. (Hebrews 13:15)

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30)

Yet a Western religious authority of the present day admits:

We are an indulgent people in a selfish age. Even as Christians we do not celebrate discipline, whether physical, intellectual, social, or spiritual. (David L. McKenna, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, cited in Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster, p. 205)

Why do pious Westerners falter in the pure celebration of the bhakti discipline so clearly evident in their own tradition? From the Vedic perspective, it seems there is a historical explanation. The explanation in brief is that transcending the body-based duality of good and evil has never been an option in Western religion, which has its root in an ancient distortion of the Vedic path of fruitive activities. While karma-marga, the path of fruitive work, is certainly a doctrine taught by the Vedas, it is not an end itself. Karma yields no eternal gain. Its good and bad fruits are strung together by time to form an endless chain of duality, a "carrot and stick" combination that drives the living entity ever onward in the cycle of birth and death.

karmana jayate jantu karmanaiva praliyate
sukham dukham bhayam sokam karmanaiva prapadyate

A living entity takes birth by karma . He passes away by karma . His karma brings about happiness, suffering, fear and misery. (Brahmavaivarta Purana 2. 24. 17)

Jnana-marga, which the upanisads much emphasize, attempts to throw off the bondage of this chain of duality by teaching knowledge of the atman, the spirit self, as transcendental to the "good" and "bad" we perceive in matter. Hanti karma subhasubham: "Annihilate karma, good and bad!" cries Maitri Upanisad 6. 20. The same scripture (6. 7) advises how karma may be uprooted: vijnanam karyakarana-karmanirmuktam --through "transcendental knowledge free of both the cause and effect of karma . " Human beings should learn to 1) live aloof from desires (the cause), and 2) live aloof from sensory and mental happiness and distress (the effect). Thus duality is to be overcome by asceticism and the insight that the Absolute Truth is one.

We don't find in the Western religious tradition evidence of a strong "jnana revolution" as seen in the history of India, where for example the impersonalist Sankaracarya popularized his philosophy of "the world of duality is false--absolute oneness is true. "

The West has certainly been host to upsurges of theistic devotion. But devotion was rarely practiced apart from the Western version of the doctrine of fruitive work. Thus devotion in the West was aimed at promoting the religious person out of material distress to material happiness. At first the reward of heavenly happiness was to be had in the afterlife. But as time went on, it became an expectation of Western religionists in the present human existence. Hence doctrines like Calvinism approve the amassing of wealth by God's elect on Earth.

Between the Western religious tradition and Vedic dharma there is an ancient nexus, or link. It is a link that divides as well as connects, like a locked door between two rooms for which the key was long ago lost. History holds the key.

Scholars admit a link between Vedic India and the ancient West. A historian of mathematics named A. Seidenberg has collected evidence to show that the geometry used in building the Egyptian pyramids and the Mesopotamian citadels was derived from Vedic mathematics. The Oxford scholar M. L. West has tracked core ideas of ancient Greek and Middle Eastern philosophy to India.

At one point, though, something that India rejected took hold in the West. This something accounts for the major differences between Western and Vedic theology. This something is Zoroastrianism. It is at once the tie that binds the Western religious heritage and Vedic dharma, and the point at which they departed from one another.

Zoroastrianism is an ancient doctrine of "theological dualism" propagated in Persia at some unknown date by the prophet Zarathushtra. Theological dualism means any religious doctrine in which God is thought to have a rival in the person of an anti-God like Satan. As a religious faith Zoroastrianism is almost extinct. But its dualism lives on to a recognizable degree in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The teachings of Zarathushtra were not unknown in ancient India. He is named Jarutha in several passages of the Rg Veda . However, these references are not flattering. Rg Veda 7. 9. 6 indicates that Jarutha's theology was opposed by the sage Vasistha.

In the Zoroastrian scripture called Zend Avesta, Vasistha is named Vahishtha. He is said to be a person of harmful intellect who opposed Zarathushtra. Srimad-Bhagavatam 6. 18. 5-6 states that Vasistha was fathered by the demigods Varuna and Mitra; 9. 1. 13 confirms that he was a worshiper of Varuna. Rg Veda, Mandala Seven, has much to say about Vasistha's devotion to Varuna. It appears that Vasistha and Zarathushtra were rival priests of Varuna, who is called Asura-maya in the Rg Veda.

The name Zoroaster is a variant of Zarathushtra; similarly, in the Vedic scriptures Jarutha is also called Jarasabdha. Bhavisya Purana presents an extensive account of the background of Maga Jarasabdha. The word maga refers to a dynasty of priests of whom Jarasabdha was a progenitor. In ancient Iran, the hereditary priestly caste was called the Magi. Bhavisya Purana states that Jarasabdha was born in the family line of vira-aditya, "the powerful Aditya" (sun-god). The Vedic scriptures list twelve Adityas (sons of Aditi, the mother of the demigods). They are the twelve spokes of the kala-cakra, the wheel of time. Chandogya Upanisad 3. 8. 1 proclaims Varuna the chief Aditya.

In successive months of the year each of these twelve takes his turn in piloting the solar chariot across the sky. It would appear that the lineage of Jarasabdha (Jarutha, Zarathushtra) begins from Varuna, leader of the Vedic solar deities. The sun, like Varuna, is called Asura (from asun rati, "he who gives life or rejuvenates"). Because Varuna is very powerful, and because he measured out the sky (as does the sun), he is called maya. Thus the title Asura-maya fits both demigods. Varuna is furthermore called Asura because he commands a host of demonic undersea creatures. (Lord Krsna killed one of these asuras named Sankhasura; another asura of Varuna arrested Nanda Maharaja, Krsna's father, as he bathed in the Yamuna River. )

In the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta the name of the worshipable deity of Zarathushtra is Ahura-mazda (Wise Lord), which matches Varuna's title Asura-maya. Bhavisya Purana states that Jarasabdha's descendents, the Magas (Magi), follow scriptures that are reversed in sense from the Vedas (ta eva viparitas tu tesam vedah prakirtitah ). Indeed, Zend Avesta presents the "daevas" as demons and the "ahuras" as good spirits. Bhavisya Purana describes the Magas as attached to the performance of fire sacrifices. Even today the small remnant of the Magi--the Parsi community in India--is known as "fire-venerating. " It appears from the Bhavisya Purana that Jarasabdha was dear to the sun-god. In return he placed himself fully under the protection of this deity. The Zoroastrian scriptures (Korshed Yasht 4) do indeed prescribe worship of the sun:

He who offers up a sacrifice unto the undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun--to withstand darkness, to withstand the Daevas born of darkness, to withstand the robbers and bandits, to withstand the Yatus and Pairikas, to withstand death that creeps in unseen--offers it up to Ahura-mazda, offers it up to the Amesha-spentas, offers it up to his own soul. He rejoices all the heavenly and worldly Yazatas, who offers up a sacrifice unto the undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun.

It is in this special allegiance to Varuna as a solar deity that the Vedic root of Zoroastrian dualism can be discerned. Varuna is a close companion of another Aditya, Mitra. Rg Veda 10. 37. 1 states that the sun is the eye of Mitra-Varuna. (The followers of Zarathushtra regarded Mitra--Mithra in the Zoroastrian scriptures--to be one with Ahura-mazda, since Mithra was the light of the Wise Lord. ) In the Vedas, Mitra-Varuna together are the all-seeing keepers of dharma . Of the two, mankind has more to fear from Varuna. A hymn in Atharva-veda 1. 14 is addressed to varuno yamo va, Varuna or Yama. Thus a link is made between Varuna and Yamaraja, the judge of the dead and punisher of the sinful. Mitra-Varuna are equals in upholding universal law and order, but Taittiriya Samhita identifies Mitra with the law of the day and Varuna with the law of the night. Though at night the eye of the sun is closed, Varuna, with his thousand eyes or spies, observes the acts men do under cover of darkness.

Here, then, emerges a duality. Mitra (which means friendship), the daytime witness, is kinder than Varuna (which means binder), the nighttime witness. Mitro hi kruram varunam santam karoti, says the Taittiriya Samhita : "Mitra pacifies the cruel Varuna. "

It is curious how Zoroastrianism amplified this duality. In the Vedic version, Asura-maya Varuna, lord of the waters, dwells in the depths of the cosmic Garbhodaka ocean, far below the earth. Yama's underworld heaven and hell are very near that ocean; in the matter of chastising the sinful, Yama and Varuna are closely allied. In the Zoroastrian version, Ahura-mazda (Varuna) is the lord of light who gave his servant Yima an underworld kingdom called Vara, a realm that, while dark to human eyes, is mystically illuminated.

In the Vedic version, Mitra-Varuna are a pair of demigods who in ancient times served the Supreme Lord as a team by supervising the realms of light and darkness. In the Zoroastrian version, Varuna is the supreme lord. Mitra is his light. The mantle of darkness (evil) is worn by an unceasing enemy of Ahura-mazda named Angra Mainyu or Ahriman. It appears that Angra Mainyu is the Vedic Angirasa (Brhaspati), spiritual master of the devas and a great foe of Sukracarya, the spiritual master of the asuras. From Mahabharata 1. 66. 54-55 we learn that Varuna took the daughter of Sukracarya, named Varuni, as his first wife.

In the Vedic version, the powers of light and darkness or good and evil are not ultimate. By taking them to be ultimate, and moreover by reversing them (portraying the asuras as good and the devas as evil), Zarathushtra twisted the Supreme Lord's purpose for the cosmos that is administered on His behalf by such agents as Varuna, Yama and Brhaspati. In these ways Zoroastrianism was a revolutionary departure from Vedic theology. Jeffrey Burton Russell, writing in The Devil, pages 98-99:

A revolution in the history of concepts occurred in Iran. . . with the teachings of Zarathushtra, who laid the basis for the first thoroughly dualist religion. Zarathushtra's revelation was that evil is not a manifestation of the divine at all; rather it proceeds from a wholly separate principle. . . . The dualism of Zoroastrianism. . . is overt; that of Judaism and Christianity is much more covert, but it exists, and it exists at least in large part owing to Iranian influence. . . . All posit a God who is independent, powerful and good, but whose power is to a degree limited by another principle, force, or void.

Professor Norman Cohn heads an influential school of thought among historians of religion. In his opinion, the teachings of Zarathushtra are the source of apocalypticism--the belief in a final cataclysmic war between God's army of angels and the devil's army of demons. In Zoroastrianism, this war was expected to be sparked by the appearance of a Saoshyant or messiah who would prevail against the forces of evil, resurrect the dead and establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

An important movement within Zoroastrianism was Zurvanism, which became the Persian state religion during the fourth century BC. Zurvan in the Avestan language means "time"; scholars like M. L. West note the similarity between the Zurvan deity and the Vedic Kala, who in Vaisnava philosophy is a reflection of the Supreme Lord as well as His agent of creation, maintenance and destruction. Kala powers the cosmic wheel of time (kala-cakra) upon which the effulgent chariot of Surya (the sun-god) moves through the heavens, illuminating the universe and marking the passage of hours, days and years.

In Omens of Millenium, Harold Bloom, following Cohn's line of thought, claims on pages 7-8 that Zurvanism was assimilated into Judaism. Thus the Jews came to equate Zurvan with Yahweh. Citing Henry Corbin, Bloom says Zurvanism lives on today in the Iranian Shi'ite form of Islam. Damian Thompson, on page 28 of The End of Time, suggests that Zurvanism influenced John of Patmos, author of the New Testament Book of Revelation.

On page 32 of Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, Oxford professor M. L. West cites testimony by an ancient Greek that the Magi taught that Zurvan (Time) divided the cosmos into realms of light and dark, or good and evil. West, showing a Vedic parallel, cites the Maitri Upanisad Chapter Six. Here, God (Brahman) is said to have two forms--one of time, the other timeless. That which existed even before the sun is timeless. Timeless, transcendental Brahman cannot be divided into parts (i. e. light and dark, good and evil), hence He is ever non-dual. But the Brahman that began with the sun--time--is divided into parts. Living entities are born in time, they grow in time, and die in time. This Brahman of time has the sun (Surya) as its self. One should revere Surya as being synonymous with time. The correspondence between the Vedic Surya and the Persian Zurvan is thus quite clear.

From the foregoing section seven conclusions can be developed.

1) In ancient times, one Jarutha, Jarasabdha, Zarathushtra or Zoroaster, the founding priest of the Magas or Magi clan, departed from the Vedic tradition. Western historians believe that Judaeo-Christianity and Islam share principles derived from his doctrine of Zoroastrianism, predominate in pre-Islamic Iran.

2) Zoroastrianism seems to concern itself only with the Brahman of time (the sun), leaving aside the timeless Brahman, Purusottama Sri Krsna. The Zoroastrians identified the Supreme with the solar disk and the demigod Aditya Varuna, who is known in the Vedas as Asura-maya and in the Zoroastrian scriptures as Ahura-mazda.

3) The Vedas teach that Varuna is teamed with Mitra to uphold the law of dharma within the realms the sun divides (light and darkness). Here dharma means religious fruitive works that yield artha (wealth) and kama (sense enjoyment) on earth and in heaven. Varuna is associated with Yama, the judge of the dead. Yama's abode is the place of reward and punishment for good and evil karma.

4) Zoroastrian dualism results in a theological quandary: though Ahura Mazda is all-good, he is not all-powerful. The anti-God Angra Mainyu is not under his control. (Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto Ten, relates that a demon named Bhaumasura bested Varuna in combat; thus sometimes evil gets the upper hand over Asura-maya Varuna).

5) Scholars who specialize in the history of the Western religious tradition believe

Zarathushtra was the first person to put forward the idea of an absolute principle of evil, whose personification, Angra Manyu or Ahriman, is the first real Devil in world religion. Although the two principles are entirely independent, they clash, and in the fullness of time the good spirit will inevitably prevail over the evil one. (Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Prince of Darkness, p. 19)

6) The apocalyptic End of Time envisioned by Judaeo-Christianity and Islam is believed by historians to have been devised by

Zoroaster, originally a priest of the traditional religion, [who] spoke of a coming transformation known as "the making wonderful," in which there would be a universal bodily resurrection. This would be followed by a great assembly, in which all people would be judged. The wicked would be destroyed, while the righteous would become immortal. In the new world, young people are forever fifteen years old, and the mature remain at the age of forty. But this is not a reversion to the original paradise; nothing in the past approaches its perfection. It is the End of Time. (Damian Thompson, The End of Time--Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millenium, p. 15)

In the main, Zoroastrianism, Judaeo-Christianity and Islam do not accept the Vedic doctrine of reincarnation. On the contrary, the Western religious tradition is resurrectionist.

7) Those who await this End of Time expect to achieve eternal life in a resurrected body of glorified matter on a celestial earth cleansed of all evil. They expect, as human beings, to be "above even the gods, or at least their equal. "

From historian Jeffrey Burton Russell comes another key element of the Zoroastrian faith that needs to be mentioned:

Indeed, celibacy was regarded as a sin (as was any asceticism), a vice of immoderation, a refusal to use the things of this world for the purposes that the God intended. (Russell, The Devil, p. 11)

Celibacy--which is highly respected in Vedic religious culture--is likewise a sin in Judaism and Islam. It was a discipline important to early Christianity. But reformed Christianity has discarded it entirely, heeding Martin Luther's admonition that:

The state of celibacy is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but--more frequently than not--struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. (Table Talk CCCCXCI)

That Zoroastrianism regarded celibacy and all asceticism as sinful returns us to an observation that launched this survey of the historical foundation of Western religion: "transcending duality has never been an option in Western religion, rooted as it is in an ancient distortion of the Vedic path of fruitive activities. " The karma-marga is concerned with what is termed tri-varga, or dharma-artha-kama (religious piety, economic development and bodily happiness). Householders pursue these principles in the course of their productive lives.

But the Vedic path takes mankind further, to the varga (principle) of moksa, liberation. This varga is the goal of the jnana-marga, tread by those who have passed from grhasta-asrama (household life) to sannyasa-asrama (renunciation). The jnana-margi aims to pass over the time-defined duality of good and evil to the timeless absolute, beyond birth and death. The Prasna Upanisad 1. 9 advises the jnana-margi to renounce istapurta --Vedic sacrifices (ista ) and charitable work (purta )--for it is by istapurta that the soul remains bound to the cycle of birth and death. Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 4. 4. 7 states that one acheives immortality in the timeless Brahman upon the departure of all material desire--sarve pramucyante kamah. This anticipates the cessation of sexual attraction, which is the foundation of all other desires.

The pure bhakti-marga begins here, with the transference of the soul's attraction from dead material forms to the divine ecstatic Form of all forms, the all-attractive Sri Krsna. Pure loving attraction to Krsna is called rasa . It is reflected in this world of time as our attraction to material forms. That reflected attraction powers our karma. Taittiriya Upanisad 2. 7 explains:

raso vai sah
rasam hy evayam labdhanandi bhavati
ko hy evanyat kah pranyat
yad esa akasa anando na syat
esa hy esanandayati

The supreme truth is rasa . The jiva becomes blissful on attaining this rasa . Who would work with the body and prana (sensory powers) if this blissful form did not exist? He gives bliss to all.

Though rasa impels fruitive work, fruitive work does not permit the soul the pure, eternal taste of rasa . This is because fruitive work, by definition, brings one no farther than to the enjoyment of temporary material fruits. Even when fruitive work is governed by scriptural direction, it yields only ephemeral enjoyment in the heavenly spheres of the material universe.

Whether on earth or in heaven, the sine qua non of material enjoyment is sex. Sexual attraction is a perversion of attraction to Krsna. To achieve personal association with Krsna, this attraction must be purified.

tenatmanatmanam upaiti santam
anandam anandamayo 'vasane
etam gatim bhagavatim gato yah
sa vai punar neha visajjate 'nga

Only the purified soul can attain the perfection of associating with the Personality of Godhead in complete bliss and satisfaction in his constitutional state. Whoever is able to renovate such devotional perfection is never again attracted by this material world, and he never returns. (Srimad-Bhagavatam 2. 2. 31)

Time is the irrestistible force that pulls living beings together in sexual relationships all over the universe. The same time factor brings them distress and separation. Ultimately, time dissolves the entire cosmic manifestation. Thus sexual attraction is inseparable from fear of destruction.

stri-pum-prasanga etadrk
sarvatra trasamavahah
apisvaranam kim uta
gramyasya grha-cetasah

The attraction between man and woman, or male and female, always exists everywhere, making everyone always fearful. Such feelings are present even among the controllers like Brahma and Siva and is the cause of fear for them, what to speak of others who are attached to household life in this material world. (Srimad-Bhagavatam 9. 11. 17)

Vedic dharma is termed sanatana-dharma (eternal religion). It leads the worshiper from the Brahman of time--the universal form of the Lord, in which demigods like Brahma, Siva, Varuna, Yama, Brhaspati and the sun-god Surya are stationed as departmental heads--to timeless Brahman: Parambrahman Sri Krsna. Parambrahman is achieved when the soul, purified of sexual attraction, dives into the rasa-ocean of Krsna's holy name, form, qualities, pastimes and His loving relationships with His pure devotees in the timeless realm of Goloka.

The conviction that religion is tri-varga --encompassing piety (dharma ), economic development (artha ) and bodily happiness (kama ), with no scope for liberation from time-bound attraction to the body and material sense objects--is demonic. This is clear from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto Seven, Chapter Five, where the brahmanas in the employ of the demon Hiranyakasipu are depicted as teaching only tri-varga . When Hiranyakasipu suspected these brahmanas of schooling his young son Prahlada in Visnu-bhakti, he angrily rebuked them. They assured the demon they'd taught Prahlada no such thing; apparently, the boy's devotion to Krsna was spontaneous. Hiranyakasipu then decided to kill his own son. But in the end Hiranyakasipu was destroyed by Lord Nrsimhadeva, the half-man, half-lion incarnation of Krsna. Lord Nrsimhadeva installed Prahlada as the crown jewel of his dynasty, though his teachers had mocked him as a "cinder. "

Nowadays thoughtful people regret the lack of discipline in modern culture. They would do well to consider Lord Krsna's instruction to Arjuna (Bhagavad-gita 2. 62-63), in which the total breakdown of discipline is traced to contemplation of the objects of the senses.

While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises. From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool.

Because the karma philosophy begins with the contemplation of sense objects, it ends in the breakdown of all spheres of human endeavor--physical, intellectual, social, and religious. The karma philosophy was, is, and remains the main root of Western culture and materialistic culture everywhere.

Further Notes

From A World History by William H. McNeill, p. 75:

Zororastrian dualism explained evil more plausibly than any strictly monotheistic faith could do. Dualisms which trace their origin to Zoroaster have therefore cropped up repeatedly in the Judaeo-Christian-Moslem tradition; but Zoroastrianism itself barely survives and not without extensive later emendation, among the Parsi community of India.

Rg Veda 7. 9. 6:

tvam agne samidhano vasistho
jarutham han yaksi raye puramdhim
purunitha jatavedo jarasva
yuyam pata svastibhih sada nah

Vasistha is kindling thee. Agni (the fire god): destroy the malignant Jarutha. Worship the object of many rites. The community of demigods, on behalf of the wealthy institutor of the sacrificial ceremony, offer praise--Jatavedas, with manifold praises--and do ever cherish us with blessings.

Rg Veda 7. 1. 7 and 10. 80. 3 also mention Jarutha as an enemy who was consumed by the flames of Agni.

In The Study of Indian History and Culture edited by S. D. Kulkarni, vol. 1, is a passage from Zend Avesta (Yasna Ha 43. 15) as translated by the scholar S. K. Hodivala:

O Ahura-mazda, then indeed I regarded thee as bountiful when that angel came to me with good mind and informed me with wisdom that neither the harmful-intellected Vahishtha, nor Puru belonging to the Dregvant [=Grehma or Brahma] is dear to us: indeed they have all regarded all the Angras [followers of Angirasa] as righteous.

Ahura-mazda is translated as Wise Lord in Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, under "Zoroastrianism", p. 866.

Besides meaning "demon," the word asura can mean "spirit," "good spirit," and "supreme spirit. "

The opinion of some Indian historians is that Zarathushtra, like Vasistha, was a worshipper of Varuna. Such is the view expressed in The Study of Indian History and Culture, vol. 1, p. 198.

The name Zoroaster is a variant of Zarathushtra: Zoroaster is the Greek form, Zarathushtra the Persian form.

Zend Avesta presents the "daevas" as demons and the "ahuras" as good spirits. Jeffrey Burton Russell, on page 104 of The Devil, writes:

Zarathushtra was largely responsible for the relegation of the daevas to the ranks of the demons by elevating one of the ahuras, Ahura Mazda, to the position of the one God. The daevas then logically had to be categorized as enemies of the God.

"Even today the small remnant of the Magi--the Parsi community in India--is known as 'fire-venerating'": see the article by Maseeh Rahman in Time Magazine of 16 March 1998, p. 25.

"The Zoroastrian scriptures (Korshed Yasht 4) do indeed prescribe worship of the sun": The quotation is from The Zend-Avesta, translated by James Darmesteter (1883).

"In the new world, young people are forever fifteen years old, and the mature remain at the age of forty": In a book published by a modern Christian missionary movement, we find the same Zoroastrian theme.

. . . God has, and will yet use, the power to reverse the aging process. As the Bible describes it: "Let his flesh become fresher than in youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor. " (Job 33:25) The aged will gradually return to the perfect manhood and womanhood that Adam and Eve enjoyed in Eden.

The long-standing orthodox Christian position on the resurrection of the body is succinctly stated by Macrina the Younger, a principle theologian of the early Greek church: "We assert that the same body again as before, composed of the same elements, is compacted around the soul. " (See page 289 of Jaroslav Pelikan's Christianity and Classical Culture, 1993. ) Augustine, in De civitate Dei (The City of God), suggested that when the bodies of dead believers are resurrected, they will be rest ored to thirty years of age. (See page 98 of Caroline Walker Bynum's The Resurrection of the Body, 1995. )

Questions about physical resurrection were heavily debated in the history of the Christian church, particularly in the fifth, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some theologians who defended a purely spiritual conception of resurrection--that a non-material body is raised--were condemned as heretics. The orthodox position was, "I am not 'I' if I rise in an aerial body" (Bynum, p. 60). Bynum comments on page 229, "materialistic conceptions of bodily resurrection were significant elements of the positions that triumphed as mainstream Christianity. "

That sexual attraction is the foundation of all other desires is made clear in Srimad-Bhagavatam 5. 5. 8:

pumsah striya mithuni-bhavam etam
tayor mitho hrdaya-granthim ahuh
ato grha-ksetra-sutapta-vittair
janasya moho 'yam aham mameti

The attraction between male and female is the basic principle of material existence. On the basis of this misconception, which ties together the hearts of the male and female, one becomes attracted to his body, home, property, children, relatives and wealth. In this way one increases life's illusions and thinks in terms of "I and mine. "

That pure bhakti begins with the transference of the soul's attraction from dead material forms to the divine ecstatic Form of all forms, the all-attractive Sri Krsna, does not mean that one must formally pass from the karma-marga (household life) through the jnana-marga (renunciation, or sannyasa) before one can arrive at pure bhakti. Lord Krsna gives His own definition of sannyasa in Bhagavad-gita 18. 57.

cetasa sarva-karmani
mayi sannyasya mat-parah
buddhi-yogam upasritya
mac-cittah satatam bhava

In all activities just depend upon Me and work always under My protection. In such devotional service, be fully conscious of Me.

The Lord says that in sarva-karmani (all activities) one can be a sannyasi by remembering Him and working under His protection. He spoke this verse to Arjuna, who was a ksatriya householder engaged in battle, not an ascetic monk engaged in the pursuit of transcendental knowledge. Thus the bhakti-marga does not require one to first graduate through the Vedic social divisions before one is allowed to devote one's life to Krsna. Householders can cross from the karma-marga to bhakti-marga by surrendering all their works to the Lord, just as Arjuna did.

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