THE RELEVANCE OF THE NAME VIJITASHWA
( VIJITA + ASHWA ) = VIJITASHWA)
This name is just not a name, but signifies many things about the qualities of a person. This name was assigned to the son of Prthu by the revered saints and sages. Prthu was one of the greatest emperors of the world, Who was none other than the manifestation of Shri Maha Vishnu Himself.
All things in this universe are conditioned by the flow of eternal time factor, including every manifestation of the Supreme Truth. Only that Supreme Truth (which we have given the name as God) is beyond this time factor. In fact He is the controller of this time itself. It is this principle which we see in the representative form of Lord Krishna in the form of a baby lying on a leaf of banyan tree sucking the thumb finger of his foot. This leaf containing Lord Krishna is seen floating on the huge waters. These waters are the contents of the entire universe at the time of annihilation and the only One Who remains is that Supreme Principle enjoying Himself within Himself and all by Himself. Since human perception is always linked to some form or the other, a particular form is given by our ancestors. One can perceive this truth the way one is capable of and able to.
Each millennium of the time factor has a Brahma, the creator, who is created by that Supreme Truth. According to our scriptures everything has an end, depending upon the time. Everything is time conditioned. Thus even Lord Brahma has an end. At the new millennium a new Brahma comes up. Each millennium is divided into 14 Manvantaras. All are calculated exactly to the time of the earth as well as the time of the other worlds. Each Manvantara has a Manu, the Head. The head of this first Manvantara is known as Swayambhuva and hence known as the Swayambhuva Manvantara. The present Manvantara is Vaivasvata Manvantara.
Swayambhuva Manu is the son of Brahma. His grandson is Dhruv. Prthu was born in the dynasty of Dhruv. Prthu was a great ruler and established the right order in the world. There was prosperity all around. He acquired great fame. We have to go back a little to know about the origin of Prthu.
Prthu was the son of Anga, one of the descendants of Dhruv. Anga was a great ruler. Anga’s son Vena was a cruel personality. Anga went to forests depressed with the behaviour of his son Vena. He left the palace without the knowledge of others. The earth became rulerless. However, since the earth needed a ruler, the saints and sages appointed Vena as the ruler and advised him to rule with righteousness. He did not obey them. He criminalized everything. Fed up with his atrocities, the saints and sages killed him with the powers of their mantras. However, his dead body was preserved by Vena’s mother.
The saints and sages were now looking for a suitable ruler. They could not find anyone equalling to the capabilities of Svayambhuva, Dhruv or Prthu. They saw that the dead body of Vena was kept afresh by his mother. They churned that body. From the thighs came about a dwarf. Through this dwarf the progenies of hunters and those live in mountains came about.
They churned further the arms of the body of Vena. There appeared a boy child (Prthu) who was none other than Maha Vishnu Himself.
One must remember here that the life can be originated from anything and from anywhere. This is the concept of churning the dead body. Again, the emperors were advised by knowledgeable saints. They were the real conscience keepers and the emperor/king was only the executor.
The sages entrusted the earth to Prthu. Prthu was a great ruler as said earlier. He conducted Asvamedha Yajna. It is said that when a person performs one hundred Asvamedha Yajna he equals the position of Lord Indra. Prthu completed 99 of them. While performing the 100th, Lord Indra becomes jealous of Prthu. He assumes the form of Mayavi (Pakhand in Sanskrit) by adorning robes of a Sanyasi etc. ( falsified images of a Sanyasi propagating wrong means as we see many today ) and takes away the 100th horse. The great saints and sages point out this fact to the son of Prthu. The son of Prthu follows this falsified personality of Indra and overpowers him. He recovers the horse and hands over it to Prthu for the completion of the Yajna.
Indra repeats this again and again and the son of Prthu retrieves the horse again and again. The saints and sages insist upon the son of Prthu to kill Indra so that the horse is not stolen further by him. The son of Prthu, though capable of killing Indra, does not do so because he was of the view that it is not the person who is to be killed but the evil thinking spread by such an evil minded person. He stands for the reformation of Indra. He also gets worried about the wrong paths shown by Indra as the ordinary people without rational thinking would easily pick up such path to achieve their wrongful ends. This we are seeing in our everyday life.
The saints and sages advises Prthu to kill Indra. Prthu was equally capable of doing so. At this juncture Lord Brahma appears and puts a stop to this war. He tells Prthu that the stand taken by the son of Prthu was the right one. He tells that though a person might have achieved the position of Indra, it does not mean that such a person is devoid of meanness and jealousy. Despite having conducted 100 Ashwamedha Yajnas, Indra had not discarded the jealousy or envy. What was required is to overcome these bad qualities and not the counting of how many Yajnas one has conducted in life. He advises Indra to turn back within and analyse his bad actions. Lord Indra realizes his mistakes and becomes a friend of Prthu as well as his son.
At this juncture Lord Maha Vishnu Himself appears there. He advises that Prthu does not require to do Ashwamedha Yajna at all as he has already in him the qualities much beyond these. He does not need to acquire any new achievements by performing this or that. Therefore, the Lord tells that it is better for good thinking individuals to stick to righteous path and perform duties as prescribed in our scriptures. Prthu’s son stood for all these.
The name of the son of Prthu has never been mentioned till this incidence in Srimad Bhagavatam. He gets his name only after this incidence. Thus the name is a concept and which was assigned to the son of Prthu.
Coming to the son of Prthu, the saints and sages named him as “Vijitashwa” - the one who has conquered the horse (STANZA 18, CHAPTER 19 - VOLUME 4 SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM). He becomes the next ruler equivalent in all the capabilities just like Swayambhuva, Dhruv, Anga and Prthu, the previous rulers.
The name Vijitashwa has great significance. The emperors have to rule other kings. The horses represent symbolically all the rulers. To command and get things done, one must win over everything. One must have unparalleled strength and energy. However, having won over everything, the person is supposed to act only in righteous ways. He becomes a witness to everything and does not put himself into each and everything. He is just a trustee or only an executor. All actions done by him do not affect him personally. This way he does not inherit any bad or good benefits of such actions. He is a liberated personality. He merges with that Supreme Truth after his material body disappears if he conducts himself in this way.
Another context is the horses represent the material desires or the satiating desires of the senses. The human beings indulge themselves in fulfilling one or the other desire every time. Each desire bring about actions and reactions with which we are all bound. We get births and rebirths according to these consequences of fruitive actions. Even in the heaven one does not get liberation as he has to come down to earth once he completes his period there. When a person wins over the desires he is liberated after he attains the knowledge of self realization. This is easily said but not practical for even an intelligent person. This requires constant practice and perseverance and must become a habit in a natural way. This cannot be an imposed approach.
THIS IS VIJITASHWA.
FOR DETAILED WORD TO WORD INTERPRETATIONS IN ENGLISH ON SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM THE FOLLOWING SITES ARE AVAILABLE:
https://srikrishnakathamritam.wordpress.com
http://srimadbhagavatham.weebly.com
Comments