"Shivo Harirhariha Shakshatchiva Eva Nirupitaha
Shivadveshi Haridrohi Vishnum Nityam Bhajanapi"
Meaning:
‘Shiva is Hari and Hari is none other than Shiva. An enemy of Shiva is an enemy of Hari, even though he may daily worship Vishnu.’ (Narad Pancharatra)
Comments
This is very first class! You may recall our older models of the site. To paraphrase and i do not recall the sastras, but they said, One who claims to be a Vaisnava but dishonors Lord Shiva is NOT actually a real Vaisnava, and also that one who worships Shivaji but does not worship Harideva is not accepted by lord Shiva as his devotee.
Shri Nrsngha ; you will love India, Please also see Suresh Prabhu's ongoing tour photos! They are great!
Prabhu, tour was over long back :D Then I went south for a couple of days, visited some divya-desams, I'll upload some of those pictures as well.
Prabhu, I couldn't find this sloka in the Narada Panca-ratra after searching through the entire text. Could you cite the exact reference? Often I have heard nonexistent quotes similar to this from nondevotees who want to do vitanda-vada, simply forcefully equate Lord Siva to Lord Visnu and justify independent worship of Lord Siva, which is a farce. This quote, for example, just says that one who hates Lord Siva is an offender of Lord Visnu, but carefully avoids talking about people who neglect worshipping Visnu to worship Siva.
This may be a genuine quote, but I have seen many similar false quotes propounded by Saivites to establish their own interests. I know this because by birth I am a Saivite. So if proper reference is given, I can find out the context of this confidential verse..?
The quote comes form the Narada Pancaratra authored by Vyasadeva from what I gathered. Though I don't know much about it
http://kksongs.org/authors/literature/np.html
Okay, this is the link to the Gaudiya Grantha Mandira, or our Gaudiya Digital Library, which contains many of the books important to our sampradaya by our acaryas.
http://ignca.nic.in/sanskrit.htm
At the end, in the "Tantra and Pancaratra" section, you will find the Narada Pancaratra, split into 3 parts. That is quite authentic. I could not find this verse there.
In diacritic form, this verse would be read as:
sivo harir harih saksac civa iva nirupitah
sivadvesi haridrohi nityam visnum bhajannapi
(it is either iva, or evam, but it cannot be eva, that is grammatically wrong)
This verse, if it is authentic, must be meant for people with low intelligence and herd mentality, because it is compromising on some philosophical realities to establish the fact that one should not be envious of Lord Siva.
For example, the first line of the verse literally means: "It has been established that Lord Siva is Lord Visnu and Lord Visnu is Lord Siva."
Whereas the Hari-bhakti-vilasa says:
yas tu narayanam devam brahma-rudradi daivataih
samatvenaiva vikseta sa pasandi bhaved dhruvam
"One who considers demigods, such as even Lord Brahma or Lord Siva, to be equal to Lord Narayana, immediately becomes an atheist."
As for the second line of the verse, it means: "One who is envious of Lord Siva is cheating Lord Visnu, even though he may worship Visnu twenty four hours a day."
(nityam doesn't mean daily; nityam means always, twenty four hours)
First of all, there is no question of anybody cheating Lord Visnu. It is just unheard of. Droha means to cheat upon someone's trust. Lord Visnu is omniscient, there is no question of anybody cheating Him. He knows the past, present and the future, so how could one possibly cheat Him?
Second, one who worships Lord Visnu all the time, twenty four hours a day, cannot be envious of Lord Siva. Only the pure devotee can be engaged continuously in the service of the Lord, and such a person can never be inimical to any person, let alone the king of all devotees, Lord Siva.
All in all, this sloka doesn't lend itself to rigorous assessment, and would not be found in injunctions meant for elevated souls. If at all it is stated, it must be meant for people in tamo-guna, fully in ignorance, so that they may understand the immense nature of an offense at the lotus feet of Lord Siva.
Many times, Lord Visnu works together with Lord Siva to accomplish some purpose, just as Lord Krsna did so with Arjuna. This does not equate them, for visnu-tattva does not require any help for performing any activity. It is just part of their wonderful pastimes. Some envious people repeatedly try to equate Siva with Visnu, or sometimes even make him greater, and justify independent worship of Lord Siva, and that is a very sad state of affairs in India today. We should be very careful to avoid such fools, that is why I am being very prosaic in clarifying these differences. Please forgive me for the attitude.
But according to Vaisnava philosophy:
aradhananam sarvesam visnor aradhanam param
tasmat parataram devi tadiyanam samarcanam
Lord Siva says to Parvati-devi: "Of all kinds of worship, worship of Lord Visnu is the supreme. But greater than that, my dear Parvati, is worship of His devotees."
So in that sense, worship of Lord Siva is more important for us than Lord Visnu! But that is because he is the greatest devotee of Visnu. Independent worship of Lord Siva is not correct. If things are understood in the correct perspective, it is alright. In this case, the verse quoted by Prabhu in this picture, we Vaisnavas see as the glories of the greatest devotee of the Lord and find no envy; but a Saivite seeing this interprets it as proof that Siva is as good as Visnu and therefore there is no need for separately worshipping Visnu.
That is why I am a bit persistent on finding the actual source of this verse. Can you tell me, from whom or where you took this verse, Prabhu? We can at least find out if it is from the Pancaratra or otherwise :)
Lord Shiva has a very unique and significant position in the cosmic manifestation. In fact Lord Shiva is the most powerful, second only to Lord Vishnu. Shiva is an expansion of Lord Krishna. Revealed scriptures explain that Krishna has 64 qualities. Lord Brahma posses 78% of these qualities and Lord Shiva possesses 84% of these qualities. Since living entities are also like Brahma so they also possess 78% of these qualities but in lesser extent. None of them possess all 100%.
Srila Prabhupada explains, “The living being can never possess attributes like Shiva, Vishnu or Lord Krishna. A living being can become godly by developing the seventy-eight-percent transcendental attributes in fullness, but he can never become a God like Shiva, Vishnu or Krishna. He can become a Brahma in due course: - Srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.28 purport”
Lord Shiva has connection with the material nature but Lord Vishnu (or Lord Krishna) is transcendental to material nature.The position of Lord Shiva is very beautiful explained in Brahma – Samhita (Verse 45),”Just as milk is transformed into curd by the action of acids, but yet the effect curd is neither same as, nor different from, its cause, viz., milk, so I adore the primeval Lord Govinda of whom the state of Shambhu is a transformation for the performance of the work of destruction”.
Forgive me if I offended any of you
Im good, so is Suresh. Nice post and discussion.
I will do some more research on this and confirm. No offenses ;) Hari bol!