Hiranyaya Namaha - Narasimha Avataram
I noticed that someone had earlier quoted somewhere on this forums that all our knowledge is in our hindu scriptures and unfortunately these are grandfathered in sanskrit. I did not quite understand what was meant by saying grandfathered in sanskrit..
This and velukudi krishnan repeating in his talks that puranas are actually pura-api-navas.. meaning they give a different meaning each time you read it. I initially thought that as you age and you read the puranas, you can use the purport of the stories accordingly in your lives. It is only now as I start learning sanskrit that I realise that the words in sanskrit itself have multiple meanings even though the words are the same. therefore depending on how you read the text, the meanings are completely different.
There is a saying that the same line which means "the lords smile is like a lotus" or similar meaning can also be read as "like anus of a monkey through which a wedge has been driven" I did not accede to the view that the same sentence could have such different meanings depending on the reader. But now, I am beginning to understand.
If you look at Narasimha Avataram.. it is the story where the asura hiranyakasipu has taken over the three worlds - heaven, hell and earth and has forced everyone to chant his name instead of chanting vishnu's name. Therefore, everyone was now chanting hiranyaya namaha instead of narayanaya namaha.. Then when his son was born, it has full belief in lord narayana. Thus the boy prahlad keeps chanting om namo narayana till vishnu comes in the form of narasimha to protect him and vanquish hiranyakasipu.
That is the shortest possible abstract of narasimha avatar. Now, coming to the pura-api-navam part or the secondary meaning that can be gleaned from the same story....
if you listen to the olden days brahmins talk.. they will use the word dhuddu or hiranyam for money. They dont say rupee or paisa or dollar which is a relatively new term. Now if you replace the meaning of the sanskrit word hiranyam as money instead of hiranya as a pronoun. then you see that the story says at one point in time, people were chanting "I bow to money" or hiranyaya namaha. Then prahlad appeared and changed everyone to start chanting om namo narayana or i bow to god instead of I bow to money with the help of the appearance of vishnu in the form of Narasimma.
Thus we can learn that there was a time when money was everything and all powerful but some change happened and it came back to god being all powerful. I say there was a time because the relevant placement of the star constellations at different areas of the sky is noted in this story and using the current panchangams which are a representation of the star constellations in the sky right now, we can possibly estimate when this happened in the past.
We are now at a time, when we are all running after money.. everyone is willing to even work 10 to 12 hours a day just to earn a few thousand rupees more. This is the reason why my fight in the labour court against unnatural working hours at IT companies is not gaining ground. Everyone seems to be thinking who cares if we work 12 hours as long as I get 20,000 rupees extra. They are not going into the reality and understanding that their family life is affected and they are indirectly killing their childs future by not paying enough time to the childs growth.
Anyways.. just wanted to point out that we are all now running behind hiranyam and will soon start chanting hiranyaya namaha.. I wonder if and when another prahlad will come and teach people that we should say om namo narayana or I bow to god instead of hiranyaya namaha..
