[Advaita-l] Prapanchasara: Shankara alludes to the 'Sharabha-Shiva' episode from the Kalikapurana

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste Subbu ji
Thank you for that interesting reference from Kalika Purana. I remember
reading  a similar account in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna a long time
back at a couple of places  and used to wonder where such an incident is
mentioned.

Excerpts collated from Sri Ramakrishna's words....
"MASTER: "The gopis worshipped Katyayani in order to be united with Sri
Krishna.
Everyone is under the authority of the Divine Mother, Mahamaya, the Primal
Energy. Even the Incarnations of God accept the help of maya to fulfil
their mission on earth. Therefore they worship the Primal Energy. Don't you
see how bitterly Rama wept for Sita? As the saying goes - 'Brahman weeps,
ensnared in the meshes of maya.'

"It is said in the Purana that Lord Vishnu incarnated Himself as a sow in
order to kill the demon Hiranyaksha. After killing  the demon,  He had as a
sow, given birth to several young ones and was rather happy with them,
forgetting his real nature. The gods in heaven could not persuade Vishnu to
relinquish His sow's body and return to the celestial regions. He was
absorbed in the happiness of His beast form. The gods said among
themselves: 'What does this mean? The Lord doesn't care to return to
heaven!' They all went to Shiva and laid the matter before him. Shiva came
down and urged the Lord to leave the sow body and return to heaven.
After consulting among themselves, the gods sent Śiva to the sow. Śiva
asked the sow, 'Why have you forgotten yourself?' Vishnu replied through
the sow's body, 'Why, I am quite happy here.' Then Shiva destroyed the sow
body
with his trident, and Lord Vishnu came out laughing aloud and went back to
His own abode."

The best part of the above version of the Purana story is that the Lord
left the sow body and came out *laughing aloud*. Evidently just Leela for
Him.

Om
Raghav





On Wed 20 Mar, 2019, 8:08 AM V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> In this selection from a chapter of the Prapanchasara, a Shiva stuti' is
> included. In one of the verses Shankara alludes to the episode of the
> Kaalikapurana that details Shiva taking the Sharabha form to contain a
> Varaha form of Vishnu under certain compulsions. The article is available
> here for download:
>
>
>
> http://www.mediafire.com/file/05b51daeo8apm4o/Shankara_Sharabhadocx.pdf/file
>
> regards
> subrahmanian.v
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