SATYARTH PRAKASH - THE LIGHT OF TRUTH
Summary of Satyarth Prakash Telephone Sermons
of June 2013
By Acharya Vedshrami, Resident Priest,
Greater Atlanta Vedic Temple
English Translation by Raj Bhalla, Ph.D. (President,
Arya Samaj of Suburban New York)
To join the sermon on phone, every Tuesday, 8 PM
Dial (712) 775 - 7100 Participant Access Code: 972668#
This sermon deals with the
evil practices of the illiterate Braahmans, and a history in brief, of the rise
of the Jain and Buddhism, and the rise of the Sri Sankrachaarya, as given in
Chapter 11 of Satyarth Prakash.
Word Ashvamedha does not mean sacrifice of a horse. Asva means nation also. When a King rules his nation justly and
righteously, he is said to be performing an Asvamedha yajna.
Question:
The priests say that both the sacrifice
and the animal go to heaven. It is said that the sacrificed animal is again
restored to life. Is it true?
Answer: No. If
it were true that the sacrifice and the animal both go to heaven, then the
priest who says that should be sacrificed also and sent to heaven. In this way why not send his mother, father
and other dear relatives to heaven also, by first slaughtering them and then
offering them in a yajna. And why they are not restored to life at the altar
itself, why in the heaven alone.
Seeing these evil rituals being performed by these illiterate
Braahmans, two other anti Vedic religions started to make progress, Buddhism
and Jainism. These religions do not believe in the existence of God.
It is said that in this very
country, there was a king at Gorakhpur. These illiterate Braahmans asked him to
perform a Yajna in which his dear queen met her death as she was made to do inappropriate
acts with a horse, as part of the ritual. (This is how low our religion was
degraded by these stupid Braahmans. This ritual is nowhere to be found in the
Vedas or any of the Upnishads). This gave the king a big shock, He renounced
the world, gave his kingdom to his son, became an ascetic and began to expose
the fraud of these Braahmans. But his preachings were still anti Vedic.
The rise
of the Charavaka, Abhanaka and Jainism
There are two sects of the
Jain or Buddha religion called Charvaka and Abhanaka. Its followers wrote such
verses as the following:-
"If an animal when
slaughtered and burnt in a sacrifice go to Heaven, why should the Yajamaana
(the host of Yajna ceremonies) not slay his own father and other dear relatives
and burn them in a sacrifice and thus help them go to Heaven?"
"If oblations offered to
the priests in the name of a deceased ancestor satisfy the ancestor, it is
useless for people going abroad to take any cash with them for maintaining
themselves during the journey; because if the food offered to the priests in
the name of a departed ancestor can reach him, why cannot the food and drink
prepared at home and offered in the name of the person gone abroad by his relatives
reach him in foreign countries?”
These teachings of the
Charavakas, etc., that stood the test of reason and appealed to the people who started
to believe in them. Thus their religion (Jainism and Buddhism) began to spread.
When many good kings and landlords became its followers, these illiterate Braahmans
too inclined towards it, because they would go wherever there is a plenty of
cash they can earn. They soon embraced Jainism.
The Jains being ignorant of
the knowledge of the Veda attributed the evil practices to the Veda and began
even to run down these scriptures. They prohibited the study and teaching of
the Veda, suppressed the custom of wearing Yajnopavita (the sacred thread),
which is a symbol of culture and of belonging to one of the three upper Classes,
abolished the system of Brahamacharya, etc., destroyed as many books of the
Vedic literature as they could get hold of, and even persecuted and oppressed
the Aryas a great deal.
When they gained in power and
were not afraid of any one, they started to dishonor and punish the followers
of the Veda unjustly. They began to live in luxury. They also made huge images
of their religious teachers, called Tirthankaras - from Rishabhdeva to
Mahaavria - and began to worship them. Thus the practice of worshipping of the
idols originated with the Jains (in this country). The belief in God declined
and the people took to worship of the idols instead. The Jains ruled over the
Aravrat (India) for about 300 years. The people during that time had become
quite destitute of the knowledge of the Veda. This must have happened nearly
2,500 years ago. The majority of the people embraced their religion, but others
who lived in the hills, Benares or at Kannauj, and in the West and in the South
of India did not accept it.
The rise
of Sri Sankracharya
About 2200 years ago,
Sankracharya, a Braahman from Kerala (South India) studied Sanskrit Grammar and
all Vedic scriptures and Upnishads. Upon seeing the religious degradation of
the country, he began to ponder, "What a pity! The true Vedic religion has
disappeared, while people have started to believe in the atheistic Jain and Buddhist
religion. This (i.e., the Jain religion) must be put down somehow."
Shankarcharya had not only
read the Vedic scriptures but also the Jain scriptures. He was also a powerful
debater. He decided that preaching and discussions were the proper means of
accomplishing this daunting task that lay ahead of it. With this idea he went
to Ujjain. The king of Ujjain in those days was Sudhanwa. We will continue this
in our next sermon.
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