Rishi Bharadwaj and his quest to learn the Vedas.

“One has to be humble if he desires to acquire knowledge — Rig Veda.”

There once lived a great Rishi named Bharadvaja. He had an intense desire for knowledge and made it his life goal to master the Vedas.

The Vedas are India’s oldest sacred texts. However, the sage knew that he was only going to live for a hundred years. So he did severe penances and pleased Dev Indra.

Indra appeared before him and the sage asked Indra, “Please give me a hundred more years so that I can complete studying the three Vedas”. Then Indra said, “Tathasthu ( let it be so)”. So the sage Bharadwaja studied the Vedas continuously.

When the end of that 100 more years approached, he again prayed to Indra and asked for 100 more years. Indra granted his request. When he again prayed to Indra for further longevity, Indra appeared before him and decided to instruct the rishi Himself.

The Dev then uttered the three vyahritis “Bhuh”, “Bhuva”, and “svah” and created three huge mountains. When the sage saw the mountains he thought, “Maybe the three mountains represent my mastery over the three Vedas”.

To his surprise, Dev Indra took a handful of mud from the three mountains. He said to the sage, “This is what you’ve learnt from the three Vedas. The rest is what you still need to know. It may take many many lifetimes to do this”.

The sage was shocked. He thought, “I’ve extended my stay here on earth a couple of times so that I can complete my studies of the vedas. Still I’ve learnt so little, surely this must mean that the vedas cannot be completely studied by anyone”. Then he asked Indra what to do.

Indra said, “The Vedas are unlimited. Except for Sri Vishnu nobody can know them completely. The best thing is to realize the purpose of the Vedas. The goal of all the Vedas is the supreme Lord. Meditate on Him and fulfill the goal of all the Vedas”.

Then the sage went to mattapalli(a place in Andhra pradesh), purified himself by bathing in the river Krishna and meditated on Bhagwan Narasimha. Narasimha is often depicted as half man and half lion and is regarded as one of the incarnations of Sri Vishnu.

Being pleased with his penance, Narasimha appeared before him and granted him permanent residence in the heavenly abode of Vaikunta. ( According to the Vishnu Purana Vaikunta is located 209,600,000 miles above Satyaloka which is also known as Brahmaloka .Vaikunta is the celestial abode of Sri Vishnu). So the goal of all the vedas is to realize the Supreme Lord who is the central theme of the Vedas. When one understands the Lord all the Vedic knowledge is revealed to him.

Sri Krishna confirms this in the Bhagwad Gita by saying,

सर्वस्य चाहं हृदि सन्निविष्टोमत्तः स्मृतिर्ज्ञानमपोहनं च ।

वेदैश्च सर्वैरहमेव वेद्योवेदान्तकृद्वेदविदेव चाहम्‌ ৷৷15.15৷৷

भावार्थ : मैं ही समस्त जीवों के हृदय में आत्मा रूप में स्थित हूँ, मेरे द्वारा ही जीव को वास्तविक स्वरूप की स्मृति, विस्मृति और ज्ञान होता है, मैं ही समस्त वेदों के द्वारा जानने योग्य हूँ, मुझसे ही समस्त वेद उत्पन्न होते हैं और मैं ही समस्त वेदों को जानने वाला हूँ৷৷15.15৷৷

Jai Sri Krishn