by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

Vedanta means the ultimate goal of knowledge. Formerly there was only one Vedic literature, known as the Atharva-veda. In the Atharva-veda Krsna's name is mentioned, and He is described as the son of Devaki. Srila Jiva Gosvami has quoted from Atharva-veda in his commentary on Brahma-samhita. Atharva-veda is the original Veda.

Kali-yuga is considered to be very contaminated, for three fourths of the population is impious in this age, and officially only one fourth is pious, and that is also dwindling due to the strong influence of Kali; so before the beginning of this age, as a favor to the people, Vyasadeva divided the original Atharva-veda into four parts, Atharva-veda, Rg-veda, Sama-veda and Yajur-veda. Then he explained the Vedas by eighteen Puranas. Then he summarized the purpose of the Vedas in a historical form, the Mahabharata, taking advantage of the Battle of Kuruksetra, and gave it to the less intelligent human beings, to stri-sudra-dvijabandhu. Stri means woman, sudra means the working class of man, and dvijabandhu refers to those who are born in a high family like brahmana, ksatriya and vaisyas, but who are not actually qualified for their high position. For instance, in India there are many so-called brahmanas and ksatriyas. But today if one reads the Mahabharata he will find that it is difficult even for the greatest scholar of this age.

For instance, Bhagavad-gita is set up in the Mahabharata, and originally it was meant for the less intelligent. So one can just try to imagine what class of men existed in those days. Bhagavad-gita is such a lofty philosophical spiritual treatise, but it was taught to Arjuna in the battlefield. How much time can a person spare in a battlefield? And at the time he was about to fight and was deliberating, "Oh, why should I fight?" So some instruction was given by Krsna in half an hour, or at most one hour. And Arjuna understood the whole Bhagavad-gita. So what kind of man was Arjuna? This is the very Bhagavad-gita that even great scholars of this age cannot understand, and Arjuna understood it within half an hour. We can hardly imagine what class of men was present at that time. Arjuna was not even a brahmana. He was a military man, and a military man is not expected to be very scholarly, though he knows his own work.

In this way the Vedas were distributed in several forms and divisions so that people could take advantage of them. Formerly the Vedas were not in written language, being what is called sruti. Sruti refers to that knowledge which is learned simply by hearing. There was no need of noting down or cramming; they were so intelligent. The brahmacari system was so nice that students became very fertile in the brain and very receptive. For instance, even recently Lord Caitanya produced a hundred slokas immediately after hearing them from Kesava Kasmiri. Although Kesava Kasmiri was a very learned scholar and Lord Caitanya was only a sixteen-year-old boy, Lord Caitanya told Kesava Kasmiri, "I have heard that you are a great scholar, so please compose some nice verses in praise of Mother Ganges." So he immediately composed a hundred verses, and Caitanya Mahaprabhu heard them and said, "Will you explain the sixty-fourth verse? Why have you said bhavani-bhartah?" Bhavani means the wife of Lord Siva, and bharta means husband. Caitanya Mahaprabhu pointed out that since bhavani means Lord Siva's wife, it was redundant to mention bharta, husband. That means that she has another husband. This was a poetical fault. So he was astonished that a sixteen-year-old boy, a grammar student, could point out his mistake, and he felt defeated. Formerly, two scholars would argue, and if one were defeated he would accept the other as spiritual master and become his disciple. That was the challenge. It was not like nowadays, for now we go on talking for hours, and although someone is defeated he'll never accept it.