Originally Posted by
smaranam
**** Remember - Vedas do not provide chronology, or explain history explicitly, or give qualifiers for each name uttered. Vedic hymns (Ruchi) are spontaneous poetic stuti (glorification) of all daivi prakruti.
* The Vedic mandala take things (chronology) for granted as their purpose is hymns and chants and mantras.
The purANa, particularly BhAgvat PurAN, unravel the mystery of the cyclic history.
* Veda glorifies and BhAgvat clarifies - beings, devas, aspects, things, existence, truth, sub-truths. [BhAgvat glorifies BhagvAn Shri KrshNa, NArAyaNa, Bramhan]
Indra as we know changes every manvantar (tomorrow, daityaraj Bali will be Indra by boon from Vishnu avatar VAman a.k.a. Urukrama, the 10th Aditya - a group of 12 devas for this 7th manvantar).
So it is Indra-pada that is attained by deserving jivas. They all have features, characteristics, guNa, personal and impersonal aspects.
Look at it this way: currently, this is our sun, this is our solar system, having shani, guru, mangal, budh... as planets.
Milky way and Andromeda are galaxies.
Tomorrow, there will be new galaxies, new solar systems, new planets.
Everyone has a role to play.
The potential to manifest galaxies and solar system remains, but there are different instances of galaxies, solar systems, planets and universes.
* Vedas sometimes call the same Brahman by the different characteristics because they are all His characteristics.
* The vedas you read today are talking about current kapla, current manvantar and the pada (common noun, position) and nAma - proper noun are used interchangeably.
Aditi, daughter of prajapati Daksha and wife of prajapati Kashyhap gave birth to 12 divine beings who played the role of one of many deva-gaNa. First She had 6, and the stories before 7th was born say so.
Then she had 7 and then 8 and then 12. So some people think these are contradictions in the Veda. No. These are historical snapshots when the other younger sibling Adityas were not yet born.
* VishNu takes avatAr and honors a pair of jivas as parents each time upon request from devotees. Sometimes the same pair become parents when He takes the next avatArs.
PRshNi-Sutapa : PRshNi-garbha
Devaki-Vasudeva : Shri KRshNa (VAsudeva)
Aditi-Kashyap: VAman (Urukrama)
* It is not like "XYZ happened one time" in the Vedas.
Time is cyclic. What is described as each manvantara, kalpa, yuga happens again and again and again.
That is why you come across : "In this kalpa / manvantar, XYZ is the prajapati, ABC is Indra, xxx is Surya, xxx is Chandra and so on.
* When there are apparently contradictory stories in the purANa, in some cases it may be due to kalpa-bheda (differences owing to different kalpa). The same framework, but history, while repeating itself showed A in one kalpa and B in another, therefore one purana is talking about things happening in A kalpa while another is talking about the same major event in B kalpa.
We are in the shveta-varaha kalpa -- reference : when varAha avatar was shveta (white-creamish) and not KRshNa (black-dark).
* All deva have both an impersonal (common noun) and personal (proper noun) side. Meditate on meaning of the name to understand the impersonal side. Together the devas make the whole truth called Brahman. This is why devas are parts and aspects of Bramhan, but some are also positions taken by various jivas during kaala cycles.
* The impersonal tattva (principles) take forms and shapes in the framework of time. The tattva are also associated with Daivi-guNa (Divine qualities).
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