Lectures
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
Lecture on SB 6.1.19 -- Los Angeles, January 15, 1970:
So here, how the person of whose history is mentioned here became irregulated and how he was to be punished, this story is narrated. Kindly hear. He says:
- kānyakubje dvijaḥ kaścid
- dāsī-patiḥ ajāmilaḥ
- nāmnā naṣṭa-sadācāraḥ
- dāsyāḥ saṁsarga-dūṣitaḥ
- (SB 6.1.21)
Just try to understand. Here it is said that in a Kānyakubja city . . . there is a city, now it is called, by the British period, it is now known as Kanauj, a city in the northern India near Kanpur city. So that is very old city, because it is mentioned in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata, and Bhāgavata was written five thousand years ago. So it means that city is famous since five thousand years ago, and it was inhabited by learned brahmins.
So here it is said that kānyakubje dvijaḥ kaścid. Dvijaḥ, dvijaḥ means brahmins, kṣatriyas and vaiśyas. Especially it is meant the brahmins and the Vaiṣṇavas. Just like in this morning we had ceremony, initiation. The second ceremony will be for offering sacred thread. So one who has got this sacred thread, he is called dvijaḥ, twice-born. Twice-born: once born by the father and mother, and the next birth is given by the spiritual master and Vedic literature. Vedic literature is the mother, and the spiritual master is the father. As in every birth the necessity of father and mother is there, similarly, in this birth also, spiritual rebirth, there is necessity of mother and father. The mother is this Vedic knowledge, and the father is the spiritual master.
So there was a dvijaḥ. Dvijaḥ means he was born in the family of a brahmin. And he was sanctified also. From the life history of this man we understand that in his early age, when he was up to his youthful life, sixteen or seventeen or up to twenty years, he was very well behaved boy. He was under the care of his father and mother. And how by bad association he became a debauch, that is stated here.
It is stated that kānyakubje dvijaḥ kaścid āsīt dāsī-patir ajāmilaḥ. Ajāmilaḥ: his name was Ajāmila, and he was a brahmin. But he contacted some woman which is called dāsī, or prostitute, and he remained with him . . . with her. Dāsī-patiḥ. In India also, still, the practice is that if anyone, any person, wants contact of more woman than his wife, then he cannot disturb in the society. He has to search out this dāsī, or some prostitute.
So from time . . . very long, long ago, even in Kṛṣṇa's time we find that there was a prostitute class. When Kṛṣṇa entered Dvārakā, these, some of the . . . they were still devotee. Although their profession was prostitute, prostitution, still, they were devotee. So we find from this narration of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that many devotee prostitutes also went to receive Lord Kṛṣṇa. So it does not matter even if one is prostitute, she cannot be devotee. She can be devotee also.
So this man, Ajāmila, contacted a prostitute. Dāsī-patiḥ ajāmilaḥ, nāmnā naṣṭa-sadācāraḥ dāsyāḥ saṁsarga-dūṣitaḥ. And because . . . although he was born in a nice family, he contacted the association of a prostitute, his sadācāraḥ, his well-behaved life, became lost.
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