Īśvara
Īśvara · īśvara, “the one who rules”
Grammar: masculine noun, from the root īś (to rule, to be master of): “the one who rules, the master”.
Meaning: Parameśvara, who rules and sustains the world; the antaryāmin, the inner dweller, who controls all beings from within. In the teaching of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Īśvara is Parabrahman as seen through māyā, the friend of the jīva who dwells with it in one body and who alone can grant it knowledge of the ātmā.
In the scriptures: the Bhāgavata Purāṇa uses the word for Parameśvara, under whose will the world moves, for the inner friend of the jīva, and for the one to whom every karma is to be offered.
The world under Īśvara. When Dhṛtarāshṭra had left the palace, Nārada Maharshi told the grieving Yudhishṭhira: “Do not grieve for anyone, for this world is under the control of Īśvara. That Īśvara whom the lokapālas worship, he alone brings beings together and separates them.” As bulls tied by the nose to one great rope move as they are led, men bound by the Veda obey the command of Īśvara; as playthings come together and part by the will of the player, so union and separation come to men by the will of Īśvara. The one Parameśvara appears within and without all things by his māyā-śakti: “See Īśvara alone in everything.” That Parameśvara, Nārada said, had now descended on the earth in the form of death for the destruction of the rākshasas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 13). Vṛtra taught Indra on the field of battle that living beings are under Īśvara’s control as a wooden doll or a mechanical toy animal is in the hand of the one who moves it; Īśvara himself creates beings through beings and destroys them through beings (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 12). Jarāsandha consoled Śiśupāla in the same words: the jīva, under the control of Īśvara, acts in joy and sorrow like a wooden doll that dances at the will of the one who makes it dance (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 54).
By the will of Īśvara. When Yuvanāśva, impelled by Īśvara, drank the water consecrated for a son, the maharshis said, “Daiva-bala alone is strength,” and bowed to Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapter 6). By the will of Īśvara Pūtanā found Bāla-Kṛshṇa lying on a bed in Nanda‘s house (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 6), and by the will of Īśvara a great forest fire arose around the gopālas and the cows (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 19). Vāmana told Bali that one who is content with what comes unsought by the will of Īśvara lives happily, while one without self-control is not content even with the three worlds (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 8, Chapter 19). By the will of Īśvara someone may honour the jñānī, as violent men may hurt his body; neither honour nor dishonour changes him (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 11). The four mountains Mandara, Merumandara, Supārśva and Kumuda, the supports of Meru in the four directions, and the twenty mountains around Meru’s base, like filaments around a pericarp, were made by Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 16).
Īśvara and the jīva. Nārada told Prācīnabarhisha the account of Purañjana. When the queen of Malayadhvaja, who had seen Īśvara in all things, sat grieving by her husband, a brāhmaṇa came to her and said: “The one Parabrahman appears as Īśvara in the collective upādhi and as the jīva in the individual upādhi, as a man’s form looks one way in a mirror and another way in another’s eye; the difference between us two appears through māyā.” So the haṃsa of the Mānasa Sarovara, the jīva, was awakened by its friend haṃsa, Īśvara; it knew its own nature and rejoiced, for only separation from that friend had made it forget (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 28). Nārada explained that the jīva’s friend is Īśvara, and because the jīvas do not know his names, his acts or his guṇas, he is called Avijñāta, “the one not known” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 29).
Śrī Kṛshṇa taught Uddhava that in one body dwell the bound jīva and the free Paramātmā, two friends who resemble each other, both conscious; while the jīva is subject to karma it cannot escape fear of Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapters 10–11). The jīva, joined with ignorance from beginningless time, cannot gain self-knowledge by itself; Īśvara, who knows the ātma-tattva, must grant it, and so the tattvas are counted with the jīva and Īśvara as two. Yet in the body there is not the least difference between them, both being of the nature of consciousness, and so they may be counted as one. Īśvara, who stirs the guṇas, is of the form of Time, and his nature is not other than the mahat-tattva (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 22). Vṛtra said that Parabrahman reflected in the māyā-śakti is Īśvara, the cause of the world; that māyā becomes the mahat-tattva, ahaṅkāra, the five bhūtas, the senses and the antaḥkaraṇa, and so creation and sustenance go on (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 12). In the dissolution Kāla merges into the saguṇa Īśvara, who sets māyā going and whose nature is prāṇa, and Īśvara merges into Śrī Kṛshṇa, the unborn Paramātmā; as long as Parameśvara wills, creation goes on for the bhoga of the jīvas (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 24). In moksha, the Purāṇa says of Aghāsura, the jīva merges in Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 12).
Karma offered to Īśvara. Pṛthu performed karmas fitting to place and time, within his strength and wealth, offering them and their fruit to Īśvara, and he fully accomplished the command of Īśvara for which he had descended into the world (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapters 22–23). Sanatkumāra taught him that those who try to cross the ocean of saṃsāra, with its six crocodiles, the five senses of knowledge and the mind, by hard yoga alone, without the boatman Īśvara, find the crossing very hard (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 22). Karma is sorrow both in the doing and in the fruit; even the highest karma does not shine if it is not offered to Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 12). The fruits of the acts done for the ārādhana of Īśvara come seeking the doer, as in autumn the bulls sought the cows (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 20). Śrī Kṛshṇa told Nanda, when he turned the gopas from the yajña to Indra, that if there is an Īśvara who gives the fruits of karma, he too gives them only to the one who has done karma; even the grace of Īśvara depends on puṇya (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 24).
Seeing Īśvara in all. Malayadhvaja, seeing Īśvara in all things, conquered with an even mind cold and heat, wind and rain, hunger and thirst, the liked and the disliked, pleasure and pain (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 28). Pṛshadhra‘s sameness of vision towards all is glossed as “seeing Īśvara”, and he lived on what came of itself by the will of Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapter 2). Yadu, having heard Dattātreya, saw Īśvara in everything and became a jīvanmukta (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 9). The sat-purushas fix the citta on Śrī Kṛshṇa and, because they see Īśvara who is the same in all, have no “I” and “mine” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 26).
Other uses. Somadatta, son of Kṛśāśva, worshipped the full Īśvara, lord of anna, with many aśvamedhas, took refuge in Nārada and the great yogīs and attained moksha (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapter 2). The seeker should be alone and fix the mind on Ananta, Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapter 6). After Pūtanā, the gopīs made rakshā with cow-dung on the child’s twelve tilaka-places with the names of Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 6). Camasa Maharshi told Nimi that the antaryāmin who gave birth to all is Īśvara, and those in the varṇas and āśramas who slight him fall from the worth of a human birth; and Karabhājana names Īśvara, the antaryāmin, among the ten names with which the people of the Kṛta yuga praise Śrī Hari (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 5). When Śrī Kṛshṇa answered Cāṇūra that to please the king was a great favour to them, the text explains that the wrestling dear to the king, which they practised daily in the forest, was itself a great grace of Īśvara upon them (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 43). Even the wise toil for wealth, held in delusion by the māyā of Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 23).
In the Bhavishya Purāṇa. Brahmā tells that, so that the varṇas and āśramas should be in mutual harmony in karma, Īśvara himself set up a rule, in the order in which it was begun, and ordained some as kshatriyas who protect the weak (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapter 44). One who performs a laksha-homa without desire, offering it to Īśvara in the mind, gains what he seeks and attains the parama pada, the highest state (Madhyama Parva, Bhāga 1, Chapters 19–21). Sarvaśaktimān Īśvara revealed the Sarvatobhadra Maṇḍala for the good of sādhakas (Madhyama Parva, Bhāga 2, Chapters 1–2).
Parameśvara is the adhishṭhātā (presiding one) of the four kinds of moksha (Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 4, Chapter 7). After birth the being turns to evil acts and forgets both itself and Parameśvara (Uttara Parva, Chapter 4). Parameśvara said that one with no Veda, japa or vidyā is to be regarded as a śūdra (Brahma Parva, Chapter 4).
Īśvara is also the name of one of the eleven Rudras in the list of the Brahma Parva (Chapter 125).
Related terms: Parameśvara · Antaryāmī · Jīva · Paramātmā · Māyā · Īśvara-praṇidhāna
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 13; Skandha 4, Chapters 22–23, 28–29; Skandha 5, Chapter 16; Skandha 6, Chapter 12; Skandha 8, Chapter 19; Skandha 9, Chapters 2, 6; Skandha 10, Chapters 6, 12, 19–20, 24, 43, 54; Skandha 11, Chapters 5, 9–11, 22–24, 26; Skandha 12, Chapter 12
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapters 4, 44, 125; Madhyama Parva, Bhāga 1, Chapters 19–21; Bhāga 2, Chapters 1–2; Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 4, Chapter 7; Uttara Parva, Chapter 4