Kāruṇya Stava of Indradyumna: Brahma Purāṇa

Kāruṇya Stava · kāruṇya stava, “the stotra of compassion”

The Kāruṇya Stava, the stotra of compassion, is the praise that King Indradyumna offered to Purushottama, Bhagavān Vishṇu as Vāsudeva, at the Purushottama-kshetra. It is found in the Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 49, where Brahmā tells it to the munis and names it “the Purushottama-stotra called Kāruṇya”. It opens with the words “Vāsudevā! Moksha-kāraṇa!”, “Vāsudeva, cause of moksha”, and the printed text calls it a pārāyaṇa, a Nārāyaṇa-nāmāvali. In it the king praises Vāsudeva as the one reality behind all his forms, describes his arcā-mūrti, pours out the long sorrow of his births in saṃsāra, and asks only for firm bhakti wherever he is born. Pleased, Bhagavān Vishṇu, whose banner bears Garuḍa, gave him whatever he desired.

The setting

The munis ask Brahmā how the mūrtis were made by Indradyumna and how Mādhava was pleased. When the yajña had begun and the temple of Bhagavān Vishṇu had been built, the thought of making the mūrti filled the king’s mind night and day. “I do not know the Sarveśvara, maker of creation, sustenance and dissolution. How shall I behold that Svāmī?” he thought, and he could not sleep; all his wealth gave him no peace. “Stone, clay or wood: which is fit for the mūrti of Vishṇu? What kind of mūrti will please him?” Then he worshipped Purushottama according to the Pāñcarātra rule, and with that same longing began to praise him.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 48

The stotra

Vāsudeva, the one reality. “Vāsudeva, cause of moksha, save me from the ocean of birth and saṃsāra. You are like pure ākāśa, untouched by the guṇas. All your many mūrtis beginning with Balarāma seem separate, but all are you. Garuḍa, the conch, the discus and the rest, the dikpālas and the forms beginning with Keśava are your limbs. Jagannātha, I have worshipped all those forms of yours; I have sung your mūrtis Saṅkarshaṇa, Aniruddha, Pradyumna and the rest. To call you, the one, by many forms is only a manner of speaking (upacāra): how can you, who are advaita, the one sole reality, be called dvaita? Hari, in the form of pure knowledge (cit) you alone pervade all.”

The highest form. “Your highest form is beyond being and non-being, kūṭastha, unchanging, the witness of all, unmoving and constant. What has name and form is called upādhi; your form has left upādhi behind and is pure being alone. Even the devas do not know it; how should I know it?”

The arcā-mūrti. “Your other form, the arcā-mūrti, the devas and your bhaktas worship: wearing yellow silk, four-armed, bearing the conch, the discus and the mace in your hands, with crown and armlets, the Śrīvatsa on your chest, adorned with the vanamālā.”

The prayer for refuge. “Prabhu Vāsudeva, save me. I see no one but you to take refuge in. Bound by the noose of karma, fallen into the ocean of saṃsāra and tossed about, caught in the delusion of māyā, lift me up.”

The litany of births. “I was born in many wombs and suffered many hardships. I studied the Vedas with their aṅgas and the śāstras, and learned the kalās and the crafts. I knew joys and sorrows, contentment and discontent, saving and losing; sons, friends and wives; unions with and partings from mother, father and brothers. I lay in the mire of the womb and suffered great sorrows. In childhood, youth, manhood and old age I had endless griefs. I died, and on Yama’s road I suffered many torments in naraka. As worms, insects, beasts, birds and cattle, in every varṇa from brāhmaṇa to śūdra, as rich and poor, as kings, rājarshis and the servants of kings, again and again I was born and died. I was the servant of servants and the king of kings, a beggar among beggars and a giver to others; I stretched out my hand before others; I was struck by others and struck many. For fathers, grandfathers, friends, brothers, sons and wives I cast off shame and poured out my misery. There is no place in the moving and unmoving world where I have not gone. When I was in naraka, when in svarga, when on earth, when among beasts and birds, I do not know.”

The water-wheel. “Like a pot tied with a rope to the wheel that lifts water, now down, now up, now in the middle, I have long been whirling in this terrible wheel of saṃsāra, and I see no end to its turning. My senses are confused; I do not know what to do. Caught by grief and craving, I have lost my mind and run here and there in fear. Deva, trembling, writhing, withering and wasting away, I take refuge in you.”

Kṛshṇa, my only kinsman. “Kṛshṇa, save me who am sunk in saṃsāra. Jagannātha, if you think me your bhakta, show me compassion. I have no kinsman who thinks of me but you. I have taken you as my refuge; then I shall have no fear anywhere, in life or in death, in gaining or in keeping. For those in whom bhakti does not arise toward Keśava, the creator of the world, who do not serve you according to rule, how can there be freedom from the bondage of saṃsāra? What use are family, conduct, learning or life? Those who in delusion revile you are born again and again in the āsura nature and keep falling into terrible naraka; for them there is no prāyaścitta but that naraka.”

The prayer for bhakti. “Wherever I am born by my prārabdha, may I always have firm bhakti in you. Worshipping you, suras, asuras and men reached the highest siddhi: who does not worship you? How can I, with a human mind, praise you, who are beyond prakṛti, whom even Brahmā and the others cannot praise? Yet in my ignorance I have praised you; if you have compassion for me, forgive me, as sādhus and mahātmās forgive even offenders. By your love for your bhaktas, Deveśvara, be gracious to me. Since I have praised you with a heart full of bhakti, may all the pūjā I have done be complete. Vāsudeva, namaskāra.”

Praised thus, Bhagavān Vishṇu, whose banner bears Garuḍa, was gracious and gave the king whatever he desired in his heart.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 49

The phalaśruti

Brahmā tells the munis:

One who worships Hari day by day and praises him with this stotra surely attains moksha.
One who knows the meaning of this best of stotras and, being pure, recites it at the three sandhyās gains dharma, artha, kāma and moksha.
One who reads it, hears it or makes others hear it is freed of pāpas and gains the eternal Vishṇu-loka.

The stotra is blessed, takes away pāpa, gives both bhukti and mukti, and is auspicious, secret, very hard to obtain and full of puṇya.

To whom it may be given

It must not be given to anyone who happens by. It must never be given to a nāstika, a fool, an ungrateful man, a proud man, one of evil thought or one without bhakti. It may be given to the bhakta, the virtuous, the man of good conduct, the devotee of Vishṇu, the peaceful and one who practises with śraddhā. For them it destroys every pāpa, gives happiness and moksha, grants the fruit of every desire, and is the best of all.

Brahmā’s closing words

“I have told you this Purushottama-stotra named Kāruṇya,” Brahmā says. Those pure ones who daily meditate on Murāri, the subtle reality, the Purāṇa-purusha, become free and enter Hari, like the ghee offered with mantras into the yajña fire. He alone is the deity who removes the sorrow of saṃsāra, higher than the highest; there is none beyond him. That Kṛshṇa is the witness of all, the protector and the destroyer, the essence of all, the Jagadguru, the giver of the bliss of moksha. For those who have no bhakti toward Kṛshṇa, what use is learning, or virtues, yajñas, dānas or fierce tapas? He who has bhakti toward Purushottama is blessed in the world: he is pure, he is learned, he is the best in happiness, tapas and virtue; he is the jñānī, the giver, the speaker of truth.