Ekāntika Dharma

Ekāntika means “devoted to one alone”. Ekāntika Dharma, also called Bhāgavata Dharma, is the highest and easiest path to liberation as taught in the Vāsudeva Māhātmya, a part of the Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa. It is undivided devotion given only to Vāsudeva (Śrī Kṛṣṇa as Parabrahman, the Supreme Reality). This devotion goes together with knowing and living one’s own varṇāśrama dharma (the duties of one’s place and stage in life) and with a real turning away from the objects of worldly pleasure.

Any act, whether of the active (pravṛtta) or the renouncing (nivṛtta) kind, becomes Ekāntika Dharma when it is offered to Vāsudeva, and then it gives a fruit that never perishes. Acts done without such offering give only fruits that perish. The practical form of Ekāntika Dharma is Kriyā-Yoga, the complete Pañcarātra system of pūjā.

The Question Behind the Teaching

The whole Vāsudeva Māhātmya grows out of a single question: what is the easiest path to liberation, open to beings of every varṇa (social order) and āśrama (stage of life), free of obstacles, and giving the highest fruit? Sāvarṇi put this question to Skanda. Skanda meditated on Vāsudeva and told of the dialogue between Nārada and Nārāyaṇa at Badarikāśrama, which was later passed on through Bhīṣma to Yudhiṣṭhira. The answer is Ekāntika Dharma.

The Basic Teaching: Pravṛtta and Nivṛtta Karma

Nārāyaṇa’s central teaching to Nārada (Chapter 3) separates Vedic karma into two kinds:

Pravṛtta karma (active, worldly action): marrying a suitable wife, earning wealth honestly, performing yajñas (sacred offerings) to gain what one wishes for, living in society, and doing good works for the public. Its fruit is movement through the three worlds, up to svarga (the heavenly realm). But once the puṇya (merit) is used up, the being falls back to earth. These fruits perish.

Nivṛtta karma (the path of renunciation): giving up wife, wealth, sexual pleasure, greed and anger; living in the forest; turning away from worldly things; tapas (austerity); even-mindedness; self-control; Vedic recitation; yoga-yajña (the offering of yoga); jñāna-yajña (the offering of knowledge); and japa (repetition of a mantra). Those who follow nivṛtta dharma go to Janaloka, Tapoloka and Maharloka, higher worlds that last until the end of Brahmā’s two parārdhas (Brahmā’s full lifespan of a hundred of his years). But even these worlds perish at the prākṛta pralaya (the great dissolution of all nature), so this fruit too perishes.

However, when either kind of karma is done as an offering to Vāsudeva, its fruit becomes imperishable. It is far more than what one wishes for. Devotees from all eight ways of life reach the supreme abode of Bhagavān Vāsudeva. Even a small good act done with devotion to Vāsudeva gains great strength through contact with the Supreme Self. The text compares it to a spark that becomes an uncontrollable forest fire when it touches heaps of dry wood.

The Definition of Ekāntika Dharma

Nārāyaṇa gives an exact definition (Chapter 20, verse 4):

“That is verily the Ekāntika Dharma which is undivided devotion exclusively to Bhagavān Vāsudeva, as it is to Lakṣmī, accompanied by the knowledge of one’s own dharma and disaffection to objects of worldly enjoyment.”

So three things are needed:

1. Ekāntikī bhakti: devotion given wholly and only to Vāsudeva, not divided among many deities
2. Svadharma-jñāna: full knowledge and practice of the duties of one’s own varṇa and āśrama. These duties are not given up; they are done to please Vāsudeva.
3. Vairāgya: a real turning away from all objects of worldly pleasure, from understanding that everything created, being perishable, is under the power of kāla (time)

Vairāgya: The Ground of Detachment

Chapter 25 opens by defining vairāgya as complete lack of interest in all perishable things. Nārāyaṇa then describes the four pralayas (dissolutions):

True vairāgya rests on understanding that all created things, from māyā and puruṣa down to the grossest matter, are subject to these dissolutions.

The Definition of Bhakti: Nine Forms

Chapter 25, verse 61, defines bhakti: knowing that all devas other than Vāsudeva are under the power of kāla and māyā, one gives up one’s liking for them and serves Vāsudeva alone, constantly and with deep love. This is bhakti.

The nine forms of bhakti (nava-vidhā bhakti, also called the nine bhāvas) are:

1. Śravaṇa: listening to Bhagavān Vāsudeva’s stories, qualities and glories
2. Kīrtana: praising and singing Bhagavān Vāsudeva’s glories
3. Smaraṇa: remembering and meditating on Bhagavān Vāsudeva
4. Pāda-sevana: bowing to and serving Bhagavān Vāsudeva’s feet
5. Arcana: offering pūjā to Bhagavān Vāsudeva
6. Vandana: bowing in reverence to Bhagavān Vāsudeva
7. Dāsya: service, seeing oneself as Bhagavān Vāsudeva’s servant
8. Sakhya: friendship, forming a bond of close friendship with Bhagavān Vāsudeva
9. Ātma-nivedana: complete self-surrender, offering oneself entirely to Bhagavān Vāsudeva

One who serves Bhagavān Vāsudeva through any or all of these nine bhāvas, with a mind devoted to him alone, is called a bhakta.

Ekāntika Dharma Is Bhāgavata Dharma

Verse 64 of Chapter 25 states clearly that the two are the same: devotion joined with the three main duties of oneself is called Ekāntika Dharma, and it is Bhāgavata Dharma. People come to know this dharma only through direct contact with Bhagavān Vāsudeva or with his devotees, and never in any other way. No other means brings final blessedness and destroys everything inauspicious as this does.

To fulfil Ekāntika Dharma, one must give oneself to Kriyā-Yoga, the detailed Pañcarātra system of pūjā described in Chapters 26–29. Through Kriyā-Yoga, a person reaches the state in which he is free from the results of karma.

Open to Everyone

A special feature of Ekāntika Dharma, as the Vāsudeva Māhātmya teaches it, is that it is open to all. The very first question makes this clear: the means must be within reach of everyone: brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, śūdras, women, and even those of the lowest standing in society. Nārāyaṇa confirms that Bhagavān Vāsudeva is to be pleased with devotion in every way, through the performance of their own dharmas, by the twice-born in their stages of life, and by women, śūdras and others.

This is because Ekāntika Dharma does not require anyone to give up their own dharma, which would shut out those who cannot renounce. It asks only that whatever dharma one follows be directed to Vāsudeva. Even Vedic karma, both pravṛtta and nivṛtta, becomes Ekāntika Dharma when it is directed in this way.

Followers of Both Paths Worship Vāsudeva

Chapter 3 names followers of both paths who offer pūjā to Vāsudeva:

Followers of pravṛtta dharma: Brahmā, Śiva, Manu, Dakṣa, Bhṛgu, Dharma, Yama, Marīci, Aṅgiras, Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Vaibhrāja, Vasiṣṭha, Sūrya, Candra, Kaśyapa, Kardama, all the devas and ṛṣis, people of every varṇa, and people in every stage of life.

Followers of nivṛtta dharma: Sana, Sanatsujāta, Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumāra, Kapila, Āruṇi, Sanātana, Ṛbhu, Yati, Haṃsa, and ṛṣis like them who keep their vows steadily.

Both groups offer pūjā to the same Bhagavān Vāsudeva, seeing the devas and pitṛs (ancestors) as parts of Vāsudeva’s body.

The Supremacy of Vāsudeva

Ekāntika Dharma focuses on Vāsudeva alone because he is supreme over all other deities. Nārāyaṇa declares (Chapter 3) that Vāsudeva is Brahman, who is Truth, Knowledge and the Infinite: the Person beyond the three guṇas (qualities of nature), called the Supreme Person, Vāsudeva, the Master, Nārāyaṇa, Ṛṣi, Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa and Bhagavān. He says there is nothing more purifying than Vāsudeva, nothing more auspicious than Vāsudeva, and no deity greater than Vāsudeva.

All the other devas, including Brahmā and Rudra, are themselves under the power of kāla and māyā. They cannot save themselves, let alone others. Brahmā confirms this at the wedding of Lakṣmī and Nārāyaṇa. He says that people who do not know this try to please the devas with many kinds of austerity and pūjā, though the devas themselves are bound by rajas and tamas, and so such people are called foolish. Śiva also confirms it, saying that the three Vedas, Sāṃkhya, Vedānta, Yoga, the Purāṇas, the Pañcarātra and the Dharmaśāstras all sing, each in its own way, the supreme glory of Vāsudeva alone.

The Fruit of Ekāntika Dharma

Those who are firmly devoted to Vāsudeva alone, and whose longing for anything other than him has ended, reach his realm beyond all darkness at the end of life. There they serve him in divine bodies. Other devotees, whose false ideas come to an end through steadiness in devoted service, also go to him, like the Ekāntika devotees. Anyone joined to him in any way never returns to saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death).

Skanda concludes that those who please Nārāyaṇa, the Supreme Brahman, through Ekāntika Dharma, undivided devotion to Viṣṇu alone, become the liberated ones of Śvetadvīpa (the White Island, a realm of Viṣṇu’s liberated devotees).

Sources

• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Vāsudeva Māhātmya, Chapters 1–2
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Vāsudeva Māhātmya, Chapters 2–3
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Vāsudeva Māhātmya, Chapter 3
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Vāsudeva Māhātmya, Chapter 7
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Vāsudeva Māhātmya, Chapter 15
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Vāsudeva Māhātmya, Chapter 20
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Vāsudeva Māhātmya, Chapters 23, 25, 29, 31, 32