"Unlimited" Disciples #
In 1968, a young devotee in Montreal asked Srila Prabhupada a striking question: had Narada Muni actually brought the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra to this earth, and if so, how long ago? Prabhupada's answer shows something important about Narada's place in this tradition. Such a thing cannot really be calculated, he said, because Narada has been present since the time of creation, as one of the sons of Brahma. And nearly every great devotee described in Vedic literature is, in one way or another, his disciple. He then named them: Prahlada Maharaja, Dhruva Maharaja, Vyasadeva, Valmiki. He summed up Narada's entire mission in a single thought. Narada was extremely skilled at making disciples, and in the end their true number was simply too great to count.
Named by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself #
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu makes much the same point in his own teaching, as recorded in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita. Mahaprabhu explains to Sanatana Gosvami the different kinds of empowered incarnations the Lord sends into the world. He names Narada, alongside the four Kumaras, Maharaja Prithu, and Lord Parashurama, as one of the principal shaktyavesha-avataras: souls invested with a specific opulence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Brahma carries the power to create, and Ananta Shesha carries the power to support every planet in existence. In the same way, Narada carries the power of devotional service itself. He can awaken bhakti in anyone he meets.
A Fellow Traveller, Centuries Apart #
Narada's constant travelling was not simply part of his personality. In fact, it began as Prajapati Daksha's curse, spoken in anger after Narada twice talked Daksha's sons out of fathering children. In his own purport to that curse, Srila Prabhupada explains that for a preacher, a life of never being able to settle anywhere is no punishment at all. It is exactly the qualification of a parivrajakacharya, a wandering teacher. Such a teacher travels constantly for the benefit of people who would otherwise never hear Krishna's names.
Srila Prabhupada's own biographers noticed the same pattern repeating in his life. Satsvarupa dasa Goswami's biography Srila Prabhupada-lilamrita describes Prabhupada's decision to travel the world alone in his seventies, instead of staying quietly in Vrindavana. It compares him directly to Narada Muni and to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. All three were wandering preachers, or parivrajakacharyas. They carried Krishna's message to every part of the world instead of waiting for the world to come to them. The same biography notes that a journalist of the time once called Prabhupada a jet-age parivrajakacharya. This is essentially the same title that Vedic literature has given to Narada Muni for thousands of years.
Beyond the Gaudiya Tradition #
Narada's reach goes even further. Outside the Gaudiya line altogether, the Chandogya Upanishad, one of the oldest Upanishads, records a well-known conversation between Narada and the sage Sanatkumara. Narada comes to him and asks to be taught the knowledge of the Self, since he has heard that whoever knows the Self is free of sorrow. Sanatkumara asks what he has already studied. Narada answers with an almost complete list of ancient learning: the four Vedas, the epics and old itihasas, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, ethics, logic, and more. Then he admits plainly that none of it has actually freed him from suffering. This is a striking echo of the very lesson Narada would later teach others, from Dhruva Maharaja to Vyasadeva himself. Mastering every branch of worldly and even scriptural knowledge is not the same thing as knowing the Self. Real learning is worth nothing until it leads a person beyond learning itself. Vedantic commentators have discussed this passage for centuries. It shows that the wider Vedic tradition, not only Vaishnavism, recognised Narada's role as a seeker and teacher of transcendental knowledge. In every century and in every tradition, the same figure keeps appearing. He is a sage with a vina on his shoulder, not attached to any one place, who cannot stop telling anyone who will listen about Krishna.
