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Stories told by Śrīla Prabhupāda
<< 23 The brahmana who knew many languages >>
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| Here is a story called “The brahmana who knew many languages”. There was one learned brahmana, who knew so many languages, so he came to a king’s court and he spoke in so many languages and everyone was so impressed. And then he made a challenge. He said: “You try to find out what my own original language is.” Because he was speaking so many languages so expertly without any accent, any trace of accent. Speaking so many languages, just like a native. He said: “This is my challenge to you, the pandits of this kings court. Find out which language is my original language.” So all the pandits, they were perplexed. They’d hear him speaking and they said to the king: “There is no way. He’s so expert in language, who can know?” But the king had one joker, one jester who just gives the king amusement. And this joker stepped and said: “I will find out what his real language is.” The king said to him: “If you find out, I’ll give you one thousand golden coins.” The joker said: “Yes, I’ll do it.” That evening this great pandit who knew many languages he was walking through the royal garden. The joker, he creeped into the garden and he covered himself with a big blanket and climbed up into a tree and when the pandit walked by the tree the joker jumped out of the tree and went : “Hooooooooo!” and landed on the pandit. And the pandit in great fear he said in his own language: “Oh my God!” So the joker in this way he found out his real language.
| | The moral of this story is that philosophers may speak so much high philosophy, but when they get emotional or angry, then you can actually see the real motive, process behind all their big words. Just like I can remember Hridayananda Maharaja was having a debate with one big mayavadi, he was not actually such an important person, but he was posing himself to be. Big college professor in America who had been for some time a mayavadi sannyasi in India, but then gave up sannyas and just taught at school. But this mayavadi, he was very critical of Srila Prabhupada’s books and the Hare Krishna movement. So a debate was arranged and this mayavadi philosopher would speak big words, quoting Upanishads and so on and so forth and he was always trying to argue that God is the impersonal absolute and Krishna is just an avatar of the impersonal absolute. So when Hridayananda Maharaja was speaking at one point, he was talking about chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, he was saying something about the holy name of Krishna. And so, he was saying at one point: “Krishna, Krishna.” And this big mayavadi, who is sitting by, he couldn’t restrain himself and he went to the microphone and said: “Shiva, Shiva!” So he lost his cool and everyone was looking.
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