Making sense of King Pṛthu chasing and milking the Earth

Pṛthu Mahārāja chasing of the Earth when the planet was not producing food grains and later milking it may sound metaphorical to say the least. How to understand it?

Two parts of the pastime of Pṛthu Mahārāja, narrated in the 4th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, that may sound incomprehensible at first are his chasing of the Earth, when the planet was not producing food grains and his milking of the Earth. At first, these two descriptions may sound metaphorical, at best. How could Pṛthu chase the planet in space using his chariot, hoping to destroy it with his arrows, and what would he do even if he could effectively destroy the Earth? How could the Earth become a cow and not only run from the king but later be milked by him?

The first point to understand in this context is the concept of predominating deities explained in the Vedas. We tend to see all material energies and planets as mechanical forces, or dead matter. This is the fruit of modern scientific thinking, in which we see the world as something that appears by chance and is run by mechanical physical laws.

The Vedas, however, give a different account. The scriptures explain that everything is connected with different energies of the Lord. Just as Krsna has an impersonal aspect (the Brahmajyoti), despite being ultimately a person, all his different potencies appear to be impersonal when we just study the energy, but ultimately reveal themselves as persons. The material energy itself is personified in the form of Pārvatī, the consort of Lord Shiva. We have thus many energetic manifestations, in the form of many planetary systems and the universe in itself, and a person who controls these energies.

Simultaneously, all the different forces that operate in the universe have their predominating deities, just like a country is governed and represented by a president. We can imagine these predominating deities more or less like demigods who control particular energies and natural manifestations and assume duties connected with them. These predominating deities have the power to assume any form they desire. The personality controls the energy, but it is not exactly the same as the energy, just like a president is not the same as the country he rules.

In this way, Pṛthu Mahārāja interacts in these pastimes with Bhūmi, the predominating deity of Bhu-Mandala (the extended Earth), who is threatened by him for not properly performing her duties and is later milked by the kind, offering different desirable objects.

The description starts right at the beginning of the ruling of Pṛthu Mahārāja. Because Vena had stopped the performance of sacrifices, the Earth had stopped producing food grains, and by the time Pṛthu came to power, there was a full-blown famine. The citizens became skinny due to starvation and approached the king in search of relief.

After deliberating over the causes of the situation, he came to the conclusion that Bhūmi herself was the culprit because she was not performing her duty of delivering food grains to feed the population, despite accepting her shares of the offerings in the sacrifices he was executing. With this in mind, he drew his bow, with an arrow directly pointed to the planet, aiming to kill Bhūmi, the predominating deity, for her offense.

Bhūmi immediately understood the danger. The king was not in the mood of joking. To save herself, she immediately became visible in the form of a cow and started running from him. She thought that the king would not try to kill a cow and thus she would be saved, but Pṛthu easily understood the plot and kept on the pursuit. She ran here and here in outer space trying to escape the king, but being empowered by the potency of the Lord, Pṛthu continued chasing her everywhere, even in outer space. The only way to save herself was to submit to the king and beg for mercy, arguing that she was a woman and therefore should be protected.

Pṛthu Mahārāja however countered this argument by arguing that despite receiving her share in the yajñas, just like all demigods, she was not performing her duty of producing grains to maintain the people and this was a direct challenge to the authority of the king. If she was not prepared to immediately follow his orders, he would not hesitate to kill her or any other offender. Taking the form of a cow or anything else would not save her. In fact, as an emergency, the king was ready to kill her and use her meat to feed the citizens.

As Prabhupada comments in his purport to text 4.17.25, although meat eating is prohibited, in situations of emergency when there is absolutely no other food available, meat-eating can be allowed as a temporary measure during the famine. Pṛthu Mahārāja was ready to adopt this principle if Bhūmi would not start feeding the population.

Bhūmi then fully surrendered to the king and explained that the reason she was not supplying grains was because the population had become non-devotees during the reign of Vena, and thus she was withholding the production of grains as a result of their impiety.

This dialogue happened right at the beginning of the reign of Pṛthu Maharaja. By the end of the reign of Vena, all sacrifices and religious performances had been stopped, the population had become irreligious and all sorts of rogues multiplied. The regional kings who were supposed to maintain law and order in their respective places were also not performing their duties properly. As a result of all this impiety, Bhūmi withheld the production of grain, creating a famine. As explained in the Bhagavad-gita, grains are produced from the rains, and rains are produced by the performance of sacrifice. It is a universal law that when sacrifices to the Lord are stopped, scarcity will follow.

Bhūmi had assumed the form of a cow, and thus she proposed that Pṛthu Maharaja could obtain the grains he desired by milking her. To milk a cow, three things are needed: a calf, who is tied close to the cow, making her willing to give milk due to affection, a milkman, and a pot where the milk is stored. Pṛthu thus used Svāyambhuva Manu as a calf, since the Earth was very affectionate to him as the first Manu, and acting as the milkman, Pṛthu personally milked the Earth, extracting from her the grains that he withheld in his own hands to give to the suffering citizens.

Following the footsteps of King Pṛthu, other inhabitants of the universe also came and used different types of pots to obtain all desirable things from the Earth. As Prabhupada mentions in text 4.18.10, the milking of the Earth may be taken figuratively, but the main point is that human beings and other living entities can obtain what they desire from the Earth only through the process of sacrifice, and the appropriate form of sacrifice for our age is the congregational chanting of the holy names. This idea of this particular description being taken as figurative is reinforced in Prabhupada's translation to text 4.18.27, where he translates annādāḥ svannam ātmanaḥ as "Thus they received their various foodstuffs, which were symbolized as milk."

There is another description in the Srimad Bhagavatam that is accepted as an allegory, which is the story of King Purañjana, described later in the 4th canto. In one sense, it is a real story, describing the life of King Prācīnabarhi, but is described in the form of an allegory. The description of the milking of the Earth seems to be similar, describing a real historical fact (that King Pṛthu and others obtained their desirable objects from the Earth) but described figuratively.

In any case, the main topic in this description is that we can obtain all necessities from the planet as long as we are pious and religious. This part of the Srimad Bhagavatam teaches us many lessons about sustainable living and the role of pious rulers.

How was it that not only human beings, but many other inhabitants of the universe obtained all kinds of desirable things by this process of milking? If we accept these descriptions figuratively, as suggested by Srila Prabhupada, they indicate the process of obtaining all desirable things by following proper leadership. We can see that Pṛthu Maharaja used Svāyambhuva Manu as a calf, which can be understood in the sense that he followed the principles and example of the first Manu, to reestablish agriculture and thus solve the famine.

Similarly, the great sages used Bṛhaspati as a calf to obtain spiritual knowledge, which means they used their senses, especially the auditory sense to obtain knowledge from him.

Similarly, the demigods made Indra, the King of heaven, into a calf, and they milked soma or nectar, and the demons transformed Prahlāda Mahārāja into a calf, and they extracted various kinds of liquor and beer, which they put into a pot made of iron.

After Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva killed Hiraṇyakaśipu, Prahlāda Maharaja became the king of the asuras. The fact of being guided by a perfect Vaishnava didn't make the asuras pure devotees immediately, but they certainly benefited from his leadership. By the mercy of the Lord, pure Vaishnavas are present even amongst the most degraded beings, as in the case of Lord Shiva and Prahlāda Maharaja. As mentioned by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thākura in his Jaiva Dharma, Vaishnavas are the very reason the universe continues existing, since the very purpose of the universe is to give the fallen souls an opportunity to revive their original spiritual consciousness.

By the mercy of Prahlāda Maharaja, the demons were able to enjoy their lives as demons, enjoying the inferior material pleasures they are attached to, but at the same time have some opportunity to evolve in spiritual realization. As Prabhupada mentions: "Because Prahlāda Mahārāja was born in a family of demons, as the son of Hiraṇyakaśipu, by his mercy the demons were and still are able to have their drinks in the form of wine and beer."

Gandharvas and Apsarās made Viśvāvasu into a calf, and they drew the milk into a lotus-flower pot. Just as Bṛhaspati is the leader amongst the great sages, Viśvāvasu is the leader amongst the Gandharvas and Apsarās, who learn from him the celestial arts. Just as the nectar of the demigods and the liquor and beer of the demons, these celestial arts are a form of sense gratification, but they are also of a superior quality.

The inhabitants of Pitṛloka made Aryamā into a calf and milked kavya, food offered to the ancestors. This piṇḍa, or kavya is described as being stored in an unbaked earthen pot. The quality of this type of pot is that it is fragile and perishable, usually used a single time. This appears to describe the temporality of life in Pitṛloka.

The inhabitants of Siddhaloka and Vidyādhara-loka transformed Lord Kapila into a calf and milked out yogic mystic powers, beginning with aṇimā, and so on. In this way, all classes of beings obtained their respective sources of sustenance by the grace of the Lord, under the rule of His representative, Pṛthu Maharaja.

Bṛhaspati, Indra, Viśvāvasu, and Aryamā are great personalities empowered by the Lord to guide inhabitants of the celestial planets. Prahlāda Mahārāja is a pure devotee of the Lord, who receives the mission of guiding the asuras, while Lord Kapila is the Lord Himself. Just as the inhabitants of the Earth obtained the food grains they need to live and be prosperous by following the guide of Pṛthu Maharaja, other inhabitants of the universe obtained the material opulences they desire by following these guides. The message is that we can obtain what we desire by following the proper representatives of the Lord, and not mundane leaders who have no idea of religious life.