Bhavishyapurana and Muslims | Mahamadas | Talks with Guru | 4 mins.

Disciple: In a Q&A session with an eminent Muslim scholar, I came to hear the following argument: In the Bhavishyapurana, there are references that after 4000 years, a man named Muhammed would come and he should be given due respect and reverence. Is this true? What is Guru’s take on this?

Guru: The fundamental basis of the Sanatana-Dharma-Shastra is the Vedas. Vedas have 4 parts [Samhitas, Aranyakas, Brahmanas and Upanishads], 6 Angas [Shiksha, Kalpa, Vyakarana, Nirukta, Jyotisha and Chandas] and 5 Upavedas [Ayurveda, Dhanurveda, Sthapathya-veda, Gandharva-veda and Arthashastra]. Since the complex concepts in the Vedas are unfathomable for common people, they have been explained with the help of stories (in ‘Puranas’) and biographies (in ‘Itihasas’/epics). Hence, the Vedas and their allied scriptures are considered as the primary sciences and the Itihasa-Puranas as secondary.

Now, among the Puranas, the 18 Maha-puranas command primary status. The Bhavishya-purana in question is one among those 18 Maha-puranas and hence principal. The last chapter of this Purana is termed as the Pratisarga-parva. It is in this Pratisarga-parva of the ‘Bhavishya-purana-that-is-available-today’, that references about the arrival of a Mlechha cult called Mahamadas (read Mohammedans) is given. The slokas (verses) tell us that the Mahamadas would be a people who have removed their foreskin, do not eat pork and are respected. So, we find ourselves with a few questions:

1. If a person predicts about the arrival of a ‘respected person’ after 4000 years (and that happens!), whom should you respect more – the predictor or the predicted? The ‘predicted’ arrived only to realise the prediction. 
2. If you agree with this prediction and claims that the ‘predicted’ should be respected, you yourselves are venerating the predictor. You’re accepting his intellectual supremacy. Hence, do you also accept the spiritual and physical sciences, ritualistic traditions and other outlooks put forward by the predictor?
3. Do you accept the whole of the 18 Mahapuranas, at the least? And if you do, it’s time to change your entire life-style and start following the Hindu way of living. Your faith in a mere religion becomes baseless. 

So my dear Mahamada brothers, be honest with yourselves. When you’re employing selective reasoning (confirmation bias) by taking up specific verses from others’ scriptures to glorify your religion, know that you are digging your own grave. To any logical mind, it only reveals your inferiority and foolishness.

Now, to the Hindus who are still not convinced: Do you honestly think that all this has been written by sage Vyasa? Our Puranas have been edited extensively during the mlechha rule, especially the Mughal rule. And this Pratisarga-parva is full of Prakshipta (edits and additions). It’s not just the Muslims; even Jesuit missionaries have edited our Puranas. So, we don’t consider them as authoritative. And to those who are accepting specific verses from the Puranas, our question is whether they would accept all of the Puranas. Good if they do. If you accept, respect, believe and live by all the ideals and virtues that sage Vyasa has put forth in the Puranas, then you’re a Hindu par excellence. :D

Either ways, Bhavishya-purana is not a justifiable tool for propagating the Islamist propaganda. And for the Zakir Naiks, there are indeed Vedic descriptions about them:

उपदेशोऽहि मूर्खाणां प्रकोपाय न शांतये।

पयःपानं भुजंगानां केवलं विषवर्धनम्॥ 

[Advice given to fools, makes them angry and not calm them down.

Just like feeding a snake with milk, increases its venom.]

Hari Om

ॐ Chidanandam ॐ