𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Why are Brahmanas considered the highest?
𝐀𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫: Brāhmaṇas assist Lord Viṣṇu in His duty of preservation
Every Hindu understands Lord Viṣṇu’s role in preservation. However, the question remains, what does He preserve? It is evident how Lord Brahma creates and Lord Shiva destroys, but preservation is not as straightforward.
To understand what is meant to be preserved, we must first comprehend the divine plan of the Lord and what He wishes to protect. Souls who did not follow the commands of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are given the chance to experience the material world. This plan provides the conditioned souls with the opportunity to fulfill their desire for sense gratification, which they desired while living in the spiritual world.
Instead of limiting them, the Lord gives the conditioned souls the chance to enjoy, hoping that after many lifetimes, they will come to understand that surrendering to the feet of Lord Vasudeva is their ultimate duty as living beings. When they realize that they were created for the Lord’s transcendental enjoyment, and not for their individual pleasure, they will attain their original constitutional position.
In order to educate the fallen living entities this divine plan, the Lord spoke the Vedas to Brahma the first created being of the universe and the first brāhmaṇa. In short Vedas = Lord’s Divine Plan to save fallen conditioned souls in material exsistence.
𝗦𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗵𝘂𝗽𝗮𝗱𝗮 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗕 𝟯.𝟮.𝟮𝟮: The purpose of the Vedas is to disseminate knowledge of the Absolute Truth. The brāhmaṇas, created from the mouth of the Supreme Person, are meant to spread the knowledge of the Vedas and glorify the Lord.
One of the six duties of brāhmaṇas is Paṭhana, which involves being knowledgeable in the Vedic scriptures and teaching others to study them. The preservation of Vedic knowledge is achieved through its propagation from generation to generation. When this stops, the world degrades, as seen in the present age of Kali.
Lord Vishnu preserves the message of the Vedas through the mouth of brāhmaṇas by propagating the divine plan. Which is why the Purusha Sukta declares that brahmanosya mukhamasit, brāhmaṇas were born from the mouth of the Lord. The essence of the divine plan is to surrender to the Lord and return back to Godhead.
In Sanskrit, the words Astra (weapons) and Sastra (scriptures) are derived from the word “astra”. Sastra is meant for controlling civilized men, and from this word comes the word Sisya, meaning disciple or one who voluntarily accepts the guidance of a spiritual master
Those who are not gentle must be controlled by astra, or weapons, such as the police force with guns and clubs. Parashurama is an example of a fierce avatar who wielded an axe (astra) that uprooted twenty-one generations of kshatriyas The Lord also has another weapon, the Sastra or Vedas, which is propagated by the brāhmaṇas.
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu also invoked another type of astra to awaken the conditioned souls to life. He and His devotees propagated the Hare Krsna, maha-mantra. The sankirtana movement is also an astra of Krsna for killing the demons, but it is not a sword. The Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra kills demonic habits within us.
Thus, the Lord preserves through three means, as stated in Bhagavad Gita 4.8:
1) Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ: Deliver the pious
2) Vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām: Using astra or sastra to annihilate the miscreants and demoniac qualities withn
3) Dharma-saṁsthāpanārthāya: Reestablish the principles of religion by speaking the Vedas and delegating the responsibility to the Brāhmaṇas to propagate it.
Hence Brāhmaṇas are highly elevate as they have sacrificed everything in the service of the Lord to uplift the fallen conditioned souls by guiding them to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They assist in preservation by propagation
