Category:Vulture
Theme Analysis
Śrīla Prabhupāda uses the vulture as a powerful metaphor for various materialistic and atheistic anomalies. Although a vulture can fly high in the sky and has remarkably keen eyesight, its ultimate focus is solely on finding a rotting corpse to eat. Similarly, modern materialistic scientists and philosophers may achieve great intellectual heights, but their focus remains fixed on dead matter and bodily sense gratification. Śrīla Prabhupāda frequently quotes a Bengali proverb, comparing atheists to vultures who curse a cow, vainly hoping the animal will die so they can feast. These atheists wish God were dead so they could sin without consequence, but their curses are completely powerless. Furthermore, pseudo-spiritual leaders, unauthorized incarnations, and meat-eaters are likened to these scavenging birds, exploiting innocent seekers in the forest of material existence. Only by rejecting such vulture-like association and taking shelter of the Supreme Lord can a conditioned soul escape spiritual death.
- The Futility of Atheistic Curses: Just as a vulture's curse cannot kill a healthy cow, the accusations and desires of atheistic men who want God to be dead are completely powerless and ineffective.
- High Ambitions, Low Targets: Vultures fly miles high but only search for dead carcasses; similarly, materialistic human civilization boasts great advancements but remains obsessed with dead matter and base sense gratification.
- The Degradation of Meat-Eating: Humans who indulge in slaughtering and eating animals degrade themselves to the level of scavengers, acting no better than jackals, dogs, and vultures.
- False Spiritual Leaders: Pseudo yogis, bogus swamis, and man-made gods are compared to vultures, crows, and herons who cheat the conditioned soul rather than offering true spiritual relief.
- The Fate of the Material Body: Regardless of societal funeral customs—whether the body is burned to ashes, buried to become worms, or left for vultures to turn into stool—the material body is temporary and doomed.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: These Atheistic Vultures Want to See God Dead.
Pages in category "Vulture"
The following 48 pages are in this category, out of 48 total.
1
A
- A householder who receives guests or visitors with cruel glances, as if to burn them to ashes, is put into the hell called Paryavartana, where he is gazed at by hard-eyed vultures, herons, crows and similar birds
- After the death, we have to give somebody, some living entity. So generally, it is given to the vultures. So why to the vultures? Take the civilized men, who are as good as vultures. The so-called civilized men. Yes
- As she was being led away, crying in fear like a kurari captured by a vulture, the great sage Narada, who at that time had no engagement, appeared on the scene and saw her in that condition
- Asuras do not know that their bodies consist of the five elements of material nature and that when they fall they become objects of pastimes for dogs and vultures
- At the end of life the body belongs to the fire, because the body is given to the fire and burned to ashes. Or the body is thrown into the street to be eaten by the dogs and vultures
H
- He (the living entity) sometimes takes shelter of so-called gurus and sadhus who are like crane, herons and vultures. Thus he is cheated both ways by not taking shelter of the Supreme Lord
- His (a person who was engaged in criminal sense gratification) entrails are pulled out by the hounds and vultures of hell, even though he is still alive to see it, and he is subjected to torment by serpents, scorpions, gnats and other creatures that bite
I
- If in this battle you cut off my head with your thunderbolt and kill my soldiers, O Indra, O great hero, I (Vrtrasura) shall take great pleasure in offering my body to other living entities (such as jackals and vultures)
- Imminent death is like the attack of a lion, and neither vultures, buzzards, crows nor herons can save one from such an attack. One who takes shelter of unauthorized man-made gods cannot be saved from the clutches of death
- In different societies there are different ways of dealing with the human body at the time of the funeral ceremony. In some societies the body is given to the vultures to be eaten, and therefore the body ultimately turns to vulture stool
- In India you have got the community, Parsee community. They do not burn, neither they bury. They throw and the vultures immediately comes and eat. Then the body turns into stool
- In this verse the three words krmi-vid-bhasma are significant. After death, the body may become krmi, which means "worms," for if the body is disposed of without cremation, it may be eaten by worms; or else it may be eaten by animals be turned into stool
- It was predicted by Varuna that by fighting with Visnu he (Hiranyaksa) would become prey for dogs, jackals and vultures
N
- Not recognizing his master, Jambavan challenged Him (Krsna) to fight. There was then a great fight between Krsna and Jambavan, in which they fought like two opposing vultures. Whenever there is an eatable corpse the vultures fight heartily over the prey
- Not vultures; it is called hog civilization. The hog, they eat anything and they have sex with anyone
- Now I shall pierce your body with my trident, and after you die with great pain, even fire will not touch you; only the vultures will eat your body
O
- O goddess, now that you have refused me, my beautiful body will fall down here, and because it is unsuitable for your pleasure, it will be eaten by foxes and vultures
- O pleasure of the Raksasa dynasty, because of you (Ravana) the state of Lanka and also we ourselves now have no protector. By your deeds you have made your body fit to be eaten by vultures and your soul fit to go to hell
- One who follows the path of Ravana is condemned in two ways: his body is fit to be eaten by dogs and vultures, and the soul goes to hell
S
- Some soldiers fought on the backs of vultures, eagles, ducks, hawks & bhasa birds. Some fought on the backs of timingilas, which can devour huge whales, some on the backs of sarabhas, and some on buffalo, rhinoceroses, cows, bulls, jungle cows and arunas
- Sometimes the living entity in the forest of material existence takes shelter of creepers and desires to hear the chirping of the birds in those creepers. Being afraid of roaring lions in the forest, he makes friends with cranes, herons and vultures
T
- The animal-eaters, they're like jackals, vultures, dogs. They're similar to these animals, the animal-eaters. It is not human food
- The assistants, or messengers, of Yamaraja are likened here to vultures, and those who do not execute their respective duties in protecting their wards are compared to serpents
- The conditioned soul instead takes shelter of a man-made god described in unauthorized scriptures. Such gods are like buzzards, vultures, herons and crows. Vedic scriptures do not refer to them
- The heron, vulture, crane, hawk, bhasa, bhalluka, peacock, swan, sarasa, cakravaka, crow, owl and others are the birds
- The lion (in the forest of material existence) is the wheel of time, and the herons, crows and vultures are so-called demigods, pseudo swamis, yogis and incarnations. All of these are too insignificant to give one relief
- The rats, beasts and vultures (in the forest of material existence) are different types of thieves who take away our possessions, and the gandharva-pura is the phantasmagoria of the body and home
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead controls all the most important demigods - especially Lord Brahma and Lord Siva - exactly as the owner of a bird controls it by binding it with a rope. Sometimes vultures are controlled in this way
- The vulture curses the cow, wishing him to die. But this does not mean that the cow will die just to oblige the vulture
- The vulture, they have got a very good eyesight, very good eyesight. You... Seven miles away from the surface, they can see where there is a dead corpse. So they have got good eyesight, but they are searching after dead corpse only
- There is a Bengali proverb that says: sakuni sape gorumarana. The word sakuni means vulture. Vultures enjoy dead animal carcasses, especially the carcass of the cow. Sometimes a vulture may go for days without a carcass
- There is a Bengali saying that if a vulture curses a cow to die, the curse will not be effective. Similarly, accusations made by demoniac persons against devotees of Krsna cannot have any effect
- These atheistic vultures want to see God dead so they can take pleasure in thinking - Now God is dead, and I can do anything I like
- They (those whose faculty of judgment has been impaired by their own sin) are angrily torn apart by the bills of the vulturelike messengers of Yamaraja, the superintendent of sinful persons
- They suffer from hunger and thirst, and sharp-beaked birds such as vultures and herons come at them from all sides to tear at their bodies. Tortured and suffering, they can then remember the sinful activities they committed in the past
V
- Vultures deal very seriously with serpents, and similarly the messengers will deal very seriously with neglectful guardians
- Vultures of hell
- Vultures or hawks can go very high in the sky, but can see a small body on the ground very clearly. This means that their eyesight is so keen that they can find an eatable corpse from a great distance
W
- We are not expert in any way, unless you take to Krsna consciousness. There are many animals, they are far more expert. There are, just like a vulture goes three miles, but the business to find out where is a corpse. Just see
- We cannot accept the unauthorized ways of so-called incarnations, gods, cheaters and bluffers, who are described here (SB 5.14.29) as crows, vultures, buzzards and herons