5

Parampara: Knowledge
Through Disciplic Succession

srt bhagavan uvaca
imam vivasvate yogam
proktavan aham avyayam
vivasvan manave praha
yo oh
manur iksvakave “bravit

‘The Blessed Lord said: I instructed this imperishable
science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvan, and
Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of man-

kind, and Manu in turn instructed it to Iksvaku.”
(Bg. 4.1)

Many ages ago Krsna imparted the divine knowl-
edge of Bhagavad-gita to Vivasvan, the god of the
sun. To the best of our knowledge, the sun is a very
hot place, and we do not consider it possible for any-
one to live there. It is not even possible to approach
the sun very closely with these bodies. However,
from the Vedic literatures we can understand that
the sun is a planet just like this one but that every-
thing there is composed of fire. Just as this planet is
predominately composed of earth, there are other
planets which are predominately composed of fire,
water and air.

The living entities on these various planets acquire
bodies composed of elements in accordance with the
predominating element on the planet; therefore
those beings who live on the sun have bodies which
