How Suka became Sukhadeva

Speaker: Radha Krishna prabhu

When Radha and Krishna wound up Their pastimes in Earth, They instructed their male parrot Suka, who is Radharani’s personal parrot, to stay back and speak the Srimad Bhagavatam. After They left Suka felt great separation for whilst Radharani was on Earth She would always speak to him about Krishna. So he was daily hearing Krishna katha. But now he was not getting any more stories or talks about Krishna and so he became very unhappy. He felt he would die. Then once he heard that Siva speaks the Bhagavatam in his abode. It so happens that Bhuvaneswar is also considered Kailasa and Lord Siva was there with his consort Parvati. He emptied his abode of others and spoke the Bhagavatam to his consort and at that time Suka flew into the dham and sat nearby on a mango tree and heard the whole Bhagavatam. Interestingly enough Parvati wanted to hear the 10th Canto but Siva started from the first Canto and whilst he was speaking Parvati being uninterested kept saying ‘Hmm, hmm.’ while she started to nod off and sleep. When Parvati fell asleep Suka did not want Siva to stop so he imitated Parvati and kept saying, ‘Hmm, hmm.’ After a while, Siva noticed that Parvati was sleeping but someone else was saying ‘Hmm, hmm.’ He looked around and saw Suka on a mango tree ‘hmming’ away! He got angry and wanted to kill the Suka for he did not think anyone should hear the Bhagavatam. Suka immediately flew to Badrikasrama and at that time Vyasadeva was speaking the Bhagavatam to his wife Vitika. Now she was saying ‘Ahh! Ahh!’ and the parrot flew straight into her mouth and into her womb! Of course Siva comes to Vyasa looking for the parrot and explains that he needs to kill Suka who had heard the amrta or nectarean topics of Bhagavatam. When Vyasa heard this he told Siva that anyone who hears the topics of the Bhagavatam become immortal or ‘amrta’ and therefore the parrot has become immortal and cannot be killed. Speaking in this way he pacified Lord Siva who then left. Later after 16 years when Lord Krishna promised Suka that he will not be captured by the material energy, he came out of his mother’s womb. He was again taught the Srimad Bhagavatam by his father Vyasadeva. Later when he came to see Pariksit Maharaja he spoke the Bhagavatam to him.