Bhagavatam tenth canto study 90 – 10.15.26-36 – Dhenuka’s tools to kill – his hind legs – are used to kill him by whirling and hurling

Hare Krishna. Oh Krishna, please let’s go and so because we are attracted by the fragrance let’s go there, a strong desire has come within us, so if you also like this, if you feel this is a good idea, let’s go there and try to get those fruits, so the gajagopas are doing multiple things over here, first is they’re telling about the presence of a desirable object, so this is like a plan for doing something, first is we tell about something desirable and then we tell about something which is an obstacle, and if that obstacle is presented as a challenge, then the desirability of the desirable thing becomes even more, just like there are traditional stories where you kill a dragon and then get the maiden, so both are attractive in their own ways, everybody needs some sense of adventure, if one’s childhood is made totally safe, then childhood starts becoming boring, and then children find something risky to do, we human beings are made in such a way that we cannot live with complete security, complete predictability, complete order, and especially children when they’re discovering the world, they want something to be adventurous about, especially boys, they want to say for example, you’re going to go high up on a swing, you come down on a slide, go into some dangerous place, now of course, it is the responsibility of the parents to make sure that the danger is not so much, that there is a high probability of damage or death also, so like children want to play, now if you tell them they are learning to ride a cycle, and they learn it, and you tell them to go at a very sedate pace, then there is no pleasure in that, but at the same time if they start going very fast, and especially going very fast on a road with high traffic, that would be courting danger, so that’s why there are parks, the parks are themselves safe, but within the safe zone of the parks, there is some kind of danger or thrill that is created, that’s for example, there are these giant wheels on which people go up and come down, and they get a sense of thrill in that, so everyone needs some thrill, and if the thrill is presented in an appropriate way, regulated and presented, then thrill can actually take people, help the children to understand the limits of what they can do, and understand how much they can push beyond their limits, and thus they grow, so here the desirable object, palm fruits is being shown, the obstacle of the demon is there, and but the obstacle is presented as a challenge, oh Krishna, you are the killer of demons, oh Balram, you are also very powerful, please let’s go and get these fruits, now when this is told, they’ve created this sense of adventure among the children, and now they’re going along, text 27, in this way, on hearing the words of his friends, those who are his Suhrud, very close friends, so repeatedly in this section of the Bhagavatam, the word used to describe the relationship between Krishna and his Gopas, that word used is Suhrud, it’s not just Mitra, it’s Gopas, they’re very close to each other, the Bhagavad Gita uses the word Suhrud to describe, especially the relationship of Krishna with all living beings, Suhrudam Sarvabhutanam, so Suhrud, one whose heart is good, one whose heart has good wishes for us, one whose heart has affection for us, so Krishna is our best friends, and for the Gopas also Krishna was their best friend, and Krishna saw them as also his best friends, so Suhrudvachaha, Krishna heard the words of this, his closest friends, Suhrudpriyachikirshaya, and desiring to do something good for them, please them, for their pleasure, Prahasyagmaturgopair, he started laughing, as they laughed and said, let’s go there, and they approached the Tal forest, they went along with, they means here Krishna and Balaram, both of them went together, surrounded by their friends to Talwan forest, it’s 28 now, so as soon as Balaram entered the Talwan forest, so earlier they had said it is not very far away, so here they have understood, they soon come there, and as soon as they enter it with his powerful arms, he started shaking the trees, shaking them strongly, and causing the fruits to fall down, as if you are a maddened elephant who was making things happen, so Balaram is the hero in this chapter, and he is compared to maddened elephant, and it is he who does the first action of shaking the trees forcefully, creating a noise and disturbance, so there is another similar pastime in which Krishna enters into the territory which somebody else has presumed is their own, so that is the Kalia, that is the bond which Kalia had, Kalia was living, and it was attached to the Jamuna river, and when Krishna went there, Krishna climbed out of a Kadamba tree near the edge of the river, and then jumped into the river, now Krishna could very well have jumped in from where he was itself, he didn’t need to climb up a tree and then climb down, but Krishna wanted to provoke Kalia, where are you Kalia, oh you evil one, I am going to punish you, so that kind of dramatic loud entry is provocative for sort of people, especially those who think that they are meant to be the center of everything, when someone enters into their territory, it becomes an unbearable challenge, so instead of having to spend time to find Kalia, Krishna entered so provocatively that Kalia became provoked, and Kalia came in search for him, something similar will happen here also at Balram, by breaking the fruits and shaking the trees very loud, by getting that many fruits to fall down after shaking the trees very loudly, Balram gets Krishna to, Balram and Dhenuka to come immediately, text 29, on hearing the sound of the fruits falling, Nishamya Asura Rasabha, so Asura Rasabha, of this demon who was in the form of a jackass, he comes there running, Abhidhavad Kshititalam, he came to the, he came so fast running, that Kshititalam, the surface of the earth, Sanagam Parikampayan, the tree started trembling, the Bhagavatam is poetry, and here we see the second line of 20 text, it takes us, Samparikampayan, he made the trees shake by the force of his arms, and then in this verse, it’s described in 29, that Dhenukasura, when he came charging, he made the earth shake, Sanagam Parikampayan, so the same word is there, and at one level, making the earth shake is far more difficult than making some trees, than shaking some trees, so it seems apparently that at that time, the way the strengths have manifested initially, the jackass, Dhenuka’s strength seems to be much more than that of Balram’s, but we will see that how Balram’s strength is infinite, so text 30, Sametya Tarasa Pratyag Dvabhyam Padhyam Balambale Nihatyo Rasiska Shabdam Munchan Paryasarat Khalaha Sametya Tarasa Pratyag, that when he came near Balram, he saw that, oh, this Balram has made this noise, he is there to provoke and challenge me, so therefore, what will he do, he decided to Sametya Tarasa Pratyag, he turned around with his hind legs, he tried to Dvabhyam Padhyam Balambale, he slammed both his feet, hind feet, rear feet into Balram’s body, Nihatyo Rasika Shabdam, as he was striking, attacking, he thought that this would be fatal, Ka Shabdam, he made donkeys make braying sounds, now braying is not particularly considered attractive, when somebody yells and screams, why are you braying, that is not a question, that is an insult, so literally donkeys bray, but this donkey was braying in a particularly obnoxious way, and he was braying and Munchan Paryasarat Khalaha, so he hit, then he hit Balram, but when he saw nothing happened to Balram, he started running around, just like sometimes wrestlers, when they are fighting, one of the wrestlers come forward and then hits the other person and then sees that, oh, that person has not fallen, then he wonders, what is going on, he steps back and then starts jockeying for position, maybe they move round and round, waiting for the right opportunity to spring on their opponent, so through that running round and round, they also exercise their passion, so his anger is being expressed by his charging around, while also watching Balram, waiting for an opportunity to attack him, takes 31, then when he felt that he had got a good position, then he charged now towards Balram, he is standing with his back turned towards Balram, and he tried to hit him, once again, with fury, he hit him with his two feet, he kicked at Balram, looking for an opportunity, when he thought he had got the opportunity, he kicked Balram, but first time Balram entertained the attack and tolerated it, but now Balram was also waiting, Balram was alert, takes 32, describes what he did, so he caught his feet, prapada is the front part of the feet, that refers to the hooves, he caught him by the hooves, the hooves are the strongest part, they are hard, they are tough, carry the whole weight of the donkey’s body, especially as the donkey goes through forests where thorns and pebbles and things might be there, so the hooves are hardened simply for the need of survival, and with those hard hooves, when he tried to hit, it is like somebody trying to attack with a sword, and then as the sword is coming, you catch that sword itself, it is likely to cut through, but if somebody does not get cut, that shows how tough they are, and how sharp they are to catch a sword, so the very weapon which Balram was being attacked by, Balram caught hold of that, and then he, as he caught him, ekapanina, he didn’t even need both hands to carry him, just like to pick him up, just like Krishna lifts Govardhan with just one finger of one hand, so Dhenukasura catches Balram with just one hand, and then he whirls him round and round, and then hurls him into nearby trees, and interestingly it is said that it is not that hitting the trees killed Dhenuka, it was just whirling around itself, with how much force and speed for how long somebody needs to be whirled around for them to die, and when we whirl someone around, we also exert, but Balram, he was mahati ballam, he was not exhausted by that at all, just by whirling, he lost, Dhenuka lost his life, as his body went and hurt, hit a big tal tree, and now that tree fell, trembled and started falling, interestingly, and that tree, it caused the tree right next side to also shake, so now, and these trees started, that tree caused the next tree to shake, this was a dense forest, the trees were quite close to each other, the tal trees were close to each other and they were also very big, so when one started shaking, that shaking transmitted to another tree, and thus there was a domino effect, it is like if one cycle, in a cycle stand, where all cycles are leaning against each other, one cycle falls down, then all of them fall down one by one by one, so here the point is, when Balram hurled him, the phenomenal strength of Balram is depicted over here, that he was not only able to pick up a donkey, which is itself quite difficult, but not only pick it up, but hurled it, hurled it for so long that it lost its life, now to hurl it for so long requires strength, then after that too, after whirling it, then to hurl it away, to throw a heavy object itself requires for greater strength, and sometimes, you know, in shot put or something like that, we throw a heavy object to a particular distance, but by the time it reaches, it just rolls and falls helplessly, but when Balram hurled with the tree with such force, that actually not only that tree shook and broke, but other trees also shook and broke nearby by the force, so such was the magnitude of the force that Balram had exerted. Text 34 So when, in this way, as a child, this Balramji, as a play, when he was still a child, Balram, as the tree started striking each other, so another indicator, Balram’s strength is indicated here, when the tree started shaking as if there was a huge storm passing through it, and thus Balram exhibited his strength.
Text 35 Now, this is not surprising, after all that law is unlimited, he is the lord of the universe, and by him, the whole universe is pervaded, just as the universe, just as a cloth rests on its threads, which run up and down, similarly, the whole universe rests upon the lord. So now, the cloth gets, when we see a cloth, we don’t really think of threads over there, but it is so many threads which are woven together that make a cloth. So, similarly, when we look at the world, we may not see God, but God is the essential substance that makes everything.
Now, when we are attracted to clothes, it’s often without awareness that there are threads, and we don’t say we are attracted to threads. So Krishna is the underlying, unifying, attraction-inducing principle in everything, but he is not thought of unless one is unconsciously seeks him. This example is similar to the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is the thread that unites, that keeps a pearl necklace together.
So the point in this context is that he has unlimited potencies. So, he exists as the sustaining force of everything that sustains. And thus, for one who holds the universes on his horse, one who holds the universal lord on his back, as Anantashesh, and so for that person, it’s not difficult to conceive that even the universe has been held on top.
So for him, we can’t even conceive that, but then to hold a tree, to carry a few jackasses, that is not difficult at all for Balramji. Text 36, So what happened over here? Then his friends came along. In this way, the other demons also came and they also were killed.
As they came, they ran towards, charged towards Balram to attack him, Krishna to attack him and Krishna just effortlessly finished all of them. So here Krishna allowed Balram to be the star of the show. But that does not mean Krishna was inactive.
Krishna was also active because there are multiple attackers and Krishna took the opportunity to deal with some of the attackers while Balram dealt with most of them. What happens thereafter, we’ll discuss in a future talk. Hare Krishna.