Bhagavatam study 36 1.8.1-16 – What is materially impossible is possible for Krishna

We will continue our discussion in the next talk. Thank you.
Athate samparetanam svanam udakam icchatam dhatum sa krishna gangayam puraskritya yastriyam. This is the 8th chapter, entitled Prayers by Queen Kunti and Parikshit Sevda. Athate samparetanam.
Samparetanam. Those who have departed, those who had passed away. So, svanam udakam icchatam.
So, to offer water to the dead relatives, dhatum sa krishna gangayam. Deliver, along with Draupadi, sa krishna. Krishna is Lord Krishna and Krishna is Draupadi gangayam.
So, the Pandava, Athe, is from the previous chapter. Pronunciation is carrying on. It refers to the Pandavas.
Puraskritya yastriyam. Puraskritya. And putting them ahead.
So, the Pandavas went to offer water to their dead relatives, keeping the women ahead of them. There is a tradition that one of the rituals that is performed to satisfy a dead person is to serve a dead person, not satisfy. To serve a dead person, to invoke auspiciousness for them in their post-mortem journey and destination, water is offered to them.
And having lamented for them. Brisham. Severely.
Prabhupada translates that as sufficiently, adequately. They took bath. The lotus feet of the Lord.
Rajahaput, with his lotus feet, they have been purified. So, the water of the Ganga, having come from the lotus feet of the Lord, is supremely pure. Text 3. So, with the return back, Tatrasinam was seated Kurupatim.
So, Kurupati is King Yudhishthir. So, Kurupatim is Yudhishthir. And Sahanujam, he came with his brothers.
And there was Dhritarashtra. Dhritarashtra was there. Gandhari was also afflicted with grief.
Putrashokartham. And who all were there? Prutham, Krishnam, Chamadhava. So, the whole Kuru family, from both the sides, was there, united in their grief.
Krishnam Chamadhava. So, Madhava. Krishna is also there.
And Krishna is, the word Madhava is significant that he’s the lord of the goddess of fortune. And here the Pandavas, in fact, the whole family was having a moment of great misfortune. But even in such a time, Krishna was there with them to offer them consolation and counsel, and thus minimise their misfortune.

4. Santvayam Asa Munibhir. After pacifying them, Munibhi, along with the munis present there, they had lost their relatives. They were afflicted.
   By the order of time. So, all living beings are bound by the laws of time. Pratikriyam.
   There is no pratikriya, there is no remedial measure when the adverse time comes upon us, then there’s nothing that can be done about it. So, by talking about how adverse time is unavoidable, Krishna and the sages over there, they consoled all those who were grieving and were shocked. So, the Bhagavatam frequently talks about this theme of how time is supreme and how no one can do anything when a time turns out to be unfavourable.
   That how we are all ultimately slaves of time. Not exactly slaves in the sense that we have no free will, but rather the even with the best use of our free will, when the time turns out to be unfavourable, we all have to bend down to the unfavourable effect of time. So, fifth takes.
   Sādhāyitvājātaśatraho. So, Ajātaśatraho refers to Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. Sādhāyitvā.
   Having fulfilled this, fulfilled the purpose. Ajātaśatraho svamrājyaṁ kittavairitam. Svamrāja.
   So, Yudhiṣṭhira’s own kingdom. Kittavairitam. Kittavair means by the cunning cunning people, the Duryodhana and his cohorts.
   Ritam. They had stolen away, usurped the kingdom. Ghatayitvāsato rāgyaḥ.
   Ghatayitvāsato. Ghatayitvā. Having punished them, killed them.
   Asato. They were unscrupulous. Rāgyaḥ.
   Of the queen. Kachaspareśyakṣatāyushyaha. They had not only touched, the word sparsh is a euphemism here, the miscreants, especially Dushyasana, had not just touched but he had roughly handled and he had dragged by her, dragged Draupadi by her hair and that was dishonour.
   Kachaspareśyakṣatāyushyaha. And just by dragging her like that, because of the dishonour that they have afflicted an honourable lady, Kachaspareśyakṣatāyushyaha, their lifespan had decreased and they met a premature death. So here, sasādayitvā.
   So Krishna had achieved his purpose of regaining, of regaining the lost kingdom of Ajātsatru-niṣṭhira and of restoring the lost honour of Draupadi whose hair had been, who, by dragging whose, dragging her by her hair, the Kauravas had dishonoured her. yājaitvā aśvamedhaistam tribhir uttama kalpakai tad yashah pāvanam dikṣu śata manyo rīvātanot yājaitvā aśvamedhaistam yājaitvā while performing aśvamedha. Yajna in which a horse is sacrificed.
   tam aśvamedha tam. So tribhir uttama kalpakai tribhir means three times over uttama kalpakai tad yashah pāvanam dikṣu śata and thus his glory kalpikai means it was performed by able priest with appropriate ingredients tad yashah pāvanam dikṣu śata and thus his auspicious fame it spread dikṣu it spread in all directions śata manyo rīvātanot and it became like that of Indra who had performed 100 such sacrifices rīvātanot it spread like that. So here actually when Mahājānanda was performing sacrifice the priest suggested to him that you can put in three components you can put the thrice the ingredients and by measuring by increasing all the measures appropriately three times that you can get the credit of three sacrifices and of course Vishwanath Jagat Thakur says that this is a summary description this is not what immediately happened this is what while talking about how Krishna executed his plans here it is stated that the further denouement that means what will happen over a period of time in how Krishna makes his devotees successful that is being briefly and quickly summarised by Suta Goswami over here it’s not that we will see that till now they have not even recovered from the grief of losing their relatives and Ashwathama has just been punished and we will see that Ashwathama will send the Ashwathama having sending this weapon to try to kill Parikshit and then Vishwapitāma is still on his arrow bed and he will depart from this world in the ninth in the next chapter so it is not that while Vishwapitāma is still on his arrow bed and thus the tears of the widows have not even dried up it’s not that during that period the Pandavas are going to perform Ashwamedha Yajna and they are going to perform three Ashwamedha Yajnas in that time no while talking about the moments of time and talking about the plan of the Lord Suta Goswami is here giving a quick summary to describe the performance of the Rajasvi Yajna Prabhupada says this is something like a preface the performances so preface means this is just something which is quickly describing what is going to happen gradually over a period of time so is inviting so after inviting in this case it means greeting the Pandu Putrams was there and there are sages like Dwai Paya and Viparai they were the Brāhmaṇas he offered respects to them and they offered respects back to him so here now Krishna is preparing to depart after having fulfilled his purpose he also has his loved ones in Dwarka whom he wants to go and see with whom he wants to be and while he’s here right now he is waiting so he is now offering his greetings and he’s he’s offering his respects and he’s preparing to depart so as he was just about to start off having decided to go oh here’s Brāhmaṇa he’s referring to so Suta Goswami addressing the residents over there having a situation instituted on his chariot to go to Dwarka upalebhe abhidvāntim means running charging coming rapidly towards him uttaraṁ bhaya-vibhālāṁ we saw that Uttara was Uttara she was a young girl and she was the widow of Abhimanyu and she was rushing towards Krishna for help bhaya-vibhālāṁ she was afflicted with great fear agitated and fearful she was uttaraṁ vācaṁ ninth text pāhi pāhi mahāyogin deva deva jagatpate nānyam tvad abhayam pāhi pāhi pāhi mahāyogin pāhi pāhi oh protect me oh lord you are mahāyogi you are the supreme mystic deva deva jagatpate you are the god of all gods you are the jagatpate you are the master of the universe nānyam tvad abhayam and apart from you i don’t see anyone who can grant fearlessness who can free from fear in this world yatra-vrityu parasparam in this world of duality and death so with her spiritual instinctive spiritual reflex action uttara is as she is running towards krishna and seeing krishna about to depart she is rushing to him to ask for help to ask for protection so it’s significant that um the pāṇḍavas are there um they are her uncles uh they are her not exactly uncles they are her in father-in-laws we could say they’re all assembled over there and they’re all great mahārathis and she’s just a widow who has lost her husband there is in the war that just ended and she’s running out but she doesn’t go to any of the pāṇḍavas she doesn’t go to her husband’s father arjuna she rushes towards krishna because she realises this is a formidable danger what the danger is and how she’s to be protected from the danger she doesn’t understand she may not understand anything precisely but she understands amidst such a danger no one except krishna can protect nānyam tvad abhayam apart from you no one can protect oh lord is charging towards me unto me a blazing fiery arrow it’s like ayah and vibho it’s charging towards me oh great one she’s referring to krishna with two glorificatory adjectives isha and vibho he’s using two uh epithets for referring to him if it is if its desire is to destroy let it destroy me oh lord oh master let it kill me please don’t let it kill my my infant my embryo let it not cause let it not cause the fall of my embryo let there not be any miscarriage so here we see the selfless love of a mother for her infant it is a great mystery how nature of krishna ultimately under the supervision of nature arranges for loving bonds to be formed in this world among various living beings there are few living beings in which the infants are as helpless as are the human infants now all infants whether they are baby birds or baby animals of whichever species they all in their infancy stage they are helpless in the human species actually the human babies are especially helpless and that phase of helpless dependence creates a strong bond of affection between the parents and the child the parents realise that oh this child’s life and well-being depends on me now from a ultimate spiritual perspective we may say this is an illusion we depend on no one except krishna all that is true but then at one level responsible parents are meant to act as representatives of krishna and take the responsibility of taking care of krishna so that affection nature forms even before the mother sees her child when the mother feels senses for the first time now her infant moving in her womb her infant maybe kicking for the first time in the womb these are moments of great joy and with every such moment where the mother contemplates the prospective mother to be mother contemplates how there is her precious baby inside her womb she feels great love and uttara of course she is not just a loving mother she’s also a loving devotee and she knows that she has been married into a family of great devotees her husband was a great devotee her father-in-law is a great devotee arjun abhimanyu they were all great devotees her son is likely to be a great devotee and she wants his protection for that purpose also and see the selflessness of her prayer he’s saying oh lord if there is to be death let there be death for my for me but let my baby not die let my unborn baby live so to watch your text so krishna heard her words he heard her bhagavan bhaktavatsala and the lord is always the protector of his devotees kartum so a panda he wanted that there be no descendants of the pandavas left he understood that this was the astra of drona or this is of the son of drona that is whom they had sent sentenced to punishment in the previous chapter as has been described and then he was sent off but he says malevolence had not died it had not decreased and he had wanted to he had tried he had killed the sons of pandu but he wanted to end the panda dynasty thinking that this dynasty was what had killed his father and he wanted to take revenge so with that vicious intention in mind he had now sent a malevolent weapon to finish off the survive the unborn survive unborn um the same panda descendant so that the panda descendant would panda dynasty would end that was his well vicious intention it’s alakshastanya upadaduhu so tarhya evatha munishreshta so at that evatha munishreshta so here munishreshta suta goswami is referring to saunaka very respectfully as oh you are the greatest of the munis munishreshta tarhya at that time evatha therefore certainly panda all the five sons of panda was panchashayakan they took up their own weapons they all raised their weapons because they saw now uttara you know mother has that sense nobody had seen the the brahmasa charging the fiery weapon charging towards uttara could sense that there’s a great danger for her son she came running and as she spoke this and krishna heard krishna intuited with his omniscience what was happening at that time before he could speak anything the blazing weapon was came charging along the pandavas also lifted their weapons promptly to try to stop it seeing it they raised their weapons they saw the glaring brahmastra coming towards them and they raised their weapons to try to counter it so seeing this great danger viksha on seeing tattesha befalling his devotees so those whose consciousness had no other vishaya those who were devoted only to him those who are heart and soul whose life were devoted to him that his devotees krishna saw that there was a great danger befalling them and they were his devotees bhakta vatsala with sudarshan chakracharya’s his own weapon he protected them that vibhu their supreme lord earlier uttara has also referred to krishna by the adjective vibhu and here the same adjective is being used again swanam raksham so he they all offered their prayers to they they all the pandavas were ready to fight but krishna used his sudarshan chakra and he offered he protected his devotees so sarvabhutanam he is antahastha he is situated in the heart of all living beings sarvabhutana he is the lord of all mystic powers he is hari he is the supreme lord who is situated in the innermost core of all living beings by his personal energy so the word maya is often used to mean illusion but maya doesn’t have to always mean illusion maya can also mean the energy so with his own energy he covered so uttara was the daughter of virat so therefore her name was vairatya says the the princess of videha sita was known as so like that the princess of virat was known as vairatya so vairatya he protected the progeny of maharaj guru the future descendant of the maharaj of of in the kuru dynasty he protected him so the significant points are that he is present in the hearts of all living beings and he’s mahayogeshwarohari so now somebody may ask okay he’s present in the heart but how can he if a weapon were coming towards the heart he might be able to protect but if the weapon is coming towards the womb how can he protect well he can protect because he’s a supreme mystic he will be faster than we can think the lord can move and the lord is not situated in the region of the heart is not locked in the region of the heart by his own choice he stays in the region of the heart being as close to the soul as is ever possible for anyone to be close to anyone else but at the same time if he wants he can move from there to anywhere else so he uses sudarshan chakra and he also has so he has extremely powerful weapon and he has supreme mystic power so he used his mystic power to protect uttara from that blazing embryo from that blazing fiery weapon so here suta goswami speaking yadhyapya astram brahmashira so this is a brahmashira astram an extremely formidable weapon and what are its characteristics the amogham cha pratikriyam amogha it never misses his target and apratikriyam there is no way to counter it so now normally there are two these two ways in which one can say oneself and an opponent’s enemy is coming instead of somebody else shoots a target nowadays we may not be so familiar with bows and arrows but suppose somebody shoots with a gun at us there are two chances that we two ways we might be saved one is that that person misses the target and the second is we can somehow we can somehow check the bullet so it may well be that we are having a bulletproof vest and so the bullet bounces off but if there’s some if the if say the target is so if the weapon is so precisely controlled and precisely targeted if the person is hitting the goal on target and then the bullet is going to come so fast and so forceful that it cannot be checked then the victim is going to die so like that brahmashira the weapon is it can neither be diverted so that it will miss the target nor it can be counteracted it’s amogham apratikriyam and yet that which is materially impossible is spiritually possible and that’s what the supreme lord did over here Vaishnava teja asadya Vaishnavam usually we use the word Vaishnava to refer to the devotees of lord Vishnu who are called as Vaishnavas that’s true but the word Vaishnava when it can be a common noun describing the devotees of lord Vishnu it can also be an adjective which refers to anything connected with lord Vishnu so here that word is used in that sense that Vaishnava the weapon of lord Vishnu that was the weapon of lord Vishnu is Sudarshan Vaishnavam teja asadya when that unstoppable undivertible brahmastra was confronted with the fiery power of the of the brahm of lord Vishnu’s weapon of the power of lord Vishnu it was it became pacified it was neutralised it was countered it became ineffectual so brugu is considered to be one of the progenitors of the brahmanas so all brahmanas are considered to be best among the descendants of brugu this is a reference to shanatha by suta so suta goswami is telling that although the weapon was unstoppable and undivertible yet what was materially impossible was done spiritually made spiritually possible by the omnipotence of lord Vishnu so prabhupada gives a interesting explanation where he stresses the point that sometimes when we use the word brahmashira brahma brahmastra we may think it is the weapon of brahmaji but actually in the weapon in the brahmastra in the name brahmastra brahma refers not to the not brahmaji brahmaji is brahmana he hardly ever fights so the brahmastra refers to the astra which comes from the way which has the power of brahma brahma is the topmost reality the highest reality in brahma so prabhupada says here brahmashira its effulgent power will come from it comes from the is actually the power of the brahma jyoti and brahma jyoti is an expansion of is the effulgence of krishna and brahmanohi patishtam krishna is krishna the krishna is the foundation of the brahma jyoti so in that sense although brahman and bhagwan are non-different still bhagwan is the most complete manifestation of the absolute truth so when bhagwan wants he can check and stop the brahmastra and that is what he did by his extraordinary power 16th text is now telling his assessment of the event and he’s saying actually there is nothing astonishing about this actually the lord is fully astonishing everything about him is astonishing so this particular act is nothing especially astonishing he is the lord of maya he is transcendental and he creates maintains and destroys although is unborn and transcendental through his energy he creates maintains and destroys all of material existence so if he can if he can maintain all of existence then surely he can maintain one embryo in the womb of one woman and if he can destroy everything then surely he can destroy the potency of one weapon no matter how powerful it might be otherwise so at one level the statement might seem a little anticlimactic there’s nothing astonishing about this because everything about him is astonishing so what does it mean exactly it means that here the word ashtarya is used in the sense that one should not think of this as impossible or unbelievable because everything because for the lord nothing is impossible the lord being omnipotent can make that which is and which seems unbelievable he can make it immediately possible such is the wonderful lord he is full of all astonishing powers and he never falls or fails so he uses he surely uses astonishing powers to protect his devotees and that is what he has done when he has protected the pandavas by protecting their surviving