​Bhagavatam study 53 1.10.28-36 Krishna’s departure and travel are celebrations of love

Thank you. Krishnamad Bhagavatam, text 1, 1028. So here, the Guru ladies, from their terraces, are beholding Krishna departing from their city and are discussing among themselves the glories of Krishna.
So, they started by talking about how Krishna is not just an ordinary person. He is the same Supreme Person who existed before creation. So, after talking about the trans-cosmic position of Krishna, now they are talking about how wonderful it is that that same Supreme Lord becomes easily accessible in this world and how fortunate are those with whom He is intimately associated.
In the previous verse, they talked about the Kushesthali, Dwaraka and how Dwarakavasis are so fortunate and Dwaraka is more fortunate than even Swarga because of the presence of Krishna. In this verse, they talk about the Vrajavasis. So, Noonam, certainly they must have, in the previous verse, Vrata-snana-huta, Dineshwarah, Vrata-snana-huta.
So, all these refer to different kinds of religious rituals that are performed for getting piety. Vrata is fasting or different kinds of vows that are taken. Snana is bathing.
Huta is, Ahuti is offered in Yajna. Dineshwarah, Adina, by all these, Adi is others. Eshwarah, Samarchito, they must have worshipped the Eshwarah by all these.
Asya-gruhit-paani-bhi, and Gruhit-paani-bhi, those whose hand He has accepted. So, normally, when a man and a woman become united in marriage, at the time of Kanyadaan, when the father gives, father entrusts his daughter to the husband. So, at that time, he gives the hand.
That’s why we have the saying of, accept the hand of someone in marriage. So, gruhit-paani-bhi. So, here they are first talking about the wives of Krishna, whom Krishna married, actually.
Pibantiya-sakhya-adharamrutam-muhur. And, they get to drink the nectar of Krishna’s lips in the course of their normal conjugal relationships. And that is, when this affection is there, this way they get the intimate association of Krishna.
And, Vrajastriya-sammuhurya-dashayah. And, the Vrajastriya-s, the Vrajavasis, especially the Gopis, they sambuhu, they faint, they get overwhelmed, just thinking about the fortune of the Dwarka queens. So, here, there are three different sets of, the females who are devoted to Krishna that have been talked about.
The Kuru ladies are offering the prayers. And, they are thinking about the fortune of the Dwarkavasis, specifically the Dwarka queens. And, then they are thinking about how the Gopis think about the Dwarkavasis.
So, this is the nature of love, that when we think about the beloved, we just don’t think about the beloved in relationship with us. Certainly, that is an important relationship. But, we also understand that the person whom we love, they have relationship with others, and they have emotions in those relationships.
So, the Kuru ladies, they have an affectionate relationship with Krishna, but they don’t have a conjugal relationship with Krishna. It is Dwarkavasis, Dwarka queens, Mahishis, they have that conjugal relationship. And, Vajagopis, whenever Krishna performed Rasleela during his manifested pastimes in this world, they also enjoyed intimate affection with Krishna.
But, that is not what they would regularly have. And, that’s why when the Vajagopis think about how fortunate the Dwarka queens are, they, just by thinking about it, that Supreme Lord who is completely transcendental, that He reciprocates with such rituals, reciprocates with such intimacy, that is extraordinary. Now, it is easy to think of this as mundane.
Oh, is it that just the normal male-female relationship is going on over here? But, the Kuru sthriyas, Kuru queens, they, Kuru ladies, they point to the transcendence of all this by saying that actually, to be able to get so close to Krishna, the Dwarka queens must have done a lot of vratasnaan-hutadini. So, it is not an ordinary thing to come close to Krishna and to especially come so close in an intimate relationship with Krishna. That is actually a very exalted position and it is the result of great piety, great austerity.
And certainly, they must have done all this by which they could have come close to Krishna like this. Srila Prabhupada writes in the Purport that if these things had been mundane, Sukadeva Goswami would not have talked about these. Suta Goswami would not have discussed these in the assembly of sages.
So, text 29. Now, they are going on and talking about the marriage. So, shulka is prize.
So, here it is said that in the swayamvar, when a princess is to be won, what is the prize that is offered? The prize is one’s heroism. It’s a very poetic way of describing the swayamvar. So, hritha means taken away by force.
So, actually, the whole point of a swayamvar is to have a glorious person to get the hand of a princess. And that glory of the person is seen in various ways. One of the ways is that there is some target which is set.
Shoot an arrow from here or fight or curb these bulls or whatever. That is one way in which the virya is shown and is demonstrated by the potential suitors. The other is that if they can demonstrate their superiority over the other suitors by defeating them.
And then they take the princess by force. So, here by force doesn’t necessarily mean against her will. By force means by overcoming the others who are hostile.
pramatya chaidya pramukhaan ishushminah pramatya harassing chaidya chaidya is the name of Shishupal. That is the name which is related to this kingdom. Pramukhaan, headed by ishushuminah ishushuminah means very powerful.
So, he is talking here about Krishna’s the Kuru ladies are talking about Krishna’s heroism in abducting Rukmini even in the presence of Shishupal and other kings. Then sambamba suta dayopara and similarly there are other queens also. Samba, Amba So, now the ladies are being referred to through the their progeny.
They have these children and their mothers So, those whom Krishna abducted eventually they had these children and the mothers are identified through their children. Apart from that after killing Bhauma Krishna So, Bhaumasura had abducted many princes and he was threatening and tormenting them and Krishna killed Bhaumasura he released all of them and because this woman had already been abducted by another man so they were not they would not have been accepted by anyone and they said that our heart’s aspiration prayer has been that you accept us, O Krishna and Krishna accepted their prayer and their request. So, here we see a very striking contrast between Krishna and Ram.
Now, because Sita had stayed with Ravana, even though she was his wedded wife Ram separated himself from her by asking her to go to Valmiki’s ashram or by sending her to Lakshmana there. On the other hand these princesses were not even Krishna’s queen. Krishna had no relationship with them and so Lord Ram in one sense disrupted a relationship that was already there because of Sita’s having stayed at Ravana’s palace.
Whereas Krishna while in this case he established a relationship which was not there although the circumstances were very similar. Babasura had also abducted the princess against their will and Sita had been abducted by Ravana against his will. So, why the difference? The difference is in purpose.
Lord Ram is Maryada Purushottam. Lord Ram is personifying various kinds of dharma and underlying mood of the whole Ramayan is the mood of sacrifice. So, sacrifice for a higher cause is the defining mood of everything in the Ramayan.
So, if it had been a question of just rights, then Sita definitely had a right to stay with Ram and Ram could have said the citizens don’t have a right to criticise my wife. I will finish those who have this audacity. But that way Ram could even have said that Dashrath does not have a right to exile me.
I am the prince regent and I deserve to be the king. I have done nothing wrong. Why should just for the sake of satisfying Kaikeyi, Ram be sent to the forest? I go to the forest.
Ram could have thought like that. But the whole mood of the Ramayan of all the characters practically speaking whether it is Ram accepting the exile sentence which Kaikeyi instituted through Dashrath or whether Sita is insisting that I go with Ram or Lakshman is insisting that I go with Ram and Sita. All these unify in demonstrating the mood of sacrifice for some higher cause.
And if we make Ram exiling Sita into an issue of injustice against women then we completely misunderstand the purpose of the Ramayan. The Ramayan is demonstrating this principle of sacrifice and that sacrifice is seen in the point that Ram when he sends Sita to the forest to Valmiki’s ashram more specifically not to the forest technically speaking Sita did not have to live in the wilderness but even after doing that Ram did not accept any other wife. It was not just that Sita separated from Ram.
Ram also accepted separation from Sita. So the whole Ramayan mood is the mood of sacrifice. In contrast Krishna is demonstrating another principle in the Bhagavatam.
He is demonstrating the principle of of being a heroic warrior, of being a glorious rescuer and of being a illustrious Kshatriya ruler. So here he takes on the role of the redeemer of these queens who may have fallen in, of these women who may have fallen in the eyes of society of conservative society but he actually protected them, he uplifted them and from the threat of being looked down as fallen women they were exalted to the position of being the queens of Krishna. Krishna was practically the most powerful king of his times.
So in this way Krishna did a glorious service to these queens by accepting their hand. Text 30 Text 30 Text 30 Text 30 Text 30 all these queens in the previous verse, the various queens that Krishna married have been talked about. They attained the perfection of womanhood.
word, what was the perfusion, apasthapeshalam, apasthapeshalam, so without individuality Prabhupada translates this, I will come back to this, nirasthashaucham, nirasthashaucham means without purity, patasadukurvate, they were glorified, they became glorious, their name became glorified, yasamgrahat pushkaralochana patir, yasamgrahat from whose house is pushkaralochana, the lotus eyed lord, Krishna is lotus eyed, patir, as their husband, apaiti, najyat apaiti, he did not go away, arati bhi, brdhispishan, so now the further fortune of these queens is talked about, that although in one sense, they might not have been considered as pure because they had been abducted by Bhaumasura, so some people, nirasthashaucham, they might not be considered pure, but Krishna actually made them glorious, eta params tritham, they were bestowed the perfection of womanhood by being accepted as Krishna’s queens and Krishna just did not make them nominally queens and just leave them and go away, no, Krishna actually stayed with them, yasamgrahat pushkaralochana patir, Krishna stayed with them as their husband and Krishna actually pleased them by giving presentations, by giving gifts, he touched their hearts, so Krishna was not just a husband in letter or in law, he actually became a husband in heart for them and in that way, all their heart’s aspirations were fulfilled, so Krishna in this way blessed them. Now again, apastapeshanam, without individuality, what that means in this context is that actually there are so many queens and even the 16,000 are the names of the 16,000 queens mentioned over there, but for Krishna, so it might just seem like a huge number for us to have somebody to have 16,000 queens, so they might seem like a nameless gigantic number, but for Krishna, they were individuals and Krishna reciprocated with each of them individually by serving, by acting as their husband, so Krishna would expand into 16,108 forms when he went to each of their palaces and in this way, so what is the point of all this, when the Kuru ladies are talking about Krishna doing this, they are just talking about how that Supreme Transcendental Lord is performing such astonishing pastimes wherein he is doing such heroic activities, so these heroic activities from the material point of view also, they are extraordinary, but when we understand that from the spiritual perspective, this is a Supreme Lord who is doing this, then it becomes even more extraordinary, that person who is transcendental, he is manifesting in this world in such endearing ways, performing such sweet pastimes and thereby demonstrating the sweetness of spiritual love that occurs eternally in the spiritual world and that is manifested in the trailer when Krishna descends to this world. Text 31, So here, Suta Goswami concludes the narration of the discussions between the various Kuru ladies as Krishna was departing.
Now it’s interesting, who are the Kuru ladies, they are specifically not mentioned, so we can easily understand that Draupadi would have been among them, Subhadra would have been among them, Draupadi is of course very devoted to Krishna, Subhadra is the sister of Krishna and at the start of this chapter, it was mentioned that Subhadra, it was for Subhadra’s sake also that Krishna stayed on for a longer time, so these and the other ladies would have been there, so evam vidhaganthinam, in this way after they are talking and praying about, sagira purayoshitam, so with their words, they offer their farewell, purayoshitam, Yoshita is woman, Pura is city, the ladies of the city of Kuruvilla, nirikshanena, as they were speaking, they were discussing about Krishna and Krishna is departing, but Krishna sensed that there are his devotees, there are those who love him, they are beholding him, they are talking about him, so he turned back and he glanced affectionately at them, abhinandan, he greeted them, there are different ways of greeting, there is shaking hand, there is smiling and just there is a simple glance is also a form of greeting or a form of farewell, sasmitena yayauhari, sasmitena, so they were all discussing all this sweetly, that these beautiful things about Krishna and Krishna, look at their smile, he appreciated the expression of affection that they were offering through this and yayauhari, so he departed, so here Krishna, the narrative of the Kuru ladies now ends over here and Krishna’s departure will be described from this text onwards till the end of the chapter, departure and journey towards Dvarka, the next chapter will describe his entry into Dvarka, text 32, ajatashatru pruthanam, gopithaya madhudvisaha, parebhyas shankitah snehad, parayunta chaturanginim, chaturanginim, so he engaged four divisions of soldiers, now Krishna had actually come there to protect the Pandavas, to assist the Pandavas and Krishna is by far the greatest warrior, he is God, he is the protector of everyone and he doesn’t need anyone’s protection, but he visited Maharaj out of his affection, he wanted to express his affection towards Krishna and for that purpose, he deployed four divisions of armies and of course, from a strategic point of view or from a political point of view, there was also a practical fear of reprisals, the Kuru, the Pandavas enemies had been killed, but sometimes their brothers, their relatives, some of them were still alive and they might launch a surprise attack for taking revenge and so that some amount of protection was required, that’s what Yudhishthira Maharaj felt and therefore, he arranged for this protection. So gopithaya for giving protection to Madhudvisaha, so now by using the word Madhudvisaha, Kshetra Goswami conveys that actually no protection was required, what can the earthly enemies harm a person who has overcome far greater enemies, even demons who were threats to Devatas have been overcome by this person, but still for his protection, Yudhishthira Maharaj arranged parebhyashankita snehad, from the fear of the enemies and out of his own affection. So normally, when a person whom we love very much is going off, then we would like to give them a grand farewell and one way of giving a grand farewell was by having a grand procession accompany him to see him off, to escort him and that’s what Yudhishthira Maharaj did as Krishna was departing.
Text 33, atha duragatan shauri, kauravan virahaturan, sanivardhyadrudham snikthan, prayad svanagarindriyai, atha duragatan, so duragatan, for a long distance they accompanied Shauri, Lord Krishna, kauravan virahaturan. So now we see the Bhagavatam repeatedly uses the word Kaurava to refer to the Pandavas. This has happened earlier also once or twice, because now those who had arrogated to themselves the title Kauravas, they were dead.
Actually speaking, the Pandavas were also Kauravas because Kaurava is a generic reference to all descendants of the Kuru dynasty. It’s like say, if we have a state like Maharashtra in India, then all Maharashtrians are automatically Indians. So Maharashtrians are a subset of Indians.
So like that, the Pandavas were technically, factually speaking, a subset of the Kauravas. They were also Kauravas. But because the Pandavas did not have ruling power and the ruling power of the Kuru dynasty was with the sons of Dhritarashtra, so the Mahabharata usually refers to them, refers to the sons of Dhritarashtra as the Kauravas.
So suppose for example, say the residents of Maharashtra are for some reason disenfranchised. They don’t have the power to vote in Indian elections. Then they might be contrasted, okay, Indians and Maharashtrians, because Maharashtrians are not included in the Indian set.
But if Maharashtrians also later become enfranchised and in fact, if all of India has no one except Maharashtrians, then naturally Maharashtrians will also be later referred as Indians. So like that, here, now there are no Kauravas remaining except for Yujutsu, who was almost like an illegitimate son of Dhritarashtra. He was a son through a Shudrani.
So he had no power of royal inheritance. So the responsibility of continuing the Kuru dynasty was on the Pandavas, the sons of Pandavas. So now, with their position as the sole bearers of the Kuru dynasty, they are referred to here by Kauravas.
So Kauravan, Virahathuran, they were Atura. They were very much distressed, very overcome by emotion of separation from Krishna. Sannivartya, Dhrudham, Snigdhan.
Sannivartya, means gently persuaded, politely persuaded. Dhrudham, Snigdhan, those who had very strong affection for him. Prayat, Svanagar, Impriyai.
So all of the Pandavas accompanied Krishna for a long distance and finally Krishna told them, now it’s enough. Now you can go back. It’s like if somebody is seeing us off, they may come out till the door or they may come out till the vehicle or they may come in the vehicle till the airport or they may come in the airport till the departure lounge or they may get some special permission and come till even the take-off point.
And finally, when the aeroplane is about to depart, he said, now you can leave. So like that, the Pandavas, out of their affection, came till a long distance, Duragatan. But finally, Krishna said, now, please, you can depart.
And they finally reluctantly accepted and they departed. And now it will be described, how Krishna went through various regions. Text 34.
So here, a list of some of the areas is given. Kuru. Kuru Jangal.
Prabhupada translated that as the area of the province of Delhi. So, Hastinapur is roughly the modern, what modern is called Delhi in India. But if we consider Delhi as a district or a city, a province is a broader area.
So, Kuru Jangal. Panchalan. Panchalan is the kingdom of Panchali of Drupada.
So, Prabhupada explained that that refers roughly to what we call today as Punjab. Then Shurasenaan. The reign of Shurasena.
Prabhupada gives a rough geographical correlate as Uttar Pradesh. Sayamunaan. So, Yamuna.
Sayamunaan means that which is in the banks of Yamuna. So, the area through which Yamuna flowed. Brahmavartam.
So, Brahmavartam refers to a part of Uttar Pradesh. Kurukshetram. Kurukshetram, of course, is the place where the battle had taken place.
And Kurukshetra is the place where, through which Krishna passed. Now, Kurukshetra is a geographical place right now. Matsyaan.
Saraswatana. So, Matsyaan. The kingdom of Matsya and Saraswatana.
Saraswatana refers to, again, a part of Punjab where the, roughly we could say, Saraswati river flows. These are some of the places through which Krishna passed. Marudhanvam atikramya.
This is text 35. Marudhanvam atikramya. Sauviraabhirayoparaan.
Anartaan bhargavopagaach. Shratanvaho managvibhuhum. So, further he has described.
Maru. Maru is the place of the desert. So, that refers to Rajasthan.
Dhanvam. Madhya Pradesh. Proposes where water is scanty.
Now, the, some parts of Madhya Pradesh are like that. Sauviraabhirayoparaan. So, sauvira refers to Saurashtra.
Abhirayoparaan. Krishna is going towards Gujarat. So, from Saurashtra, he goes to a part of Gujarat.
Abhirayoparaan. Like this he came to the western side of India. Shratanvaho.
So, Anartaan bhargavopagaach. So, Anartaan refers finally to the province of Dwarka. So, there is a city of Dwarka and there is a province of Dwarka.
So, Krishna through this path has finally come to the area of Dwarka. Bhargava. Bhargava refers to again, address used to refer by Suta Goswami to Sona Krishna.
Upagaad. By the time they reach, they were overtaken by shraanta, fatigue. Manaag, vibhu, because of the long journey.
So, they reached. So, the Lord proceeded through this path and finally reached the destination. Now, here Prabhupada gives us in his purport, the mood in which we should stress things and we should not stress things in the Bhagavatam.
And Prabhupada says, we may leave the matter for expert geologists to research because the changing universe has different phases of historical development. We are satisfied that the Lord has now reached his own province, Dwarkadham from the Kuru provinces. So, the point is that when we look at scripture, we can look at it as a historical document, we can look at a geographical document, we can look at a sociological document, we can look at it as a cultural document.
And all this is… there are useful ways of looking at scripture. But the essential message of scripture is a spiritual message. The message of how we can come closer to Krishna.
And if you get so caught in trying to precisely find out, okay, which is this area, which is that area, what was the exact path that Krishna took? And if that becomes our consuming focus, and we lose track of the point that actually this is the Supreme Lord who has descended, and it is the Supreme Lord to whom I want to be attracted. Certainly, those who are specialists in the field of geography or history, they can and they, if that is their inspiration, they should do this kind of research for further gaining and sharing a clearer understanding of the… understanding of the historical or geographical dimensions of how Krishna’s pastimes unfolded in this world. But even without this understanding, we can, by studying Krishna Leela, become devoted to Him.
So, we shouldn’t… while approaching Krishna’s Krishna Leela, Krishna’s books like the Bhagavatam, we shouldn’t get distracted from the main purpose. While fulfilling the mere purpose, while serving the main purpose, if some other fields are studied, that is fine. But we should not let ourselves get distracted.
Last text now, 36. The first line here is a poetic alliteration. So, tatra-tatra word comes thrice over here.
At those various places, it so happened that those who were living over there, those places, Hari, that Supreme Lord, they offered their respects and worship to Him through various presentations. By the time they were overcome, So, it is said that while travelling, the Lord suspended His activities so that He could perform the evening rituals. And after performing the evening rituals, that after the evening rituals were performed, especially after the sunset occurred, the Lord did this dutifully.
So, that means, the Bhagavatam here concludes the 16th… the 10th chapter describing Krishna’s travels with this note that Krishna performed dharmic activities such as the evening rituals. Just like there are… there is the Sandhya Vandanam, there is the Gayatri mantra that is chanted by the Dvijas. Dvijas means the Brahmanas, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas.
They all chant this mantra and thus they perform the evening rituals. We see in the Mahabharata also Arjuna and warriors, they would perform morning rituals, they would perform evening rituals. The idea is that when we are living in this world, life is a journey and this journey has phases.
So, morning, evening, the times when we perform Sandhya, they are marked transition points in this journey of life. And sometimes you can get so caught in the day-to-day nitty-gritties of life that we may forget the ultimate spiritual realities which we are ultimately pursuing in our life. So, the periodic breaks that are there, which if they are observed diligently, they reorient our consciousness and they help us to focus on Krishna, focus on ultimate reality.
It’s Krishna. So, this is an activity of Krishna in which He is performing, He is demonstrating the kind of beautifulness that we should exhibit while doing our duties. Thank you very much.
We will