​Bhagavatam study 54 1.11.1-7 Krishna’s arrival brings ecstasy

Continue with the next chapter in our next talk. So, upavrajya, on reaching there, sriddhan, janapadhan, svakhan, sriddhan, vriddhi is progress or prosperity. So, sriddhan is that which is prosperous.
Janapadhan, the place where the feet of the people are there or the place where people reside, that is, cities. Svakhan, His own. So, Krishna reached.
Anarthan, the city of Dwaraka, which is His own abode. Dadmau, daravaram, tesham. Dadmau, shankham, dadmau, prathak, prathakham, in the Bhagavad Gita.
Dadmau means to blow or to sound. So, daravaram, tesham. Daravaram, so, His conch, varam, the best of the conches, very blessed.
Consul, auspicious consul, which is panchjanya, tesham, vishadam, shamayan, iva, vishadam, the dejection, the sadness that was there because of His absence, shamayan, iva, shamayan, He removed that. He pacified their minds. So, in a one-verse introduction, a beautiful summary of the essential emotional transformation that has happened by Krishna’s entry or even just the news of Krishna’s entry or return to Dwaraka, that is summarised here by Suta Goswami, that sometimes if a family member has gone away and they are expected to come back.
So, at that time, everybody, the family members were at home. They are waiting to hear the sound of a vehicle coming along or to hear the sound of footsteps coming along the road. The knocking on the door is like almost the final announcement that somebody has eagerly awaited has come now.
But even before that, there are various ways in which different people have their different footsteps, different people have their own vehicles, which have particular sounds. So, for the lovers, the sounds which signify, for a lover, the sound which signify the arrival of the beloved, just that sound sparks off celebration. And here it is described that not only are the Dwarakas eagerly awaiting the arrival of Krishna and in separation from Krishna, they are in a state of dejection and despondency, but Krishna is eager to return to them and he proclaims his return.
It’s like somebody comes home and calls out, oh mother, oh father, oh brother, oh sister, oh wife, where are you? Whatever. He calls out and that’s the sound of the voice of the call that invites everyone to rush to greet that person. So, for a warrior, the conch is the way to announce.
So, at the start of the Kurukshetra war, the conches are blown, as is the tradition to blow the conches at the start of a war. Now, today’s culture, conches are blown primarily to signify the start and end of Aarthis. But conches were basically announcers.
The blowing of conch was when to announce anything significant. So, the Aarthi of the Lord is a very significant event where the Lord of the universe is worshipped with the resources of the universe. A battle is a significant event.
And similarly, the return of a warrior home is also a significant event. And that significant event occurs when Krishna himself blows his conch. And just by hearing that sound, all the Dwarkavasis, their accumulated despondency disappears and they become pacified, even delighted.
Text 2. That which is brilliant, which is very bright and refers to the belly or the bowel, is the name of Bhima, one who had a a wolf-like belly, one who devoured a lot of food. So, the conch is white and if you consider, compare the conch to a body, then just like a fat person is swollen in the middle. So, like that, hmm, swollen in the middle.
is the Lord who, Raghupati translates as the great adventurer, one who takes giant steps, one who can do superhuman activities is the great adventurer. So, the lips touch that conch shell and the sound came out. Now the Lord’s lips are reddish and when the white conch was touched by the reddish lips, what happened? So, for blowing it, for sounding it, the Lord brought his red lips in contact with the white body of the conch.
So, it appeared as if it was Karakanja, the grip of a lotus. So, it was like a swan had caught or come under the grip of a lotus flower or rather the swan. So, a swan, a beautiful swan, when it comes near the lotus flower, so lotus is reddish, the swan is white and the swan may play with the lotus, may put its mouth into the lotus or something like that while playing with it.
So, when the two come close to each other, it’s a beautiful sight. So, similarly, it is described here. Here we see the poetic vividness of the recollection and imagery of Suta Goswami where he sees the contrast of the red and the white in the lips and the conch and that reminds him of the contrast between, that reminds him of a metaphor drawn from nature of the colour contrast in a white swan and a reddish lotus.
This is just as the two would look very beautiful like that, it appeared as this is a swan might sport with a lotus. So, similarly, this conch, which is white like a swan and the lotus lips of the Lord were playing together, which is the beauty of the image. So, now his red lips, they appear to imbue a redness to the conch, that is his spiritual potency.
So, having heard this, the sound, so now even the death is afraid of the supreme. Bhagavatam will tell us later that even death moves about in my fear. So, that Lord is feared even by death.
So, the alliteration of the word bhaya, the repetition, poetic repetition, jagat bhaya bhaya aham. So, that which the whole universe fears, that is fearful of the Lord, which is the Lord who is wonderful, you come here. So, when describing the Lord, we can see the love of Suta Goswami that is manifest in his using different describers almost in each verse to glorify the Lord.
He used the word Urukrama earlier, now he is using the word jagat bhaya bhaya aham. So, they ran towards, rapidly towards him, prajah sarva, all the people of Dwarka, they heard his conch and they all rushed out, they were so eager to have his darshan. Bharatru darshan lalasa.
So, darshan lalasa, out of their eagerness to have darshan of the Lord, lalasa, Bharatru, they all knew that he is their maintainer, he is their Lord. His maintenance is not just in physical terms, the king is the maintainer, the anvadata of the citizens, but the Lord was their maintainer in every sense of the word, physically, mentally, spiritually, in all ways, it was he who was maintaining them and for them, when they were separated from him, it was their memories of him that were maintaining their life. And now that the Lord was there, their hearts longing to behold him, propelled their feet towards him.
Their life had become desolate without his darshan, although they were having darshan internally in their heart, but still they longed to have his darshan externally with their eyes and with that longing, they charged towards him to see the one who was Bharatru. Darshana lalasa, one was their Bharatru, one was their maintainer, out of the eagerness to have darshan of him, they charged towards him. Text 4 and 5 here it is.
Tattropanitabalayo, Ravirdipamivadrutaha, Atmaramam poornakamam, Nijlabhena nityadah, Tattropanitabalayo. So, thereafter, Upanitabalayo. Many people offered him various presentations, gifts.
Ravirdipamivadrutaha. Now the offerings over there, so the Bhagavatam is so filled, so pregnant with philosophical import that even while stressing that, even while stating that the Narkabasis offered various gifts to the Supreme Lord when he came to them, the Bhagavatam immediately clarifies that actually no one can gift anything to the Supreme Lord because He is like the Ravi and to the Ravi, who can offer any deep? Actually, Deepamivadrutaha. So, offering a lamp to the sun does nothing for the lamp.
It is only the offerers. Actually, offering a lamp to the sun does nothing for the sun. The sun already has so much illumination with it.
So, offering the lamp simply gives some credit to the offerers, not to the offered. The offerers, they have done some worship. So, similarly, Atmaramam poornakamam, Nijlabhena nityadah, Atmaramam.
This Lord is Atmaram. What does He need? He is self-satisfying. He doesn’t need anything.
Poornakamam. All His desires are eternally fulfilled. Nijlabhena nityadah, Nijlabhena.
He is with His own gifts, with His own, whatever He has by His own potencies, whatever He is, nityadah, is eternally satisfied with it. Atmaramam poornakamam, Nijlabhena nityadah. Actually, this awareness that Krishna doesn’t need anything from us, this awareness can prevent pride.
It can bring humility. Because quite often when we do something for someone, we feel as if we are doing a favour to that person. And we often put ourselves in a superior position when we do something for someone.
But when we understand that they don’t need anything at all. They have everything. So, at that time, our focus shifts from the other person, from our doing something as a favour to the other person, to simply our expressing our feelings to that person.
So, at one level, at the level of philosophical analysis to avoid the feeling of pride or superiority, we need to always remember that Krishna doesn’t need anything from us. That Krishna is self-satisfied. At the same time, that Supreme Lord also likes to reciprocate loving relationships with His devotees.
And thus in certain relationships, He manifests a sense of incompleteness so that by His Yogamaya potency, He manifests a seeming sense of incompleteness by which others can do something in service to Him and thereby there can be the intensification of the loving relationship and reciprocation. This Krishna is always self-satisfied. He is always fully self-satisfied.
But still, He sometimes feels hungry. When He feels hungry, He tells Mother Yashoda, I am hungry. Or He just goes and pulls at her saree to tell her that He wants her food.
He wants her milk or He wants some other food. So, this way, what Krishna does is He creates the factors that are necessary for the reciprocation of the relationship. So, the seeming incompleteness of the complete shows His completeness that the Lord’s completeness manifested in His just being completely neutral and always self-satisfied.
That would not enable a sense of a relationship because relationships involve a level of reciprocation. And if you feel that the drive of doing something for the other person which often animates relationships, that drive is no longer there. So, that drive comes when we have this feeling.
And in order to create that feeling, Krishna sometimes manifests incompleteness and thus the devotees get an opportunity to serve Him. So, that is, in terms of rasa, here the focus is on tattva. In terms of tattva, He shows His completeness thus by apparently manifesting a sense of incompleteness.
Out of affection, they blossomed. Because they had so much love for the Lord, that out of that love, their faces just blossomed, protrude. And they are so delighted that they spoke joyfully.
With jubilation, they wanted to speak. The emotion that were there in their heart, they were overflowing out as speech. But the emotions while overflowing were also overwhelming.
And because of the overwhelming nature of the emotions, they wanted to speak and they wanted to speak so much to welcome the Lord, but they just couldn’t find the words to speak. So, here the example is given, avitaram ivarbhakaha. Vitaram, avitaram, that refers to a guardian, arbhakaha.
Arbhaka usually means a child or a war. So, a war knows that their whole existence depends on their guardian. And naturally, these are the indications that the devotees were aware of the relationship with Him.
While they were overwhelmed with emotion, what was the emotion? Oh, this is our Lord. He is our sarvasurudam. He is our, you know, everywhere our well-wisher, pitaram, our father.
So, now it’s interesting. Was this the feeling of only those who were as children in Dwarka, in one sense? This is not a, you can say, this is not the appropriate feeling for those who are not in that rasa with Him. But you have to understand that, broadly speaking, especially in Dwarka, all the relationships have a background of aishwarya in them.
And the devotees there are aware of Krishna’s greatness. And in a generic sense, for everyone, Krishna is the maintainer. So, physically, emotionally, spiritually, Krishna is the maintainer of everyone.
The devotees are aware of that fact, even if that awareness is not in the forefront of their consciousness all the time. Text 6. So, nataha is to bow down. So, here there is a play of words in the word nataha and natha, just a and h, the last two letters are reversed, if you look at from the English point of view.
So, O Master, nataha smate, we bow down to those lotus feet, to which are bowed down the even Brahma and the great sages and even Indra. virincha vairincha surendra bandhitam. Virincha is Brahma.
Vairincha is a derivative from virincha which refers to that which has come from virincha, that refers to his progeny, his kumaras and others. They also bow down to him. Bandhitam, they worship him.
Parayanam kshemam icchetam param. Parayanam, you are the goal, the shelter of whom? Kshemam icchetam param, those who in this life, they desire, they aspire for the ultimate gain. So, for such people, you are their ultimate shelter.
Netra kalaha prabhavet parah prabhu. Parah prabhu, you are the supreme transcendental master and in your domain, netra kalaha prabhavet, kaalaha prabhavet, that here there is no influence of time. So, here it is acknowledged that actually there is no shortcut on the spiritual path because ultimately everything is cut, made short or long by time in the material world.
So, kalaha prabhav is there everywhere. Kaalosmi lokakshekhu parodhu, as the Bhagavad Gita states that nothing can last when we consider the lasting influence of time. So, having taken that into consideration, this verse glorifies the Supreme Lord’s position as being transcendental, as being uninfluenced by time.
So, in terms of two perspectives, this verse glorifies Krishna, it is said that. Now, it is interesting that the previous verse had the words prochur, they spoke. So, there is no specific word uvaca, but it is implied in the previous text that they started speaking.
So, who are these? The citizens are speaking. So, it is, quite often it is not necessary that all the citizens are speaking in chorus, uttering these verses as if they have memorised it all. The commentators in the Gopi Gita explain, in Gopi Gita explain that Gopya uchu and it is said that it is each verse is recited by one Gopi and that Gopi, while reciting that verse, acts as a representative of the rest of the Gopis.
And in another word, Gopi speaks. So, they are individuals and they are also representing a larger group. So, in general, whenever collective prayers are offered in the Bhagavatam, that is usually the dynamic.
So, here it could well be that one senior citizen is speaking on behalf of all the citizens or different citizens are speaking one by one, whichever way it is. The point here is that they are expressing their glorification of the Lord by telling how the most powerful beings worship Him because they know that it is He who is the most powerful ultimately. The most powerful beings such as Brahma, the progeny of Brahma and Indra, they all worship Him, especially when they want their highest good.
Why do they have to worship Him? Because He alone is beyond the influence of time. When Niranjan Kashyap appeased Brahma and asked him for immortality, Brahma replied famously that I cannot make you immortal because I myself am not immortal. So, similarly, here it is understood that the influence of Kaal is there everywhere, but it is not there in the Supreme Lord because He exists in the realm beyond time.
And understanding this transcendence of the Supreme Lord enables us to also direct our hearts towards Him, to become devoted to Him and thus ourselves attain a similarly exalted level of transcendence, ultimately going beyond the influence of time. Those who are devoted to Krishna go beyond the realm of birth and death and attain Him. Take seven.
So, bhavaya, for our welfare, nastva, O Lord, have you not bhava vishvabhaavana, vishvabhaavana, that you who are the creator of the whole universe, you have become tam eva mata atha surudhapati pita, you have become our mother, you have become our father, you have become our well-wisher, you have become our lord, husband, you have become our guru, the supreme guru and paramam daivatam and you are the supreme worshipable deity. This is that by following in your footsteps, by doing what you ordain us to do, we krithino, krithino means our actions have become successful, bhavu vima, O Lord, we have become successful, so please bless us with your mercy. Now, here this verse expands on the multiple roles the Lord is playing in his various relationships with the different people, mother, father, well-wisher, husband.
So, the bhakti vision of God is inclusive, wherever, wherein, whatever shelter we experience in any relationship, we understand it is coming from Krishna, tam eva mata atha surudhapati pita, tam eva, tam eva bandhu shi sakha, tam eva, tam eva vidya dravinam, tam eva, tam eva sarvam mamadeva devam. My dear Lord, everything and everyone, whoever has given me shelter, they have ultimately given it because of you. It is you who have given them the capacity to give me shelter and therefore, I seek shelter of you who are the shelter of all shelters.
So, in that mode, now, of course, this principle is true for all of us, for the Dvarakavasis, this principle is true, not just in a universal philosophical sense, but also in a specific, immediate sense that they do relate with Krishna in various rasas and for some of them, especially the queens, Krishna is their husband, for some of them, Krishna is their father, mother, Krishna is, of course, the well-wisher for all the Dvarakavasis and indeed for all living beings. So, in this way, the transcendental reality is being expressed here in this verse for the edification of all of us as Dvarakavasis, welcome Krishna with appropriate praises.