Bhagavatam tenth canto study 37 – 10.7.7-12 Vrajavasis try to protect the one who protects everyone

Next class. Thank you.
So, here it is being described how mother Yashoda had kept Kṛṣṇa under a cart after the Uttana ceremony and Kṛṣṇa just by touching the cart with His foot broke it apart. So, that incident is being described here. When He was lying under the cart, means below, She showed the baby who was not very big.
He was small. So, He was delicate like a small new leaf. And that cart was stuck by His gentle foot, beautiful delicate foot.
They were turned over and fell down. And as the cart fell down, their various utensils made of various metals, they also got scattered here and there. And not only that, the cart had wheels and axle.
It all broke. The handcart also broke apart. So, here normally we expect the consequence of an action to be proportional to the force that is exerted in doing that action.
If we say throw a ball casually, it will go to small distance. If we throw it with great force, it will go great distance. If we are sitting on a table, sitting on a chair next to a table and we push the table gently, it may barely move.
So, generally objects move in proportion to the force with which they are pushed. But with respect to Kṛṣṇa, these ordinary laws of physics don’t apply. There was no way the force that He applied when He was just in a child’s body by gently touching the cart, that force was enough to even produce a slight motion of the cart, leave alone the overturning and destruction of the cart.
So, Kṛṣṇa, His power is not material power and therefore His power is not limited or not determined by the laws of physics as we know them. The laws of physics work under His control. He doesn’t work under their control.
And because of that, when He desires, even in the tiniest of efforts, He can make big things happen. So, this is depicted over here, how Kṛṣṇa knocked over everyone, knocked over the cart and knocked over any utensils which were there on the cart. Such is the amazing power of Kṛṣṇa that no matter what happens, that He can with His tiny frame do mighty things.
Time and time again, Kṛṣṇa has demonstrated how His strength is not limited by His appearance. A small baby is helpless, but as a small baby, He sucked the life air out of Pūtanā. And again, as a slightly older baby, just barely three months old, the gentle touch of His foot, He devastated a whole cart.
Now, while here it is not mentioned in the Bhāgavatam, Bhāgavatam simply describes the incident, but the Ācārya’s commentaries describe how actually this cart was not just a cart, the cart was actually a demon who had come in the form of a cart, who had taken the form of a cart and he was planning to do the bidding of Kaṁsa and kill Kṛṣṇa. So, Śakata is the name of a cart. That’s the word used for describing a cart in Sanskrit.
Śaktāsura, they refer to the Āsura, the demon who came in the form of a cart. So, he had come with the plan of killing Kṛṣṇa. Now, the demons are shape changers and they can take various forms, but it is in this particular example that the demon took not just the form of an animate object, but an apparently inanimate object.
So, when something comes in the form of an animate object, it is much more difficult to discern it, to think of it as something suspicious. If we see even a dog, normally if a small poodle, that will not consider dangerous, but still even poodles also have teeth, they have sharp teeth. They may not cause anywhere near as much harm as an Alsatian, but still we understand, or a Doberman, but still we understand that even that dog has, small dogs also have teeth.
But if we see simply a suitcase lying in our room, we wouldn’t think that suitcase itself is capable of any malevolent intent. If it falls on our body somehow, suitcase may injure us, but otherwise it cannot do anything to us on its own. It has no intention to harm us.
But the demons are so malevolent that they can come in any form and here this demon comes in the form of a cart, an inanimate object. And the Vrajavasis, time and time again, are wonderstruck to see what Krishna does. Vishwa, Yashoda, Pramukha, Vrajastriya.
So, after seeing this, immediately Yashoda and other Vraja ladies, they came there immediately to see what is happening. So, they had come there to celebrate the Uthana ceremony of Krishna and they were all busy and they had put Krishna aside. They assembled there, they immediately came closer.
And while the women were already there in the house, the men also came because the sound was so loud. अद्भुत् दर्शिनाकुल. So, what was the अद्भुत् दर्शिनाकुल? That the huge cart had broken apart, but the child who was lying under the cart, nothing had happened to him.
कथम् स्वयं वै शकतं विपर्जयात। And because there was nothing in the vicinity which could have caused the cart to overturn like this, they all started asking, what happened? What caused this cart to overturn? कथम् स्वयं, did it happen on its own? But if it happened on its own, they also have an understanding that certain objects are inanimate and inanimate objects don’t move suddenly. So, कथम् स्वयं वै शकतं विपर्जयात। How did this happen suddenly on its own? There is a question which they are pondering and they had no answer for it. Normally, it is a human tendency that when something happens, we look for a cause to understand why it happened.
We innately function in life with a presumption of cause and effect. Without that presumption, we can’t move forwards. Because unless there is a correlation of cause and effect, it is by observing the correlation of cause and effect that we learn, that we learn why certain things happen in a particular way, and how we can learn from it and move forward positively in our life.
Text 9, उच्चूर अव्यवसित्मतिम् मतिन् गोपान गोपीष्च बालकः। रुद तानेन पाधेन। शिप्तन एतन संशयह। So, the Gopas were wondering what caused it. उच्चूर अव्यवसित्मतिम् मति means their intelligence or consciousness, अव्यवसित्, they just couldn’t make sense of it. So, when they were bewildered, not being able to make sense of what had caused the scat to overturn like this, अव्यवसित्मतिम् गोपान गोपीष्च बालकः। So, all the Gopas and Gopis were there and none of them could understand.
And this scat was no small thing. It was huge and there were many vessels on it also. So, for a scat of that magnitude to fall apart, fall over, is no ordinary thing.
गोपान गोपीष्च बालकः। रुद तानेन पाधेन। शिप्तन एतन संशयह। Immediately it felt, न संशयह। The Gopas said that actually the child just kicked the card’s wheel and the card collapsed. There’s no doubt about it. So, the kids who had seen what had happened, offered their opinion here.
Children, often while playing with each other, also notice what other children are doing. And the elders at that time were busy in their own work. So, they didn’t notice Krishna so carefully.
But other kids had noticed and they said actually Krishna just touched this card and the card fell apart. Card broke down. This is exactly what happened.
There’s no doubt about it. So, when the elders were flummoxed, trying to find an explanation, the children chipped in and gave an explanation. And they said that it all happened because of this child.
He kicked the card’s wheel. So, Krishna was so small that when he kicked, he couldn’t even reach the upper part of the card. His leg just reached the wheel of the card.
Because the wheel was what was connected to the ground. Text 10. नतेश्रद्धिरेगोपा बालभाषितमित्युत अप्रमेयं बलंतस्य बालकस्यन तेविदु नतेश्रद्धिरेगोपा However, the cowherd men and women could not have faith, could not put नतेश्रद्धिरे.
It’s interesting that even in ordinary conversation, we need faith in what someone is saying. नतेश्रद्धिरेगोपा They could not put their faith in what the children were saying. बालभाषितमित्युत This is बालभाषितमित्युत.
This is child’s speech. Children often have an overactive imagination and they may not intentionally lie, but they may unintentionally exaggerate. And thus, when children speak, sometimes what they speak is not taken seriously.
बालभाषितमित्युत This is just childish speech. बालभाषितमित्युत In fact, sometimes some elders also, if their speech is to be minimized, calling it children’s speech, childlike speech, is one way of minimizing it. बालभाषितमित्युत अप्रमेयं बलंतस्य बालकस्यनतेविद्धु Now, they consider here that this बालक, this child, that means Krishna, they did not know, नविद्धु, what? That अप्रमेयं बलं, that this child had unlimited strength.
So, in this, was there’s an alliteration with the sound बाल and बल. The ब sound is repeated four times. बालभाषितमित्युत बलं बालकस्यनतेविद्धु But the ब, the बल, बाल is a play of words there, which is thrice.
So, बाल is child, बल is strength. So, the भागवत्म is poetic, and the 10th Canto is especially poetic. And in this poetic way, there is a mellifluous sound, there is a pleasing sound that is created while conveying this deeply pleasing and uplifting message of the 10th Canto pastimes of Krishna.
नतेश्रद्धिरे, गोपा, they could not put faith in saying that these are just children’s words. And because again, they were looking at Krishna as a child, and especially because the Vajivasis did not consider Krishna to be God, although they know Krishna to be God, that is not what stays in their normal awareness. And that’s why they do not always ascribe whatever happens directly to the earth, the power of Krishna.
But this child had immeasurable power. अप्रमेयं बलम्. They didn’t think like that, he’s just a child.
In fact, not only a child, he’s a baby. So, what can a baby do? A baby is very symbol of helplessness. And for a baby to have so much strength as to devastate an entire cart is something which is inconceivable.
You just can’t accept it. Text 11 रुदन्तं सुतं आदाय यशोदा ग्रहः शंकिता गृत्वस्त्य अयनं विप्रही सुक्तै स्थनं आपययत् अपाययत् रुदन्तं सुतं आदाय यशोदा ग्रहः शंकिता ग्रहः शंकिता गृत्वस्तय अयनं विप्रही सुक्तै स्थनं आपययत् In the meanwhile, Krishna also allowed the Vajvasi illusion to continue by his actions. So, instead of acting in any way that might indicate his divine position, he acted as if it was that he was simply a child.
And, रुदन्तं सुतं आदाय, they all considered this child is that he acted like a child and started crying. If a child has done something miraculous, if the child was that powerful, and the child would normally not be expected to do something so childish like cry. But Chitna was crying and immediately Yashoda, what did she, picked up her child, Yashoda graha shankita, she picked up the child and started wondering whether there is some bad planet, graha shankita, there is some bad planet that has afflicted this child, kutasvasthyayanam viprayi, so kutasvasthyayanam viprayi, she had the brahmanas perform ritualistic ceremonies for invoking auspiciousness for the child, suktai sthanam apayaat, and she also offered her breast milk to the child.
So in this way we see that Yashoda Mai offers a pragmatic combination of remote and immediate solution, that means immediate solution if a child is crying, usually children cry because they are feeling hungry and giving them food is a way to pacify them. And until children start speaking, often it’s for the parents to inform, what might be the cause of children’s crying. So generally when we need to look for an explanation, so when we want to seek an explanation, we often seek that explanation which makes sense with the shortest inference or with the maximum probability, greatest likelihood.
The first likelihood when a child is crying is the child is hungry. The second explanation could be whether the child is having some kind of pain in the body. Another could be that maybe someone has hurt the child and that someone could be just a person in the neighborhood or someone could also be someone bigger in the sense that some malefic influence which is not visible.
So the child did not seem to be in bad health and in Vrindavan itself, there was no one who would hurt the child, at least among the Rajivasis. So therefore Mother Yashoda wondered whether there was some malefic influence of some planet that was there and thus she addressed the child’s distress both at the immediate level and at a remote or a long-term level. She offered her breast milk to the child and she also had the Brahmanas perform some Vedic hymns to invoke auspiciousness in the encounter if there might be any malefic planet influencing the child and thus she tried to offer protection to the child.
Text 12, पूर्ववत् स्थापितं गोपईर् बलिभी सपरीच्छदं विप्राहुत्वार्चयां चक्रूर् द्यध्यक्षत् कुशाम्भुभी पूर्ववत् स्थापितं As the Gopas started arranging the handcart and the utensils on it in its earlier position, बलिभी सपरीच्छदं, बलिभी, they started taking the, arranging things they thought that maybe they also did what they could, बलिभी means by offering some sacrifice. So, the Gopas, among them there were some who were strong and the cart, to lift it, to reassemble it was not easy. In fact, even for the Gopas, it was not every Gopas’ job.
So, there were some Gopas who were strong and stout, and they were the Gopas who took up this responsibility, सपरीच्छदं, and the paraphernalia was also arranged once again. So, the cart was so big that even an ordinary adult could not lift it. It needed several unusually strong adults to put it back together.
That also increases the wonderment at how Krishna, who was a mere infant, could have shattered that cart just by one kick of his. विप्राहुत्वार्चयां, चक्रु. So, after they arranged things properly, then they had the Vipras, the Brahmanas, हुत्वार्चेन, again they also performed a sacrifice to Arjuna, चक्रु.
दधी अक्षित कुशा अम्भुभी, and they used various paraphernalia that is used normally in such rituals, that is curd, yogurt, अक्षित, that is grains, कुशा ग्रास, and अम्भुभी, that is to draw water. So, these are all used normally in sacrifices or in ritual ceremonies and the Brajivasis performed these ritual ceremonies to invoke auspiciousness. So, now there are two factors involved, there was a child and a cart.
So, when something inauspicious happened, the Brajivasis tried to deal with that inauspicious happening at both levels. They dealt with it at the level of the child by having Brahmanas perform auspicious rites for the protection of the child and they performed some rituals to ward off inauspiciousness that might be associated with the cart also. In this way, the Brajivasis, in their own way, tried to re-establish order in the Vraja community.
We will continue in our next session. Thank you.