Bhagavatam tenth canto study 67 – 10.12.12-17 The inability to tolerate others’ happiness defines the demonic

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto 10, Killing of the Dīmā-Ghāsura, Chapter 12, Text 12. So this section is describing Krishna’s going to the forest, and with his cowherd boyfriends and performing various pastimes there.
And here the pād, the pāṁsura. So, to attain the lotus feet of whom, bahujanma-kṛcchṛto, many lifetimes of endeavour is required in terms of meditation, penance, austerities, scriptural study. Those souls who with great determination, they try to control themselves, control their mind, their senses.
Yogis, and even after that, this personality is not attained. He’s so rare, he’s so difficult to attain, alabhyah. Durlabha is difficult to attain, sudurlabha is extremely difficult to attain.
Alabhyah is not attainable at all. So that personality, that great person who is not attainable even by many lifetimes of endeavour, alabhyah, sa eva yadrug-viśayaḥ svayamsthitah, sa eva, that same person, what is happening to him, that same Supreme Personality of God is certainly, yadrug-viśayaḥ svayamsthitah, yadrug-viśayaḥ, dhrug, refers to eyes, dhrushti, at the same root, viśayaḥ, he has become, the dhrug-viśaya means the object of vision, he is being seen, svayamsthitah, he has himself come and situated himself in the path of vision, path of the vision, of whom? kim varṇayate diṣṭaṁ atho vraja-ukasāṁ, kim varṇayate, therefore who can describe the fortune of vraja-ukasāṁ, of the residents of Vrindavan. Time and time again, the bhāgavatam intersperses description with nerey-veta, you could say, with instruction or analysis, so while narrating the past time, Śukadeva Swami is giving us context to understand the past time, just like if a cricket match is going on, the cricket commentator may tell, okay, this batsman has scored this run, this bowler has got this wicket, so they tell the events, but along with that, they give a greater context in which those events are being told, if this batsman has scored 10 more runs, now he’ll become the highest scoring batsman of this season, or of this year, or maybe if he scores a century, he will score the maximum centuries in world history, so specific events gain greater significance when explained in their broader context, and the bhāgavatam periodically, at one level, it goes into the sweet, endearing details of the, of Vrindavan and of all the wonderful things happening in Vrindavan, and those details can attract our heart, they’re so captivating, they’re so beautiful, but we think, we may think that, okay, there can be many other poets also who can write beautifully, who can describe beautifully, but Krishna is not one among them, and this they make it clear by highlighting how what Krishna is doing is extraordinary, what Krishna and the Brajwasis are doing is extraordinary, that the Brajwasis are seeing directly that same Krishna, whom the yogis, whose lotus feet also the yogis find it difficult to see, even after performing immense austerities, and the Brajwasis can see him regularly, daily, such is their great, great fortune, so specific events, specific events assume greater significance when seen in broader context, and that is what the bhāgavatam’s contextualization does, and this is one such verse offering the contextualization, text 13, so just as this wonderful sweet pastime has been described of how Krishna and the Gopas were playing with each other in the forest, and what an extraordinary wonderful scene this is, at that time suddenly something dreadful appears over there, so even in paradise there is not uninterrupted peace and bliss, if you consider Vrindavan to be a pastoral paradise, there also are disruptors who keep coming, अथ अगः नामा भिपताम, so अगः नामा, so a demon of the name अगः अभिपताम, अभिपतन, he arrived over there, महासुरह, he is not just a demon but a great extremely powerful demon, तेशाम् सुखक्रीडन वीक्षनक्षमह, तेशाम् सुखक्रीडन, so among, he, as the cowherd boys were happily playing, सुखक्रीडन, so now there are some people who are happy to see others happy, there are some people who are unhappy to see others happy, so the devotees are unhappy to see others unhappy, परदुख दुखी, but there are others, some people who are परसुख दुखी, and अगः was a demon like that, वीक्षनक्षमह, the nice play of words, क्षनक्षन, क्षक्ष, sound comes in both, वीक्षन, as he saw अक्षमह, it was not possible for him to tolerate their happiness, it’s a very sad situation to be in, that we are so insecure, we are so vulnerable, we are so envious, that when another person is happy, we feel unhappy, तेशाम सुख क्रीड़ वीक्षनक्षमह, this is a characteristic of a demon, now we may sometimes think of a demon as some monstrous creature with many heads or something like that, so we have to understand that, this is a demoniac mentality, demons don’t necessarily need to have some ghastly form with nails coming, with their teeth coming out of their mouth or with their horns coming out of their head, it is this mentality to be unwilling and unable to see others happy, that is a characteristic of a demon, नित्यम् यद अन्तर जीविते should be.
निठ्यम् यद अंतर नेज पिताम्रतेर अप्य अमरेपतीच्छते, so here it is described, how fearsome was the demon Mahasuraha. That is described in the second line, that he was a Mahasura and what was so demonic about him that one aspect of his demonic mentality that he couldn’t tolerate other people being happy. Another aspect was that even though the Devatas, Amarai, they are supposed to be immortal but even they are afraid of mortality, they are afraid of death and to try to avoid or stay off death, they drink nectar.
Peeth Amrita, though they drink nectar but still they are also fearful of this demon. So, they were afraid that this demon might cause them harm and in order to live in an undisturbed way, they waited. As Aghasura was waiting for the Devatas above, overhead, were waiting to observe, to see what was happening to the cowherd boys.
So actually speaking, to Aghasura what would happen, whether he would live or whether he would die and that’s something which indicates that these are not simple events on the earth, they have cosmic ramifications because these gods who are meant to take care of human society, if they start fearing certain demonic beings, then how can they do administration of the universe? So, the lord who is the protector of dharma, dharmakrita, who is the establisher of dharma, that lord now strives to give due attention to the Brajwasis and especially the Gopas and how to protect them. So now, going further, description of his huge form comes up. So, when he saw all these children, so Aghasura, Krishna Mukhan Aghasura, he saw that all these cowherd boys were headed by Krishna, Kamsa Anushishtaha, he had been sent by Kamsa, Anushishtaha, Baki Baka Anujaha, Baki Baka is a compound word that the Bhagavatam uses several times to refer to the sister brother duo, who because of their demonic nature had been brought down by Krishna.
So, Baki refers to the witch Putana and Baka refers to Bakasura. So, this is the person, Sodhara Nashikrita, this person has killed my brother and sister and I am going to destroy him, tayor, dvayo mamaynam sabalam hanishe. So, I will kill him, hanishe, along with his associates, along with these cowherd boys.
So, he is on a revenge trip right now. He feels that his brother and sister have been killed by Krishna and therefore, he has obligation to kill Krishna in return. Now, what he doesn’t think really is that it was not Krishna who killed his brothers and sisters.
It was the brothers and sisters who came to kill Krishna. So, Krishna acted only to defend himself, to defend his loved ones. Still, he is a demonic person and he sees only his side of the story and therefore, he decides that I am going to kill him.
And this is what happens. So, dvayo mamaynam sabalam hanishe, I’ll kill him. I’ll kill all of them.
So, he is not satisfied just by killing Krishna. He says, Krishna is so happy with all these cowherds. That means, I will cause him misery by killing all of them.
So, now we understand why he was unhappy. He was unable to tolerate the happiness of the rajvasis because he felt that they have caused me so much pain by killing my brother and sister. What right do they have to be happy now? Now, his reasoning would have been right if Krishna had actually been responsible for killing Baka and Baki.
But it was Baka and Baki, their own actions were responsible for their death. Krishna simply gave them the due for their actions. So, Krishna can’t be blamed for that.
So, if these become tilapah, tilapah krta. So, if I can offer as a last ritualistic ceremony offering krta, til and apa, sesame seeds and water. If along with that I can offer Krishna and all the gopas to my brother and sister.
So, it’s interesting that when the Bhagavatam describes demons, even the demons have an understanding that those who are dead, something needs to be offered to them. And he’s thinking that I will offer them the bodies of these who have been responsible for their death. So, I will not only actually kill them, but if I kill them, if I kill the Brajwasis’ children, all the Brajwasis will die.
So, as when the life air departs, then the whole body also perishes. So, similarly, all these boys are the life air of their parents. So, he’s plotting not just the killing of Krishna, he’s plotting the destruction of the entire Vrindavan community.
He’s bent on inflicting immense, immense misery to get back at those who have caused him misery. Praja-sava-prana-bhruto hiye te. In this way, he’s causing them disaster.
iti vyavasya jagaram bhruhadvapuhu sa yojanaya mahadrpivaram rtvaadbhutam yataguhanam tada pathivyashet grasannashayakhalaha. Iti vyavasya. Vyavasya means to decide.
Having decided like this, ajagaram bhruhadvapuhu. So, when we envision Aghasura, we think of him as a snake demon, as a python basically. Ajagaram.
But it’s interesting that when he came there first, he was not in the ajagarvapuhu. He’s a normal human form. But from there, he took the form of ajagar.
So, yojanaya mahadrpivaram. His plan was he wanted to destroy everyone, all of Vrindavan. And he took him with that yojana, mahadrpivaram, a form like a big mountain.
rtvaadbhutam yataguhanam tada. And that form was so wondrous that when he opened his mouth, his mouth resembled a big cave in a mountain. guhanam tada.
pathivyashet grasannashayakhalaha. With pathivyashet, he sat down in the path. grasannashayakhalaha.
With the expectation, with the desire, with the intention to grasanna, to swallow all the vrajavasis, so the idea here is that these demons have their original demonic forms. But based on the particular scheme they have, they take particular forms. So, Agha has taken this terrible form of a huge, huge snake.
He’s taken this form just so that he can swallow. Now to be killed, to die is painful. To be killed is even more painful.
To be killed and eaten up alive, to be killed and eaten up or to be just ripped apart and then eaten up or to be swallowed, that’s even more scary. That is what is being talked about here. They’re all about to die.
They’re all about to die and I’m going to cause all the deaths of all of them. With that demonic plan, Aghaswar is now awaiting the vrajavasis which have passed to come. dharādharoṣṭho, jaladhotaroṣṭho, darya-anānanto, girishruṅga-daṁśraha, dhvātāntara-āśyo, vidadhādhvajīva, paruṣānila-śhvāsa-daveekṣa-nokṣaṇaḥ.
dharādharoṣṭho, so he’s described dhara, adhara, uṣṭaha. So he was so big that his adhara-uṣṭaha, his lower lip was on the earth, dhara, but jaladhotaroṣṭaha, his upper lip, jalada, jalada refers to those who give jala, that is the clouds. So his upper lip was touching all the way up to the sky.
So here a beautiful poet description is given, dhara, adhara, uṣṭha, so nice rhyming words over here. Darya-ānānto, girishruṅga-daṁśraha, ānāntaha, so dhari refers to a huge mountain cave, something large like a valley, ānānto, ānāna is mouth, ānānto is the end of, the extremes of his mouth, like a huge huge cave, shruṅga-daṁśraha, girishruṅga, his teeth were protruding out like a mountain peak, dhāntaraśyo, dhānta-antaśyo, so dhānta is complete darkness, āntaśyo, so who’s internal, who’s inside his mouth, so pitch dark. Normally when we have to enter into a cave, we human beings can’t function without light usually.
So if we have to enter in a dark place, unless we have some light source we won’t enter into it, at least we’ll be apprehensive about entering into it. So his mouth was like a totally dark cave, vitatādbha-jīvaha, now in between his vastly open mouth was a tongue which was like a broad way, paruṣāṇil-śhvāsa-davekṣaṇoṣṇaha, paruṣāṇil-śhvāsa, so his breath was like a warm wind, davekṣaṇoṣṇaha, and whose glance was like flames of fire. So his form is described here that none of it was a pleasant form, everything was scary about him.
And what was the response of the Rajavasis when they saw this scary scary form, that will be described in future verses which we’ll discuss in our next session. Thank you.