Bhagavatam tenth canto study 94 – 10.16.7-15 – Kaliya bites and binds Krishna

We will continue in our next session. Thank you. Hare Krishna.
of Kaliya, viharato bhujadand ghurna, krishna began to play, viharato, moving his arms, he swirled the waters, varghoshamanga, and as the water swirled around it made a lot of noise, anga is referring to Maharaj, parashyat, varvaranavikramasya, so krishna, although he is a small child, metaphor given over here is that, krishna started playing in the forest, in the kaliyadah, kaliya’s lake, as if he were a lordly elephant, that means with his small arms, the sounds that he, the waves that moved were huge, the disruption that was caused was also huge, asvitya tatsat satanam bhivamam niriksham, and on asvitya, on hearing this, swasadan, in his own abode, who is making so much noise, if you are living in our house, we expect, if there is any, in our own house, if suddenly there is a loud noise, we wonder who is making this noise, normally we expect people to behave with decorum, if we are servants or whatever, more or less we can, we are aware and familiar of what kind of behavior people exhibit, but when suddenly somebody starts making a loud noise as if it is their own place, like say if we are in our home and we see somebody relaxing on our chair with foot on the table, who do you think you are, what do you think you are doing, similar was the outrage that kaliya felt, chakshu shravasam sarath amrishyamanaha, so he wanted to see who was this, some imposter must have come, nobody ordinary, none of the ordinary people in the lake, if anyone else was there, would dare do something like this, his family was there, his kids, his wife were there, but they wouldn’t do sound like this, so chakshu shravaha, so that kaliya immediately came forward on hearing to see who is making this noise, I will put them in their place right away, they cannot act like this in my house. tam prekshniya sukumar, so he saw that this was a very attractive looking child was there, sukumar ghanavadatam, his complexion was like a cloud and at the same time he was looking very attractive and not only was he looking very attractive, he was, he had the typical beauty of Krishna has been described over here, shrivas peetha vasanam smita sundarasyam, he was, he had the shri vatsa sign on his forehead, then peetha vasanam, Krishna usually dresses in yellow, that was there, smita sundarasyam, his face was smiling and beautiful, now it’s interesting, although Krishna is sporting, everything that Krishna does in Vrindavan is a sport, it’s a play, so Krishna is not in a bellicose, wearing a bellicose expression on his face, certainly he is challenging kaliya, but he is doing it in a playful way and thus there is a smile on his face, normally say when two fighters are going to fight with each other, say if they are in the wrestling ring, neither of them is really smiling, they are all alert, angry or at least grim, because they know it’s a tough fight coming up, smita sundarasyam, but Krishna is gentle, comfortable smile on his face, hridantam apratibhayam kamalo dharangrim, so he is playing and there is no fear on his face, and kamalo dharangrim and his lotus feet are like a whirl of a lotus flower, not just lotus, we always say lotus feet, but here it’s significant that his feet were resembling the whirl of a lotus flower, that indicates that at this point, the lotus feet, the feet did not appear very strong or formidable, but how appearances can be totally deceptive, kaliya would soon learn, so the lotus flower itself is soft, but the whirl of a lotus flower is also soft, and phir sandasya marmasurusha bhujaya chachadah, so now seeing Krishna over there, how dare you come in over here, I am going to finish you off, so now he just bit Krishna right in the chest, now that means that normally, even if poison, say snake bites, generally snakes are, unless they are folded and risen up, when they bite and flee, usually they bite somewhere in the foot or in the leg at most, and from the leg, for the blood to come to the heart takes time, but if a snake can bite in the chest area, then the poison will immediately reach the heart and the person would die immediately, now kaliya was big, Krishna was in the water, so we can assume some of his body was under the water, and kaliya Krishna has a small body, so kaliya could immediately reach the chest of Krishna and he bit him there, so it should be an instant death, and then he thought that I will watch with joy, sadistic joy, how this child dies, this imposter, intruder who has dared to lord it over in my territory, how he suffers a pitiable death, and thus he caught him in his coils. tam nāga-bhoga parivitam adruṣṭa-cēṣṭam ālokya-tad-priya-sakhā-pashyupa-bhūṣāra-tāhā kṛṣṇa-arpitātma-suhá¹›dartha-kalatra-kāmā duḥkhānu-Å›oka-bhaya-mūḍha-dhiyo nipetu tam nāga-bhoga parivitam adruṣṭa-cēṣṭam Now, two things had happened, that Krishna had been bitten and Krishna had been bound, so Krishna seemed to have lost his consciousness, when a snake bites, people fall down dead, so adruṣṭa-cēṣṭam, so he was bound and bitten and he seemed unconscious, and then ālokya-tad-priya-sakhā-pashyupa-bhūṣāra-tāhā then his friends, the cowherds, they became devastated, shattered.
kṛṣṇa-arpitātma-suhá¹›dartha-kalatra-kāmā Now, the cowherds had offered everything to Krishna, their soul, their friends, their wealth, their family, their desires, everything was centered around him, so duḥkhānu-Å›oka-bhaya-mūḍha-dhiyo nipetu and thus they were flooded with an ocean of terrible painful emotions, so pain, remorse, fear, bewilderment, and they just collapsed. Now, at one level, for them to see Krishna enter over there was itself, you could say, alarming, but at another level, Krishna is Krishna and he can do anything, but to see Krishna powerless like this is unbearable for them. Earlier, Mother Yashoda had fainted when Trnavartha had taken Krishna high into the sky and when Aghāsura had taken Krishna in, at that time the Gopās had also gone in, and of course others, this all happened outside Vá¹›ndāvana, so others didn’t come to know about it, so the devatās were fearful, but this was the first time when many many VrajavāsÄ«s are there, the Kāli-adhaha is not far from Vá¹›ndāvana, and all the Gopās see that Krishna has been overcome, overwhelmed, by what? By poison and a poisonous snake.
Suppose sometimes somebody is bitten by a poison, usually the snake bites and flees, and the person faints and then we can rush the person to emergency in the hospital, or we can at least use some antidotes if we have some, but in this case, because Krishna had fainted and he was still in the coils, and that was in the middle of the Kāli-adhaha lake, so they felt powerless and naturally they fainted and fell down, helpless, normally when our world comes crashing down, then we lose energy, even our feet cannot hold our weight, and that’s how we fall down, so physically our legs may have strength, and physically the world may not have fallen down, but our physical strength also depends on our emotional strength. Now when we feel disheartened, we start feeling physically also weak at times, so here the VrajavāsÄ«s were not just disheartened, they were devastated, and they just collapsed to the ground in agony, such was their predicament here. So now what had happened, now it’s interesting, the word used is the wives, how were the wives there, sorry, these Gopās had their wives, so now obviously the small Gopās, Krishna’s friends at this age didn’t have wives, but because the Kāli-adhaha is not very far from the place where VrajavāsÄ«s stay, so it was like a normal playing place and there were some other VrajavāsÄ«s who were also nearby, these are older VrajavāsÄ«s, and they also came running when they heard that Krishna is in trouble, it’s 11 now, so now it was not just the human world, it was always the VrajavāsÄ«s only, everybody loved Krishna, and Krishna loves the cows and the whole cow family, and they also love Him, so everyone in the cow family, you could say cows, bulls and cows, all of this, they started crying loudly, crying Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, oh what has happened to our Krishna, Krishna, Nishti, Krishna, Abhita, they called out to Krishna and they were still watching Krishna, now suppose, sometimes a loud one in an operation theatre and the doctors are trying to treat that person, and maybe they have a heart attack and the doctors are trying to revive them, give some electric shocks on the chest to resuscitate them, and maybe outside the operation theatre through a window, the loud ones are watching, so if we, when our loud one is in danger and we can’t do anything, we feel extremely powerless and helpless, now at least in that case, the doctors are trying to revive, but if say, we see a loud one who is being beaten and beaten to death, and we are ourselves bound, then we feel especially helpless, what can I do in such a situation, and such was the predicament of the Vrajavasis, and it was not even that Krishna was being beaten to, beaten, he had been bitten, b-i-t-t-e-n, not b-e-a-t-e-n, he had been bitten and he had fainted, so they were watching helplessly, hoping to see some signs that Krishna will revive, Krishna will show some signs of consciousness, not seeing that they were in great, great grief.
Text 12, अथव्रजे महुत्पातास् त्रिविधाय अतिदारुनः उत्पे तूर्भुविदि आत्मन्य आसान्भयशं शीनः Therefore in Vrindavan, Maha Utpata, now, simultaneous with this, there was signs of huge disturbance in Vrindavan, त्रिविधाय अतिदारुनः, extremely fearsome kind of disruption, what was it? उत्पे तूर्भुविदि आत्मन्य आसान्भयशं शीनः So, उपे तुहु, arose, भुविदिवि आत्मनी, so, on earth, in the sky, the bodies of all living creatures, आसान्भयशं शीनः, so, they felt immense fear over there, so, what were they announcing? So, normally, when something terrible is going to happen, it is described that, there are inauspicious omens also which come up, and such omens are being described over here, that, let’s say somebody is very sick, and then there is a violent thunder clap, then people become all the more fearful, so, the Vrajvasis are fearful and then, the three kinds of inauspicious disturbances, on the earth, in the sky, and in the bodies of living beings, they happen and they are described over here now. So, text 13 onwards to 15, तानालक्षिभहयोद्विग्ना गोपानन्दपुरोगमः विनारामेणगाक्रिष्णम् जात्वाचारेतुंगतम् So, तानालक्षिभहयोद्विग्ना गोपानन्दपुरोगमः On seeing those inauspicious signs, भयोद्विग्ना, feeling very fearful, गोपानन्दपुरोगमः, the Vrajvasis headed by Gama, ran towards, they felt, they said, what is happening? Now, when these inauspicious signs came there, the inauspicious signs that come in the sky, especially, or on the earth also, they are felt far, far away. It’s like when an earthquake occurs, the earthquake is felt over a great distance.
And when the earthquake is felt, normally one looks, what is happening? So, the Vrajvasis who were inside Vrindavan, had not yet come to know that Krishna is in danger. But when they saw these inauspicious signs, they knew enough that, danger always seems to follow Krishna. Their first question was, where is Krishna? And when they came to know, that विनारामेणगा कृष्ण, this particular day, Krishna had gone out without Balram, Balram was being the older brother, was like a protector, and seeing that he had not gone, with him, then they felt even more alarmed.
तैर्दुर्णिमित्तै निधनम् मात्वाप्राप्तम अतःविदः तत्प्राणांस् तन्मनस्कास्ते दुख्षोक भयातु रहा So, तन् दुर्णिमित्तै निधनम् So, दुर्णिमित्तै, something inauspicious must have happened. All these bad omens indicate something terrible is happening. मात्वाप्राप्तम अतःविदः Thinking like this, Now, it is interesting, अतःविदः, that they do not know, Krishna’s position and Krishna’s opulences.
And, they became filled, their तत्प्राणांस् Krishna was their life and soul, with their mind तन्मनस्कास्ते So, the तत् तत् sound is repeated over here, अतःविदः तत्प्राणांस्ते तन्मनस्कास्ते So, this is, we see, the poetic quality of the 10th Canto, through which alliterations, अतःविदः तत्प्राणांस्ते तन्मनस्कास्ते So, the तत् तत् sound is there, the three words and the आःविदः, आःविदः sound is there, अःप्राणः मनस्कः So, their life and mind dedicated to Krishna, they moved on, भयातुरः भयशोक दुखातुरः आबालवृद्धवनितः सर्वे अंगपश्वृत्तयः निर्जगमुर्गो कुलादीनः कृष्णधर्शनलालसः कृष्णधर्शनलालसः Has anything happened to Krishna? We must see Krishna. Is he alright or not? With that anxiety, they started going, सर्वे अंगपश्वृत्तयः All of them, they went पश्वृत्तयः So, there are some standard metaphors in nature about how affectionate living beings are. So, a cow’s affection for her calf is the metaphor over here.
पश्वृत्तयः doesn’t mean here animalistic tendency like eating, sleeping, mating, defending. It refers to specifically a cow’s love for her calf. Similarly, all the वासी’s ran out, आबालवृद्धवनितः Right from small children to old people, वनितः, ladies.
Everyone dropped whatever they were doing and ran to see what has happened to Krishna. In the आनुवन्दावन्चंपु, Kavi Karnapur says that from babies who were less than one year old to old people who were, who struggled to walk, all of them in great anxiety charged out to see what has happened to Krishna. So, कृष्णदर्शनलालस, they are long for the darshan of Krishna.
Is Krishna okay? Has anything happened to him? He is our beloved child. How can we live without him? Such was the immense anxiety overcoming them. Normally, an event, what it means is understood not in isolation but in context, in connection.
So, if somebody has died, suddenly we hear, we see a video clipping of somebody having died. Now, normally the death itself is a painful thing to see. But, if we see that in context, if we see a dead body, okay, that’s some unknown stranger who is dead.
But then if we see that in context, they might have had a family, that person might have a wife, some children, might have been the son of some parents. And, when we see the grief of the loved ones of that person, that’s when we see that grief in context. Similarly, for us, when we feel, when we want to understand what has happened to Krishna, the effect of the plight of Krishna on the Vrajavasis is shown to indicate both how much love they had for Krishna and what was the intensity of the agony.
So, by events themselves don’t cause as much emotions as seeing the impact of those events on those who are impact, on those and seeing their emotions. So, we might not ourselves cry on seeing some person died, but when we see their loved ones breaking down, that might bring tears to us also. Emotion is, you could say, contagious.
And, we hope to be infected by the emotion of devotion. So, by hearing about the intense emotion of the Vrajavasis, we can also get a similar emotion in our own hearts and in our own lives. The Vrajavasis’ immense lamentation on seeing Krishna, on even thinking that Krishna is in danger and running to see what has happened, that is exemplary for all of us.
And thus, in this section, we have everybody in Vrindavan charging out to see what has happened to Krishna. How this past time develops further,