HV 99.1
य एष भवता पूर्वं शम्बरघ्नेत्य् उदाहृतः । प्रद्युम्नः स कथं जघ्ने शम्बरं तद् ब्रवीहि मे ॥
ya eṣa bhavatā pūrvaṃ śambara-ghnety udāhṛtaḥ | pradyumnaḥ sa kathaṃ jaghne śambaraṃ tad bravīhi me
'That Pradyumna, whom you earlier named 'Śambara-slayer' — how did he come to kill Śambara? Tell me that.'
The Living Words
*Bhavatā pūrvaṃ śambara-ghnety udāhṛtaḥ*, 'earlier called by you 'Śambara-slayer''. *Kathaṃ jaghne śambaram*, 'how did he kill Śambara?'. *Bravīhi me*, 'tell me'. The listener is following up on an epithet.
The Heart of It
The verse is Janamejaya's alert listening. *Pūrvaṃ śambara-ghnety udāhṛtaḥ* — the listener has been tracking every epithet the sage lets drop. The Varkari tradition's teaching on kathā-śravaṇa: the careful listener notes every name-of-the-Lord and each companion, and asks back when the epithet was not yet explained. Jñāneśvar's Haripāṭh's insistence that the *śravaṇa* must be *savadhāna*, attentive — following every name to its story — has HV 99.1 as its model. The question is itself devotion.