Rasa-pancadhyayi I - The Flute's Summons and the Gopis' Arrival

Bhāgavata 10.29.1

Śrī Śuka said:

Bhagavān beheld those autumn nights when the jasmine flowers had blossomed. Desiring to sport, He resolved to do so under the shelter of Yogamāyā.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Obeisance to the blessed connoisseurs of the rāsa dance. In the commentary, the expression “preparation for rāsa” means that, on account of that preparation, He beheld the māna connected with the commencement of rāsa. The words “because it would imply that Kandarpa was the conqueror” mean that such a reading would produce the conclusion that the victory belonged to Kandarpa himself.

Now, if the reading in the root text is “Śrī Bādarāyaṇi said,” the great majesty of the subject about to be narrated lends the name its full significance. Bhagavān Śrī Bādarāyaṇa, Vedavyāsa, performed severe austerities in Badarikāśrama. Because he was omniscient, and because it was fitting that his resolve should rest upon the Supreme Person alone, those austerities consisted entirely of worshiping Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Śuka was the son who appeared as the fruit of austerities of that kind. Although Śuka's omniscience, his being filled with the rasa of love for Śrī Bhagavān, and his other excellences shine forth even more clearly elsewhere, the majesty implicit in the derivation of the name Bādarāyaṇi reaches its culmination here. This suggests that the passage must be heard with devotion of that same kind. If the reading is “Śrī Śuka said,” it reveals the utmost tenderness of his speech, for the subject is the supremely radiant rasa. This suggests that the passage must be heard with a heart of corresponding tenderness.

The deepest purpose of Śrī Bhagavān, who does everything solely for the happiness of His beloveds, is to fulfill the longings of the beautiful women of Vraja, whose love surpasses all others. At the same time, the account reveals that fulfilling those longings is His own unsurpassed happiness. The Bhāgavata therefore says, “the direct enchanter of the god of love” (10.32.2), “bearing a form that is the sole abode of the beauty of the three worlds” (10.32.14), and “What austerity did the gopīs perform?” (10.41.31). Even those who delight entirely within the self can scarcely attain the distinctive experience of Bhagavān's form, taste, fragrance, touch, and sound. The nectar of His lips, the very essence of His taste, is altogether impossible to find anywhere else. Because their uniquely expansive love makes the beautiful women of Vraja perfectly qualified for this experience, Śuka describes Bhagavān's rāsa play with them in five chapters, chapters as dear as the five senses themselves.

Śuka had already described in particular the ever-fresh mutual attachment between Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs in passages beginning “where they drank the honey of Mukunda's face with the bees of their eyes” (10.15.44), “the gopīs felt supreme bliss upon seeing Govinda” (10.19.16), “in this way, when autumn made the waters clear” (10.21.1), and “during the first month of the winter season they observed” (10.22.1). He now also remembered what the gopīs themselves would later describe in passages beginning “In the autumn lake, the excellent lotuses have beautifully arisen” (10.31.2), “Your smiling, O beloved” (10.31.10), “at the day's end” (10.31.12), and “the intimate conversations that awaken desire within the heart” (10.31.17). Remembering their fresh meeting as something deserving an account of extraordinary distinction, he begins with the words, “Bhagavān also.”

Bhāgavata 10.29.2

Then the king of the stars arose. With his most soothing rays and the crimson glow of his rising, he anointed the face of the eastern quarter as a beloved, returning after a long absence, anoints the face of his beloved. He wiped away the sorrows of humankind.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Bhagavān desired His own amorous play, and He seemed to regard the moon as likewise rising to sport with his beloved, the eastern quarter. As though expressing this feeling of Śrī Bhagavān, Śuka remembered the special emotion awakened by Bhagavān's desire to play and described the moon's rising by portraying the moon as a hero together with the eastern direction as his heroine. He therefore says, “Then.” The very moment Bhagavān formed His resolve, the moon, king of the stars, arose. This also suggests that the stars rose as members of his retinue. Because their light is slight on the night of the full moon and because they are regarded as his attendants, their rising is mentioned only secondarily.

“Anointing thoroughly” points specifically to the full moon. Its fullness may be due to the full-moon night; or, even without that lunar date, the moon may have become full on another night in response to Bhagavān's desire to sport. “With the most soothing rays” means with rays made of nectar. Since the moon removes every kind of heat and is famed for causing the ocean to swell, he was especially desirable.

The moon did not remove the affliction of the eastern direction alone. Śuka says “of humankind” to show that he removed everyone's grief, the misery produced by the scorching autumn sun. More particularly, by stimulating Śrī Bhagavān's desire to sport, the moon intended chiefly to remove the long-burning pain of separation suffered by the young women of Vraja. When the sorrow of those worshiped by the world is removed, the world's own sorrow naturally disappears as well.

The comparison “as a beloved with his beloved” reveals their special mutual affection through their shared passion, goodness, singular devotion to one another, and other qualities. Thus, just as a beloved wipes the tears of grief from his beloved and anoints her with his supremely delightful hand, the moon anointed the east. “Seen after a long absence” indicates the greatest longing. Every feature of this description should therefore be understood as manifesting Śrī Bhagavān's desire to sport.

Bhāgavata 10.29.3

Seeing the moon with its unbroken disk, opening the night lotuses and glowing crimson like Lakṣmī's face adorned with fresh kuṅkuma, and seeing the forest anointed by its gentle rays, Kṛṣṇa played a soft melody that stole the hearts of the lovely-eyed women.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Then a special emotion manifested within Kṛṣṇa. To draw the blessed gopīs to Him, He played upon the flute a certain melody resembling an enchanting mantra. Śuka describes this with the word “seeing.” The word kumud means a night lotus; the Viśva lexicon likewise says, “The night lotus is also called kumut.” Thus kumudvantam means “possessing night lotuses,” and those lotuses were then in bloom. For this reason the gopīs will later speak of “Vṛndāvana, beautiful with night lotuses, jasmine, and moonlight” (Bhāgavata 10.47.43). Alternatively, ku means the earth and mud means delight. On that reading, “possessing the earth's delight” means that the moon's rising brought happiness to everyone. The words beginning with “unbroken” give the reasons for this. Because the moon's disk was whole, it resembled Lakṣmī's face. The recollection of her face should be understood to have stimulated Kṛṣṇa's desire to sport.

One might object: Lakṣmī's face is always adorned with fine kuṅkuma, whereas the moon is white. How, then, can they resemble one another? Śuka answers with the word “fresh.” This refers only to the moon's first rising, when it was crimson. Fresh kuṅkuma is mentioned precisely because it stimulates amorous emotion.

Having thus shown the fitness of the time, Śuka shows the fitness of the place with “and the forest.” The forest was colored on all sides, made red by the moon's gentle rays, which at its first rising shed only a little light. Or it was made an object of loving attachment. Alternatively, if “by the rays” is taken as an instrumental expression, “anointed” means smeared or decorated; the sense remains the same. In this way the verse describes nothing but the stimulation of emotion.

Kṛṣṇa played a certain soft and sweet melody. Alternatively, we should understand “He played softly” to mean that He played the flute in that manner, for the gopīs will later say, “What woman, dear one, would not be bewildered by the nectar of Your soft words and flute song?” (Bhāgavata 10.29.40).

The phrase vāma-dṛśām may describe those whose eyes are charming, meaning the supremely beautiful women. Or vāma may mean crooked and playful, describing the sidelong glances of women who are supremely clever in love. This merely identifies their nature, for all the women of Vraja naturally possess that quality. The melody “stole the heart”: it drew the mind through a special signal or through a particular rāga, rhythm, and related features. Śuka means that the song on this night was extraordinary even when compared with Kṛṣṇa's flute playing on other days, for on those other days the song repeatedly possessed its own enchanting power.

Bhāgavata 10.29.4

Hearing that flute song, which intensified amorous love, the young women of Vraja, their minds seized by Kṛṣṇa, came to where their beloved stood. Each concealed her purpose from the others, and their earrings swung with the speed of their running.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“That song” means the song issuing from Śrī Kṛṣṇa's flute in the manner just described. It intensified the anaṅga already present within them, the amorous longing directed toward Śrī Bhagavān. The preceding words “stealing the hearts of the lovely-eyed women” already imply that it increased their longing, yet Śuka states it separately to express the exceptional intensity of the effect. He uses the word anaṅga because their particular desire was itself love, devoid of any trace of mundane lust, which is the cause of worldly sexual conduct.

Alternatively, because their desire was directed toward Śrī Bhagavān, even bodiless love became fully embodied and complete. Such is the direction of the meaning. The “women of Vraja” were the newly youthful women belonging to Vraja or dwelling there. Kṛṣṇa, the supreme attractor, had already seized, drawn away, or completely possessed their minds, or indeed everything that belonged to them. Now, especially upon hearing a song of that kind, they came to Him.

Even though the women within each group were friends with one another, the phrase “each concealed her purpose from the others” is explained by “their minds seized by Kṛṣṇa.” Their hearts were then so completely attracted by Kṛṣṇa that no thought of deliberation arose. Alternatively, their concealment arose because a natural mood of loving rivalry, itself a playful expression of their distinctive prema, appeared between the different groups. Or they were in such extreme haste that they had no power to tell one another. This is why their earrings swung from the speed of their running.

Śuka says “they came,” and his choice of this verb reveals Bādarāyaṇi's vivid inner awareness that he himself always stood close beside Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Alternatively, when Śuka heard of their journey, a special emotion arose within him. Just as their going to Kṛṣṇa became manifest within his heart, his own going there also appeared, so that he experienced Śrī Kṛṣṇa's nearness almost directly.

The verb may simply mean “they went to meet Him.” Or the prefix may indicate that they went fully and completely, having abandoned everything, as the verses ahead will repeatedly declare. “He” was the singer of the supremely enchanting flute song. He was their kānta: the lord whom they had long desired through vows and other observances, or their own captivating beloved. Alternatively, kānta may mean the one in whom every kind of happiness finds its ultimate limit and perfection.

Bhāgavata 10.29.5-7

Some were milking cows, but in their intense eagerness they abandoned the milking and hurried toward Him. Others left milk heating on the stove and went without taking it down; still others left sweet porridge cooking.

Some were serving food, but abandoned it. Some left while giving milk to infants. Others were attending to their husbands, and some rose from their own meals and cast the food aside.

Some were applying cosmetics to their bodies, cleansing themselves, or adorning their eyes. Others put their garments and ornaments on in the wrong places. All went to Kṛṣṇa's side.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

In these three verses Śuka describes how the supremely enchanting song made them disregard their own bodies and everything connected with them, abandon personal duties, social conventions, religious obligations, and all else, and go to Kṛṣṇa. He first speaks of some who abandoned the customary work of their community: “while milking.” They were milking cows, and doham may mean either the act of milking or the milk itself. At that time even the gopīs engaged in milking the cows for Kṛṣṇa. Alternatively, the verbal form can be understood causatively: they were having the cows milked.

“They hurried toward Him” means they went in the direction of the flute song. The repeated expression “some” reflects the existence of many distinct groups, for the text will later call Kṛṣṇa “the leader of hundreds of groups of women” (Bhāgavata 10.29.44). Their individual names are not stated because of the weight of reverence they inspire, or because specially recalling some of them might produce differing currents of love. This matter has already been explained in the first division of Śrī Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta.

Their reason for rushing there was that they were intensely eager and unable to endure even the slightest delay. This reason should be carried forward and understood everywhere in the verses that follow. The word “others” is connected both to what precedes and what follows, and the same principle applies subsequently. The remaining expressions have been explained by the earlier commentators.

Alternatively, after placing the milk upon the stove, they left without taking it down even when it had finished boiling; and after placing the sweet porridge on the fire, they similarly left it there without removing it.

Having described how some abandoned the three principal evening tasks, Śuka uses three quarters of the next verse to describe others who abandoned the conventions of society. The first quarter speaks of some who left ordinary relatives, servants, and others behind. “Serving” means that they were distributing and offering food and other items to relatives and servants. The earlier verb supplies the sense: they abandoned that serving and went. Although this activity is also one of the evening duties, for women to disregard their husbands' relatives, servants, and others is best understood as a distinct abandonment of social convention.

The next two quarters describe some who left even those who ought never to be neglected. The word “abandoned” is understood here as well. They left infants, including their sisters' children and others, while giving them milk. Having thus described abandonment of worldly relations, Śuka describes abandonment of religious duty. “Attending to their husbands” means serving them by providing hot water for bathing and performing similar services. Alternatively, the verbal form read as “eating” may be understood causatively as “causing to eat”: they abandoned the act of feeding their husbands.

On this reading, the preceding lines show that even these supremely faithful women, formerly devoted to religious duty and social convention, abandoned those conventions. Having described some who left the three chief evening tasks and others who left worldly duties, Śuka uses the next three quarters to describe women who abandoned concern for their bodies. “Eating” then means that they themselves were taking food. By abandoning their meals they neglected even the body through which they could give pleasure to Bhagavān. This reveals that those wholly absorbed in love for Him do not calculate bodily purity and impurity. Some were anointing their bodies with preparations such as sandalwood paste, yet left the anointing unfinished. By abandoning even preparation of the body for enjoyment, they demonstrated their indifference toward it.

The words beginning “some were anointing” also show that, in their supreme longing to satisfy Śrī Bhagavān, some abandoned the adornment of their own limbs, even though such adornment could serve as an instrument of His worship. The word “others” is connected with all three expressions: anointing, cleansing, and decorating the eyes. If even that was abandoned, what need is there to say that concern for the body and things connected with it had been cast aside?

Some even forgot their bodies. Śuka conveys this by saying that their garments and ornaments were reversed or placed incorrectly. This is the ecstatic manifestation called vibhrama, bewildered haste, arising from the eagerness that impelled the total abandonment described above. As the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi states:

Language: Sanskrit

At the moment of attaining one's beloved, bewilderment born from the agitation of absorption in love is called vibhrama, in which necklaces, garlands, ornaments, and the like are placed in the wrong locations. (11.39)

This indicates that, in their absorption, women of this kind were no longer adorned in the manner appropriate for offering loving pleasure to Bhagavān. It should therefore be understood that later He Himself removed what they had put on incorrectly and dressed them properly. Since milking and each successive activity were increasingly indispensable, the later abandonments should be understood as progressively more remarkable.

Alternatively, the sole intention of these verses may be to show that each woman abandoned whatever activity she had already begun. Their wearing garments and ornaments incorrectly would then mean that they abandoned even the accepted method of putting them on. Everywhere the cause remains the phrase from the preceding verse: “their minds seized by Kṛṣṇa,” together with the present statement that they were intensely eager.

Thus they all went directly to the side of Kṛṣṇa, the supreme attractor, Śyāmasundara, the son of Śrī Yaśodā. They did not remain at a distance because of modesty or any other obstacle, for they were completely enchanted. The preceding verse had already said that they came to where their beloved stood. The present repetition expresses that, overcome by supreme enchantment and moving with extraordinary speed, they came into His closest proximity. In this way, all of them set out and went toward Kṛṣṇa.

Bhāgavata 10.29.8

Their husbands, fathers, brothers, and other relatives tried to stop them, but the women, their very selves stolen by Govinda and wholly enchanted, did not turn back.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Śuka now describes how every consideration disappeared from the gopīs, even while their own people tried to reason with them, because Śrī Bhagavān had stolen their hearts. Although husbands and others attempted to stop all of them from going, whether by displaying the requirements of dharma or physically holding their hands, they did not turn back. They only continued on their way.

Why? They were enchanted, their power of deliberation gone. And why was that? Govinda, lord of Gokula, had stolen them. Alternatively, Govinda is He who, as their sovereign, possesses and governs the senses, and He had stolen their ātman, their hearts. When the greatest person takes an object, lesser people have no power to recover it. On the alternative reading, when the indwelling Lord, the supreme enchanter dearer than millions of lives, had stolen their very being from within, no external person had power to return it.

The appropriate comparison is a boat being swept along by the force of a current. It will not stop merely because people on the bank or passengers in the boat cry, “Stop! Stop!” nor even because those passengers try to restrain it. The words can also mean that Govinda had stolen and drawn away their ātman in the sense of the living self. Turning back would therefore separate them from their very life; they went to Him simply in order to live. This is the verse's double meaning.

Husbands are listed first because they are chiefly responsible for sharing the favorable and unfavorable consequences of their wives' conduct. Fathers follow because a daughter's defect touches them with blame and because of their affection. Brothers follow from fear of disgrace and their own special affection, and other relatives from concern that the family might be tainted. A traditional law text states:

Language: Sanskrit

A father should protect a girl, her husband should protect her in maturity, and a son in old age; in their absence her kinsmen should do so. A woman should never be left without protection.

Thus four kinds of guardians are named here. Sons are not mentioned, most likely because the women had generally not yet borne them. The authority of husbands and each successive group should be understood as progressively less, since the women's dependence upon and relationship with each successive guardian was progressively weaker. Yet although the earlier and stronger guardians had already tried to restrain them, the later ones did so as well because the entire family acted collectively.

Alternatively, when each earlier guardian failed, the next might have feared that the women would seek shelter with someone else and therefore tried in turn to stop them. Or some women were stopped by the husbands who stood nearest them, while others were stopped by fathers and the rest. On this reading, those stopped by husbands were wives, whereas those stopped by fathers and others were generally unmarried daughters still living at home. The remainder of the explanation is the same.

Bhāgavata 10.29.9

Some gopīs were confined inside their homes and found no way to leave. Joining themselves to the contemplation of being with Kṛṣṇa, they closed their eyes and meditated upon Him.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Had all the gopīs been stopped by an obstacle of this kind, they would immediately have reached the tenth and final condition of separation, death. To illustrate the distinctive emotion present in all of them, Śuka describes in these three verses the particular condition of some: “inside.” Some who were portions of Mahālakṣmī, or who had attained perfection through spiritual practice, remained within their houses because husbands and others who were husbands in name only had blocked the doors.

Alternatively, because fathers and others sat at the doorways, they could not find an excellent means of departure suitable for going to meet Śrī Bhagavān. Or they found no exit or path by which they could fly out as swiftly as birds, like the other gopīs. Or they could not discover even a hole through which a bird might escape.

Therefore they meditated intently upon Kṛṣṇa, the attractor of their hearts, whose form is condensed supreme bliss. They followed the principle later expressed in the words “He should be meditated upon in distress” (Bhāgavata 10.31.13), so that they might be delivered from this great calamity. Or an especially intense remembrance of Him arose spontaneously because they had not attained their desire.

How did they meditate? They were joined to the contemplation of the play with Śrī Kṛṣṇa that was now about to occur. Or they were united through meditation with the experience of their most confidential union with Him. Their eyes were closed, perhaps only half closed; or they shut them completely because of their exceptional sorrow or the intensity of meditation. Alternatively, “their vision was closed” means that every awareness of anything else had disappeared from them.

Bhāgavata 10.29.10-11

The unbearable separation from their dearest beloved produced such blazing anguish that all their inauspicious karma was swept away. In meditation they attained Acyuta's embrace, and the bliss of that union exhausted their auspicious karma.

Although He is the Supreme Self, they united with Him solely in the consciousness that He was their paramour. Their bonds completely destroyed at once, they left behind the body composed of the material qualities.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Śuka declares in these two verses that they then attained union with Śrī Kṛṣṇa immediately. Through meditation, in which His form, qualities, and other features appeared with special vividness, their separation from their dearest beloved became unbearable. That separation produced intense burning anguish, and the anguish swept away everything inauspicious.

Though Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Self, they approached Him only with the awareness that He was their jāra, their paramour. The word jāra may be understood as the lover who continually causes them to burn and melt in a distinctive fire of prema. They attained Him completely and united with Him in precisely that awareness and mood, not in awareness of Him as the Supreme Self. Thus the passage intends an eternal union in the highest love.

How did they “leave the body composed of the qualities”? The meaning is that they attained a body beyond the material qualities, fit for eternal loving union with Bhagavān. They united with Him upon attaining a form condensed of eternity, consciousness, and bliss. This union should be understood as an eternal conjunction, like that of Śrī, who eternally dwells upon His chest, or that of His great divine potencies. Yet because they united with Him in the consciousness of Him as their paramour, a special distinction in their union must also be understood. Śrī Bhagavān accordingly said through Uddhava:

Language: Sanskrit

Those blessed women who remained in Vraja and could not join the rāsa attained Me by contemplating My valor as I sported in this forest at night. (Bhāgavata 10.47.37)

The words “blessed women” and “by contemplating My valor” indicate a very special attainment here. That distinction will be made explicit later in the same context and is also suggested elsewhere.

The words “unbearable” and “intense” indicate an anguish millions of times greater than all the suffering that could be experienced through billions of cosmic ages in the great hells and elsewhere. Likewise, the words “Acyuta” and “bliss” suggest a happiness surpassing all the pleasure of universal sovereignty and independent dominion enjoyed through billions of cosmic ages, and surpassing even the happiness of liberation. All such happiness is no more than a tiny shore of the great ocean of bliss found in Śrī Bhagavān's embrace. In relation with Him, the corresponding latent desires were also exhausted. This complete exhaustion is indicated by the intensive prefix in “their bonds were utterly destroyed.”

“Inauspicious” here means precisely the particular karma that obstructs eternal union with Śrī Bhagavān. “Auspicious” means the particular good karma that produces such happiness as Bhagavān's efforts to appease them during loving indignation and other moods. Both kinds were exhausted because eternal union had now been attained. For this reason, however, these confined women should be understood as less fortunate than the other gopīs who remained in this world, for they no longer experienced the special bliss of love that arises through separation, loving indignation, and related conditions.

Alternatively, although their bodies were composed entirely of excellent qualities, they abandoned them at once. Because those bodies had been confined inside the house by husbands and others, they could not attain Śrī Kṛṣṇa through them. They therefore attained Śrī Nanda's youthful son in another body suited for that meeting. Why could they do so? Because He was their paramātmā, their supremely beloved self. Their awareness of Him as their paramour was the cause of their attainment. The rest of the explanation remains the same.

On a third reading, through the power of meditation their bonds were immediately and thoroughly destroyed, “bonds” meaning the doors fastened by their husbands and others. Even after becoming free in this way, they left behind bodies composed entirely of good qualities. Their separation from their most beloved Śrī Kṛṣṇa was unbearable, and the intense burning it produced was a great fever within them. By that fever their bodies were swiftly swept away and destroyed. Alternatively, the expression may be read to mean that a fresh and extraordinary radiance suddenly appeared upon them.

Moreover, “Acyuta attained in meditation” can mean that Acyuta was reached and encountered either within meditation or by meditation as its cause. By the authority of His own statement beginning “I worshiped you while remaining out of sight” (Bhāgavata 10.32.21), Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa remains Acyuta, never separated from them even during apparent separation. Alternatively, “Acyuta” can qualify the embrace itself: it was unbroken. In either case, the supreme happiness called “bliss” arose from the embrace of their own dearest beloved. Or their bliss itself took the form of His embrace. Through their extraordinary meditation, that bliss appeared to be composed of the happiness of direct physical union. Even though they were endowed with such bliss, they left the body.

Why did they leave it? They were kṣīṇa-maṅgalāḥ: their auspicious adornments, such as tilaka, had been destroyed. This happened while husbands and others held them to confine them inside the house, or through contact with walls, doors, and other obstacles as they struggled to get outside, for their terrible anguish had left them physically broken. Their beauty had faded and their tilaka and other adornments were gone. They therefore regarded such a soiled, emaciated body as unfit for Śrī Bhagavān's service.

Alternatively, by joining the prefix a- to the expression, they were akṣīṇa-maṅgalāḥ: their auspicious fortune, consisting of rāsa play and the like, had not diminished. The bliss of Acyuta's embrace attained in meditation brought them the complete happiness of loving union. Even in that state, however, they abandoned the body. Why? The unbearable, blazing anguish of separation from their dearest beloved had shaken and tormented them. That torment itself was their inauspiciousness, misfortune, and supreme wretchedness, and they feared separation again.

Or dhuta may mean shaken, while āśu-bhā means that their quick and immediate power of understanding had departed. The torment of extreme separation removed their capacity to deliberate. Therefore their “bond” was utterly destroyed at once, “bond” here meaning the bond of hope. Even their hope that by preserving the body they would later attain rāsa and similar play had vanished. Otherwise it would not have been fitting for them to abandon their direct embodied presence within Vraja and Śrī Vṛndāvana, as the other gopīs did not.

For this very reason, the good fortune of the gopīs who continued living here in Vraja is actually greater than that of the confined women. Because the latter entered eternal union, they no longer experienced the pain of separation. They are praised as insatiable only from the perspective of a particular devotional mood. As Śrī Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta has already explained, even in separation a special bliss arises through the awakening of an exceptional form of prema.

Alternatively, “they left” can mean “they caused the body to disappear.” Another reading begins by understanding that they attained attachment to the Supreme Self solely with the awareness that He was their paramour. Their unbearable, blazing anguish in separation from their dearest beloved made them dhutāśubhāḥ: women by whom the inauspicious threefold suffering of the entire world was shaken off and destroyed. Their extraordinary anguish consisted of an upsurge of dense love belonging to Śrī Bhagavān and therefore had the power to destroy the world's threefold misery.

Likewise, through the bliss of Acyuta's embrace attained in meditation they were akṣīṇa-maṅgalāḥ: the auspicious fortune of the worlds was not diminished but nourished and brought to full awareness through them. Meditation of this kind produces the world's prosperity and increases its auspiciousness.

Though they possessed these qualities, they “left the body composed of the guṇas.” Here the guṇas are states of feeling. The inner states include simplicity, steadiness, tenderness, ignorance of any means of escaping outside, and modesty before elders and others. The external states include being scorched by anguish, remaining inside the house, and being confined. They abandoned the “body” that consisted chiefly of these states. Thus “leaving the body” means abandoning those respective emotional conditions, just as the Third Canto, in the account of creation, calls Brahmā's abandonment of particular mental states an abandonment of bodies.

Their bonds were consequently destroyed: all the inner and outer obstacles to attaining Śrī Bhagavān's play on another day, such as simplicity and the state of being scorched, had come to an end. Because they passed that night in the bliss of Acyuta's meditative embrace, they are the “blessed women who could not attain rāsa” mentioned in the later verse.

The settled conclusion is this: knowledge yields liberation; affectionate devotion yields Vaikuṇṭha; prema brings Śrī Bhagavān under one's control; and within prema, the special love that regards Him as a paramour grants eternal union with one's dearest beloved in Vraja. The purport is therefore that everyone should, in every way, render service to the rāsa play so that such a devotional mood may arise.

Footnote 4, Bhāgavata 10.32.21

My dear women, for My sake you abandoned the claims of society, scripture, and your own people. I remained out of sight and worshiped your love from concealment only to deepen your attachment to Me. Beloveds, do not therefore resent your beloved.

Bhāgavata 10.29.12

The king said: O sage, the gopīs knew Kṛṣṇa only as their supreme beloved, not as Brahman. Their minds rested upon His qualities. How, then, did the flow of the material qualities cease for them?

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The honorific Śrī before Parīkṣit indicates that he spoke as though testing others, not because ignorance had made him doubtful. The gopīs knew Kṛṣṇa solely as their beloved, or as their beautiful goal. Alternatively, they knew Him as their supreme lover and paramour. Their understanding therefore rested only upon His qualities, such as beauty, sweetness, and compassion, not upon His ontological nature. How, then, did the stream of the guṇas, the cycle of material existence, cease for them? How did liberation, the crest jewel of all human goals, become possible? Scripture establishes that material existence ends only through knowledge of Bhagavān's true nature, as in the declaration, “Knowing Him alone, one passes beyond death” (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 3.8). The king asks with liberation's rarity in mind, considering it superior to every other goal. Or he asks in view of the particular means of liberation taught in scripture.

Alternatively, “the supreme beloved” means one who enchants millions of gods of love or is dearer than millions of selves. Their minds rested only upon His beauty, sweetness, cleverness in love, attachment, and other qualities, not upon the understanding that He was their own essential self. How, then, could liberation, an utterly insubstantial thing, possibly befall Śrī Kṛṣṇa's beloveds, whose feet are served even by true devotees who regard liberation as straw? On this reading, the king's question arises because he considers liberation exceedingly insignificant.

The address “O sage” means: “You are omniscient. You already know the whole course of what happened, and therefore you alone can resolve this question.” In reality, however, devotees pray for birth and other conditions precisely to increase devotion, for devotion itself is their sole aim. They say, for example, “O Lord, among thousands of species...” and “May I become even a worm devoted to You, birth after birth.” The cessation of material existence, conceived as the ending of birth and the rest, would therefore be inappropriate for them. Nor would it be fitting for them to abandon a body made of auspicious qualities, a body that nourishes devotion through despondency and other emotions, and assume another body beyond the guṇas.

On this reading, “those whose minds rested on the guṇas” means those who knew and possessed excellent qualities. How could a body in which qualities such as beauty flow for the purpose of satisfying Śrī Bhagavān come to an end? Such an ending would imply that the body was unfit for His service. Nor could the gopīs abandon a body of that kind merely because of a burden of sorrow unequaled and unsurpassed.

Alternatively, their minds rested upon Śrī Kṛṣṇa's qualities, such as His beauty and fragrance, or upon His rāsa play and other pastimes. The “flow of guṇa” can then mean the current or succession of their own distinctive good fortune: directly dwelling within Vraja in Śrī Vṛndāvana like the other gopīs, participating in the rāsa dance, and enjoying related blessings. How could that current cease, whether understood as repeated experience or as experience that is eternally fresh? Abandoning a body composed entirely of good qualities would prevent that fortune. Moreover, even if their loss of deliberation caused them to abandon such a body, how could a body possessing their own extraordinary nature simply fall away? This is the king's question.

Bhāgavata 10.29.13

Śrī Śuka said: I already explained to you how the king of Cedi attained perfection even though he hated Hṛṣīkeśa. What, then, need be said of those who are dear to Adhokṣaja?

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The honorific Śrī accompanies Śuka's name. Because a slight indignation and related emotions made his speech somewhat indistinct, he resembled a parrot, a śuka. This implication should also be considered in the verses ahead. Śuka knew that the king understood his own intention. Nevertheless, using the king's question as a pretext, he replied as though angry with certain argumentative people whose views had prompted it: “I already explained this.”

According to the first interpretation of the king's question, Parīkṣit doubted how devotees' material existence could cease. Because that doubt could give rise to disbelief in Śrī Bhagavān's majesty, Śuka answers as though indignant. Even while hating Hṛṣīkeśa, who is the greatest benefactor because He gives activity to all the senses, the king of Cedi, Śiśupāla, attained perfection. The name Hṛṣīkeśa can also portray Kṛṣṇa's supreme beauty: His hairs are fine, long, and sparse like a kind of grass called hṛṣī, or they are abundant and radiant like rays of light.

Śiśupāla hated even such a Kṛṣṇa, yet attained siddhi: a form beyond the guṇas, composed of eternity, consciousness, and bliss. Alternatively, he attained his own desired perfection, liberation in the form of becoming once again a personal attendant of Bhagavān. This was already explained to the king in the Seventh Canto.

The name Adhokṣaja may here be explained through the childhood pastime in which Kṛṣṇa lay beneath a cart: when the cart fell, He emerged unharmed from beneath it, appearing as though newly born. What, then, need be said of the women whose beloved was this Adhokṣaja, Śrī Yaśodā's son, or who were themselves dear to Him? Of course they attained perfection. The earlier commentators have already suggested this intention. The conclusion is that, fearing separation from their dearest beloved, they accepted even the destruction of birth and the rest of material existence, though devotees do not ordinarily desire such destruction.

According to the second interpretation, even the king of Cedi attained his desired perfection. What, then, need be said of Adhokṣaja's beloveds? Fearing further separation, they attained the perfection they desired, eternal union with Him. This also answers why they abandoned even a body of such extraordinary quality: they feared the anguish of unbearable separation.

How astonishing! After the curse of the sages had forced Śiśupāla to take three births as a demon, even he attained perfection. What, then, can be said of the gopīs, who were Śrī Kṛṣṇa's beloveds? Śiśupāla attained a form beyond the guṇas, composed of eternity, consciousness, and bliss, not disembodied isolation. How much more certainly would Kṛṣṇa's beloveds attain perfection of that kind? Terrified by the overwhelming agitation born from separation, an agitation produced by the extraordinary flood of their prema, they accepted the ending of birth and related conditions.

The king had objected that even devotees should not accept a body beyond the guṇas. This objection was voiced in humility and from the exalted perspective of certain great devotees, who generally do not relish such a body because it lacks the particular transformations of prema experienced in embodied devotion. The beloveds of Śrī Bhagavān, however, whose hearts are elevated by intimate love, do not regard such a body with the same disfavor.

According to the third interpretation, even while hating Hṛṣīkeśa, Śiśupāla attained the fulfillment of his desire: restoration as an attendant of Bhagavān. Here the general name Hṛṣīkeśa denotes Śrī Bhagavān's essential form, while Adhokṣaja, understood through the particular derivation just given, denotes a specific manifestation of that form. He is the prince of Vraja who, as the source of all avatāras, manifests a sweetness somehow greater even than theirs. What, then, need be said of His beloveds, who possess supremely sweet prema? Like the other goddesses of Vraja, they continually remain in Vraja and attain their desired loving play and other pastimes there.

I had already indicated this by using “abandonment” to signify disappearance, or by using “abandoning the body” to suggest abandoning a state of material existence. Readers such as you did not recognize the indication. Thus every part of the account is faultless.

Bhāgavata 10.29.14

O king, the imperishable and immeasurable Bhagavān, who is beyond the material qualities yet is their source and inner principle, manifests Himself for humanity's highest good.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Through Śrī Bhagavān's power, everyone who enters some relation with Him, in whatever manner, attains either the particular devotional condition that fulfills the person's desire or Śrī Bhagavān Himself. Śuka explains this in two verses beginning “for humanity.” The “highest good” may mean devotion, and Bhagavān appears to grant that very fruit. Or the highest good may mean liberation, whose true purpose is devotion. Alternatively, the highest good is devotion itself, its purpose is prema, and He manifests to bestow that prema.

“Manifestation” means His becoming visible. This intends His identity as Bhagavān directly. He is therefore called Bhagavān, the Supreme Lord and source of all avatāras. The verse may also stress that His manifestation is solely for humanity's highest good.

The word Bhagavān supplies the reason. He can destroy millions of universes merely by moving His eyebrow. It would therefore be unreasonable to suppose that He must personally manifest simply to relieve the earth's burden or kill Kaṁsa and other demons. “O king” suggests a comparison: just as a king such as you travels from place to place solely for the welfare of his people, Bhagavān manifests for the good of humanity.

Four descriptions beginning with “imperishable” further express His nature as Bhagavān. He is imperishable because even when He gives Himself to others, He suffers no diminution. Why? He is immeasurable, which means unlimited. Why is He unlimited? He is nirguṇa, beyond the qualities of māyā. Why is He beyond them? He is guṇātman, the inner source who sets māyā's qualities into motion.

Alternatively, His manifestation or birth occurs solely for humanity's highest good; it could not otherwise occur at all. He is imperishable, free from transformations such as birth, and He is immeasurable. Why, then, does even such a being manifest? Because He is guṇātman: He animates all His own qualities, compassion and the rest, and naturally causes them to become manifest. The remaining explanation is the same.

One might then object, “Why does He attract the wives of others?” The word “imperishable” answers that even through play with others' wives, nothing in Him is diminished or corrupted. One might still ask what purpose such conduct could serve. “Immeasurable” means He cannot be encompassed by ordinary reasoning. Who can subject His play to mundane inference? Why is this so? He is both beyond the material qualities and the ground of all qualities. Because He is beyond them, their faults cannot touch Him. Because He is the very ground of all qualities and sentiments, He engages in loving play with the blessed gopīs. This is the conclusion.

One might finally request, “Even so, please reflect upon it and explain it for our satisfaction.” The last words answer that although He is beyond the material qualities, He is the inner source who activates the qualities of every person. Through the rāsa dance He brings the worlds to the perfection of supreme prema and thereby endows them with every excellent quality. This truth will be made explicit later in the questions and answers exchanged by Śrī Parīkṣit and Śuka.

Bhāgavata 10.29.15

Those who constantly direct desire, anger, fear, affection, a sense of oneness, or friendship toward Hari surely become absorbed in Him.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Therefore, even a mere relation with Hari, established in any manner, can produce this result. Hari either attracts every heart or removes every fault. The word “indeed” has the force of “even”: those people who constantly direct even desire and the other emotions toward Him attain absorption. Alternatively, the verse refers to those renowned for the respective emotions, such as the sages who dwelt in Daṇḍakāraṇya, and Keśī, Kaṁsa, and others.

Another grammatical reading connects the pronoun with the address: “toward that Hari who is yours.” Some recensions read “they direct” in the present tense. “Surely” expresses certainty. Through meditation they attain exclusive steadfastness in Hari.

Alternatively, by attaining similarity of form and other kinds of liberation, they acquire a nature corresponding to His. “Constantly” indicates that repeated practice and firm persistence in each respective emotion remove delay in attaining such absorption. If the emotion arose only occasionally, without sustained immersion in it, rapid absorption would not be possible. Even within similarity of form, Vaiṣṇava doctrine necessarily recognizes distinctions between devotees and nondevotees: one may gain distinctive happiness while another gains only the destruction of suffering; one may become an attendant in Śrī Vaikuṇṭha while another dwells in a perfected realm; and there are other differences.

Alternatively, this verse gives the reason why Bhagavān manifests solely for humanity's highest good: “for even those who direct desire and the other emotions toward Him attain absorption in Him.” The rest of the explanation remains the same. “Friendship” serves as an example. Some recensions read “or” instead of “and,” in which case the word “or” has a comparative force, “just as.” Śrī Nārada accordingly says in the Seventh Canto:

Language: Sanskrit

Through desire, hatred, fear, affection, or devotion, many fixed their minds upon the Lord, abandoned their sin, and attained His destination. (Bhāgavata 7.1.29)

And also:

Language: Sanskrit

The gopīs through desire, Kaṁsa through fear, Śiśupāla and other kings through hatred, the Vṛṣṇis through family relationship, you through affection, and we through devotion, O mighty one. (Bhāgavata 7.1.30)

In that verse the gopīs are grouped under “desire” only from an external viewpoint that considers merely the appearance of love for a paramour. Alternatively, all the emotions beginning with desire are grouped together solely with respect to the common fact that they produce absorption in Him. Their ultimate fruits differ enormously. This entire subject has already been explained in Śrī Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta. Great realized authors have also elaborated it in Rasāmṛtārṇava by revealing the particular distinctions within each emotion. Those distinctions will be explained here as well in their proper places.

Bhāgavata 10.29.16

You should not be astonished at this, for Kṛṣṇa is the unborn Bhagavān, the Lord even of the masters of yoga. By relation with Him, this world is liberated.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“You should not be astonished in this way” means that no such wonder, doubt, or judgment that the event is incredible should arise again. Someone else might entertain it, but you have known His greatness from the time you were in the womb. You must never, under any circumstance, entertain it. Śuka therefore uses the respectful “by you,” rather than the familiar pronoun. The reason not to be astonished is that He is Bhagavān, endowed with every majesty.

One might ask how, if this is so, He could take birth from Devakī's womb. Śuka calls Him unborn: He is not born like an ordinary living being but manifests Himself by His own will, moved by affection for His devotees and similar motives.

How, then, can Devakī and others experience Him as their son? Yoga is the special power that makes the impossible possible. Śiva, Sanaka, and others are lords of yoga, but Kṛṣṇa is Lord even of them. Although He manifests Himself by His own will, His special potency can simultaneously make Him the son of Śrī Devakī and others. His inconceivable majesty makes this possible. He is therefore Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Brahman in human form.

Alternatively, “Kṛṣṇa” means the one renowned as an ocean of infinite, inconceivable, nectarean greatness. Or He is Bhagavān, the Supreme Lord, and therefore unborn, free from material birth like that of embodied beings, since He manifests Himself by grace alone. He is Lord of such masters of yoga as Śrī Nārada, those steadfast in bhakti-yoga, for He is served by their devotion and reveals extraordinary devotion through them. Or He is Lord of those who possess marvelous yogic powers because He manifests all His own astonishing majesties. Yet even beyond these truths, He is Kṛṣṇa, the festival of Śrī Gokula.

Because everything moving and unmoving in this world proceeds from Kṛṣṇa, even that which lacks every spiritual discipline can, by His mere will and through only the faintest semblance of any relation with Him, become especially liberated and attain Śrī Vaikuṇṭha. This includes the future attainment of Vaikuṇṭha by the trees and vines of Indraprastha and other places. In the First Canto, Śrī Kuntī therefore prays:

Language: Sanskrit

These lands flourish; their herbs and plants ripen abundantly. Forests, mountains, rivers, and oceans all increase beneath Your glance. (Bhāgavata 1.8.40)

The expressions “abundantly flourishing” and “increase again” intend their becoming fit to attain Śrī Vaikuṇṭha. The earlier commentators have explained the rest.

Alternatively, one may ask how absorption in Him, difficult to attain even through great disciplines such as many sacrifices and yogic practices, can arise from a relation formed in any manner through desire or another emotion. The words “you should not be astonished” answer this question; the meaning remains as explained. Therefore even those who seek liberation and related goals must not neglect hearing the rāsa dance because they mistakenly regard it as an ordinary erotic performance. Everyone, and devotees especially, must constantly serve this līlā as the supreme fruit, for through it one attains one's cherished perfection and even that which surpasses it. This reinforces the purpose for which the present section was introduced.

There is still another interpretation. Because of their extraordinary fortune as gopīs belonging to the lord of Vraja's own community, the confined women overcame their obstacle, met Śrī Kṛṣṇa immediately in those very bodies, and joined the rāsa dance that same night. They had been placed inside their houses and tied with ropes by husbands and others, and therefore could find no means of escape. Yet they were joined to contemplation of the rāsa dance with Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Through the power of that meditation their bonds became very loose and were utterly destroyed.

Because husbands and others had tied them in many ways, their bodies were “composed of guṇas,” meaning covered and filled with ropes. Through meditation alone each woman abandoned the thought, “I am bound,” and contemplated instead, “No one has bound me; I am already free.” Thus “abandoning the body” means only abandoning the corresponding conception of the body, just as in the Third Canto's account of creation Brahmā's abandonment of a particular conception is called abandonment of the corresponding body. Through the power of meditation, the restraints imposed by their husbands' ropes were immediately destroyed.

Alternatively, the bonds may be obstacles such as bolted doors. The descriptive phrase then means that they abandoned the body's condition of being bound. They subsequently met the Supreme Self Himself precisely in the form of Śrī Nanda's youthful son. The reason is that their awareness of Him was distinguished by the mood of a paramour.

Or paramātmā means their supremely beloved self, and His being so supremely dear is the cause of their paramour mood; without it that degree of dearness could never be established. The verse also describes meditation's power. The unbearable, blazing anguish of separation from their dearest beloved was itself removed and rendered insignificant by meditation, though it surpassed every misery in the worlds. The remainder is the same.

Bhagavān's later statement beginning “Those who remained in Vraja while I sported in the forest that night” (Bhāgavata 10.47.37) should consequently be read as follows: although they remained in Vraja because husbands and others had bound them, through subsequent contemplation of My power they were not women who failed to attain rāsa. They did attain rāsa.

Parīkṣit's question can likewise be understood differently. Because they meditated upon Kṛṣṇa as their beloved and fixed their minds upon His compassion and other qualities rather than upon His form beyond the guṇas, their meditation might appear deficient. How, then, did the succession of ropes their husbands used to bind them come to an end? Śukadeva answers through the principle “how much more”: meditation directed toward Kṛṣṇa in any manner can free one even from the bonds of material existence. How much more certainly would the exceptional meditation of Kṛṣṇa's dearest beloveds free them from ropes? The words “I already explained this” and those that follow show that even meditation born from hatred can fulfill one's objective. Everything thus fits perfectly.

Bhāgavata 10.29.17

Seeing the women of Vraja gathered close beside Him, Bhagavān, the greatest of all speakers, addressed them with artful words that bewildered them.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“Those women” were all newly youthful women of Vraja, drawn by the flute song and overwhelmed with longing. Alternatively, calling them “women of Vraja” can suggest that they properly belonged in Vraja and ought not to have entered the forest outside it. Nevertheless, they came directly into Kṛṣṇa's presence rather than standing at a distance because of modesty or another restraint. When He saw them, He spoke the words beginning “Welcome” in the next verse.

Why did He speak? Through artful speech and playful turns of language, He especially bewildered and stole their minds so as to intensify their desire for Him still further. This will become explicit ahead.

One may ask how mere verbal play could bewilder them. Śuka answers that Kṛṣṇa is greatest among all speakers, whether eloquent beings such as four-faced Brahmā and thousand-faced Śeṣa, or poets such as Śrī Vyāsa. Why is He greatest? He is Bhagavān Himself, endowed with every majesty.

Alternatively, “artful words” means special modes of expression. The very same sentence can appear to reject the gopīs while simultaneously pleading with them. By touching two mutually opposed meanings, His words display supreme mastery in the artful discipline of affectionate deception. On their surface they teach dharma and related obligations. Their true intention, however, is Kṛṣṇa's own overwhelming desire to sport and the strengthening of the gopīs' special feeling for Him. He can do this because He is greatest among speakers.

The earlier statements “He resolved to sport” (10.29.1) and “He played a soft melody that stole the hearts of the lovely-eyed women” (10.29.3) already make His desire to sport with them explicit. He now conceals one thing in His heart while speaking another, and even within His apparent instruction about dharma He simultaneously communicates something else. Because they cannot settle the meaning of His sentences, He bewilders them through this concealment. Yet the expression “the beauties of His words” ultimately shows that this is only His manner of speaking, not His real feeling.

Alternatively, the literal meanings of every word can be brought into the explanation. The women of Vraja were naturally devoted to their own spontaneous love. Though they were of that nature, had at that moment come directly beside Him, and stood visibly before Him, Bhagavān, who is omniscient and knew their feelings, spoke deceptive words that bewildered them and brought them to supreme distress. Why? Because He is greatest among those skilled in witty and affectionate speech, He did so to create a special kind of playful exchange.

Or “because of their verbal play” can mean that He spoke in order to hear their artful replies. Another reading says that He bewildered them with His own beauty and then spoke. Through the joined negative prefix, the text can also portray them as avācaḥ, speechless with modesty. He spoke so that He could experience the joy of hearing their answer. Being greatest among speakers, and Himself skilled in every expressive turn, He naturally relishes hearing the clever speech of others. Whichever reading is adopted, His true purpose was only to increase their love for one another.

Bhāgavata 10.29.18

Śrī Bhagavān said: Welcome, greatly fortunate women. What pleasing service may I perform for you? Is all well in Vraja? Tell Me why you have come.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

At first Kṛṣṇa assumed concealed indifference and spoke respectfully: “Welcome.” This may mean, “Your arrival has been auspicious.” Or, “Have you really come to the right place?” He addresses them as “greatly fortunate” because their good fortune consists in chastity and similar virtues. He then asks, “What pleasing thing can I do for you?” The implied answer may be, “I cannot do anything at all.” Alternatively, He invites them to command Him. By doing something pleasing for such greatly fortunate women, He too would acquire a special religious merit.

Such formal questions naturally suggest distance, since people usually ask them out of ceremonious respect. Kṛṣṇa had addressed the wives of the sacrificing brāhmaṇas similarly. Because they were brāhmaṇa women, He showed them exceptional respect by saying, “Please be seated” (10.23.25). These women, however, were the women of Vraja and naturally dear to Him, so He adds the special expression “something pleasing for you.” Alternatively, His asking them directly, “What pleasing thing can I do for you?” suggests an indifference even greater than that shown to the brāhmaṇas' wives.

In truth, the sight of their extraordinary arrival filled Him with supreme delight, and He therefore said, “Welcome.” He calls them “greatly fortunate” because the rāsa dance grants them a good fortune surpassing even Mahālakṣmī's. Or they had abandoned everything and come depending upon Him alone, whereas He had not displayed a sacrifice equal to theirs; in this sense He calls them greater even than Himself. Overcome by their love, He asks what would please them. Such conduct is natural for the crown jewel of clever lovers, skilled in bringing His beloveds under His sway. This is why His words to these women properly contain something beyond what He said to the sacrificial wives.

Sanātana has said that every one of Kṛṣṇa's statements simultaneously rejects and entreats them. Its rejecting sense has been explained; its pleading sense is conveyed through layered wordplay. “O greatly fortunate women, welcome! This moonlight, this forest, this favorable companion who follows your wishes, and your own fresh youth make your fortune truly great. Therefore let Me do something pleasing for you.” Or “What shall I do according to My own desire? I shall certainly accomplish something.” Although exact correspondence of every syllable is not required in a passage of semantic double meaning, Sanātana endeavors to show it for the delight of learned devotees.

Having first spoken the polite words conventionally addressed to arriving guests, Kṛṣṇa saw that all the women had come together in anxious haste. Feigning fearful concern, He asked about Vraja. Anāmaya means welfare or freedom from harm, and kaccit introduces a question.

One might object, “O lion among clever men, if Vraja were in danger, the cowherd men would also have come.” True. Kṛṣṇa therefore pretends to suspect that demons or others must be threatening the women in particular. With roguish gravity He says, “Tell Me the cause or purpose of your own coming.”

Alternatively, He saw that they did not answer, either because they could not determine His intention, because they were shy, or because grief made them unable to speak of something inauspicious. He therefore introduced another subject and asked about Vraja with apparent urgency. Every such suspicion in the verses ahead should likewise be understood as feigned. Yet when He saw their cheerful faces despite their silence, He acted reassured and, as though bashful, said, “Tell Me.” The sense is: “Perhaps, as when Indra sent the destructive rain, all of you have come to My side at night for some reason. Because My intentions are difficult to fathom, you yourselves must say why.”

In truth this is simply a mode of amorous joking. Another play upon the words gives this meaning: “Your arrival itself reveals Vraja's auspiciousness. The happiness of your coming is My sole refuge. Will you say something to Me? Will you converse with Me?” Or, because particles carry many meanings, kaccit brūta simply means, “Please say something.”

Footnote 9, Bhāgavata 10.23.25

Welcome, greatly fortunate women. Please be seated. What may we do for you? Your coming here from a desire to see us is entirely fitting.

Bhāgavata 10.29.19

This night has a fearsome appearance and is filled with fearsome creatures. Slender-waisted women, return to Vraja. You should not remain here.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“This” means the night directly visible before them. Its visibility is stressed by saying that its form is fearsome, for night is pervaded by darkness. Moreover, it is thoroughly inhabited and filled with fearsome living beings. Therefore, “return”: turn back and go, for no delay is proper here. Kṛṣṇa says “not here,” meaning in this forest. “O slender-waisted women” conveys that beautiful women certainly should not remain at such a frightening time and in such a dangerous place. The earlier commentators have suggested the remaining sense.

Alternatively, the gopīs may answer, “O crown of connoisseurs, like You we have come here to enjoy the forest or gather flowers and other things.” Kṛṣṇa replies, “It is night.” This is indeed night, not day.

They might answer, “O lover of nocturnal play, what fault is there in that?” He therefore says “fearsome” and the rest. Night naturally produces fear, and this one is additionally inhabited by fearsome beings. Or they might say, “Lotus-eyed one, this is a moonlit night.” He replies that it is filled with terrible creatures. Women should not remain here in the forest; they should return to Vraja.

A playful secondary meaning is: “You are many, arriving in groups. Return to the multitude of Vraja's men, namely your respective husbands, because I am alone and cannot please so many of you. Therefore you must not remain here.” This is a special form of amorous joking.

The gopīs may object, “O greatest of timid men, we are not afraid of terrible creatures.” He answers, “O slender-waisted women!” Their bodies are delicate and they lack physical strength, so they must fear the powerful. In truth He says all this only to strengthen their feeling for Him or increase their longing through playful speech. On the wordplay's inviting side, mention of fearsome creatures implies that no one else will dare come there.

The same words can therefore convey the opposite message. “This is rajanī”: the newly risen full moon delights and colors all people. By joining a negative prefix, the night is aghora-rūpā, not fearsome, because the darkness has departed. Or it is peaceful because the pure, sattvic, sacred month of Kārttika is near. The night is therefore perfectly fit for the auspicious rāsa dance.

The line about beings can say that the night is attended just as the day is by “fearsome” people who might obstruct rasa, namely the gopīs' husbands and others. Or, because Vṛndāvana's nature has made every creature mutually friendly, it is attended only by nonfearsome beings. Or the nonfearsome beings are deer, peacocks, and others who stimulate loving emotion. Alternatively, the strength present in Kṛṣṇa is fearsome only to the wicked. Or He reassures the young women by saying, “My strength is not fearsome to anyone.” Or the night is attended by Kṛṣṇa Himself, whose nature is peaceful and delightful; with this He reveals His own cleverness.

The concealed conclusion is therefore: “Do not return to Vraja under any circumstance. You must remain right here. Why? Because you are women, and more particularly, O slender-waisted ones, women of supreme beauty. It is altogether fitting that you remain here beside Me.”

Footnote 10

Some recensions read “home” in place of “Vraja.”

Bhāgavata 10.29.20

Your mothers, fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands cannot find you and are searching for you. Do not cause your relatives fear.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The gopīs may say, “Lion among men, why should we, standing beside You who are supremely powerful, fear anything?” Pretending concern, Kṛṣṇa answers, “Your mothers...” Mothers would begin the search because of their special affection. Fathers would follow, though unable to wander extensively through the forest, moved by affection and fear of dishonor. If fathers became less diligent because they felt less responsibility for married daughters, sons or those like sons would search. Shame at a mother's misconduct, a desire to conceal her meeting with a paramour and thus prevent scandal, their youth, or inability to roam far might weaken their effort. Brothers would then search because they are naturally extremely affectionate. If shame or another consideration somehow weakened even them, the husbands would certainly continue, because husbands share in their wives' merits and faults.

In this sequence the searchers become progressively more decisive, implying that the husbands will inevitably arrive. Alternatively, some women have mothers searching, others fathers, and so on according to their individual circumstances. Or, following the reasons just stated, a mother may search in one place and a father in another. Unable to see the gopīs in the houses or forests, all of them search here and there. The particle “indeed” can mark Kṛṣṇa's conjecture.

If they came here and saw you beside Me, both you and I would certainly feel fear and shame. Therefore, by remaining here, do not produce fear in your relatives, in Me, or in yourselves.

The gopīs might respond, “Knower of the greatest spells, they will never enter this almost inaccessible forest. Even if they came, they could not see us.” Kṛṣṇa answers that, because they cannot find the women, their relatives will fear that tigers or other creatures have harmed them. Do not cause such anxiety, for saintly people cherish their kin. Out of affection for them, return.

Alternatively, the pronoun can be read by analogy with the later phrase “they attained Me by contemplating My power” (10.47.37): your mothers and the rest, unable to see either you or Me, are searching. The gopīs may say, “Fearless lion, let them search or even see us. What follows from that?” Kṛṣṇa answers, “You have caused your relatives fear.” The past form indicates an action that must certainly be performed and thus conveys an imperative: “Show fear before your relatives.” Otherwise women would become independent and many faults would result.

Another line of the exchange begins with the gopīs saying, “Well-vowed one, while we stand at Your side we fear nothing.” Closing His eyes and acting out the sentiment, Kṛṣṇa replies, “Women must not remain here beside Me, for I have avoided women's company as a celibate from childhood.” Alas! One might permit children or elderly people to remain together without fault, but you have just entered fresh youth. He therefore addresses them as “slender-waisted women.”

They might reply, “Great master of deception, You associate with us repeatedly in our homes.” He stresses “here”: here in the solitary forest, and now at twilight, there is a special fault. The expressive movement of His beautiful face suggests, “If I associate with you here now, great infamy will certainly be Mine. You must therefore go.”

They may reassure Him, “Well-established hero, no one will know. Do not fear disgrace.” He answers that their mothers and the others will certainly come and see. “Do not cause My relatives fear because of My disgrace.” Or their mothers and others, suspecting from the women's departure that they had gone to Kṛṣṇa, cannot find Him elsewhere and are searching nearby. When they arrive and see Him behaving wickedly in the women's company, His relatives will be disgraced because of them and become angry with the women. The gopīs should fear this. The remaining sense is the same.

In truth, however, Kṛṣṇa's words strengthen the gopīs' conviction that they need not fear those relatives. Their concealed meaning is this: the word “indeed” has an emphatic force. Their relatives search while remaining unable to see, as though blind; however extensively they search, they will never see the women. Or “indeed” means “even”: “Though blind and unable to see, will they really search?” The rising intonation implies, “Certainly not.” The gopīs have disregarded them, so they need not fear their relatives.

Bhāgavata 10.29.21-22

You have seen the flowering forest, colored by the full moon's rays and beautified by tree leaves trembling playfully in the Yamunā breeze.

Therefore return without delay to the cowherd settlement, faithful women, and serve your husbands. The calves and children are crying. Give the children milk and milk the cows.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The descriptions beginning with “flowering” identify what the women have seen. Alternatively, because slight loving indignation has arisen, the words should be read in connection with their gazing at the forest and especially with “Yamunā.” Association with the Yamunā gives the breeze coolness, the word “playfully” gives it gentleness, and the forest's flowers naturally give it fragrance. Thus three qualities of the breeze should be understood. The earlier commentators have suggested the rest.

The gopīs may say, “We have disregarded our relatives and others, overcoming even Your profoundly enchanting words. Why should we fear them?” Kṛṣṇa pauses as though reflecting artfully: “Then what purpose could you possibly have had in making such an effort to come here at night? Ah, I understand. Fortunately, you came on this full-moon night to behold the beauty of My Śrī Vṛndāvana. Very well, that purpose has now been fulfilled.” With feigned consolation He says, “You have seen the forest.”

Or the gopīs may answer, “We disregarded home, relatives, and all else to experience the moon of Śrī Vṛndāvana and the play of Śrī Kālindī.” Kṛṣṇa replies, “True. Fortunately, you have now beheld supremely beautiful Vṛndāvana, the moon risen above it, and the lovely play of the breeze moving along Kālindī.” Pointing with His finger and making other playful gestures, He says, “You have seen it.” In truth, by directly showing them such a forest and all its features, He only increases their amorous longing.

The concealed meaning is the opposite. The two verses join as follows: “You have seen this forest endowed with every excellence; therefore do not go to the cowherd settlement.” Alternatively, “Once you have directly seen such a forest, it is improper to delay loving play at night. Let us go to the Yamunā bank, which is perfectly suited for it.”

Footnote 11

Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī reads “the cowherd settlement”; some recensions read “home.”

Bhāgavata 10.29.23

Or perhaps your hearts were constrained by great affection for Me, and for that reason you came. This is entirely fitting, for all living beings feel affection for Me.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

On the surface, “great affection for Me” means merely a special fondness. Kṛṣṇa thereby denies that their feeling is the particular relation between man and woman called sweet prema. He reinforces this indifference by saying that all living beings feel affection for Him. By mentioning “affection for Me” so directly, He weakens even that affection's apparent distinction. His formal address, “you ladies,” adds respectful distance.

The gopīs may answer, “Greatest of pleasing speakers, then fulfill what we desire.” He replies that living beings simply “feel affection.” Since such affection is a form of devotion, physical contact is unnecessary. The earlier commentators have suggested the rest.

Alternatively, the women may say, “Alas, we have completely abandoned all those relatives. Why mention them again?” Praising them, Kṛṣṇa presents another possibility with “or perhaps.” The basic meaning remains the same. The phrase can also mean, “because of the great affection I feel for you.”

By adding a negative prefix, “your hearts were constrained” can become “your hearts were unconstrained.” Because they are supremely chaste, their minds cannot be bound by affection for another man. Or their minds remained unconstrained despite their great affection for Kṛṣṇa, because chastity does not permit another man to become the object of affection. Both readings appear to deny their distinctive feeling, yet they came nevertheless. The remainder is the same. In truth, Kṛṣṇa assumes such indifference with clever artistry only to increase their emotion.

The concealed meaning is this: “Why should women as deeply attached as you require petitions filled with further stimulants?” The prefix in “great affection” indicates affection in its fullness and therefore directly signifies sweet prema. All living beings generally feel some affection for Kṛṣṇa, but the gopīs are the best of all. Their hearts are mastered and brought under control by extraordinary love for Him. Or, although fear of husbands and others prevented them from acting freely, their coming because of great affection for Kṛṣṇa is entirely fitting, since their love for Him surpasses every other. This is why He addresses them respectfully. The implied invitation is: “Now sport freely with Me.”

Footnote 12

Some recensions read “for Me” rather than “in Me.”

Bhāgavata 10.29.24

Blessed women, a woman's highest duty is to serve her husband without deceit, to serve his relatives, and thereafter to nourish her children and dependents.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Serving one's husband is a duty. If it is done without deceit, with pure feeling or solely from regard for dharma, it is excellent. “Indeed” expresses certainty. One should also serve his relatives, such as one's mother-in-law and father-in-law, and, after attending to the husband and the others, nourish one's children, servants, and dependents. This too is duty, and when done sincerely it is excellent. The two occurrences of “and” may suggest that these latter duties share equal prominence. “O blessed women” can mean, “O chaste women, this conduct is fitting for you.” Or, “O women endowed with auspicious destiny, only you can fulfill it.” This is encouragement spoken deceptively. The earlier commentators explain the rest.

Alternatively, Kṛṣṇa says: “It may be that all living beings love Me and that your coming here is fitting, but I can be attained only through the highest dharma, not otherwise.” Adopting the pose of a teacher, He tells them what that dharma is. The literal instruction is unchanged, but in truth it is jealous mockery, since serving a husband is not the supreme dharma. On the second reading too it is affectionate joking. Kṛṣṇa can be attained only through prema, itself attained through hearing and other limbs of bhakti by those who regard the four ordinary human aims as trivial. He cannot be attained through external duties such as serving a husband. Calling that duty supreme is therefore playful irony. The Gītā consequently says, “Abandon all dharmas” (18.66).

The concealed meaning may begin: “Serving not only one's husband but also those related to him, including persons like Me, is the highest dharma.” Or, “Blessed women, supreme Vaiṣṇavīs, this duty belongs to other women, ordinary worldly wives. It does not apply to you, the foremost of all women, who have entered bhakti and therefore disregard conventional duty.” The Bhāgavata says, “Even one who abandons one's own duty and worships Hari's lotus feet...” (1.5.17). Hari-bhakti-vilāsa repeatedly explains this principle in its description of the exclusive devotee and elsewhere.

Alternatively, “husband” means Me, Lord of the universe. Because I am the Supreme Self, I alone am in truth the husband. Or, because I directly protected the cowherd settlement and all its inhabitants from the rain and other dangers, I am everyone's actual maintainer here. What need be said? Serving Me, the true husband, is the highest duty. Serving My relatives, Śrī Nanda, Baladeva, and others, is also such service. So too is caring for My dependents, such as Śrīdāma and the servants of Śrī Nanda's house, or more generally nourishing all Vaiṣṇavas. The remainder is the same.

Thus the hidden instruction is, “Serve Me with pure feeling.” Their coming here is entirely fitting. Words spoken by Śrī Bhagavān for a purpose suited to rasa simultaneously carry many meanings; this reading reveals His majesty. Or, speaking the highest truth in playful form, He says through these three verses, “Hear the entire essence of the secret of dharma.”

On that reading, for you women of Vraja, serving your worldly husbands is adharma, sin. If done “without deception,” it is paro 'dharmaḥ, the greatest adharma and a grave sin. Those devoted to bhakti would abandon their own true duty, hearing and the other forms of bhakti, and turn instead to the alien duty of serving husbands. Great harm would result. The Gītā says, “Death in one's own dharma is better; another's dharma brings danger” (3.35). Alternatively, the initial syllable a denotes Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa Himself; to serve a husband by using māyā to deceive Him, abandoning devotion and the rest, is disastrous. The remaining sense is the same.

Every action of one devoid of devotion to Bhagavān is fruitless and may even yield its opposite. Bṛhan-nāradīya states:

Language: Sanskrit

Of what use are the Vedas or scriptures, visits to sacred places, austerities, or sacrifices for those devoid of devotion to Viṣṇu?

The Revā-khaṇḍa of the Skanda Purāṇa likewise says:

Language: Sanskrit

Even adharma performed by Your devotees becomes dharma, O Acyuta; even dharma performed by those without devotion to You becomes sin, O Hari.

Bhakti-vilāsa makes this principle explicit in its treatment of the greatness of Śrī Vaiṣṇavas and elsewhere.

Footnote 15

Hari-bhakti-vilāsa 11.553-555 removes the exclusive devotee from ordinary eligibility for ritual action. Its account of the marks of an exclusive devotee explains that exclusive devotion is complete independence from all else and one-pointed steadfastness in the Lord. It has four forms: disregard for conventional duty; complete independence from ritual action, knowledge, and every other means; constancy in loving attachment even when surrounded by obstacles; and exclusive dedication to prema. See Hari-bhakti-vilāsa 10.59-82. The duties of an exclusive devotee are described at 20.369-385 and elsewhere.

Footnote 16

The Bṛhan-nāradīya verse is cited at Hari-bhakti-vilāsa 10.302.

Footnote 17

The Skanda Purāṇa verse is cited at Hari-bhakti-vilāsa 10.91.

Footnote 18

See Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, chapter 10.

Bhāgavata 10.29.25

Women who desire respect in society should not abandon a husband who is not sinful, even if he has bad character, is unfortunate, old, incapable, ill, or poor.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The gopīs may answer, “Expert at instructing others, we have already abandoned our husbands completely. What use is Your teaching now that we should serve them?” Kṛṣṇa therefore begins, “Even if he has bad character.” Such a man may be devoted to theft and other misconduct. He may be unfortunate, devoid of prosperity, and unsuccessful in every effort; aged and overcome by infirmity; incapable of performing work and other responsibilities; afflicted by grave disease; or extremely poor, unable even to feed himself.

The word “even” is connected with each defect. A husband should not be abandoned even if he possesses bad character and the other faults. A resident of Vraja, however, naturally possesses every excellent quality. How, then, could such a husband possibly be rejected? This is the additional force of “even.”

Bhāgavata 10.29.26

For a woman of a respectable family, taking a paramour bars heaven, destroys reputation, is trivial and unstable, difficult, productive of fear, and condemned everywhere.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The gopīs may answer, “Crown prince of Vraja, at Your command we shall not abandon our husbands. Their husbandhood, however, exists in name alone. Let the actual relationship of husband and wife be with You.” Concealing His real feeling and pretending jealous displeasure, Kṛṣṇa speaks words supremely disagreeable to them by condemning what they have long desired.

Taking a paramour is “opposed to heaven”: it prevents heaven's attainment or destroys a heaven already earned through previous merit. “Passionate women, you may disregard heaven because it is unseen, but surely you care about reputation in this world.” Paramour love destroys that reputation and can even erase honor accumulated in the past.

They may answer, “Transcendent one, this is perfectly secret. Who will know?” He replies that it is phalgu, trivial because it is unstable. They say, “Acyuta, our relation with You is entirely stable.” He answers that it is kṛcchra, difficult to accomplish. They say, “Lion among independent lovers, because we roam freely in Vraja and Śrī Vṛndāvana, it is easily accomplished.” He replies that it fully carries and delivers fear from husbands and other authorities, and fear of hell and other consequences.

Or He says that paramour love is condemned both socially and spiritually because it causes shame or inspires disgust. “Indeed” expresses certainty. The women may answer, “Best of knowers of truth, even condemnation is easy to endure when it fulfills our deepest desire.” He therefore says “for a woman of a respectable family.” The singular represents the whole class. Such conduct stains the family and is supremely improper for its women; it must be rejected in every way. In truth, as before, He says this only to make their feeling for Him firm.

The concealed meaning reverses the warning. The word “and” has the force of “even”: even paramour love possessing the apparent defects of barring heaven and the rest occurs among women of good family, for scripture recounts it of Tārā, Ahalyā, and others. Since it is not uncommon, no special fault attaches to it.

Moreover, by wordplay a kulā woman can mean one who takes up something base. Only for such a woman does paramour love bar heaven and produce the other faults. Those descriptions do not apply to you, who have taken up My disposition, the essence and treasure of everything. This is His hidden intention and joke.

Another joke derives upapati as “the husband who is nearby.” Aupapatya then means nearness to one's worldly husband, and that nearness is thoroughly afflicted with all the faults beginning with obstruction of heaven. The singular “woman of the family” is addressed specifically to Rādhā.

Footnote 20

Some recensions read “indeed” in place of “and.”

Bhāgavata 10.29.27

Love for Me arises through hearing, seeing, meditation, and continual chanting. It does not arise to the same degree through physical proximity. Therefore return to your homes.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The gopīs may say, “You are attained through prema alone. Since prema is the goal of every discipline, surely its outer and inner expressions are our true dharma.” Kṛṣṇa answers, “Then practice hearing about Me and the other limbs of devotion.” Or they say, “Śrī Puruṣottama, we desire only Your grace, not family standing or anything else.” He replies that His grace is attained only through love directed toward Him, and such love arises through hearing and the other practices, not through bodily contact.

Alternatively, they say, “Friend whose affection fulfills every purpose, when love for You has arisen, condemnation and all other obstacles become nothing because the supreme human goal has been attained.” Then, adopting the manner of scripture and a posture of unbearable indifference, Kṛṣṇa discriminatingly names what is supremely dear, the means to such love: hearing and the rest.

Hearing, seeing, meditation, and chanting may be practiced collectively or alternatively; even one can perfect devotional emotion. This has been explained in the latter division of Śrī Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta and elsewhere. “Hearing” means hearing narratives of Bhagavān and related subjects. “Seeing” means beholding His sacred image and other forms, or seeing Kṛṣṇa Himself from a distance. “Continual chanting” is unbroken kīrtana centered upon His names. The verse beginning “observing this vow, attachment arises through chanting the name of one's beloved Lord” (Bhāgavata 11.2.40) describes chanting as especially intimate in the arising of bhāva. Because physical proximity is necessarily required to see Kṛṣṇa directly, however, seeing is mentioned first in order to indicate that it should be understood secondarily as seeing the sacred image or seeing Him from afar.

Each practice should also be understood as the cause of the one that follows. Hearing comes first because without it one knows nothing. The instruction “He must be heard and glorified” (Bhāgavata 1.2.14) and similar texts therefore prescribe hearing first. After hearing, a desire to see Śrī Bhagavān leads one to behold His image and other manifestations. From seeing, meditation arises with great ease. From meditation, continual chanting springs up spontaneously because the mind has become completely absorbed.

The bhāva that develops toward Kṛṣṇa through this sequence does not arise in the same way through nearness, personal presence, or bodily contact. The principle is that “proximity causes mortals to lose reverence” (Bhāgavata 10.84.31). Or bodily contact can produce mental inhibition because it conflicts with scriptural convention. “To the same degree” implies that love born from proximity is not of that kind and is therefore lesser.

Alternatively, love does not arise by that conventional process at all. It arises by transgressing social convention, disregarding everything else, and making the greatest effort. On the overt reading, however, the women should abandon proximity and practice hearing and the rest. They should therefore return home, where freedom from social inhibition and similar restraints will allow them to experience the joy of those practices. In truth, Kṛṣṇa speaks all of this from supreme playfulness, or simply to behold the loving urgency of women whose straightforward natures have been made utterly tender by an uninterrupted flood of prema.

The concealed meaning is the opposite: according to the principle just stated, you must always, without inhibition, cultivate bhāva for Me in every way. Do not claim that the bhāva called prema arises even through hearing and the other practices. It reaches complete perfection only through bodily union, not through hearing. The sentence should therefore be joined: “It does not arise from hearing and the rest as it does through proximity.” For that reason, by joining a negative prefix to “homes,” “go toward and worship us who are without homes and unmarried.” Kṛṣṇa uses the plural rather than naming Himself directly, both to proclaim His greatness and, through cleverness, to bring the gopīs under His sway.

Or “go to places that are not homes,” such as the sandy banks of the Yamunā. Alternatively, “enter My homes, the secluded bowers.” By calling the bowers “homes,” He indicates that they are His playhouses and true residences and that the women should always dwell there.

Sanātana summarizes Kṛṣṇa's strategy:

Language: Sanskrit

With ten verses as fuel, the playful Lord made the fire of indifference blaze in every direction around the hearts of the gopīs, hearts made tender by prema.

These ten verses should be placed in an ascending arrangement. The present verse beginning “through hearing” stands below, like a fire lit beneath an upward-pointing flame, because it produces an especially deep burning. The verse beginning “it bars heaven” stands above, for condemning the women's cherished goal lays a feverish burden of grief upon their heads. The verses beginning “even if he has bad character” should similarly be arranged in ascending order through the eight directions beginning with the east.

Alternatively, the ten verses address, one by one, the eleven kinds of women who arrived in groups after abandoning eleven activities beginning with milking. Some correspondences run in ascending order and others subsequently in ordinary order. The opening question about Vraja addresses all the women, but especially those whose garments and ornaments were misplaced, since their condition visibly revealed supreme haste. The two later statements beginning “it bars heaven” also address everyone: the first because they all desired Kṛṣṇa alone, and the second because it generally teaches how bhāva arises.

“This night is fearsome” addresses those who had been decorating their eyes, the mention of terrifying creatures playfully reflecting their use of eye cosmetics. “Your mothers and others are searching” addresses those who had been cleansing their bodies, since concern for the body makes concern for bodily relatives fitting. “You have seen the flowering forest” addresses those applying fragrant ointments, since a desire for scent accords with a desire for flowers. “Therefore go” addresses those who had been eating, because a woman's meal can be dismissed briefly through gesture alone.

“Serve your husbands” addresses those who had been serving their husbands. The brief initial command states only what is supposedly always obligatory; its expansion follows later. “Feed the children” addresses those who had been giving milk to infants, and is expressed urgently. “The calves and children are crying” and the rest imply that concern for milking, household work, bodily duties, and related actions arises only when service to the husband is regarded as necessary. Since such service is the root of all the others and its qualities will be described at length later, Kṛṣṇa first states it briefly according to the maxim of the needle and the cauldron, dispatching the small matter before the great one. “Milk the cows” addresses those who had abandoned milking.

The three verses beginning “or perhaps,” spoken generally to everyone, now reinforce service to the husband. “Or perhaps” introduces Kṛṣṇa's love only to remove, by the method of extracting a thorn with a thorn, the objection that service to husbands should be abandoned in favor of love for Him. The instruction to serve the husband and his relatives specifically addresses the three kinds of women who had left milk heating, porridge cooking, and food being served, since those tasks support service to a husband, his relatives, and the rest.

Yet the women are united with one another, and Kṛṣṇa's words overflow with playfulness and affectionate joking. A statement directed toward one therefore extends to the others as well. All His speeches finally apply mutually to all the women and should generally be understood as addressed to every one of them. The particular correspondences have been shown only to reveal the manner of His arrangement.

Footnote 21

Some recensions read the singular “home.”

Footnote 22, Bhāgavata 10.84.31

Proximity causes mortals to lose reverence, just as a person living beside the Gaṅgā may leave its water and go elsewhere seeking purification.

Bhāgavata 10.29.28

Śrī Śuka said: Hearing these displeasing words spoken by Govinda, the gopīs became despondent. Their resolve shattered, they entered an anxiety impossible to cross.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“These” means all the words just spoken. Govinda is the lord of Gokula and the natural object of the entire flood of their spontaneous love. Yet what He said, or the very fact that He said it, appeared “displeasing.” The force of their supreme prema prevented them from immediately determining His intention, and the words displayed a meaning contrary to their desire. They therefore experienced them as unwelcome and hostile, the opposite of what was dear.

Alternatively, because His speech touched two meanings and left His intention uncertain, the weight of their longing made them understand only its displeasing sense.

Bhāgavata 10.29.29

The gopīs lowered their faces. Their bimba-red lips dried beneath their grief-heated sighs, and their feet traced lines upon the ground. Their tears, darkened by eye cosmetic, washed the kuṅkuma from their breasts. Burdened by immense sorrow, they stood in silence.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

For this reason they stood silent. For a moment, absorption in supreme anxiety prevented the functions of speech and the other senses from manifesting. The words “from grief” and “drying” indicate that their breaths were both hot and prolonged. Comparing their lips to ripe bimba fruit conveys their redness and tenderness; their extreme dryness and fading are therefore especially suggested.

Tracing the ground with a foot, specifically the left foot, is an effect of extraordinary anxiety. Their feeling was, “O earth, split open so that we may enter you.” Since they drew upon the ground with their feet, the text also indicates that they remained standing.

The phrases “tears darkened by cosmetic” and “washing the kuṅkuma from their breasts” indicate streams of tears. The plural suggests that those streams were abundant. The cause of every symptom was the great burden of their immense sorrow and despondency. This also includes unspoken burning anguish and distress. They therefore experienced pallor, paralysis, and other transformations.

The particle sma marks the condition as well known: even though Kṛṣṇa's statements were playful, the hearer must recognize that the gopīs experienced grief of this magnitude. Or it expresses wonder: even a playful statement produced such suffering in them. How astonishing is the greatness of prema!

These outward effects of anxiety do not weaken the force of the gopīs' coming reply, which rejects Kṛṣṇa's instruction. Women of good family can display such symptoms when a lover entreats them, and the gopīs naturally manifest emotions that never conflict with rasa.

Bhāgavata 10.29.30

Kṛṣṇa was their dearest beloved, yet He spoke as though He were someone hostile. For His sake they had forcibly turned away every other desire. Deeply attached to Him, they wiped the eyes overwhelmed by weeping and, with voices slightly choked by loving indignation, began to speak.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Though He was their dearest beloved, Kṛṣṇa rejected them as though He were an unfriendly stranger. One might therefore tell them to turn their minds away from Him. Śuka answers that for Kṛṣṇa's sake, to attain Him or achieve an indescribable and most confidential purpose, a special play with Him, they had forcibly and completely turned away all other desires. Although desires for sense enjoyment and every aspiration apart from Him naturally cling to embodied beings, the gopīs had rejected them. Nothing whatever could please them without Kṛṣṇa, the son of Śrī Yaśodā, attractor of the heart, whose form is condensed supreme bliss.

The verbal form “they spoke after” may be used merely in the ordinary narrative sense. Or “after” is significant: the weight of their immense sorrow prevented an immediate reply, and only afterward did they speak.

One might fear that their forceful insistence could become disrespect for Kṛṣṇa. Śuka therefore calls them deeply attached: their loving attachment excludes such disrespect. Or even if disrespect appeared externally, they could not abandon Him. Their power of deliberation had disappeared.

How could women overwhelmed by immense grief speak at all? Their eyes were covered by tears flowing spontaneously from great sorrow, but they wiped them thoroughly, cleared them, and removed the tears. Another recension reads “having wiped” with a slightly different verb; the meaning is unchanged. With supreme effort they steadied themselves for a moment. Their attachment alone appears to give them power to speak even in immense grief, for prema displays astonishing play.

Wiping their eyes can also indicate that they looked briefly at Kṛṣṇa's beautiful face before speaking, whether to awaken His affection or simply because an upsurge of love naturally compelled the glance. Their extreme distress had removed their shyness. Their indignation was only slight because He was naturally their dearest beloved and because their own natures had been softened by love. Alternatively, their voices were choked by an immense, indescribable indignation precisely because they were so deeply attached. The earlier commentators suggest the rest.

The word “slightly” may mean that they could say only a few brief words such as “This is how it is.” Their throats were blocked by tears under the force of loving anger. Why? They were deeply attached. They had always been naturally colored by love for Him, and now, after hearing such speech, intensified longing produced an even deeper attachment. Or they entered a special passion rather than becoming disillusioned by His neglect.

Alternatively, attachment made their words partly indescribable because even each of His apparently harsh statements remained enchanting to them. The verse therefore first calls Him their dearest beloved, even while He spoke unfriendly words at every moment. The present tense may mean that even then He continually said, “Abandon anxiety. Do not weep. Compose yourselves. Return home.” Yet the comparison “as though” shows that, when His true intention is understood, every statement culminates in affectionate joking and the other meanings already explained.

Sanātana closes with a verse:

Language: Sanskrit

I bow here to the blessed sovereigns of love, by whose grace the intended meaning of the Lord of lovers' speech can be understood.

Bhāgavata 10.29.31

The gopīs said: All-powerful one, You should not speak so cruelly. We have abandoned every object of enjoyment and devoted ourselves to the shelter of Your feet. Difficult one, do not reject us; accept our service, just as the primeval Lord accepts those who seek liberation.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Śrī Bhagavān had spoken the opening words of His address to the gopīs exactly as He had earlier addressed the wives of the sacrificing brāhmaṇas. It is therefore as though the divine gopīs now answer with the opening words those wives had used in reply (Bhāgavata 10.23.29). More deeply, the verbal correspondence arises because Kṛṣṇa's deceptive statement and the afflicted plea of the two groups parallel one another: “Do not speak to us like this.”

Footnote 25, Bhāgavata 10.23.29

All-powerful one, You should not speak so cruelly. We have abandoned every object of enjoyment and reached the shelter of Your feet, crossing beyond all our relatives so that our hair may bear the garland of tulasī cast off from Your feet.

Bhāgavata 10.29.32

Dear one, You, a knower of dharma, said that a woman's own duty is faithful service to husband, children, and friends. Let that teaching find its true object in You, the Lord, for You are surely the dearest beloved, benefactor, and very self of every embodied being.

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Kṛṣṇa may say, “Women honored by the virtuous, you may indeed abandon objects of enjoyment, but you must still honor your own duty.” The gopīs answer with affectionate mockery. “Dear one” is an address filled with love. They call Him the Supreme Lord because they had seen and heard Brahmā, Indra, and others praise Him in Vṛndāvana. Or they acknowledge Him as lord of all Vraja. They use majestic language only to refute His argument, not because it corresponds to their own constant perception of Him. He always appears to them solely as Śrī Nanda's son, whose sweet form is condensed eternity, consciousness, and bliss.

He is the preṣṭha, the dearest beloved, not merely dear as others are. He is dearest to all embodied living beings, not merely to two or three. He is their benefactor and intimate friend because He is their very self, the Supreme Self. “Surely” expresses certainty. Serving You alone is the supreme dharma, and everything that conflicts with it must be abandoned. The passage beginning “one should perform ritual action only so long as...” (Bhāgavata 11.20.9) teaches the same point and was cited earlier. The previous commentators suggest the rest.

Alternatively, the dharma-knowing Kṛṣṇa's statement that serving husbands and others is a woman's own duty applies only to women who delight in and feel attachment to such service. It does not apply to us, who love You alone. Compared with You, every other object must be disregarded. To establish this, they describe how His dearness surpasses everything and entreat Him with reason. He is dearest to all living beings; how much more must He be so to them! He is dearest because He benefits them externally as their friend and is internally the self, naturally the object of love, or the consciousness that animates them.

Another word division portrays Kṛṣṇa as the one in whom living selves are made beautiful by devotion or bound with chains of prema. The gopīs then say, “Let this be our own dharma, or the dharma of all embodied beings, and let it exist solely in relation to You, precisely in the manner we desire.” They do not state that confidential manner directly. His blessed feet are the “object of instruction,” for every scripture and teacher instructs that they must be worshiped after abandoning everything. It is therefore fitting to abandon even conventional duty for His lotus feet.

Or, when Kṛṣṇa says, “Knowers of the essence, then reveal what you desire,” the gopīs plead urgently: “In precisely the manner indicated by teachers, friends, and others, be directly, not merely through an avatāra, the self, dearest beloved, and benefactor of all living beings and attendants, and therefore especially of us. Let mutual love arise between You and us.” They avoid naming their desired mode of worship directly so as not to appear brazen. Women can attain it in their present identity; men attain it first through devotional identification, or, like the sages of Daṇḍakāraṇya whose longing became intense, in another birth. Extreme eagerness in love makes their statement general.

Alternatively, “Let this teaching rest in You, the Lord of women such as us. You possess a beautiful nature and are therefore the beloved of all living beings.” Or “Very well, let it be so” can be an assent colored by resentment: “You are the object of every instruction spoken by gurus and others about worshiping You, and You are the supremely independent Lord. Yet even You, lord of our lives, display such cruelty toward embodied and faithful women like us. Is this body or embodied self truly dear to us? Certainly not. You alone are our dearest.”

By joining a negative prefix, they may ask, “Are You not our dearest?” The particle “surely” can mark a conjecture, but their intonation still establishes the same meaning. “Do You imagine that we cannot abandon our bodies? Like those already freed from the body, we too shall abandon them for Your sake this very moment.” This answers His warning that the night is fearsome. They do not care for their bodies and therefore do not fear its dangers; because He alone is to be worshiped, they have no reason to return to Vraja. These three meanings do not depend upon recognizing His majesty.

The gopīs also joke: “Let that teaching exist in You alone. You become a woman and practice the duty of serving a husband and his relatives.” Why should He do so? A teacher must practice what he teaches, for disciples do not undertake conduct their guru does not perform. He alone is capable of it, since He is the all-powerful Lord. Nor should He suppose that no one would love Him if He artificially assumed womanhood: by His very nature He remains the best and dearest of all.

A further layered reading answers Kṛṣṇa on His own terms. He had said, “A woman's duty is to follow husband, children, and friends. I am a friend, and you should serve his relatives as well. Therefore fulfill My desire.” The gopīs reply, dividing the sentence into four emphatic words: “Kṛṣṇa, very well. Let that very duty belong only to my lord, my husband, for scriptures and saintly instructions say that the husband is a woman's guru.”

Kṛṣṇa may then say, “Virtuous women, follow your husbands if you must, but tonight, in beautiful Vṛndāvana beneath the autumn moonlight, fearlessly enjoy the forest beside Me, whom all Vraja accepts as a friend and object of love.” They answer, “Although You are beloved by every embodied being connected with Vraja, You are a bandhurātmā, one of inconsistent nature. Because Your nature is contradictory, we cannot trust You.”

Or they say, “You, knower of dharma, have declared that serving husbands and others is a woman's own dharma, though it is in truth thorough adharma. Let that teaching apply only to You, its instructor. You are the all-powerful Lord, able to say and do anything. People will not criticize You for teaching in this way, for You appear to every embodied being as dearest beloved, friend, and self; no one will speak against You.”

Footnote 27

The source tentatively glosses “object” as “the blessed foot.”

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.33

“Those who truly know what is beneficial place their love in You, their own Self and eternally beloved Lord. What use have they for husbands, sons, and others who bring distress? Therefore, O Lord of all who grant blessings, be gracious to us. O lotus-eyed one, do not sever the hope in You that we have cherished for so long.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Someone may object, “O moons of the ocean of desire, you speak this only because desire impels you.” Weeping and pleading with faltering voices, the gopīs reply that their appeal also rests upon the judgment of good conduct and all that is truly beneficial. The emphatic hi means “certainly.” Those who know what is good direct rati, actual love rather than mere reverence, to You alone and nowhere else. The reason is that You are one's own relation and one's very Self, the inner conscious principle. You are therefore eternally dear, benefiting the living being both inwardly and outwardly and bestowing happiness.

Alternatively, “O Self! O Eternal One!” may be separate forms of address. They imply that husbands and the rest are insentient and impermanent. The words that follow can likewise be divided so as to call Kṛṣṇa beneficial and naturally dear, thereby suggesting that those relatives possess the opposite qualities. Thus the gopīs ask, “What use have we for husbands, sons, and others?” They have no need whatever for them, since whatever benefit husbands and relatives can provide, and far more than that, is perfectly obtained from Kṛṣṇa alone. Such relatives especially “give distress” because they perpetuate worldly existence and, being perishable, generate grief and other suffering. “And others” includes mothers, fathers, brothers, and the rest.

The compound may instead be interpreted from the verbal root do, “to cut”: even if those relatives sometimes remove a little distress, they cannot cut suffering away completely. Let them somehow relieve some sorrow on some occasion. Even then, what use are they? The remainder of the interpretation is unchanged.

Another reading is: “The wise place their love in You, who are eternally dear and forever the abode of love. What use has one's own self for husbands and others who only bring it misery?” Because love for Kṛṣṇa fulfills the requirements of right conduct while all others produce distress, it alone should be cultivated. “Therefore be gracious to us” means, “Grant us, Your devotees, the grace of accepting us.”

Kṛṣṇa might say, “Women generally delight in ornaments, so accept ornaments and similar favors from someone other than Me.” They answer by calling Him “the Lord even of all givers of boons, beginning with Brahmā.” Only Kṛṣṇa's incomparable grace can therefore satisfy them. The words “do not” express this more fully, and the particle sma strengthens their plea by appealing to what is well known. The hope for love that they have held steady “for so long,” whether from the first awakening of longing or from the very assumption of their present bodies, has already nullified their relationships with their husbands. “Do not cut it off” means, “Bring it to fulfillment.” If He severs their one support, the lives of those who depend upon it alone will be severed at once.

Their reason for having held this hope is contained in “O lotus-eyed one,” meaning “O supremely beautiful Lord.” The gopīs will later sing, “In the clear autumn lake...” (Bhāgavata 10.31.2). The lotus metaphor may also suggest that His glance alone removes everyone's affliction. If so, His conduct toward them appears to be the very opposite.

By addressing Him as “Lord of boon-givers,” they also remind Him of the boon He granted during the stealing of their garments. Through wordplay it may become an affectionate accusation: “O giver of boons who now destroys the very boon You gave! That is only fitting, for You are the Lord, absolutely independent.” This is anger born of intimacy. Although the boon was expressly granted to the unmarried girls who had performed the Kātyāyanī vow, their other companions are included through their equality in friendship, just as a mixed group is described collectively by saying, “The parasol-bearers are going.” The rest has been explained by earlier commentators. Footnote 29 records the variant “O Supreme Lord.” Footnote 30 confirms the reading “cherished.”

The verse may also mean, “O consummate lover! Even if some innocent girls somehow worship You, how could we sophisticated women fail to do so?” Here “those who know what is beneficial” means the refined and skillful. What need have such discerning women as ourselves for those husbands and relatives? Their word “therefore” particularly recalls the boon He gave them. The rest remains as above.

This also answers Kṛṣṇa's instruction in verse 20 that they return to their mothers and relatives: those persons may be disregarded because they cause distress.

Following the final, death-resolved interpretation of Kṛṣṇa's previous speech, however, the gopīs can voice a furious counter-reading. They address Him as one whose mind is fixed upon wealth in the form of cows, implying a lack of refinement. Since no one is dear to Him, He is “not beloved.” Why should clever women such as they, living with husbands and relatives who at least cut away distress, place their love in Him where it does not belong? “Therefore do not favor us. Cut off our hope.” His lotus eyes are compared through wordplay to a razor-edged discus, making Him the supreme killer. This is an utterance of anger arising from their desire to die.

His eyes may also be compared to lotuses because they fail to open at night. That would explain why He now disregards even women of supreme beauty such as themselves. On that sarcastic admission, His earlier concern that their mothers and relatives might be searching for them is entirely appropriate. In this way they answer Him by seemingly conceding the point out of jealous resentment.

A further double meaning turns the verse into an apparent request for dismissal: “Can auspicious, virtuous wives place their love in You, whose own eternal beloved nature is disturbed by husbands and other causes? Certainly not. Therefore, O boon-giver, O Lord, be gracious to us. Let us not remain here long. Permit us to go home quickly. O lotus-eyed one, cut off the hope You Yourself cherished for embracing our bodies.” Or “Do not cut off the direction of our hope, the road leading back to Vraja. Do not block the path. Do not conceal it from us.”

If Kṛṣṇa says, “Look for it yourselves and take it,” they reply with the expression “the hope held in You.” From the verbal root meaning “to remain,” it means that this hope abides in Him alone and has been occupied or possessed by Him. (33)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.34

“Our minds, so easily stolen away by You, no longer enter into household affairs; even our hands will not engage in domestic duties. Our feet will not move a single step from the roots of Your feet. How can we go back to Vraja, and what could we possibly do there?”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

The expression may mean that their minds have been carried away by Kṛṣṇa, whose nature is bliss, thereby suggesting that homes and household life are by nature misery. Or it may mean that He has taken their minds together with all their happiness. The hands and feet that once entered into household work have likewise been stolen. Their feet consequently cannot move even one step from the roots of His feet. The stealing of their hands and feet means that He has taken away the operative power of those respective faculties.

Kṛṣṇa might challenge them: “You speak falsely. If you possess no power of your own, how did you come here?” That is unreasonable, they answer. His flute song drew them here; they did not come by their own strength. If they had such power, they could return now. Hence they say that their feet will not move a single step. For this reason, how could they go back to Vraja?

He may respond, “Helpless women, shall I somehow send you away Myself?” They answer, “What could we do?” The word “or” may coordinate this with the preceding statement or sharpen it through irony. It may also gather in unspoken questions: “What could we even think of doing? Where could we go?” Because He has stolen their minds and faculties, they cannot undertake any work. Even if they somehow retained the power to work, household actions no longer serve any purpose. Although stealing the mind necessarily entails taking all the senses, the hands and feet are named in particular to exclude both domestic service to husbands and their own movement elsewhere. The earlier commentators explain the rest.

Kṛṣṇa might say, “Mistresses of your homes, then perform the household work without attachment.” They answer, “Even our stolen hands will not enter into any task connected with the home.” He may reply, “Then return and remain there merely as overseers.” But their feet too have been stolen by Him and will not move. The rest is as above.

The words further suggest that their minds enter only into Kṛṣṇa, their hands only into work performed for Him, and their feet only into the place where He is present.

Another reading takes bhava as worldly existence. The minds of ordinary people, even when the suffering born of worldly existence has destroyed them, still enter homes effortlessly and of their own accord. Their hands likewise enter household labor. Kṛṣṇa therefore need not urge them toward service of husband and family. If He then tells these speakers of truth to go, they answer with the words about their feet. Yet His hardness makes it improper for them to remain, while they are unable to leave. In anguish and agitation they cry, “What shall we do now?”

This also answers His statement in verse 21 that they have seen the forest. Since the theft of their minds and faculties leaves them unable to gather flowers and do similar things, even seeing the forest would be fruitless. What use is it? On the second interpretation, even if they wished to see the forest, the theft of their feet prevents them from roaming through it and seeing it properly. What value would such a viewing have?

A humorous double meaning casts Kṛṣṇa as a thief. They had no business in the forest and did not come to see it. They came because He stole the wealth of their minds. Yet even after catching the thief, they cannot seize Him and carry Him away, nor can they go anywhere to raise an alarm, because He has also stolen their hands and feet.

In another punning interpretation, a negative that appears later in the verse is carried through every clause: “Even You, whose nature is happiness, have not stolen our minds, so they remain perfectly absorbed in our homes. Our hands and feet have not been stolen either, so they continue to enter their respective household tasks. Our feet are therefore moving toward their own place, Vraja. Why should we go anywhere else? Why should we obey what You have said?” This refutes Kṛṣṇa's playful suggestion, concealed in double meaning, that they go to the Yamunā's bank or elsewhere.

One final division yields the opposite, conventional declaration: “Because the happiness arising from You in our homes has seized our minds, those minds enter domestic work. Because You are present in our homes, happiness itself has seized our hands, and they enter the tasks to be accepted there. Our feet also move with firm resolve. Why should we not depart from the roots of Your feet and go to Vraja? What else should we do?” (34)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.35

“Dear one, with the flooding nectar of Your lips, extinguish the fire of desire in our hearts, a fire born from Your smiling glances and sweet song. Otherwise our bodies will become fit for the fire arising from separation, and through meditation we shall attain the path leading to Your feet, O friend.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“Pour upon it” means “extinguish it.” The metaphor is that of quenching a fire with a stream of water. The action is placed first because their extreme suffering makes the gopīs desperately urgent. The negative particle in the next sentence may also be joined, through compounding, with “the fire of desire in the heart.” The word “Your” conveys that only Kṛṣṇa can extinguish the fire He Himself has kindled. “Flooding” indicates how immense the blaze has become, for a small fire could be extinguished with a little water and the image of a flood would be unnecessary. The suffix in the word has no additional force. (35)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.36

“O lotus-eyed one, from the moment we once touched the soles of Your feet, which Lakṣmī receives only at rare moments, the feet of Him who is dear to the forest dwellers, we have been delighted by You. Alas, since then we have been utterly unable to stand directly before any other person.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Kṛṣṇa might object, “Women of enormous desire, I see that you are devoted to Śrī Balarāma as well. Go to Him, the protector of desire. Or if you belong to someone else, how could I accept you?” The gopīs therefore speak under oath. “O lotus-eyed one” again indicates His supreme beauty and related qualities.

The “sole” is the foot itself, just as “the surface of the earth” means the earth. Or it means the underside of His foot. “We touched it” is their humble way, born of love, of saying that they attained only the slightest contact with it. Lakṣmī, who always delights the Lord, is granted even a moment with it only rarely. Although the gopīs, being forest people, might seem unfit to enjoy with Him, His being “dear to the forest dwellers” reveals His supreme compassion.

“Before another” means that even if they somehow remain near others, they do so only indirectly and never openly face to face. “Directly” may instead mean that if they somehow do stand in another's presence, it is only with the greatest pain. They cannot even stand there, much less sit or lie down. Kṛṣṇa Himself, the crown jewel of lovers, has brought this about: “You have delighted us on every side.” “Alas” expresses either grief or certainty. The previous commentators explain the rest.

Alternatively, although the base of Kṛṣṇa's feet is served by Lakṣmī, because He loves forest people it is granted precisely to them. “At some time” may mean that whenever and for as long as they touched it at some place or moment, they were delighted by Him from that time onward. “Somewhere” can signify a place too sacred or mysterious to describe. Or He caused them a special experience of love in a dream or similar state. The rest remains the same.

A third reading addresses Him as a great enchanter: “Even if we return home hoping to touch Your body sometime in the future, that too is impossible, for You, a consummate rogue, have plundered every particle of happiness from our homes.” Two expressions explain why they touched Him without fault on their part. His foot had “taken the opportunity for delight,” and He is naturally dear to forest people. Being delighted by Him, they happened to touch Him. From that moment nothing else has pleased them. How, then, could they go home?

The “Lakṣmī” who belongs to Him, the beloved of the forest people, may instead be Śrī Rādhā, and the gopīs may mean that they touched the soles of Her feet. Rādhā too has come there. By declaring their steadfast wish to remain in Her company, all the other gopīs seek to awaken in Kṛṣṇa the same love for themselves that He feels for Her. This answers His word “or” in the prior discussion: they came through their own extraordinary and innate love, not through the ordinary affection of other people.

A punning version addresses Kṛṣṇa as “O forest person,” because He always wanders in the forest or because the forest itself is His family: “From the time we touched the soles of the feet of our beloved husband, feet that had granted no opportunity anywhere for Your enjoyment, You have nevertheless delighted us through this auspicious method. Yet in truth we are unable even to stand before another person.”

Kṛṣṇa may say, “This must have happened only in a dream. Otherwise it would occur constantly and would still be happening today.” They answer that He continually bestows the contact of His teeth and limbs only upon forest women such as the Pulindī girls and the does, not upon the people of Vraja. Such contact is therefore all the more difficult for them. Their complaint implies that He abandons Lakṣmī and the qualified gopīs while accepting those forest creatures.

Thus, from the moment they touched Him they have been unable even to remain upright before anyone else. The sight of another gives them no pleasure. His touch possesses some extraordinary power like a spell of banishment that drives every other object from the heart.

If Kṛṣṇa calls them liars because they live constantly among the cowherd community, they answer with “directly”: they do not live there happily or effortlessly, but only under compulsion.

On the interpretation that acknowledges His divine majesty, “Lakṣmī receives a moment” means that only in certain manifestations does she ever touch Him. He Himself is unwaveringly bound by the love of the forest dwellers, the cowherds and others who live in Vṛndāvana. Alas, although the gopīs suffer such misfortune, they too once touched Him. The rest is unchanged.

The earlier commentators connect “forest” with “forest people,” an expression of the gopīs' humility. This again answers Kṛṣṇa's alternative proposal: their coming arose from exceptional natural love, not the commonplace affection of others.

A final negative reading begins when Kṛṣṇa says, “Dear friends, you have reminded Me well. You touched Me during our childhood games.” The gopīs deny it: “When, in Your childhood, You cared only for monkeys and other playmates, the soles of Your feet were already given over to a beautiful girl and ready for a rendezvous with her. From that time we did not touch even those soles, much less any other limb. Though You made us play with You as children, we can therefore still stand before mothers-in-law and everyone else. Had there been any other kind of contact, even they would hate us.” (36)

Footnote 33 records the variant reading “dear one.”

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.37

“Śrī herself desires the dust of Your lotus feet, even though she has attained a place upon Your breast together with Tulasī, dust honored by Your servants. For the sake of receiving her glance, other gods exert themselves. Like her, we too have taken refuge in the dust of Your feet.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Kṛṣṇa may say, “Crown jewels of generosity, if you do not insist that I pour the nectar of My lips upon the fire in your hearts but ask merely for service to Me, even then, simple-minded women, I can accept only one, two, or three of you. Your overwhelming number would continually awaken rivalry among you, and in time that would only cause suffering.” In their extreme anguish, the gopīs refute this concern through the example of Śrī, saying that they desire only service. Footnote 35 records the variants “performed” and “or another.” (37)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.38

“Therefore be gracious to us, O destroyer of distress. Hoping to worship You, we abandoned our homes and have reached the roots of Your feet. O ornament of men, grant service to us whose hearts are scorched by the intense desire born from Your beautiful smiling glances.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“Therefore,” because they have taken refuge in the dust of His feet, “be gracious.” They identify the grace they seek: “Grant us service alone.”

Kṛṣṇa may ask, “Young women maddened by fresh youth, even Lakṣmī and others pray for service to Me. How can it be given to you?” In humility they answer: “Hoping to worship You, we abandoned our dwellings, the homes containing all our relatives and possessions, and reached the roots of Your feet.” Having surrendered everything and taken refuge, they imply, He must fulfill their hope. Otherwise they will suffer greatly, and that would be unworthy of Him. Hence they address Him as “destroyer of distress.”

Calling Him the crown jewel of connoisseurs, they indicate that He should grant a service composed of a special rasa. That request is entirely appropriate because He is the “ornament of men.” The previous commentators explain the rest.

Kṛṣṇa may instead say, “Mistresses of households, return home and worship Me with My servants, the cowherds, like the other devotees. Everything required for such worship is abundantly available there.” With a faltering voice they reply that they have abandoned those dwellings. The reason is concealed in a word division: those are places where worship of Kṛṣṇa is destroyed. His worship cannot be perfected there.

They further say, “Great enchanter, we do not request the ordinary service practiced at home with the cowherd community by other devotees, but an exceptional form of service.” Enacting extreme anguish, they make this known through verbal dexterity. A “person” is the living being; his place is the heart. Kṛṣṇa “scorches” that place, from the verbal root meaning “to afflict.” He does so with His beautiful smile and glance. Or they address Him directly: “O You whose smile and glance are beautiful!” They hide their feeling through modest concealment while revealing it through clever speech: He is speaking to them only as a rogue. Their embodied selves have been scorched by the intense desire arising from Him. He must therefore provide the remedy immediately, before their final condition arrives. Or service itself is the remedy He should grant.

Kṛṣṇa may object, “Women of My Vraja, by being daughters or wives of My finest devotees, the cowherds, you already possess service to Me naturally. Why ask for it?” They agree but urgently request the extraordinary service suitable specifically for those whose hearts are scorched. Directly referring to themselves in this way is tempered by humility and shame. Or the earlier word “us” may be supplied here.

In even greater anguish, as though holding straw between their teeth, they may plead: “Grant us the service of any women whose hearts are scorched.” If the service belonging to such women is bestowed upon them, they believe, His special grace must certainly follow. This answers His statement in verse 25 about women of bad character. It is right to abandon even a virtuous husband when one hopes to worship Kṛṣṇa; that conclusion has already been established. Their homes specifically destroy His worship, and the owners of those homes obstruct devotion through their relationship with them. Such sinful obstructors must indeed be abandoned.

Moreover, when hearts burn with desire for Kṛṣṇa, what room remains for deliberation or blame in abandoning those homes? Who pauses to reason when seized by a great serpent?

A punning reading turns their words into a rebuke. Since Kṛṣṇa destroys the sins even of others, they have reached the roots of His feet. But now He Himself appears intent upon sin. “Therefore be gracious. Forgive our offense of coming here. Restrain Your mind and set it upon virtue.”

Or Kṛṣṇa may say, “Accept the service to Me that even Lakṣmī rarely obtains and that I am mercifully offering.” With jealous sarcasm they reply: “Grant that service to those women who abandoned their homes hoping to worship You, reached the roots of Your feet as though assuming servitude, and now burn with intense desire. We faithful wives have no use for it.” The genitive “of those whose hearts are scorched” functions as a dative, “to them.” They call Him one who adorns male companions, not women: “What have we to do with You?” Or the phrase again means “scorcher of the heart.” What benefit, they ask, has devotion to Him brought? (38)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.39

“Seeing Your face encircled by curling locks, the splendor of Your earrings, Your cheeks and nectarous lips, Your smiling glance, Your pair of mighty arms that grant fearlessness, and Your chest, the sole delight of Śrī, we have become Your servants.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Kṛṣṇa may say, “Connoisseurs of the mood of service, then accept the kind of service possessed by Śrīdāma, Subala, and others who generally embody such feeling.” The gopīs answer by emotionally describing the reason they request a distinctive service.

Because they see Kṛṣṇa directly and nearby, they chiefly describe His face, arms, and chest, revealing their wish to kiss His cheeks, drink the nectar of His lips, embrace Him tightly, and render similar service. The locks playing over His forehead display the beauty of the upper portion of His face; the splendor of His earrings adorns both sides; and His smiling glance beautifies the central and lower portions. Thus every region is radiant. Comparing His cheeks to broad surfaces suggests that their beauty surpasses even mirrors and similar objects.

His mighty arms “grant fearlessness” by killing demons for the devotees and through other deeds, displaying strength and further qualities. By their cleverness, those arms have also removed the gopīs' fear of husbands and relatives. In truth, however, the intended meaning is that through a firm embrace they dispel the fear produced by desire and its torments. (39)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.40

“Dear one, what woman anywhere in the three worlds, enchanted by the prolonged, swelling sweetness of Your musical phrases, would not depart from the conduct of respectable people? And seeing this form, the beauty and good fortune of all three worlds, even cows, birds, trees, and deer bore horripilation.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Kṛṣṇa may argue, “Although honored people carry you upon their heads, you must still observe virtuous conduct for the sake of instructing the world, as great souls do.” The gopīs answer with humility mingled with anger: “What woman dwelling in the three worlds would not deviate?” Every woman would. Even Pārvatī seated upon Śiva's lap and other goddesses have fallen under enchantment, as the Skanda Purāṇa and other texts famously relate. This Bhāgavata likewise indicates it in the verse beginning, “The goddesses traveling in aerial cars...” (10.21.12).

Even if on some occasion the flute song were not to arise, His supremely enchanting form remains perpetually manifest. The gopīs describe it with visible agitation. In this present form resides, or from it arises, all the beauty, favor, attractiveness, and good fortune of the three worlds above, below, and in the middle. The word “this” presents it immediately before them and excludes any possibility of its being otherwise.

Or the form is altogether without equal. Seeing the beauty of Śrī Raghunātha, even sages became bewildered and entered an extraordinary devotional state. The Uttara-khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa says:

Language: Sanskrit

“Long ago all the great sages dwelling in Daṇḍakāraṇya saw Lord Hari there as Rāma, a beautiful embodied form, and desired to enjoy with Him. All of them later attained female forms and took birth in Gokula. Reaching Hari through desire, they were then freed from the ocean of worldly existence.”

The Mahā-Kūrma Purāṇa likewise says:

Language: Sanskrit

“The magnanimous sons of Agni attained womanhood through austerity and accepted as their husband Vāsudeva, the unborn, all-pervading source of the universe.”

Kṛṣṇa's present beauty is intended to be more extraordinary even than that, because He now manifests the fullness of all His divinity.

Or “this” means that His form is indescribable and supremely marvelous. When He sees it reflected, it amazes even Him and produces an extraordinary emotion within Him. Uddhava therefore described it as “a wonder even to Himself” (Bhāgavata 3.2.12).

The word “seeing” implies that hearing, remembering, or otherwise encountering His beauty can bewilder one just as the flute song does. When directly beholding Him, what woman could possibly remain unmoved?

Footnote 41 records the variants “the flute song of extended musical phrases” and “the flute song whose musical phrases are nectar.” Footnote 42 records the variant “the path.” (40)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.41

“It is manifest that You have appeared to remove the fear and anguish of Vraja, just as the primal Lord appears as a god to protect the celestial realm. Therefore, O friend of the distressed, place Your lotus hand upon the burning breasts and heads of Your maidservants.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Having successively refuted everything Kṛṣṇa said, the gopīs now reveal the purpose of His descent and, in extreme distress, plead with faltering voices.

“The fear of Vraja” may mean fear of forest fires and similar dangers, while its anguish is separation from Kṛṣṇa. Or fear arises for Kṛṣṇa's sake from Pūtanā and other demons and from forest fires, while anguish comes from storms, violent winds, and other disturbances. Or fear is the apprehension of separation from Him and anguish is the pain of His neglect. The variant “the anguish of the people of Vraja” includes every external and internal affliction, though Sanātana notes that this reading is not universally accepted. The gopīs speak all this with themselves especially in mind.

“People of Vraja” can also include anyone who in any later age takes shelter of the land of Vraja. If He removes their suffering, how much more must He remove theirs? He has appeared on every side through a special manifestation of the fullness of divinity in order to destroy that fear and anguish. Although lightening the earth's burden and other purposes also belong to His descent, removing the fear and anguish of Vraja is its chief purpose. Indeed, the principal purpose everywhere is fulfilled by pastimes performed for Vraja, because through them the rasa of His own prema expands.

The gopīs use an example to teach that, out of special compassion for the wretched, He should even cross conventional dharma. The primal Lord, cause of the cosmos and worshiped by all worlds, appears as protector of the celestial realm and kills its enemies. Or “gods and worlds” means all His other own people, whom He protects by destroying their opponents. Although He is equal everywhere, He displays partiality toward devotees. In the same way Kṛṣṇa must transgress convention for these afflicted women. Such action is no fault in the primal Lord but a great virtue, and so it will be in Kṛṣṇa as well.

Another construction states that although He is divine, the primal person, and protector of the celestial realm, He has appeared specifically as the well-born son of the cowherd king in order to remove Vraja's fear and anguish. This is plainly and certainly manifest.

“Therefore” His hand itself is a lotus, naturally cool, removing torment, and streaming the nectar of bliss. He should first place it upon their breasts, scorched by the fever of love, to end that pain, and then upon their heads, granting fearlessness everywhere and firmly accepting them as servants. The two occurrences of “and” emphasize both places equally. By removing the fear and anguish of those who love Him alone, He will remove the fear and anguish of all Vraja. The purpose of His descent, manifesting the essence of the fullness of divinity, will thereby be fulfilled.

Kṛṣṇa might ask, “How can I place My hand upon something burning?” They answer, “O friend of the distressed!” His tenderness toward the wretched enables Him to endure even pain.

He may say, “I am afraid to place My hand upon the heads of women devoted to the vow of chastity.” They answer that they are His maidservants. Their burning is itself improper while He, the friend of the distressed, stands directly before them.

Or He may object, “Women maddened by desire, how can I, who have conquered desire, place My hand upon your breasts? I should place it only on your heads.” They reply, “Do not do so out of desire; do so as the friend of the distressed.” Otherwise they will immediately reach their final state and His fame as friend of the suffering will be lost. Their hidden intention is that although they conceal desire through modesty, contact with their bodies will itself cause desire to arise within Him.

That so many gopīs make this request to one Kṛṣṇa is possible through the manifestation of His special potency. Or their word “us” may mean, “Place Your hand upon us one after another.” This indicates the direction of the interpretation.

A punning reversal reads the verse as a warning. Kṛṣṇa is noble because He is the son of Vraja's king, and the three titles “divine,” “primal person,” and “protector of the celestial realm” make His entrance into adharma especially improper. Just as the primal Lord removes the fear of heaven, Kṛṣṇa would become the source of Vraja's fear and anguish by forcibly violating virtuous women. That would oppose the very purpose of His appearance. The negative particle is then supplied: “Do not place Your hand upon our breasts.” They are not distressed, for they do not expect Him to become their intimate friend. Through another negative play, their breasts are “not burning” because desire is absent.

Or they address Him as the one who is Himself scorched by desire: “O burning one, do not place Your lotus hand upon our breasts.” Although, as prince of Vraja, He might claim them as maidservants, He should not place it even on the heads of these young girls serving in the house of Vraja's king, much less on women such as themselves.

With these ten verses of reply the gopīs defeat Kṛṣṇa, and in this eleventh verse, as their anguish swells, they plainly request their desired object. The punning interpretations should likewise be understood as successive refutations of Kṛṣṇa's own layered statements; Sanātana has written them in their respective places. Alternatively, each of these eleven verses can, through extraordinary cleverness, be read as an answer to each of Kṛṣṇa's ten verses. Their repetition, their one additional verse, and their use of a longer meter all signify their total victory. Or these features arise from the remaining force of intimate love and the burden of immense sorrow.

Sanātana then sketches how this verse answers the earlier speech point by point. Their address “O all-pervading Lord” in verse 31 answers His welcome in verse 18: because they are His own maidservants, He is their master. “You” implies that He ought not speak the cruel rejection that disregards them. Their abandonment of every object answers the argument that those matters should concern them now. Their arrival at the roots of His feet as devotees answers verses 19 and 20: because they have taken refuge in Him, they fear neither the night and its creatures nor the relatives searching for them. “Devotees” also answers His statement that they had seen the forest: they came solely to worship Him, not to view the woods. This likewise answers His demand that they declare the reason for coming.

It refutes His command in verse 22 to return to Vraja. “Worship us” discloses their distinctive personal mood. It answers His alternative proposal by declaring that their coming arose from that special love, not ordinary affection like that of others. “Difficult to restrain” answers the two verses beginning with service to the husband by refuting, through reason, His insistence upon that service. “Do not abandon us” answers verse 26: their humble plea defeats even His arguments about loss of heaven and reputation, while the comparison “as the divine primal Lord” supplies the reason. The particular details should be understood from the explanations already given, and similarly in what follows.

Footnote 46 records “remover of the anguish of the people of Vraja,” a variant accepted by Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa and Vīrarāghava and cited by Viśvanātha. Footnote 47 explains that the eleven gopī verses are now interpreted again as individual replies to Kṛṣṇa's ten verses. (41)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.42

Śrī Śuka said: “Hearing their anguished words, the Lord of all masters of yoga laughed with compassion. Although self-satisfied, He delighted the gopīs.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“Their anguished words” are the statements born of their distress. Because those words touch both poles of meaning, they fit both interpretations. Following Sanātana's reading “with intimacy,” Kṛṣṇa laughed fully and affectionately. This excludes the deceit suggested by the statement “His laughter is the māyā that drives people mad” (Bhāgavata 2.1.31), for the gopīs had expressed exactly what He desired.

Alternatively, “with intimacy” means that He delighted them after first wiping their tears with His own hand and rendering similar care. This excludes indifference and displays His love. They are “gopīs,” women made worthy of such grace by their exceptional prema. He laughed because they spoke in distress without knowing His intention and because His own concealment of feeling had succeeded.

Or His reply awakened delight and He laughed in pure emotion. Or, when their words removed His own concealment, transformations of desire arose in Him. Laughter is indeed a transient emotion within erotic rasa.

One may object that attraction arises when mutually attached lovers reveal their cleverness to one another, but this could not occur in Kṛṣṇa because He is self-delighting. The verse answers that He is the Lord even of Sanaka and the other masters of yoga, those who have brought concentration of mind under control, and that He is self-delighting. Yet when their astonishing cleverness appeared, His absorption in yoga and self-delight no longer remained operative in that moment.

As before, one may instead reason that His sovereignty over yoga departed through their distressing appeal and His self-delight departed through His amorous play. Otherwise He could neither hear them nor delight with them. Or “Lord of yoga” indicates that although one, He manifested as many, as it were, and simultaneously delighted each separately. The rest is similar.

Footnote 48 gives the received reading “with compassion”; footnote 49 records Sanātana's reading “with intimacy.” (42)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.43

“Surrounded by the assembled gopīs, whose faces blossomed beneath the gaze of their beloved, Acyuta of generous deeds shone with the radiance of His broad smile and jasmine-bud teeth, like the moon encircled by stars.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Sanātana now begins describing in four verses the manner of Kṛṣṇa's delight with them. First, with a comparison, he describes the exceptional beauty Kṛṣṇa Himself displayed through loving union with the gopīs.

“Assembled” means that they came extremely near Him. Or they united with Him after abandoning affectionate anger and similar feelings. Another wordplay hears within it “those who reached the supremely beautiful Śrī Rādhā, whose beauty equals beauty itself.” This indicates that during the first exchange of speeches Śrī Rādhā was not among them, but as soon as Kṛṣṇa's concealment of feeling ended, she joined them. Kṛṣṇa then stood surrounded and enclosed by all of them. (43)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.44

“Praised in song, He sang aloud. Wearing the Vaijayantī garland and leading hundreds of groups of women, He wandered through the forest, adorning it.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

As this exceptional splendor arose, Kṛṣṇa wandered in sequence through Vṛndāvana, beautifying it while arousing desire by song and by displaying flowers and other lovely things. Or He wandered while proceeding toward the beautiful bank of the Yamunā, a place fit for love.

The gopīs praised Him by singing of His form, qualities, pastimes, and more. Or they sang His songs in many ways on all four sides of Him. Delighted, He therefore sang loudly.

“Women” are females who awaken profound attachment in a man. Both the Viśva and Amara lexicons define the word in this way. He is the leader who protects hundreds of their groups from every suffering. Through another verbal derivation, He “drinks” those groups: He serves them with attachment, as in the phrase “as though drinking with the eyes,” or He literally seems to drink them through tasting the nectar of their lips.

They form distinct groups according to affinities among their respective devotional moods. Some are eternally beloved residents of Goloka and other realms who descended with Him. Some are goddesses who constitute expansions of those eternal beloveds, concerning whom Brahmā was instructed, “Let the wives of the gods take birth” (Bhāgavata 10.1.23). Others, through abundant effort and perfection in a particular devotional state, attained gopīhood by spiritual practice.

These accomplished gopīs are of two kinds, sages and personified revelations. The sages include those who dwelt in Daṇḍakāraṇya and the great ascetics on the shore of Mānasa Lake. The revelations include certain great Upaniṣads and others. Their respective histories are plainly described in the Padma, Bṛhad-Vāmana, and other Purāṇas. Each category has further subdivisions according to distinctive moods. Yet because nearly all share an affinity of feeling, Kṛṣṇa delighted every one of them equally.

The licensed Sanātana source supplied for this edition ends here.

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.45

“Entering the riverbank with the gopīs, where the sand was cool, He delighted in the breeze fragrant with night-blooming lotuses and made joyful by the river's restless waves.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Having led them to the bank of Śrī Yamunā, Kṛṣṇa delighted them by revealing exceptional amorous skill. This and the following verse describe it.

“The river” is Kālindī, for the text will later say, “Returning again to the bank of Kālindī” (Bhāgavata 10.30.45). The forest and river are not named because both are famous there and can easily be recognized from the description. Or the place is called simply a forest to stress its solitude and simply a river to stress that its flowing bank was the finest possible one.

“He entered with the gopīs” means He entered lovingly together with them. Its sands were “icy,” that is, cool. Their softness and capacity to remove fatigue made the bank suitable as a couch for love.

The breeze, joined to the river's restless waves, moved joyfully and carried the fragrance of lotuses. Or the restless waves made it joyful, and by moving even the lotuses closed at night the breeze released a delightful, pleasure-giving fragrance. Some authorities accept the reading “night-blooming lilies.” Connection with the waves reveals coolness, while the expressions “served by” and related words reveal gentleness and fragrance. These three qualities make the riverbank wholly fit as a ground of love and therefore capable of awakening desire.

Footnote 53 records Vīrarāghava's reading “served by.” Footnote 54 gives “joyful,” accepted by Vallabha and others, and Vīrarāghava's “accompanied.” Footnote 55 records Sanātana and others' reading “fragrance of lotuses.” (45)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.46

“By extending His arms, embracing them, touching their hands, curling locks, thighs, sashes, and breasts, by playful touches of His fingernails, by joking, glances, and laughter, He aroused the lord of love in the beautiful women of Vraja and delighted them.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“Arousing through the extension of His arms and the rest” means that Kṛṣṇa made manifest the desire still concealed by their natural modesty and other restraints. Or, because it already existed as a playful expression of exceptional prema, He now caused it to increase especially.

A double meaning therefore calls desire “the lord who protects rati,” where rati means love alone. By reviving even bodiless Kāma so that he could provide Rati's happiness, the expression “lord of rati” indicates every requisite for love and displays Kṛṣṇa's supreme attachment and skill in it.

He extended His arms to draw near those who stood at a distance, or He imitated a previous embrace. Or the phrase means that by extending the gopīs' own arms He embraced them tightly. His play included teasing and provocation, or drinking and biting their lips. Calling them “the beautiful women of Vraja” implies that they possessed equal skill; otherwise He could not have manifested such artistry with them. Through His special potency, His delight with each occurred simultaneously while remaining unnoticed by the others. (46)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.47

“Thus honored by magnanimous Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa, the proud gopīs considered themselves greater than every other woman upon the earth.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

Sanātana now begins describing a distinctive form of separation intended to prepare for a special later pastime, as exceptional prema swells.

Through the extraordinary amorous skill just described, they received honor from the great-souled Lord, who delights in Himself. Or they attained a particular emotion characterized by elevation of heart. The cause is that He is Bhagavān: to experience a special rasa, He manifested His own divinity. He is also Kṛṣṇa, the wondrous ocean of great rasa who supremely attracts the heart. Becoming proud, they therefore considered themselves the finest among all women dwelling on earth.

Alternatively, “earth” means the ground of their present sport, and the statement refers only to the gopīs there. Each considered herself greater than every other gopī because Kṛṣṇa delighted with her in that way. “They also became proud” may be a separate sentence, since intoxication and jealous pride will be mentioned in the next verse. In truth these supremely refined women developed this emotion solely as a playful service produced by the nature of rasa for the pleasure of the finest of discerning beloveds. (47)

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.48

“Seeing their intoxication with that good fortune and their jealous pride, Keśava disappeared from that very place in order to pacify them and bestow grace.”

Sanātana Gosvāmī's Bṛhad-vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī

“That” good fortune arose through the overwhelming abundance of His own amorous skill. Or it was the fortune produced by the form of delight expressed as “He has delighted me alone.” Seeing their intoxication with that fortune, though it existed for His own pleasure, He disappeared to pacify it. Otherwise, because they did not fully recognize their dependence upon Him, the rāsa pastime He desired could not be perfected.

Seeing their jealous pride as well, He disappeared to grant grace. Because the play of pride delighted Him, He intended to bestow exceptional favor; without His disappearance they could not attain the extraordinary prema fit for rāsa. Or He intended to pacify both intoxication and pride. Why pacify them? “To bestow grace,” an exceptional favor through rāsa.

Through His disappearance He would later proclaim the extremity of His dependence upon them in the words beginning, “I am unable to repay your faultless service” (Bhāgavata 10.32.22). Or the good fortune arising from Him produced intoxication, either pride or joy, for the Viśva lexicon gives intoxication, musk, pride, joy, and an elephant's ichor among the meanings of mada. Seeing that mental exhilaration in the form of pride, He disappeared for the sake of supreme tranquility and happiness embodied in the rāsa dance.

He also disappeared “to bestow grace,” revealing His favor by showing that even while hidden He had not abandoned them and by deepening their worship of Him. This will become manifest later. Or His grace was intended for the supreme happiness produced by rāsa. The rest is the same.

Thus His disappearance served in every respect only to delight them more deeply. It did not arise from jealous resentment based upon His self-satisfaction or anything similar, for such conduct is impossible between the most discerning lover and the most discerning beloveds. Kṛṣṇa Himself will later say, “I remained hidden, worshiping you beyond your sight” (Bhāgavata 10.32.21).

“He disappeared there itself” means that He did not visibly travel anywhere but suddenly became unseen. To show that this was not impossible for Him, the verse names His supreme lordship through the name Keśava.

Footnote 59 records the variants “that one” and “that.” (48)