Verse Text
yathā—
purā maharṣayaḥ sarve daṇḍakāraṇya-vāsinaḥ |
dṛṣṭvā rāmaṁ hariṁ tatra bhoktum aicchan suvigraham ||301||
te sarve strītvam āpannāḥ samudbhūtāś ca gokule |
hariṁ samprāpya kāmena tato muktā bhavārṇavāt ||302||
Translation
Examples of males becoming gopīs are as follows: Previously, all the sages living in Daṇḍakāraṇya forest, who after seeing Lord Rāma, desired enjoyment with His form, attained forms of women and appeared in Gokula. Attaining the Lord by that kāma, they became liberated from the ocean of the material world.
Purport (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Those gopīs became freed from the material ocean. That means that they became free from the material portions of their bodies. At the time of the rāsa dance when they were locked in their houses, they burned up the material portion of their bodies by the separation from Kṛṣṇa caused by their being locked up. The particular explanation of this can be seen in the commentary [of Viśvanātha] on the Tenth Canto. This is a result which accompanies bhakti.
Purport (Jiva Goswami)
The sages refer to all those sages who had desires following the gopīs of Kṛṣṇa in Gokula. Seeing Rāma, they desired to enjoy with Him, when He would appear in the future, in the beautiful form of Kṛṣṇa. They thus asked for this boon in their minds. Kṛṣṇa’s future appearance was well known to the learned from the scriptures. After obtaining a silent boon from Rāma, who acts as a desire tree, they attained bodies of women in the wombs of gopīs in a different region. They were then born from these gopīs, who then moved to Nanda Gokula, famous everywhere as Gokula. Due to their kāma alone, they attained the Lord in the form of attractive Kṛṣṇa, and later, attained liberation from the material ocean. These gopīs (sādhana-siddhas) are indicated in the following verse.
antar-gṛha-gatāḥ kāścid gopyo ’labdha-vinirgamāḥ
kṛṣṇaṁ tad-bhāvanā-yuktā dadhyur mīlita-locanāḥ
Some of the gopīs, however, could not manage to get out of their houses, and instead they remained at home with eyes closed, meditating upon Him in pure love. [Note: These gopīs, meditating in separation, became completely purified and attained full spiritual bodies. With these bodies, they attained Kṛṣṇa’s association in the rasa-līlā.] SB 10.29.9
Purport (Nectar of Devotion)
In days gone by there were many sages in Daṇḍakāraṇya. Daṇḍakāraṇya is the name of the forest where Lord Rāmacandra lived after being banished by His father for fourteen years. At that time there were many advanced sages who were captivated by the beauty of Lord Rāmacandra and who desired to become women in order to embrace the Lord. Later on, these sages appeared in Gokula Vṛndāvana when Kṛṣṇa advented Himself there, and they were born as gopīs, or girlfriends of Kṛṣṇa. In this way they attained the perfection of spiritual life.
The story of the sages of Daṇḍakāraṇya can be explained as follows. When Lord Rāmacandra was residing in Daṇḍakāraṇya, the sages who were engaged in devotional service there became attracted by His beauty and immediately thought of the gopīs at Vṛndāvana, who enjoyed conjugal loving affection with Kṛṣṇa. In this instance it is clear that the sages of Daṇḍakāraṇya desired conjugal love in the manner of the gopīs, although they were well aware of the Supreme Lord as both Kṛṣṇa and Lord Rāmacandra. They knew that although Rāmacandra was an ideal king and could not accept more than one wife, Lord Kṛṣṇa, being the full-fledged Personality of Godhead, could fulfill the desires of all of them in Vṛndāvana. These sages also concluded that the form of Lord Kṛṣṇa is more attractive than that of Lord Rāmacandra, and so they prayed to become gopīs in their future lives to be associated with Kṛṣṇa.
Lord Rāmacandra remained silent, and His silence shows that He accepted the prayers of the sages. Thus they were blessed by Lord Rāmacandra to have association with Lord Kṛṣṇa in their future lives. As a result of this benediction, they all took birth as women in the wombs of gopīs at Gokula, and as they had desired in their previous lives, they enjoyed the company of Lord Kṛṣṇa, who was present at that time in Gokula Vṛndāvana. The perfection of their human form of life was thus achieved by their generating a transcendental sentiment to share conjugal love with Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Conjugal love is divided into two classifications—namely, conjugal love as husband and wife and conjugal love as lover and beloved. One who develops conjugal love for Kṛṣṇa as a wife is promoted to Dvārakā, where the devotee becomes the queen of the Lord. One who develops conjugal love for Kṛṣṇa as a lover is promoted to Goloka Vṛndāvana, to associate with the gopīs and enjoy loving affairs with Kṛṣṇa there. We should note carefully, however, that this conjugal love for Kṛṣṇa, either as gopī or as queen, is not limited only to women. Even men can develop such sentiments, as was evidenced by the sages of Daṇḍakāraṇya.