SB 10.63.38 · Srimad Bhagavatam

Devanagari

त्वमेक आद्य: पुरुषोऽद्वितीय- स्तुर्य: स्वद‍ृग् धेतुरहेतुरीश: । प्रतीयसेऽथापि यथाविकारं स्वमायया सर्वगुणप्रसिद्ध्यै ॥ ३८ ॥

Verse text

tvam eka ādyaḥ puruṣo ’dvitīyas turyaḥ sva-dṛg dhetur ahetur īśaḥ pratīyase ’thāpi yathā-vikāraṁ sva-māyayā sarva-guṇa-prasiddhyai

Synonyms

tvam — You ; ekaḥ — one ; ādyaḥ — original ; puruṣaḥ — Supreme Person ; advitīyaḥ — without a second ; turyaḥ — transcendental ; sva — dṛk — self-manifesting ; hetuḥ — the cause ; ahetuḥ — having no cause ; īśaḥ — the supreme controller ; pratīyase — You are perceived ; atha api — nonetheless ; yathā — according to ; vikāram — various transformations ; sva — by Your own ; māyayā — illusory potency ; sarva — of all ; guṇa — material qualities ; prasiddhyai — for the complete manifestation .

Translation

You are the original person, one without a second, transcendental and self-manifesting. Uncaused, you are the cause of all, and You are the ultimate controller. You are nonetheless perceived in terms of the transformations of matter effected by Your illusory energy — transformations You sanction so that the various material qualities can fully manifest.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

You are the original person, one without a second, transcendental and self-manifesting. Uncaused, you are the cause of all, and You are the ultimate controller. You are nonetheless perceived in terms of the transformations of matter effected by Your illusory energy—transformations You sanction so that the various material qualities can fully manifest. KB 10.63.38 “Ultimately, there is no possibility of distinction between You and any other thing on an equal level with You or subordinate to You. You are simultaneously the cause of this cosmic manifestation and its ingredients as well. You are the Supreme Whole, one without a second. In the phenomenal manifestation there are three stages: the stage of consciousness, the stage of semiconsciousness in dreaming, and the stage of unconsciousness. But Your Lordship is transcendental to all these different material stages of existence. You exist, therefore, in a fourth dimension, and Your appearance and disappearance do not depend on anything beyond Yourself. You are the supreme cause of everything, but of You there is no cause. You Yourself cause Your own appearance and disappearance. Despite Your transcendental position, my Lord, in order to show Your six opulences and advertise Your transcendental qualities, You have appeared in Your different incarnations—fish, tortoise, boar, Nṛsiṁha, Keśava and others—by Your personal manifestation; and You have appeared as different living entities by Your separated manifestations. By Your internal potency You appear as the different incarnations of Viṣṇu, and by Your external potency You appear as the phenomenal world.

Purport

The ācāryas comment as follows on this verse: Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī explains that the term ādyaḥ puruṣaḥ, “the original puruṣa, ” indicates that Lord Kṛṣṇa expands Himself as Mahā-Viṣṇu, the first of the three puruṣas who take charge of cosmic manifestation. The Lord is eka advitīyaḥ, “one without a second,” because there is no one equal to the Lord or different from Him. No one is completely equal to the Supreme Godhead, and yet because all the living beings are expansions of the potency of the Godhead, no one is qualitatively different from Him. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu nicely explains this inconceivable situation by stating that the Absolute Truth and the living beings are qualitatively one but quantitatively different. The Absolute possesses infinite spiritual consciousness, whereas the living beings possess infinitesimal consciousness, which is subject to being covered by illusion. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, commenting on the term ādyaḥ puruṣaḥ, quotes from the Sātvata-tantra: viṣṇos tu trīṇi rūpāṇi. “There are three forms of Viṣṇu [for cosmic manifestation, etc.].” Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī also quotes a statement of the Lord’s from śruti: pūrvam evāham ihāsam. “In the beginning I alone existed in this world.” This statement describes the form of the Lord called the puruṣa-avatāra, who exists before the cosmic manifestation. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī also quotes the following śruti-mantra: tat-puruṣasya puruṣatvam, which means “Such constitutes the Lord’s status as puruṣa. ” Actually, Lord Kṛṣṇa is the essence of the puruṣa incarnation because He is turīya, as described in the present verse. Jīva Gosvāmī explains the term turīya (literally “the fourth”) by quoting Śrīdhara Svāmī’s commentary to the Bhāgavatam verse 11.15.16: virāṭ hiraṇyagarbhaś ca kāraṇaṁ cety upādhayaḥ īśasya yat tribhir hīnaṁ turīyaṁ tad vidur budhāḥ “The Lord’s universal form, His Hiraṇyagarbha form and the primeval causal manifestation of material nature are all relative conceptions, but because the Lord Himself is not covered by these three, intelligent authorities call Him ‘the fourth.’” According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, the word turīya indicates that the Lord is the fourth member of the quadruple expansion of Godhead called the Catur-vyūha. In other words, Lord Kṛṣṇa is Vāsudeva. Lord Kṛṣṇa is sva-dṛk — that is, He alone can perceive Himself perfectly — because He is infinite spiritual existence, infinitely pure. He is hetu, the cause of everything, and yet He is ahetu, without cause. Therefore He is īśa, the supreme controller. The last two lines of this verse are of special philosophical significance. Why is the Lord perceived differently by different persons, although He is one? A partial explanation is given here. By the agency of Māyā, the Lord’s external potency, material nature is in a constant state of transformation, vikāra. In one sense, then, material nature is “unreal,” asat. But because God is the supreme reality, and because He is present within all things and all things are His potency, material objects and energies possess a degree of reality. Therefore some people see one aspect of material energy and think, “This is reality,” while other people see a different aspect of material energy and think, “No, that is reality.” Being conditioned souls, we are covered by different configurations of material nature, and thus we describe the Supreme Truth or the Supreme Lord in terms of our corrupted vision. Yet even the covering qualities of material nature, such as our conditioned intelligence, mind and senses, are real (being the potency of the Supreme Lord), and therefore through all things we can perceive, in a more or less subjective way, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is why the present verse states, pratīyase: “You are perceived.” Furthermore, without the manifestation of material nature’s covering qualities, the creation could not fulfill its purpose — namely, to allow the conditioned souls to make their best attempt to enjoy without God so that they will finally understand the futility of such an illusory notion.

Purport (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

"Then you, being my vibhutis, are not different from me." "No no." He answers in this verse. "You are one (tvam ekah). There is no difference between all your spiritual forms, since the supreme lord's forms are one. However among all the avatars such as Matsya which arise from your svarupa, You are the origin (adyah) and you have a human like form (purusah). Though you are different from the jiva sakti and maya sakti, you are also without difference (advtiya), (since everything comes from you). Among the forms of the purusa, there are four chief forms arising from your svarupa. Among these four you are the fourth, Vasudeva. No one else can see you. You are visible only to yourself (svadrk). Thus, because you are the best, you are the cause of everything and you are without cause. Therefore you are the Lord (isa), since all the chief powers are yours. Though you are full of such powers, you assist the insignificant material modes as follows: you are observed as various forms (vikaram) made by your own spiritual energy, for the successful functioning of the intelligence, senses etc. (sarva guna prasiddhau). You are perceived as the supersoul in all things. If you did not accept the role of supersoul in all these things, then there could be no manifestation of the material modes, and they would become useless."

Purport (Jiva Goswami)

“If you devatās are maintainers of the worlds, why do you say that I am Brahman? It is not possible for me to be Brahman while being different from it and possessing qualities, by which I can have you as maintainers of the planets.” You are one without a second, because you are the original puruṣa. Of the three forms, you are the puruṣa who manifests prakṛti. Your expansions depend on you. You act in this way for manifesting all objects (sarva-guṇa-prasiddhyai). The intention is to show the difference between the Lord and the jīvas. We are your vibhūtis. Since you do not have anyone who is equal to you, you are Brahman. Moreover, you appear as various forms with bodies according to the degree of consciousness (yathā vikāram). This is done by your inconceivable śakti (māyayā) since you are not touched by the qualities of matter. Or, you are one, without another who is similar. You are without different species (advitīyah) since you are first. You are the root form of the three puruṣas as stated in viṣnūs tu trīṇi rūpāṇi. Therefore you are the real puruṣa. Śruti says pūrvam evāham ihāsam iti tat-puruṣasya puruṣatvam: the beginning I alone existed in this world as the best of the puruṣas. (Taittirīya Āraṇyaka 1.23.1) Why are you first? You are tūryaḥ. virāḍ hiraṇyagarbhaś ca kāraṇaṁ cety upādhayaḥ | īśasya yantribhir hīnaṁ tat turīyaṁ pracakṣate || The Lord’s universal form, his Hiraṇyagarbha form and māyā are all coverings, but because the Lord is not covered by these three, intelligent authorities call him turīya, the fourth. How is that? You are self-manifesting. Thus you are the cause and without a cause. Though you are indivisible, according to various transformations for manifesting the three guṇas for all beings, you become the form of Mahāviṣṇu and appear to possess guṇas by degrees of your powerful avaraṇa-śakti (sva-māyayā). Thus you alone are the Lord (īśaḥ). Or “Some of you are my guṇāvatāras and some of you are my vibhūtis. Thus you are not different from me.” You alone are the Lord and we are only servants. Why? You are the first puruṣa because you are the fourth (tūryaḥ). Because Nārāyaṇa and Vāsudeva are included within you, you are without a second. Thus you are the cause (hetuḥ) of all others but you are without cause (ahetuh), since you are self-manifesting. But you appear as many eternal, real forms for your devotees. By your mercy (sva-māyayā) to your devotees, you appear in order to spread (prasiddhyai) to the people all your qualities like beauty, or to produce the highest perfection of your qualities, according to your bhāva (yathā vikāram).

Purport (Sanatana Goswami)

You alone are the Lord (īśaḥ), and are one (ekaḥ). Or you are the Lord, with no one equal to you and no one other than you. Thus you are Brahman. You are perceived as various forms, in transformations according to various bodies, with various levels of consciousness, by your māyā. Actually, the Lord does not become a jīva. That will be clear. Or “Some forms are my guṇa avatāras and some are vibhūtis. You are not different from me.” In answer to this Śiva says, you alone are the one lord (ekaḥ īśaḥ), whereas we are servants. Why? You are the original puruṣa, superior to Brahmā and others. You are the fourth entity (tūryaḥ), different from Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva. Also one should not say that you are the same as each member of the catur-vyūḥa, for then your position as the supreme Lord would vanish. You are one without a second (advitīyaḥ), because you are their cause. From you they arise. Or you are naturally the cause, since you are self-manifesting (sva-dṛk). You manifest the devotees in many eternal forms. By mercy to the devotees (sva-māyayā) or by absence of māyā in the devotees, you are perceived according to the devotees’ bhāva (yathā-vikāram), for perfecting their qualities like fixed devotion or publicizing to the world their qualities. To the individual devotees you manifest with eternal existence, among the caturvyūḥa and other forms, because the devotees are fixed in particular services.