SB 11.20.1 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

श्रीउद्धव उवाच विधिश्च प्रतिषेधश्च निगमो हीश्वरस्य ते । अवेक्षतेऽरविन्दाक्ष गुणं दोषं च कर्मणाम् ॥ १ ॥

Verse text

śrī-uddhava uvāca vidhiś ca pratiṣedhaś ca nigamo hīśvarasya te avekṣate ’raviṇḍākṣa guṇaṁ doṣaṁ ca karmaṇām

Synonyms

śrī — uddhavaḥ uvāca — Śrī Uddhava said ; vidhiḥ — positive injunction ; ca — also ; pratiṣedhaḥ — prohibitive injunction ; ca — and ; nigamaḥ — the Vedic literature ; hi — indeed ; īśvarasya — of the Lord ; te — of You ; avekṣate — focuses upon ; araviṇḍa — akṣa — O lotus-eyed one ; guṇam — good or pious qualities ; doṣam — bad or sinful qualities ; ca — also ; karmaṇām — of activities .

Translation

Śrī Uddhava said: My dear lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa, You are the Supreme Lord, and thus the Vedic literatures, consisting of positive and negative injunctions, constitute Your order. Such literatures focus upon the good and bad qualities of work.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

Uddhava said: O lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa! You are the Supreme Lord, and thus the Vedic literatures, consisting of positive and negative injunctions, constitute your order. Such literatures focus upon the good and bad qualities of work. In the Twentieth Chapter jṣāna, karma and bhakti are well defined, and the qualifications of each are described, with good and bad points. At the end of the last chapter Kṛṣṇa said that one should overcome seeing good and bad. Though Uddhava understood the Lord’s meaning, he desires to hear from the Lord’s mouth an explanation with various examples. Thus in five verses, he opposes Kṛṣṇa’s statement. Your orders, the Vedas, consist of orders and prohibitions. The orders concern good qualities of action which should be done. The prohibitions concern bad actions which are forbidden. By following orders one performs good acts of piety and goes to Svarga. By performing prohibited acts one performs bad actions of sin and goes to hell.

Purport

At the end of the previous chapter, Lord Kṛṣṇa stated, guṇa-doṣa-dṛśir doṣo guṇas tūbhaya-varjitaḥ: “Focusing upon material piety and sin is itself a discrepancy, since actual piety means to transcend both of them.” Śrī Uddhava now pursues this point so that Lord Kṛṣṇa will give a more elaborate explanation of this difficult subject matter. Śrī Uddhava here states that the Vedic literatures, which constitute the laws of God, deal with piety and sin; therefore, it must be clarified how one transcends activities recommended in the Vedas. According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, Uddhava suddenly understood Lord Kṛṣṇa’s purpose in the words He had just spoken, and to induce the Lord to elaborate upon this interesting point Uddhava outwardly challenged the Lord’s statement.