Devanagari
कर्माण्यनीहस्य भवोऽभवस्य ते
दुर्गाश्रयोऽथारिभयात्पलायनम् ।
कालात्मनो यत्प्रमदायुताश्रम:
स्वात्मन्रते: खिद्यति धीर्विदामिह ॥ १६ ॥
Verse text
karmāṇy anīhasya bhavo ’bhavasya te
durgāśrayo ’thāri-bhayāt palāyanam
kālātmano yat pramadā-yutāśramaḥ
svātman-rateḥ khidyati dhīr vidām iha
Synonyms
karmāṇi
—
activities
;
anīhasya
—
of one who has no desire
;
bhavaḥ
—
birth
;
abhavasya
—
of one who is never born
;
te
—
your
;
durga
—
āśrayaḥ — taking shelter of the fort
;
atha
—
thereafter
;
ari
—
bhayāt — out of fear of the enemies
;
palāyanam
—
flee
;
kāla
—
ātmanaḥ — of He who is the controller of eternal time
;
yat
—
that
;
pramadā
—
āyuta — in the association of women
;
āśramaḥ
—
household life
;
sva
—
ātman — in Your own Self
;
rateḥ
—
one who enjoys
;
khidyati
—
is disturbed
;
dhīḥ
—
intelligence
;
vidām
—
of the learned
;
iha
—
in this world .
Translation
My Lord, even the learned sages become disturbed in their intelligence when they see that Your Greatness engages in fruitive work although You are free from all desires, that You take birth although You are unborn, that You flee out of fear of the enemy and take shelter in a fort although You are the controller of invincible time, and that You enjoy householder life surrounded by many women although You enjoy in Your Self.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
You are without action but you perform action. You are without birth, but you take birth. You are the form of time, but you flee in fear of enemies and take shelter in a fort. You are self-enjoying but accept household life with thousands of wives. The intelligence of the wise men is bewildered by this.
We servants attain supreme bliss by seeing and remembering your form, qualities and pastimes. Knowledge of these items also is not sufficient, because it is impossible to know completely because of our meager knowledge. Many pastimes are contrary to logic. I am now asking about this in two verses. You are without action yet you perform actions such as lifting Govardhana. Actions of creation of the universe are not included since it is done directly by māyā and the guṇas. You are indirectly involved. Your svarūpa does not contact matter. Thus, when the śrutis describe you as having no action, there is no contradiction if action refers to the creation of the material world. Niṣkalaṁ niṣkriyaṁ śāntaṁ niravadyaṁ niraṣjanam: the lord is without parts, without action, peaceful, without fault, and without blemish. (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.19) But activities such as lifting Govardhana are performed by your svarūpa. This is a contradiction to your quality of non-action. This is my doubt. Another meaning can be taken here. You are the human form of the supreme Brahman. In human form you perform unlimited spiritual actions. But in the form as Brahman there is no material or spiritual action. This is derived from the conventional meaning of Brahman. One cannot say that Brahman is the svarūpa with no qualities and Bhagavān is the svarūpa with qualities--that there are different Brahmans-- since there are not two Brahmans. Thus there is a doubt. This is expressed in the Sixth Canto.
You take birth though you have no birth. Though you are the form of time itself, you flee out of fear of enemies like Jarāsandha and take shelter of a fort in the sea. Though you enjoy in yourself, with thousands of women you are engaged in household life (āśramaḥ), with performance of rites for devatās and Pitṛs. You are attracted to these things though you enjoy in yourself. By enjoying with Rukmiṇī and others you do not destroy your status as self-enjoying, because they are all expansions of yourself. That I know. Therefore I have used the word āśrama. That part is contradictory. The intelligence of wise people is perplexed by such contradiction. It cannot be said that non-action, no birth, being the form of time and being self-enjoyer are the true aspects and that actions, birth, fear and accepting household life are imitations only. Otherwise it would not be said that the intelligence of the wise becomes perplexed. The wise would know these are imitations and not actual, and thus would not be perplexed. It could be said that when the Lord is described as having no activity, material actions are excluded, but not spiritual actions. Then with that knowledge, why should the wise be perplexed? With knowledge that Brahman is without action and Bhagavān is without knowledge, where would be the perplexity? What is implied here is that anyone who says that Kṛṣṇa’s actions are imitations, or that non-action means spiritual action and non-birth means spiritual birth, or that Brahman is non-active and bhagavān is active, and is thus not perplexed in intelligence, is actually not wise.
The Lord himself says na me viduḥ suragaṇāḥ prabhavaṁ no maharṣaya: even the devatās headed by Brahmā and the great sages headed by Vyāsa do not know my excellent (pra) birth (bhavam). (BG 10.2) Bhīṣma also says:
na hy asya karhicid rājan pumān veda vidhitsitam
yad vijijṣāsayā yuktā muhyanti kavayo ’pi hi
O King! No one can understand the plan of Kṛṣṇa because even those engaged in reasoning and scripture are bewildered by that inquiry. SB 1.9.16
Purport
Pure devotees of the Lord are not very much concerned with philosophical speculation in regard to transcendental knowledge of the Lord. Nor is it possible to acquire complete knowledge of the Lord. Whatever little knowledge they have about the Lord is sufficient for them because devotees are simply satisfied in hearing and chanting about the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. This gives them all transcendental bliss. But some of the pastimes of the Lord appear contradictory, even to such pure devotees, and thus Uddhava asked the Lord about some of the contradictory incidents in His pastimes. The Lord is described as having nothing to do personally, and it is actually so because even in the creation and sustenance of the material world, the Lord has nothing to do. It seems contradictory, then, to hear that the Lord personally lifts the Govardhana Hill for the protection of His unalloyed devotees. The Lord is the Supreme Brahman, the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead appearing like a man, but Uddhava had doubts whether He could have so many transcendental activities.
There is no difference between the Personality of Godhead and the impersonal Brahman. How then can the Lord have so many things to do, whereas the impersonal Brahman is stated to have nothing to do either materially or spiritually? If the Lord is ever unborn, how then is He born as the son of Vasudeva and Devakī? He is fearful even to
kāla,
the supreme fear, and yet the Lord is afraid of fighting Jarāsandha and takes shelter in a fort. How can one who is full in Himself take pleasure in the association of many women? How can He take wives and, just like a householder, take pleasure in the association of family members, children, relatives and parents? All these apparently contradictory happenings bewilder even the greatest learned scholars, who, thus bewildered, cannot understand whether inactivity is a fact or whether His activities are only imitations.
The solution is that the Lord has nothing to do with anything mundane. All His activities are transcendental. This cannot be understood by the mundane speculators. For the mundane speculators there is certainly a kind of bewilderment, but for the transcendental devotees there is nothing astonishing in this. The Brahman conception of the Absolute Truth is certainly the negation of all mundane activities, but the Parabrahman conception is full with transcendental activities. One who knows the distinctions between the conception of Brahman and the conception of Supreme Brahman is certainly the real transcendentalist. There is no bewilderment for such transcendentalists. The Lord Himself also declares in
Bhagavad-gītā
(10.2)
, “Even the great sages and demigods can know hardly anything about My activities and transcendental potencies.” The right explanation of the Lord’s activities is given by Grandfather Bhīṣmadeva (
Bhāg.
1.9.16
) as follows:
na hy asya karhicid rājan
pumān veda vidhitsitam
yad-vijijṣāsayā yuktā
muhyanti kavayo ’pi hi