Śrī Kṛṣṇa-saṁhitā - Chapter 4 - The Pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa

Śrī Kṛṣṇa-saṁhitā - Chapter 6 - The Pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa

Śrī Kṛṣṇa-saṁhitā – Chapter 5 – The Pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa

TEXT 1
prīti-prāvṛṭ samārambhe gopyā bhāvātmikās tadā
śrī kṛṣṇasya guṇa-gāne tu pramattās tā hari-priyāḥ

When mādhurya-rasa becomes excessively liquified, then love pours like rain during the rainy season. Then the gopīs, who are most dear to Hari and fully absorbed in His thought, become maddened while chanting His glories.

TEXT 2
śrī kṛṣṇa-veṇu-gītena vyākulās tāḥ samārccayan
yoga-māyāḥ mahā-devīṁ kṛṣṇa-lābhecchayā vraje

Being overwhelmed by the sound of Kṛṣṇa’s flute, the gopīs of Vraja worshiped goddess Yogamāyā with a desire to attain Kṛṣṇa. The appearance of the truth of Vaikuṇṭha in the pure consciousness of the living entities of this world is called Vraja. The word vraja means “to go.” It is impossible to elevate oneself in this material world by rejecting māyā, therefore one should take shelter of favourable material items and try to search for the indescribable truth. For this reason, living entities who have attained the mood of gopīs take shelter of the great goddess Yogamāyā to help them attain the Lord’s pastimes in the spiritual world.

TEXT 3-4
yeṣāṁ tu kṛṣṇa-dāsecchā vartate balavattarā
gopanīyaṁ na teṣāṁ hi svasmin vānyatra kiñcana
etad vai śikṣayan kṛṣṇo vastrāṇi vyāharan prabhuḥ
dadarśānāvṛtaṁ cittaṁ rati-sthānam anāmayam

Those persons who have an intense desire to serve Kṛṣṇa have no secrets amongst themselves or with others. In order to teach this principle to the devotees, Kṛṣṇa stole the clothes of the gopīs. A heart that is situated in pure goodness is the proper abode for attachment to the Lord. He exposed the gopīs’ love for Him by stealing away their clothes.

TEXT 5
brāhmaṇāṁś ca jagannātho yajñānnaṁ samayācata
brāhmaṇā na dadur bhaktaṁ varṇābhimānino yataḥ

While tending the cows near Mathurā, Śrī Kṛṣṇa begged food grains from the brāhmaṇas who were engaged in sacrifice. Being proud of their caste, those brāhmaṇas considered that performing sacrifices was the highest principle and therefore did not give Kṛṣṇa any food.

TEXT 6
veda-vāda-ratā viprāḥ karma-jñāna-parāyaṇāḥ
vidhīnāṁ vāhakāḥ śaśvat kathaṁ kṛṣṇa-ratā hi te

The reason for this is that high-caste brāhmaṇas are so-called followers of the Vedas, and therefore they cannot realise the subtle purport of the Vedas. They follow the process of insignificant fruitive activities and become materialistic, or they study the science of self-realisation and speculative knowledge and become absorbed in impersonalism. Such brāhmaṇas prefer to simply remain controlled by the scriptural injunctions or previous ancestors by formally carrying out their instructions. They are unable to understand that attachment to the Lord is the primary purpose of all scriptures, so how can they become servants of Kṛṣṇa? We should not misunderstand from this that all brāhmaṇas are mundane fruitive workers or followers of speculative knowledge. Many great personalities appeared in brāhmaṇa families and attained the topmost position of devotional service. Therefore, the purport of this verse is that ass-like brāhmaṇas who formally carry out the rules and regulations are averse to Kṛṣṇa, but swan-like brāhmaṇas are servants of Kṛṣṇa and thus worshipable by all.

TEXT 7
teṣāṁ striyas tadāgatya śrī-kṛṣṇa-sannidhiṁ vane
akurvannātma-dānaṁ vai kṛṣṇāya paramātmane

The wives of the ass-like brāhmaṇas represent people who are subordinate to those with undeveloped faith. Being under the control of the sweetness of Kṛṣṇa, who is the Supersoul, they went to the forest and offered themselves to Him. Those who have undeveloped faith are called mundane devotees.

TEXT 8
etena darśitaṁ tattvaṁ jīvānāṁ samadarśanam
śrī-kṛṣṇa-prīti-sampattau jāti-buddhir na kāraṇam

By this incident the equality of all living entities is ascertained. There is no consideration of caste in pleasing Kṛṣṇa, rather caste consciousness sometimes becomes an obstacle in the development of love.

TEXT 9
narāṇāṁ varṇa-bhāgo hi sāmājika vidhir mataḥ
tyajan varṇāśramān dharmān kṛṣṇārthaḥ hi na doṣabhāk

In order to maintain social order, the Āryans divided society into four castes and four social orders. If the social system is protected, then people’s spiritual lives are nourished by good association and discussion. Therefore, the varṇāśrama system should be accepted in all respects. By this arrangement there is a possibility of gradually attaining love for Kṛṣṇa. The main purpose for this arrangement is the cultivation of spiritual life, or love for Kṛṣṇa. Even if one attains perfection without following this process, still it should not be disregarded. At this point one should understand that after attaining perfection, this process naturally becomes unimportant. There is no fault in the rejection of the relatively less important process of varṇāśrama by those who have attained perfection in the form of love for Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, the conclusion is that faults and qualities can be attributed only in respect to the qualification of the performer.

TEXT 10
indrasya karma-rūpasya niṣidhya yajñam utsavan
varṣaṇāt plāvanāt tasya rarakṣa gokulaṁ hariḥ

Lord Yajñeśvara is the predominating Lord of the activities for protecting the social order. His representative amongst the living entities is Indra. Such activities are of two varieties—constitutional and conditional. Those regular activities which are meant for maintaining one’s life are called constitutional. Any activities other than these are conditional. If we consider, we can understand that all fruitive activities fall under the category of either constitutional or conditional. Therefore, activities performed either with material desire or without material desire fall under the categories of constitutional or conditional activities. Lord Kṛṣṇa forbade His devotees from performing any activities other than those meant for maintaining their lives. When Indra, the lord of fruitive activities, saw Lord Kṛṣṇa arrange to neglect the activities meant to nourish the world, he created a great disturbance. The Lord protected the devotees from flood and supplied their needs by accepting Govardhana, the expanding shelter of sober persons, as an umbrella.

TEXT 11
etena jñāpitaṁ tattvaṁ kṛṣṇa-prītiṁ gatasya vai
na kācid vartate śaṅkā viśva-nāśā karmaṇaḥ

If the activities that nourish the world are neglected for the cultivation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the devotees of Kṛṣṇa should not feel anxiety.

TEXT 12
yeṣāṁ kṛṣṇaḥ samuddharttā teṣāṁ hantā na kaścana
vidhānāṁ na balaṁ teṣu bhaktānāṁ kutra bandhanam

No one can destroy one whom Kṛṣṇa wants to protect. The strength of regulations cannot influence such persons. What to speak of the bondage of regulations, nothing other than the bondage of love for the Lord can bind the devotees.

TEXT 13
viśvāsa-viṣaye ramye nadī cid-drava-rūpiṇī
tasyāṁ tu pitaraṁ magnam uddhṛtya-līlayā hariḥ

In Śrī Vṛndāvana, the land of faith, the Yamunā, the personification of spiritual liquid, flows. Nanda Mahārāja was merged in that water, and the Lord delivered him as part of His pastimes.

TEXT 14
darśayāmāsa vaikuṇṭhaṁ gopebhyo harir ātmanaḥ
aiśvaryaṁ kṛṣṇas tattve tu sarvadā nihitaṁ kila

Thereafter, Lord Kṛṣṇa mercifully displayed the truth and opulence of Vaikuṇṭha to the cowherd men. This shows that Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness is so prominent that His opulences become covered by its presence.

TEXT 15
jīvānāṁ nitya-siddhānām anugānām api priyaḥ
akarod rāsa-līlām vai prīti-tattva-prakāśikām

The Lord, who is very dear to the eternally perfect living entities and their followers, performed His rāsa-līlā, which is the culmination of ecstatic love.

TEXT 16
antarddhāna-viyogena varddhayan smaram uttamam
gopikā-rāsa-cakre tu nanarta kṛpayā hariḥ

After the most merciful Lord increased the amorous love of the gopīs by suddenly disappearing from them, He began to dance in the circle of the rāsa-līlā.

TEXT 17-18
jaḍātmake yathā viśve dhruvasyākarṣaṇāt kila
bhramanti maṇḍalākārāḥ sasūryā graha-saṅkulāḥ
tathā cid-viṣaye kṛṣṇasy ākarṣaṇa-balād api
bhramanti nityaśo jīvāḥ śrī-kṛṣṇe madhyage sati

In this material world, which is created by māyā, there is a principle constellation named Dhruva. All the suns along with their planets continually circle around Dhruva by its power of attraction. The main consideration is that there is an energy known as attraction in all material atoms. By the strength of this energy, atoms are attracted to each other and they thus create a globular planet. When these planets are attracted to a larger globular planet, they begin to move around it. This is the invariable law of this material world. Māyā is the basis of the material world and only a reflection of the spiritual world. This has already been explained previously while discussing the energies of the Lord. By their eternal constitution, in the form of love, the spark-like conscious living entities in the spiritual world are attracted to one another, and they imitate one with more elevated consciousness. Those more elevated conscious persons with their subordinate conscious associates constantly move in the rāsa–līlā circle of Kṛṣṇa, who is the superconscious supreme Dhruva. Therefore, the great rāsa-līlā pastimes are eternally manifest in the realm of Vaikuṇṭha. In the spiritual world the ever-existing attachment extends love up to mahā-bhāva, and in the material world the reflection extends as an inconceivable material attraction that creates variegatedness. In order to illustrate subtle truths by gross examples we say that in the material world the sun along with the planets are constantly moving around the Dhruva constellation by the strength of its attraction, just as all pure living entities eternally circle around Kṛṣṇa by the strength His attraction.

TEXT 19
mahā-rāsa-vihāre ‘smin puruṣaḥ kṛṣṇa eva hi
sarve nārī-gaṇās tatra bhogya-bhoktṛ vicārataḥ

In the transcendental rāsa–līlā pastimes, Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the only enjoyer and all others are enjoyed. The conclusion is that the sunlike personality of the spiritual world, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is the only male and the living entities are all female. All the relationships of the spiritual world are based on pure love, one therefore finds the enjoyer is male and the enjoyed are female. The males and females of the material world are perverted reflections of the enjoyer and enjoyed of the spiritual world. If one searches through all dictionaries one will not find the words to properly describe the spiritual pastimes of the supremely conscious Lord and His associates. Hence the descriptions of the man and woman of the material world are used here as an appropriate indication. There is no necessity or suggestion of obscene thoughts in this regard. If we reject these activities as obscene, then we miss the opportunity to discuss that supreme pastime. We are able to describe the truths of Vaikuṇṭha by describing mundane emotions as the reflections of spiritual emotions. There is no other alternative in this regard. For example: Kṛṣṇa is merciful. But to show how Kṛṣṇa is merciful, one has to give the example of certain persons who are merciful. There is no way of expressing this quality other than by giving a well-known example. Therefore, swan-like persons should give up shyness and obscene considerations and then hear, read, and think about the transcendental topics of the rāsa-līlā without anxiety.

TEXT 20
tatraiva paramārādhyā hlādinī kṛṣṇa-bhāsinī
bhāvaiḥ sā rāsa-madhyasthā sakhībhī rādhikāvṛtā

The topmost expression of the rāsa-līlā is that Śrīmatī Rādhikā, who is the personification of hlādinī, who manifests the sweetness of Kṛṣṇa, and who is supremely worshipable by the living entities, is surrounded by the sakhīs, who are personifications of various emotions, and beautifully situated in the rāsa dance.

TEXT 21
mahā-rāsa-vihārānte jala-krīḍā svabhāvataḥ
vartate yamunāyāṁ vai drava-mayāṁ satāṁ kila

After the rāsa-līlā dance, the water sports in the spiritual waters of the Yamunā naturally take place.

TEXT 22
mukty ahi-grasta nandas tu kṛṣṇena mocitas tadā
yaśomurddhāḥ sudurdānta śaṅkhacūḍo hataḥ purā

When Mahārāja Nanda, who is personified happiness, was swallowed by the snake, who personifies merging with the Supreme, Kṛṣṇa, the protector of the devotees, rescued him from danger. Śaṅkhacūḍa was the personification of fame, because he considered fame as his life and soul. He was killed while trying to create disturbances in Vraja.

TEXT 23
ghoṭakātmā hatas tena keśī rājya-madāsuraḥ
mathurāṁ gantukāmena kṛṣṇena kaṁsa-vairiṇā

When Kṛṣṇa, the enemy of Kaṁsa, decided to go to Mathurā, the horse demon Keśī, who personifies the vanity of political ambition, was killed.

TEXT 24
ghaṭyānāṁ ghaṭako ‘krūro mathurām anayad dharim
mallān hatvā hariḥ kaṁsaṁ sānujaṁ nipapāta ha

Akrūra, the catalyst of future events, took Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma to Mathurā, where the two Lords first killed the wrestlers and then Kaṁsa.

TEXT 25
nāstikye vigate kaṁse svātantryam ugrasenakam
tasyaiva pitaraḥ kṛṣṇaḥ kṛtavān kṣiti-pālakam

After the atheist Kaṁsa was killed, his father, Ugrasena, the personification of freedom, was installed on the throne by Kṛṣṇa.

TEXT 26
kaṁsa-bhārya-dvayaṁ gatvā pitaraṁ magadhāśrayam
karma-kāṇḍa-svarūpaṁ taṁ vaidhavyaṁ vinyavedayat

The two wives of Kaṁsa, Asti and Prāpti, described the killing of their husband to Jarāsandha, the personification of fruitive activities.

TEXT 27
śrutvaitan māgadho rājā svasainya-parivāritaḥ
sapta-daśa-mahā-yuddhaṁ kṛtavān mathurā-pure

Hearing their description, the King of Magadha gathered a huge army and attacked Mathurā seventeen times, but was defeated each time.

TEXT 28
hariṇā marditaḥ so ‘pi gatvāṣṭādaśame raṇe
aruddhan mathurāṁ kṛṣṇo jagāma dvārakāṁ svakām

When Jarāsandha again attacked Mathurā, the Lord went to His abode of Dvārakā. The main purport is that there are ten types of purificatory activities, such as funeral rites, along with four castes and four orders of life, which brings the total to eighteen. Among these, when the eighteenth, or sannyāsa, captures the abode of knowledge, then due to the desire for liberation the Lord disappears.

TEXT 29
mathurāyāṁ vasan kṛṣṇo gurv āśramāśrayāt tadā
paṭhitvā sarva-śāstrāṇi dattavān suta-jīvanam

During Kṛṣṇa’s residence in Mathurā, He left for gurukula, where He very easily studied all the scriptures. He brought the dead sons of His guru back to life and offered them to His guru.

TEXT 30
svataḥ siddhasya kṛṣṇasya jñānaṁ sādhyaṁ bhaven na hi
kevalaṁ nara-citteṣu tad bhāvānāṁ kramodgatiḥ

There is no need for Kṛṣṇa, who is independently perfect, to endeavour for an education, but when one resides in Mathurā, the abode of knowledge, one’s knowledge gradually expands. This was illustrated in this pastime.

TEXT 31
kāminām api kṛṣṇe tu rati-syān mala-saṁyutā
sā ratiḥ kramaśaḥ prītir bhavatīha sunirmalā

Those who enjoy the fruits of their activities are called lusty. Such peoples’ attachment for Kṛṣṇa is contaminated with impurities, but if they cultivate attachment to Kṛṣṇa for a long time, then pure devotion arises.

TEXT 32
kubjāyāḥ praṇaye tattvam etad vai darśitaṁ śubham
vraja-bhāva-suśikṣārthaṁ gokule coddhavo gataḥ

While residing in Mathurā, Kṛṣṇa had a seemingly mundane affair with Kubjā. Although there were lusty desires in the heart of Kubjā, those desires were ultimately transformed into pure love. Thereafter Kṛṣṇa sent Uddhava to Gokula to teach him that the loving sentiments of the residents of Vraja are the highest of all.

TEXT 33
pāṇḍavā dharma-śākhā hi kauravāś cetarāḥ smṛtāḥ
pāṇḍavānāṁ tataḥ kṛṣṇo bāndhavaḥ kula-rakṣakaḥ

In the smṛtis it is stated that the Pāṇḍavas were like the branches of religion and the Kauravas were like branches of irreligion. Therefore, Lord Kṛṣṇa was the friend and protector of the Pāṇḍavas.

TEXT 34
akruraṁ bhagavān dūtaṁ prerayāmāsa hastinām
dharmasya kuśalārthaṁ vai pāpināṁ trāṇakāmukaḥ