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Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.3.46
ity uktvāsīd dharis tūshnīm
pitroh sampaśyatoh sadyo
SYNONYMS
śrī-śukah uvāca — Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī said; iti uktvā — after instructing in this way; āsīt — remained; harih — the Supreme Personality of Godhead; tūshnīm — silent; bhagavān — Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead; ātma-māyayā — by acting in His own spiritual energy; pitroh sampaśyatoh — while His father and mother were factually seeing Him; sadyah — immediately; babhūva — He became; prākritah — like an ordinary human being; śiśuh — a child.
TRANSLATION
Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: After thus instructing His father and mother, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, remained silent. In their presence, by His internal energy, He then transformed Himself into a small human child. [In other words, He transformed Himself into His original form: krishnas tu bhagavān svayam.]
PURPORT
As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (4.6), sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā: whatever is done by the Supreme Personality of Godhead is done by His spiritual energy; nothing is forced upon Him by the material energy. This is the difference between the Lord and an ordinary living being. The Vedas say:
parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate
svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca
It is natural for the Lord to be untinged by material qualities, and because everything is perfectly present in His spiritual energy, as soon as He desires something, it is immediately done. The Lord is not a prākrita-śiśu, a child of this world, but by His personal energy He appeared like one. Ordinary people may have difficulty accepting the supreme controller, God, as a human being because they forget that He can do everything by spiritual energy (ātma-māyayā). Nonbelievers say, "How can the supreme controller descend as an ordinary being?" This sort of thinking is materialistic. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī says that unless we accept the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as inconceivable, beyond the conception of our words and mind, we cannot understand the Supreme Lord. Those who doubt that the Supreme Personality of Godhead can come as a human being and turn Himself into a human child are fools who think that Krishna's body is material, that He is born and that He therefore also dies.
In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Third Canto, Fourth Chapter, verses 28 and 29, there is a description of Krishna's leaving His body. Mahārāja Parīkshit inquired from Śukadeva Gosvāmī, "When all the members of the Yadu dynasty met their end, Krishna also put an end to Himself, and the only member of the family who remained alive was Uddhava. How was this possible?" Śukadeva Gosvāmī answered that Krishna, by His own energy, destroyed the entire family and then thought of making His own body disappear. In this connection, Śukadeva Gosvāmī described how the Lord gave up His body. But this was not the destruction of Krishna's body; rather, it was the disappearance of the Supreme Lord by His personal energy.
Actually, the Lord does not give up His body, which is eternal, but as He can change His body from the form of Vishnu to that of an ordinary human child, He can change His body to any form He likes. This does not mean that He gives up His body. By spiritual energy, the Lord can appear in a body made of wood or stone. He can change His body into anything because everything is His energy (parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate). As clearly said in Bhagavad-gītā (7.4), bhinnā prakritir ashtadhā: the material elements are separated energies of the Supreme Lord. If He transforms Himself into the arcā-mūrti, the worshipable Deity, which we see as stone or wood, He is still Krishna. Therefore the śāstra warns, arcye vishnau śilā-dhīr gurushu nara-matih. One who thinks that the worshipable Deity in the temple is made of wood or stone, one who sees a Vaishnava guru as an ordinary human being, or one who materially conceives of a Vaishnava as belonging to a particular caste is nārakī, a resident of hell. The Supreme Personality of Godhead can appear before us in many forms, as he likes, but we must know the true facts: janma karma ca me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah (Bg. 4.9). By following the instructions of sādhu, guru and śāstra — the saintly persons, the spiritual master and the authoritative scriptures — one can understand Krishna, and then one makes his life successful by returning home, back to Godhead.
Copyright © r The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
His Holiness Hrdayananda dasa Goswami
Gopiparanadhana dasa Adhikari
Dravida dasa Brahmacari