Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.8.15

bahūni santi nāmāni

rūpāni ca sutasya te

guna-karmānurūpāni

tāny aham veda no janāh

SYNONYMS

bahūni — various; santi — there are; nāmāni — names; rūpāni — forms; ca — also; sutasya — of the son; te — your; guna-karma-anu-rūpāni — according to His attributes and activities; tāni — them; aham — I; veda — know; no janāh — not ordinary persons.

TRANSLATION

For this son of yours there are many forms and names according to His transcendental qualities and activities. These are known to me, but people in general do not understand them.

PURPORT

Bahūni: the Lord has many names. Advaitam acyutam anādim ananta-rūpam ādyam purāna-purusham nava-yauvanam ca. As stated in the Brahma-samhitā (5.33), the Lord is one, but He has many forms and many names. It was not that because Gargamuni gave the child the name Krishna, that was His only name. He has other names, such as Bhaktavatsala, Giridhārī, Govinda and Gopāla. If we analyze the nirukti, or semantic derivation, of the word "Krishna," we find that na signifies that He stops the repetition of birth and death, and krish means sattārtha, or "existence." (Krishna is the whole of existence.) Also, krish means "attraction," and na means ānanda, or "bliss." Krishna is known as Mukunda because He wants to give everyone spiritual, eternal, blissful life. Unfortunately, because of the living entity's little independence, the living entity wants to "deprogram" the program of Krishna. This is the material disease. Nonetheless, because Krishna wants to give transcendental bliss to the living entities, He appears in various forms. Therefore He is called Krishna. Because Gargamuni was an astrologer, he knew what others did not know. Yet Krishna has so many names that even Gargamuni did not know them all. It is to be concluded that Krishna, according to His transcendental activities, has many names and many forms.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
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