| Canto 10: The Summum Bonum | Chapter 82: Krishna and Balarāma Meet the Inhabitants of Vrindāvana |
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.82.1
athaikadā dvāravatyām
vasato rāma-krishnayoh
SYNONYMS
śrī-śukah uvāca — Śukadeva Gosvāmī said; atha — then; ekadā — on one occasion; dvāravatyām — in Dvārakā; vasatoh — while They were living; rāma-krishnayoh — Balarāma and Krishna; sūrya — of the sun; uparāgah — an eclipse; su-mahān — very great; āsīt — there was; kalpa — of Lord Brahmā's day; kshaye — at the end; yathā — as if.
TRANSLATION
Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: Once, while Balarāma and Krishna were living in Dvārakā, there occurred a great eclipse of the sun, just as if the end of Lord Brahmā's day had come.
PURPORT
As Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura points out, the words atha and ekadā are commonly used in Sanskrit literature to introduce a new topic. Here they especially indicate that the reunion of the Yadus and Vrishnis at Kurukshetra is being narrated out of chronological sequence.
Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī explains in his Vaishnava-toshanī commentary that the events of this eighty-second chapter occur after Lord Baladeva's visit to Vraja (Chapter 65) and before Mahārāja Yudhishthira's Rājasūya sacrifice (Chapter 74). This must be so, the ācārya reasons, since during the eclipse at Kurukshetra all the Kurus, including Dhritarāshtra, Yudhishthira, Bhīshma and Drona, met in friendship and happily shared the company of Śrī Krishna. At the Rājasūya-yajña, on the other hand, Duryodhana's jealousy against the Pāndavas became irrevocably inflamed. Soon after this, Duryodhana challenged Yudhishthira and his brothers to the gambling match, in which he cheated them of their kingdom and exiled them to the forest. Right after the Pāndavas' return from exile, the great Battle of Kurukshetra took place, during which Bhīshma and Drona were killed. So it is not logically possible for the solar eclipse at Kurukshetra to have happened after the Rājasūya sacrifice.
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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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