Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.87.12-13

śrī-sanandana uvāca

sva-srishtam idam āpīya

śayānam saha śaktibhih

tad-ante bodhayām cakrus

tal-lińgaih śrutayah param

yathā śayānam samrājam

vandinas tat-parākramaih

pratyūshe 'bhetya su-ślokair

bodhayanty anujīvinah

SYNONYMS

śrī-sanandanah — Śrī Sanandana (the exalted mind-born son of Brahmā who was chosen to reply to the sages' inquiry); uvāca — said; sva — by Himself; srishtam — created; idam — this (universe); āpīya — having withdrawn; śayānam — lying asleep; saha — with; śaktibhih — His energies; tat — of that (period of universal dissolution); ante — at the end; bodhayām cakruh — they awakened Him; tat — His; lińgaih — with (descriptions of) His characteristics; śrutayah — the Vedas; param — the Supreme; yathā — just as; śayānam — sleeping; samrājam — a king; vandinah — his court poets; tat — his; parākramaih — with (recitations of) the heroic deeds; pratyūshe — at dawn; abhetya — approaching him; suślokaih — poetic; bodhayanti — they awaken; anujīvinah — his servants.

TRANSLATION

Śrī Sanandana replied: After the Supreme Lord withdrew the universe He had previously created, He lay for some time as if asleep, and all His energies rested dormant within Him. When the time came for the next creation, the personified Vedas awakened Him by chanting His glories, just as the poets serving a king approach him at dawn and awaken him by reciting his heroic deeds.

PURPORT

At the time of creation, the Vedas are the first emanation from the breathing of Lord Mahā-Vishnu, and in personified form they serve Him by waking Him from His mystic sleep. This statement made by Sanandana implies that Sanaka and the other sages had asked him the same question that Nārada had asked Nārāyana Rishi and Mahārāja Parīkshit had asked Śukadeva Gosvāmī. Sanandana refers the question back to the example of the personified Vedas themselves in their address to Lord Mahā-Vishnu. Even though the Vedas knew that the Lord, being omniscient, does not need to be informed of His glories, they enthusiastically took this opportunity to praise Him.

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