Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 4.8.47

śrīvatsāńkam ghana-śyāmam

purusham vana-mālinam

śańkha-cakra-gadā-padmair

abhivyakta-caturbhujam

SYNONYMS

śrīvatsa-ańkam — the mark of Śrīvatsa on the chest of the Lord; ghana-śyāmam — deeply bluish; purusham — the Supreme Person; vana-mālinam — with a garland of flowers; śańkha — conchshell; cakra — wheel; gadā — club; padmaih — lotus flower; abhivyakta — manifested; catuh-bhujam — four handed.

TRANSLATION

The Lord is further described as having the mark of Śrīvatsa, or the sitting place of the goddess of fortune, and His bodily hue is deep bluish. The Lord is a person, He wears a garland of flowers, and He is eternally manifest with four hands, which hold [beginning from the lower left hand] a conchshell, wheel, club and lotus flower.

PURPORT

Here in this verse the word purusham is very significant. The Lord is never female. He is always male (purusha). Therefore the impersonalist who imagines the Lord's form as that of a woman is mistaken. The Lord appears in female form if necessary, but His perpetual form is purusha because He is originally male. The feminine feature of the Lord is displayed by goddesses of fortune — Lakshmī, Rādhārānī, Sītā, etc. All these goddesses of fortune are servitors of the Lord; they are not the Supreme, as falsely imagined by the impersonalist. Lord Krishna in His Nārāyana feature is always four handed. On the Battlefield of Kurukshetra, when Arjuna wanted to see His universal form, He showed this feature of four-handed Nārāyana. Some devotees are of the opinion that Krishna is an incarnation of Nārāyana, but the Bhāgavata school says that Nārāyana is a manifestation of Krishna.

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