Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 5.25.1

śrī-śuka uvāca

tasya mūla-deśe trimśad-yojana-sahasrāntara āste yā vai kalā bhagavatas tāmasī samākhyātānanta iti sātvatīyā drashtri-driśyayoh sańkarshanam aham ity abhimāna-lakshanam yam sańkarshanam ity ācakshate

SYNONYMS

śrī-śukah uvāca — Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī said; tasya — of the planet Pātāla; mūla-deśe — in the region beneath the base; trimśat — thirty; yojana — eight-mile units of measurement; sahasra-antare — at an interval of one thousand; āste — remains; yā — which; vai — indeed; kalā — an expansion of an expansion; bhagavatah — of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; tāmasī — related to darkness; samākhyātā — called; anantah — Ananta; iti — thus; sātvatīyāh — the devotees; drashtri-driśyayoh — of matter and spirit; sańkarshanam — the drawing together; aham — I; iti — thus; abhimāna — by self-conception; lakshanam — symptomized; yam — whom; sańkarshanam — Sańkarshana; iti — thus; ācakshate — learned scholars describe.

TRANSLATION

Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī said to Mahārāja Parīkshit: My dear King, approximately 240,000 miles beneath the planet Pātāla lives another incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is the expansion of Lord Vishnu known as Lord Ananta or Lord Sańkarshana. He is always in the transcendental position, but because He is worshiped by Lord Śiva, the deity of tamo-guna or darkness, He is sometimes called tāmasī. Lord Ananta is the predominating Deity of the material mode of ignorance as well as the false ego of all conditioned souls. When a conditioned living being thinks, "I am the enjoyer, and this world is meant to be enjoyed by me," this conception of life is dictated to him by Sańkarshana. Thus the mundane conditioned soul thinks himself the Supreme Lord.

PURPORT

There is a class of men akin to Māyāvādī philosophers who misinterpret the aham brahmāsmi and so'ham Vedic mantras to mean, "I am the Supreme Brahman" and "I am identical with the Lord." This kind of false conception, in which one thinks himself the supreme enjoyer, is a kind of illusion. It is described elsewhere in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (5.5.8): janasya moho 'yam aham mameti. As explained in the above verse, Lord Sańkarshana is the predominating Deity of this false conception. Krishna confirms this in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15):

sarvasya cāham hridi sannivishto

mattah smritir jñānam apohanam ca

"I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness." The Lord is situated in everyone's heart as Sańkarshana, and when a demon thinks himself one with the Supreme Lord, the Lord keeps him in that darkness. Although such a demoniac living entity is only an insignificant part of the Supreme Lord, he forgets his true position and thinks he is the Supreme Lord. Because this forgetfulness is created by Sańkarshana, He is sometimes called tāmasī. The name tāmasī does not indicate that He has a material body. He is always transcendental, but because He is the Supersoul of Lord Śiva, who must perform tamasic activities, Sańkarshana is sometimes called tāmasī.

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