Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.13.62

dṛṣṭvā tvareṇa nija-dhoraṇato 'vatīrya

pṛthvyāḿ vapuḥ kanaka-daṇḍam ivābhipātya

spṛṣṭvā catur-mukuṭa-koṭibhir ańghri-yugmaḿ

natvā mud-aśru-sujalair akṛtābhiṣekam

SYNONYMS

dṛṣṭvā — after seeing; tvareṇa — with great speed, hastily; nija-dhoraṇataḥ — from his swan carrier; avatīrya — descended; pṛthvyām — on the ground; vapuḥ — his body; kanaka-daṇḍam iva — like a golden rod; abhipātya — fell down; spṛṣṭvā — touching; catuḥ-mukuṭa-koṭi-bhiḥ — with the tips of his four crowns; ańghri-yugmam — the two lotus feet; natvā — making obeisances; mut-aśru-su-jalaiḥ — with the water of his tears of joy; akṛta — performed; abhiṣekam — the ceremony of bathing His lotus feet.

TRANSLATION

After seeing this, Lord Brahmā hastily got down from his swan carrier, fell down like a golden rod and touched the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa with the tips of the four crowns on his heads. Offering his obeisances, he bathed the feet of Kṛṣṇa with the water of his tears of joy.

PURPORT

Lord Brahmā bowed down like a stick, and because Lord Brahmā's complexion is golden, he appeared to be like a golden stick lying down before Lord Kṛṣṇa. When one falls down before a superior just like a stick, one's offering of obeisances is called daṇḍavat. Daṇḍa means "stick," and vat means "like." It is not that one should simply say, "daṇḍavat." Rather, one must fall down. Thus Brahmā fell down, touching his foreheads to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, and his crying in ecstasy is to be regarded as an abhiṣeka bathing ceremony of Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet.

He who appeared before Brahmā as a human child was in fact the Absolute Truth, Parabrahman (brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate). The Supreme Lord is narākṛti; that is, He resembles a human being. It is not that He is four-armed (catur-bāhu). Nārāyaṇa is catur-bāhu, but the Supreme Person resembles a human being. This is also confirmed in the Bible, where it is said that man was made in the image of God.

Lord Brahmā saw that Kṛṣṇa, in His form as a cowherd boy, was Parabrahman, the root cause of everything, but was now appearing as a human child, loitering in Vṛndāvana with a morsel of food in His hand. Astonished, Lord Brahmā hastily got down from his swan carrier and let his body fall to the earth. Usually, the demigods never touch the ground, but Lord Brahmā, voluntarily giving up his prestige as a demigod, bowed down on the ground before Kṛṣṇa. Although Brahmā has one head in each direction, he voluntarily brought all his heads to the ground and touched Kṛṣṇa's feet with the tips of his four helmets. Although his intelligence works in every direction, he surrendered everything before the boy Kṛṣṇa.

It is mentioned that Brahmā washed the feet of Kṛṣṇa with his tears, and here the word sujalaiḥ indicates that his tears were purified. As soon as bhakti is present, everything is purified (sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam [Cc. Madhya 19.170]). Therefore Brahmā's crying was a form of bhakty-anubhāva, a transformation of transcendental ecstatic love.

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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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