Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.90.42

sańkhyānaḿ yādavānāḿ kaḥ

kariṣyati mahātmanām

yatrāyutānām ayuta-

lakṣeṇāste sa āhukaḥ

SYNONYMS

sańkhyānam — the counting; yādavānām — of the Yādavas; kaḥ — who; kariṣyati — can do; mahā-ātmanām — of the great personalities; yatra — among whom; ayutānām — of tens of thousands; ayuta — (times) ten thousand; lakṣeṇa — with (three) hundred thousand (persons); āste — was present; saḥ — he; āhukaḥ — Ugrasena.

TRANSLATION

Who can count all the great Yādavas, when among them King Ugrasena alone was accompanied by an entourage of thirty trillion attendants?

PURPORT

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī explains why specifically thirty trillion, rather than an indefinite number of tens of trillions, is stated here to be the number of King Ugrasena's attendants. He does so by citing the interpretational rule of kapiñjalādhikaraṇa, the logic of "referring to pigeons": Somewhere in the Vedas is found the injunction that "one should sacrifice some pigeons." This plural number should be taken to mean not an indiscriminate number of pigeons, but precisely three of them, since the Vedas never leave any matter vague. The rules of Mīmāḿsā interpretation take three as the default number when no specific number is given.

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