Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 2.3.8

dharmārtha uttama-ślokaḿ

tantuḥ tanvan pitṝn yajet

rakṣā-kāmaḥ puṇya-janān

ojas-kāmo marud-gaṇān

SYNONYMS

dharma-arthaḥ — for spiritual advancement; uttama-ślokam — the Supreme Lord or persons attached to the Supreme Lord; tantuḥ — for offspring; tanvan — and for their protection; pitṝn — the residents of Pitṛloka; yajet — must worship; rakṣā-kāmaḥ — one who desires protection; puṇya-janān — pious persons; ojaḥ-kāmaḥ — one who desires strength should worship; marut-gaṇān — the demigods.

TRANSLATION

One should worship Lord Viṣṇu or His devotee for spiritual advancement in knowledge, and for protection of heredity and advancement of a dynasty one should worship the various demigods.

PURPORT

The path of religion entails making progress on the path of spiritual advancement, ultimately reviving the eternal relation with Lord Viṣṇu in His impersonal effulgence, His localized Paramātmā feature, and ultimately His personal feature by spiritual advancement in knowledge. And one who wants to establish a good dynasty and be happy in the progress of temporary bodily relations should take shelter of the Pitās and the demigods in other pious planets. Such different classes of worshipers of different demigods may ultimately reach the respective planets of those demigods within the universe, but he who reaches the spiritual planets in the brahmajyoti achieves the highest perfection.

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