Wordings
Jayatu, Jayatu, Deva, Devakinandana, Ayam Jayatu, Jayatu, Krishna, Vrishni, Vansa, Pradapa. Jayatu, Jayatu, Meghashyamala, Komalanga. Jayatu, Jayatu, Prithwi, Bharanasha, Mukunda.
Synonyms
Jayatu—All glories to; Meghashyamala—Blackish likened cloud.; Deva—The Personality of Godhead,; Komalanga—Very soft body.; Devakinandana—Son of Devaki; Prithwi—Earth; Ayam—This; Bharanasha—Remover of obstacles; Krishna—Lord Krishna; Mukunda—Lord Shri Krishna; Vishni—Forefather of Krishna; Vansa—Dynesty; Pradupa—Lime light.
Translation
All glories to this Personality of Godhead known as the Son of Shrimati Devakidevi. All glories to Lord Shri Krishna who has appeared Himself as the limelight in the dynesty of Vrishni. All glories to the (Personality of Godhead) Whose bodily hue is resembling the blackish colour of new cloud and is very soft also. All glories to Lord Shri Krishna known as Mukunda who is remover of all obstacles on the earth!
Purport
The whole theme of this sloka is to reaffirm the Supreme Truth as the Supreme Person whose bodily colour and texture is also described. Impersonal Brahman cannot have a body which is actually felt as soft as anything or whose bodily hue is also visualised. The Personality of Godhead appeared as the Son of Vasudeva and Devaki because this couple entertained for a very long period of severe austerity for having the Supreme Lord as their son.
Satisfied by their penance and determination the Supreme Lord agreed to be the their son. The description of the lord's birth in the Sreemad Bhagwatam is given in which we can understand that the Lord appeared before Vasudeva and Devaki as Narayana with four hands but when they prayed,—the Lord became a small baby with two hands. In the Bhagwat Geeta the description of the Lords' birth and deeds are given as transcendental and simply by understanding the mysteries of His transcendental birth and deeds—one can become liberated from the clutches of Maya and go back to Godhead. Therefore there is a gulf of difference between the birth of Devaki nandan Krishna and that of an ordinary man. The Supreme Lord is the original father of all living entities and how then He can become the son of a Lady known as Devaki? Devaki cannot give birth to the Lord as much the eastern horizon cannot give birth to the Sun. The Sun appears on the eastern horizon and disappears on the west but actually the sun does neither rises nor sets in. The Sun is always on the horizon but the earth is revolving. By different positions of the revolving earth the Sun appears to be rising on or setting in. In the same way the Supreme Lord in His impersonal feature of Brahman He is everywhere outside and inside. He is inside of everything beginning from the gigantic universal cosmic appearance down to the atoms and electrons as Paramatma. Nothing exists without His sustenance and we have already described this in the previous sloka in connection with the word Jaganswami. Therefore the Lord in either of His three features He is present every where although in His Supreme abode He is always busy with His transcendental
pastimes. Poor fund of knowledge cannot accomodate the idea of the Lords appearance in Person on the face of the earth because they are not conversant with the intricacies of the Lords' transcendental position. Whenever there is the appearance of the Lord, men with poor fund of knowledge do take Him to be either a super human being born with material body or a historical Personality worshipped under the influence of anthropomorphism. Such men with poor fund of knowledge do hover under the intoxication of either anthropomorphism or zoomorphism. But the Lord is not their plaything He is what He is and does not agree to be a subject of their speculative mind perpetually thinking upon His impersonal feature. The Supreme position of the Absolute Truth is personal but impersonal Brahman is His effulgance as much as diffusion of light is the feature of a powerful fire. The fire is lit up at one place but it diffuses its warmth & light all round exhibiting thereby its different energies. Similarly the Supreme Personality by His variegated energies can expand Himself energetically in manifold ways and such energies are known in different designations. Men with poor fund of knowledge is captivated by one part of His energy without any penetration into the original source of the energy. Whatever astounding energy there is including the latest atomic and hydrogenic energies are all parts & parcels of His material energy whereas superior to this material energy is the marginal energy exhibited as the living being. Besides these energies the Supreme Lord has another energy
which is known as the internal energy. The marginal energy has resemblance of the material energy as well as the internal energy but factually it belongs to the group of internal energy of the Lord. The living beings are therefore infinitesemal samples of the Supreme Lord qualitatively. Qualitatively both the living being as well as the Supreme Lord—are equal but quantitatively they are different because the Lord is potent with unlimited energy whereas the living entity being infinitesemal in texture, his energy is limited by constitution.
Although the Lord is full with all energies and self sufficient He enjoys a transcendental pleasure to become a subordinate underhand of His unalloyed devotees. There are persons who are great devotees of the Lord but cannot surpass the boundary of awe and veneration. But there are other devotees who are so intensely compact in love with the Lord that they forget the exhalted position of the Lord and takes Him even less important than Him. Such devotees are eternal associates of the Lord and they are related with Him in higher status of friendship, parenthood and consorthood. Such devotees compact in the tie of friendship with the Lord think that the Lord is as much important as they are or even less important than they are. Devotees who are tied up in relation of transcendental parenthood think of the Lord as their nurishable kiddy. They forget the exhalted position of the Lord and think that unless the Lord is properly taken care of His health, He may become victim of undernurishment or may deteriorate in health. Similarly devotees in consorthood relation do deliberately rebuke Him to set Him correct and the Lord accepts those rebuking more pleasantly than the prayers of the Vedas. Ordinary devotees who are boundup by the formalities of Vedic rites are unable to enter deep
into such confidential loving service of the Lord and as such they are simply engaged in impersonal calamities of imperfect realisation.
Vasudeva and Devaki or still greater than them Nanda and Jasoda are such confidential devotees of the Lord. The Lord takes pleasure in being called as the son of Devaki (Devakinandana) the son of Nanda (Nandanana) the son of Jasoda (Jasodanandan), the son of King Dasarath (Dasarathi) the husband of Janaki (Janakinatha) etc. To address the Lord by such names gives him many many times pleasure than by worshipping Him with the name 'The Supreme Father' 'The Greatest of the Great' 'Parameswara' or anything of that nature which indicate volumes of awe and veneration. Therefore to glorify the Lord by addressing Him with the word is purposeful and conveys a transcendental weight.
As already explained hereinbefore, all the Names of the Lord are equally powerful and potential like the Lord Himself but there are different varieties of transcendental mellows in His different transcendental Names. For example it is stated in the Shastras that there are one thousand principal names of Lord Vishnu the Personality of Godhead. Out of them if a person utters the Name 'Rama' only —he gets the result of chanting one thousand such names of Vishnu. Then again if somebody chants the name 'Krishna' he can achieve the result of chanting the name 'Rama' for three times. In other words one Krishna name is equal to three thousand of other Vishnu names.
The King Kulashekhara has therefore selected to glorify the Lord by two specific names namely Devaki-nandan and Krishna. Krishna is the lime-light of the Vrishni dynesty because the Vrishni-dynesty is sanctified by crores of generations for the Lord's appearance in that family. It is
stated in the Shastras that a family is santified by 100 one hundred generations up and down if in that family a pure devotee is born. And the place where a devotee is born sanctifies up to 100 miles of radius area. If a devotee can sanctify the place and family of his birth so extraordinarily then what to speak of the family or dynesty in which He prefers to take His birth.
The question of the Lords' taking birth on the face of the globe is certainly very mysterious and therefore it is difficult to be believed by ordinary men how the all powerful supreme Lord can take His birth seemingly like an ordinary man. The matter is explained in the Bhagwat Geeta (4/6). The Lord says there 'Although I am birthless or unborn, beginningless and eternal still I appear as I have taken my birth. I do take my birth not only in the family of the human being but also in the family of the gods, acquatic, animals etc." One may argue that ordinary living being also takes his birth in different species of life although such living soul is eternal and unborn. So what is the difference between the Lord and ordinary living being? The difference is that ordinary living being transmigrates from one species of life to another by changing the body but in the case of the Lord there is no change of the body. The Lord appears in His original body without any change. There is no difference between the Lord and His body because everything of Him is spirit and there is nothing to be distinguished between His body and soul. He is both the body and the soul. By the word 'Abyatma' in the Bhagwat Geeta it is clearly defined that the Lords body is not made of any material element. He is all spirit. Birth and death are two co-relative terms applied only in relation with the body. The body of the ordinary living being is made of material element and therefore the two relative terms are applied in relation with his body. But the Lords' body being all spiritual & eternal, the terms of birth and death have no application at all. Neither
the Lord can be forced to take His birth in some particular family like the ordinary living being as a result of his past deeds. The Lord is the Supreme Controller of the elements and He has no past present or future because He is beginning less. He has nothing to do with vice and virtues because He is the master of all vices and virtues and Absolute As He is there is no difference between His vices & virtues. In His relation, both vices & virtues are one and the samething otherwise the Lord cannot be Absolute Truth. The Lord appears by His internal potency and therefore His appearance in different species of life are not the creation of the external potency Maya. Therefore those, who consider that the Supreme Lord appears in different shapes after accepting a body of material element, are wrong in their imperfect vision or they donot understand the import of internal potency. In the Sruti Mantras of the Vedas it is enquired as to where does the Supreme Lord stand? And the reply is immediately given that He stands on His internal potency. Therefore Sripada Madhusudan Saraswati has cleared the arguments by stating that the Lord appears seemingly like an ordinary being but in fact there is no difference between Him and His body. He is Absolute in His appearance in all species of life.
In other words both the living being and the Supreme Lord do appear in this material world under different circumstances this different circumstances of appearances can be easily understood if the import of different potencies, is also understood. As explained before the Lords' potency is displayed in three aspects namely Internal, marginal and external. As we have experience of material or external potency in a major capacity generally we fail to appreciate the actions and reactions of the other two potencies. But if we try to understand the meaning of a doll and a man then we can understand the meaning of God. Take it for granted that these are three identities namely God, Man and the Doll. Doll is the representative of matter or material energy. Man is the representative of material & spiritual energy combinedly. But God is the representative of spiritual energy in whole. Doll is all matter internally & externally. Man is externally matter but internally spirit. But God is all spirit both internally and externally. As the doll is all matter so God is all spirit. But the man is half spirit and half matter.
As such the body of Godhead cannot be compared with the body of a living being. He is called therefore Abyatma. He is absolute beginningless, unborn & eternal while the living being is relatively beginningless, unborn and partially eternal. The living being is partially eternal because if he so desires he can merge into the body of the Absolute. If he does not do so then his eternity is also maintained.
The conclusion is that the Personality of Godhead appears in His original body without any change and this is made possible by His inconceivable potency. We should always remember that nothing is impossible in the potency of the Lord. Even if He so desires, He can transform the complete material energy into spiritual energy or if he so desires He can bring in the whole spiritual nature within the material nature without being affected by the material modes in anyway. The rigidity of the different potencies are controlled by Him. In fact His potency is one and the same namely the internal potency. And the same internal potency is controlled by Him for different purposes. It is similar to the comparison of the power of electricity. The same electricity power is utilised by a controller both for the purpose of heating & cooling. Such contradictory actions take place by the expert handling of the controller. And in the same way the same internal potency of the Supreme Lord are differently displayed according to the Supreme Will of the Lord. That is the information we get it from the 'Srutis' "Para, asya, sakti, vividaiba sruyate, swabhaviki, jnana, vala, kria. cha."
It is stated in this sloka that the colour of the Lords' body is as blackish as that of new cloud. And his body is very soft. Softness of body is the sign of great personalities. In the Shastras there is a lucid explanation of different symptoms of the body of great personalities. They are as follows:—
Here is a statement of 32 signs of great personalities described in the Samudraka (3).
Panchadirgha, pancha sukshma, saptarakta, sada unnata. Tri hraswa,-prithu-gambhira, dwatrensa lakshmana. mahan.
5 Pancha dirgha=Five parts of the body namely the nostril, the hand, the—, the Thigh, and the eyes elongated.
5 Pancha sukshma=Five parts of the body namely the skin, the top of the fingures, the teeth and the hairs of the body finer and soft.
7 Saptarakta=Seven parts of the body namely the eyes, the foot, the palm, the palate, the lips, and the nails are redish.
(?) Sada unnata=Six parts of the body namely the chest, the shoulders the nails, the nose, the waist and the mouth are elevated.
3 Tri hraswa=three parts of the body namely the neck, the Thighs are the (….) shortened
3 Prithu=three parts of the body namely the waist, forehead, and the chest broadened.
3 Gambhira=Three parts of the body namely the naive, the sound and the constitution very deep.
32. The colour of the body of the Lord is as blackish as that of new cloud is also confirmed in the Brahma Samhita. But the blackishness is so beautiful that it surpassed the beauty of crores of cupid. This blackishness therefore does not belong to any idea of blackishness in the material world. Such statements in respect of bodily description of the Lord are not imaginary but they are the statements of those who have seen Him by their supernatural vision. Such supernatural vision is bestowed upon the devotees like Brahma and those who follow the footprints of such pure devotees. Upstarts and unbelievers cannot have any access to such transcendental vision for want of required submission.
The Lord is called the remover of all troubles on the earth. Malthus' theory of population in the economic laws in the natural consequence of this act of removing the troubles on the earth. The theory of over-population or unwanted men are killed by the laws of nature—is exhibited by the Lord Himself in the act of His destroying His own dynesty called by the name JaduVamsa. Such ballancing destructive action is continuously going on all over the universe and therefore the cosmic situation is called 'Bhava' or that which is repeatedly destroyed and repeatedly generated. Whenever the civil-disobedience (text missing)