स वाच्यवाचकतया भगवान्ब्रह्मरूपधृक् नामरूपक्रिया धत्ते सकर्माकर्मकः परः
sa vācya-vācakatayā bhagavān brahma-rūpa-dhṛk nāma-rūpa-kriyā dhatte sa-karmākarmakaḥ paraḥ
Synonyms
saḥ—He; vācya—by His forms and activities; vācakatayā—by His transcendental qualities and entourage; bhagavān—the Personality of Godhead; brahma—absolute; rūpa-dhṛk—by accepting visible forms; nāma—name; rūpa—form; kriyā—pastimes; dhatte—accepts; sa-karma—engaged in work; akarmakaḥ—without being affected; paraḥ—transcendence..
Translation
He, the Personality of Godhead, manifests Himself in a transcendental form, being the subject of His transcendental name, quality, pastimes, entourage and transcendental variegatedness. Although He is unaffected by all such activities, He appears to be so engaged.
Purport
Whenever there is need of material creation, the transcendental Personality of Godhead accepts forms in the material world for creation, maintenance and destruction, and one should be intelligent enough to know His activities in truth without being biased to conclude that He descends in the material world by accepting a form created by material nature. Any form accepted from the material nature has its affection to everything done in the material world. A conditioned soul who accepts the material form for undergoing a certain term of material activities is subjected to the laws of matter. But here in this verse it is clearly stated that the forms and activities of the Lord, although they appear to be the same as those of another conditioned soul, are supernatural and impossible for the conditioned soul. He, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is always unaffected by such activities. In the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says:
na māṁ karmāṇi limpanti na me karma-phale spṛhā
iti māṁ yo 'bhijānāti karmabhir na sa badhyate
(Bg. 4.14)
The Lord is never affected by the activities which He apparently performs by His different incarnations and personalities, nor does He have any desire to achieve success by fruitive activities. The Lord is full by His different potencies of wealth, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge and renunciation, and thus He has no reason for physical exertion like the conditioned soul. Therefore an intelligent person who can distinguish between the transcendental activities of the Lord and those of the conditioned souls also is not bound by the reactions of activities. The Lord as Viṣṇu, Brahmā and Śiva conducts the three modes of material nature. From Viṣṇu is born Brahmā, and from Brahmā is born Śiva. Sometimes Brahmā is a separated part of Viṣṇu, and sometimes Brahmā is Viṣṇu Himself. Thus Brahmā creates the different species of life all over the universe, which means that the Lord creates the whole manifestation either Himself or through the agency of His authorized deputies.