Skip to main content

ŚB 10.7.9

Devanagari

ऊचुरव्यवसितमतीन् गोपान्गोपीश्च बालका: ।
रुदतानेन पादेन क्षिप्तमेतन्न संशय: ॥ ९ ॥

Text

ūcur avyavasita-matīn
gopān gopīś ca bālakāḥ
rudatānena pādena
kṣiptam etan na saṁśayaḥ

Synonyms

ūcuḥ — said; avyavasita-matīn — who had lost all intelligence in the present situation; gopān — to the cowherd men; gopīḥ ca — and to the ladies; bālakāḥ — the children; rudatā anena — as soon as the child cried; pādena — with one leg; kṣiptam etat — this cart was dashed apart and immediately fell dismantled; na saṁśayaḥ — there is no doubt about it.

Translation

The assembled cowherd men and ladies began to contemplate how this thing had happened. “Is it the work of some demon or evil planet?” they asked. At that time, the small children present asserted that the cart had been kicked apart by the baby Kṛṣṇa. As soon as the crying baby had kicked the cart’s wheel, the cart had collapsed. There was no doubt about it.

Purport

We have heard of people’s being haunted by ghosts. Having no gross material body, a ghost seeks shelter of a gross body to stay in and haunt. The Śakaṭāsura was a ghost who had taken shelter of the handcart and was looking for the opportunity to do mischief to Kṛṣṇa. When Kṛṣṇa kicked the cart with His small and very delicate legs, the ghost was immediately pushed down to the earth and his shelter dismantled, as already described. This was possible for Kṛṣṇa because He has full potency, as confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.32):

aṅgāni yasya sakalendriya-vṛttimanti
paśyanti pānti kalayanti ciraṁ jaganti
ānanda-cinmaya-sad-ujjvala-vigrahasya
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

Kṛṣṇa’s body is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha, or ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-vigraha. That is, any of the parts of His ānanda-cinmaya body can act for any other part. Such are the inconceivable potencies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Supreme Lord does not need to acquire these potencies; He already has them. Thus Kṛṣṇa kicked His little legs, and His whole purpose was fulfilled. Also, when the handcart broke, an ordinary child could have been injured in many ways, but because Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He enjoyed the dismantling of the cart, and nothing injured Him. Everything done by Him is ānanda-cinmaya-rasa, full transcendental bliss. Thus Kṛṣṇa factually enjoyed.

The nearby children saw that actually Kṛṣṇa had kicked the wheel of the cart and this was how the accident happened. By the arrangement of Yoga-māyā, all the gopīs and gopas thought that the accident had taken place because of some bad planet or some ghost, but in fact everything was done by Kṛṣṇa and enjoyed by Him. Those who enjoy the activities of Kṛṣṇa are also on the platform of ānanda-cinmaya-rasa; they are liberated from the material platform. When one develops the practice of hearing kṛṣṇa-kathā, he is certainly transcendental to material existence, as confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate). Unless one is on the spiritual platform, one cannot enjoy the transcendental activities of Kṛṣṇa; or in other words, whoever engages in hearing the transcendental activities of Kṛṣṇa is not on the material platform, but on the transcendental, spiritual platform.