Srimad Bhagavatam – 1.15.25-26 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | June 30, 2025 |
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya
nama om vishnu-padaya krishna-preshthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracharine
nirvishesha-shunyavadi-pashchatya-desha-tarine
jaya sri-krishna-chaitanya
prabhu nityananda
sri-adwaita gadadhara
shrivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 1 Chapter 15 Verse 25.
ŚB 1.15.25-26
जलौकसां जले यद्वन्महान्तोऽदन्त्यणीयस: ।
दुर्बलान्बलिनो राजन्महान्तो बलिनो मिथ: ॥ २५ ॥
एवं बलिष्ठैर्यदुभिर्महद्भिरितरान् विभु: ।
यदून्यदुभिरन्योन्यं भूभारान् सञ्जहार ह ॥ २६ ॥
jalaukasāṁ jale yadvan
mahānto ’danty aṇīyasaḥ
durbalān balino rājan
mahānto balino mithaḥ
evaṁ baliṣṭhair yadubhir
mahadbhir itarān vibhuḥ
yadūn yadubhir anyonyaṁ
bhū-bhārān sañjahāra ha
Synonyms
jalaukasām — of the aquatics; jale — in the water; yadvat — as it is; mahāntaḥ — the larger one; adanti — swallows; aṇīyasaḥ — smaller ones; durbalān — the weak; balinaḥ — the stronger; rājan — O King; mahāntaḥ — the strongest; balinaḥ — less strong; mithaḥ — in a duel; evam — thus; baliṣṭhaiḥ — by the strongest; yadubhiḥ — by the descendants of Yadu; mahadbhiḥ — one who has greater strength; itarān — the common ones; vibhuḥ — the Supreme Personality of Godhead; yadūn — all the Yadus; yadubhiḥ — by the Yadus; anyonyam — among one another; bhū-bhārān — the burden of the world; sañjahāra — has unloaded; ha — in the past.
Translation
O King, as in the ocean the bigger and stronger aquatics swallow up the smaller and weaker ones, so also the Supreme Personality of Godhead, to lighten the burden of the earth, has engaged the stronger Yadu to kill the weaker, and the bigger Yadu to kill the smaller.
Purport
In the material world the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest are laws because in the material world there is disparity between conditioned souls due to everyone’s desire to lord it over the material resources. This very mentality of lording it over the material nature is the root cause of conditioned life. And to give facility to such imitation lords, the illusory energy of the Lord has created a disparity between conditioned living beings by creating the stronger and the weaker in every species of life. The mentality of lording it over the material nature and the creation has naturally created a disparity and therefore the law of struggle for existence. In the spiritual world there is no such disparity, nor is there such a struggle for existence. In the spiritual world there is no struggle for existence because everyone there exists eternally. There is no disparity because everyone wants to render service to the Supreme Lord, and no one wants to imitate the Lord in becoming the beneficiary. The Lord, being creator of everything, including the living beings, factually is the proprietor and enjoyer of everything that be, but in the material world, by the spell of māyā, or illusion, this eternal relation with the Supreme Personality of Godhead is forgotten, and so the living being is conditioned under the law of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So, here the explanation of the Yadus fighting among each other is explained in material terms. So, bigger fish eats smaller fish. And bigger animals eat smaller animals. So, in the same way, the stronger Yadus killed off the weaker Yadus. Of course, there is a little difference because all the Yadus got extinguished, stronger or weaker. So, this is just to explain destruction itself in the material world.
Everything gets destroyed and particularly, the bodies of the living entities get destroyed. They may get destroyed by other living creatures. Those creatures may be different species or same species. But even if the person is not destroyed by these other creatures in this world, nevertheless, the body gets destroyed, it dies at the end. It may be due to sickness or accident or old age. So all the material bodies are ultimately defeated. And the living entity is always struggling against being defeated in this world. So, this is what we call the struggle for existence. And it’s also part of Darwin’s theory of evolution. So, the stronger animals survive and the weaker ones disappear. So, of course, this is material. But it’s unavoidable in the material world.
In fact, we have larger and larger scales of destruction. So, within the day of Brahma, we have 14 floods. And then in the night of Brahma everything is gone, and the next day Brahma creates everything again, this goes on for 100 years of Brahma. And all these destructions keep going on, at the end of Brahma’s life, everything is destroyed completely. But even within the 14 parts of the day of Brahma, from flood to flood, then there is cycles of destruction again, so we have Satya, Treta, Dvapara, Kali. This is, we can say, particularly, to trace the destruction of human civilization from Satya to Kali. And then within each of these Yugas, then we have the living entities living and dying and living and dying. So the whole material world with all the material bodies is, and not just material bodies, even the material elements are subject to repeated destructions.
So, from a material point of view everything is destroyed, therefore the Yadus also, not surprisingly, were also destroyed. However, that’s, as I said, a material explanation, actually, the Yadus don’t have material bodies, Krishna does not have a material body. So, the Yadus just seem to follow the pattern of everything in this material world, everything gets destroyed, but actually, from the spiritual point of view, they are never destroyed.
So Srila Prabhupada describes here that in the spiritual world, the bodies are eternal, they are never destroyed. There is never a struggle for existence, since the bodies are eternal and they don’t depend on material food and water, etc. Of course, the big difference between the material world and the spiritual world is that, in the spiritual world everyone is serving the Supreme Lord. In the material world, everyone is struggling to support their material body. So, therefore, in the spiritual world, with a spiritual body, there is no destruction. There is no competition, there is no fighting to survive. So, therefore, in comparing the Yadus to the other creatures of this world, it is not actually correct. They are not like creatures of this material world.
So, usually we make comparisons of one thing to another based on similarity. Krishna’s eyes are compared to lotuses because the lotus is beautiful, the eye is beautiful; the lotus is soothing, the eye of Krishna is soothing, etc. Of course, no comparison is perfect. If they were completely identical, then we couldn’t make a comparison at all, the eye would be an eye and the lotus would be a lotus, that’s all. So, there’s always some fault in a material comparison. Lotus is very beautiful, but then it withers and dies. Krishna’s eyes and Krishna’s lotus feet do not wither and die. The lotus closes up at night, but Krishna’s eyes don’t close like that. So, therefore, the comparison is there, it’s a device by which we can understand things. So, we understand this and therefore we see the similarity of things, we ignore the differences which are actually there.
So, what is the similarity of the Yadus to animals struggling for material existence? Similarity is that, there was a conflict, they fought with each other, they destroyed each other. So, in that aspect, yes, they were like the creatures struggling because they fought with each other. But of course, as Prabhupada says in the purport, in the spiritual world, there is no conflict, there is no fighting at all. So, the Yadus seem to be fighting with each other and killing each other in the material world, actually cannot be true. So, it is something similar to the material world and it’s an arrangement of the Supreme Lord. But it is not factual. So, from the material point of view, yes, there is similarity with the struggling creatures of the material world. So, just as creatures of this material world killed and died, so it appeared as if Yadus killed each other and died.
However, as explained here in the last line, the Lord had a purpose in arranging this. So, he says here, ‘bhū-bhārān sañjahāra’, the Lord removed a burden on the earth. Of course, Krishna and the Yadus came to remove adharma and all the adharmic kings. After that was finished, then the Lord decided to disappear. So, He arranged for His disappearance, but then how are the Yadus going to disappear? So, He made this arrangement. If the Yadus remained on earth, then because they were Yadus and related to Krishna, no one could defeat them. But actually, the Lord’s mission was complete. So, there had to be a method by which the Yadus themselves would disappear. Since no one can defeat the Yadus, the only ones who can defeat them is themselves, so they fought among themselves. So, they were another burden on the earth, and they removed the burden by killing each other.
But this was only an arrangement of the Supreme Lord. It is something arranged for the people of the material world. And when people see this pastime, materialistic people see this pastime, then they can conclude, like other dynasties, etc., the Yadus destroyed themselves. But, of course, one who knows the real Bhagavatam, the conclusion of the Bhagavatam, he knows that the Yadus can never be destroyed. Krishna continually promises, you perform bhakti, and you destroy material bondage, you go to the spiritual world, you live there eternally with an eternal body, and there is no birth and death. So, how can the Yadus die? They are eternal associates of the Lord. So, it’s a contradiction.
So, this is where it is necessary for the devotees to study with the commentaries of the Acharyas. By studying with those commentaries, we can understand the real conclusion. But if we just look at the external events, we see there is a big contradiction. So, the materialists will conclude that Yadus destroyed themselves. Krishna was killed. Therefore, Yadus and Krishna have material bodies. Why should we worship them? The scripture says, worship Krishna, go to the spiritual world, become eternal, that must be false. So, the arrangement of this pastime has another reason.
As I said previously, the Bhagavatam is called Mohini. It bewilders the materialists and the demons, so that when they hear Bhagavatam, they get completely the wrong meaning. Whereas, those who are devotees, will get the correct meaning. So, this pastime of the disappearance of Krishna and the Yadus, is a pastime to bewilder the demons. The devotees understand Krishna is eternal, devotees are eternal, Yadus are eternal. And therefore, the story of the Yadus killing each other and Krishna dying, must be false. And of course, if we look in Bhagavatam itself, we’ll see evidence that this is not the truth. All of this completely contradicts the very purpose of the Bhagavatam. The purpose of the Bhagavatam is that, everybody should worship Krishna and get Krishna Prema and go to the spiritual world. But if we take this pastime as factual, then there is no point in going to the spiritual world, because everybody kills each other and everybody dies. So, if the materialist reads the story, then he will say, this is true, all this other stuff in the Bhagavatam is false. So, the materialist cannot actually see the whole purpose of the Bhagavatam, he’ll just take certain pastimes or certain statements and isolate those and come to a materialistic conclusion.
The devotee will take these particular pastimes that look like contradictory, and then, with the help of the Acharyas and the text itself, he will find a good solution. So, the individual, in studying Bhagavatam, cannot be blind, he has to read very intelligently. And he has to resolve all of the contradictory statements or pastimes. So, the devotee does that, using his intelligence and using the intelligence of the Acharyas. So, that is why Srila Prabhupada and previous Acharyas always emphasized that we have to hear the scriptures through authorized devotees. And then we will get proper conclusions. And it is with those conclusions that we can practice our bhakti properly.
Hare Krsna !
Q&A
1) Hare Krishna Maharaj. In Dwaraka, we can understand that Krishna disappeared through the arrow. It is looking like material and Yadus also disappeared by Krishna’s arrangement. In Vrindavan, how they disappeared, it is always there. We are not able to see that, because of prakata / aprakata?
It is explained in Padma purana that Krishna went back to Vrindavan after killing Dantavakra. After continuing pastimes for some time there, He brought a plane from the sky. All the Vrajavasis boarded the plane and all of them went to the human world. So that is one explanation of how they disappeared.
2) Regarding the killing of the hunter to Krishna is with the arrow and Krishna gets killed. But what Krishna had been attacked is with the Virat body. Krishna has the Virat body but other incarnation doesn’t have the Virat body. Is this the right understanding Maharaj?
It is explained that Krishna left the body that was the Virat rupa or the universal form. That means that what looked like Krishna’s body was material elements but it wasn’t Krishna. So Krishna leaves the material body which they can burn or whatever they want to do. At the same time Krishna remains in a spiritual body which they cannot see.
Now any avatar of the Lord, in one sense they are all one with the Lord so they have all powers. So we see that Vamanadeva expanded Himself. He became like the Virat rupa also and He covered the whole universe etc. with all the planetary systems etc. So it is possible other forms of the Lord also can display a Virat rupa. Ultimately all of the avatars and the Supreme Lord, they are the source of everything in the material world.
3) In this particular verse the Yadus are considered as a burden for the earth but generally the devotees are never a burden. They are the source of removing the burden of the earth. Why is mentioned like they are the burden for the earth?
So after the Yadus and Krishna they had defeated all of the demons then Krishna would disappear. If the Yadus remained, then no one could defeat them. So of course because they are devotees they would always remain pure etc., But from a material point of view of course, if they hold on to power eternally in the material world that looks like it could be very corrupting and very like a burden on the earth itself.
The Yadus would become proud that no one could conquer them. So in that sense it was a burden on the earth. But of course we know from the spiritual point of view the Yadus would never have such a contamination. So the devotee is never a burden [Laughs]. So from the material point of view they could become a burden.
4) What is the process of appointing a new Brahma after existing Brahma’s life ends?
Brahma like Devatas in the material world are qualified for their posts by being devotees. They help preserve the material world and they preserve Dharma. Of course Brahma is beyond or higher than the Devatas, so his qualification as a devotee is much greater. Still they are Jivas. Brahma is a Jiva and he has a material body. But he is given some special powers by which he can carry out creation and supervise creation. If there is no qualified person, then the Supreme Lord Himself may take the post of Brahma.
5) Whether struggle for existence is there for one who engages in loving devotional service for Sri Krishna in this material world?
Because we have a material body we have to support the material body. However, many people in the material world they go into excess beyond supporting the material body. So they want to get extra enjoyment. So the devotee has to maintain his body in order to perform devotional service. But he should not strive to get more material enjoyment with that material body. So in the 64 angas of Bhakti, among the first 10 angas there is one rule. It states that the devotee maintains his body in order to perform bhakti, that means he doesn’t strive for more enjoyment with that material body.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatham Ki Jai!!! HH Bhanu swami maharaj ki jai!!!