Srimad Bhagavatam : 10.52.34-36 – by HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj on Dec 7, 2024 @ ISKCON Japan
Text 34
kaccid vaḥ kuśalaṁ brahman
rājato yasya hi prajāḥ
sukhaṁ vasanti viṣaye
pālyamānāḥ sa me priyaḥ
Translation
O brāhmaṇa, is your King attending to your welfare? Indeed, that king in whose country the citizens are happy and protected is very dear to Me.
Text 35
yatas tvam āgato durgaṁ
nistīryeha yad-icchayā
sarvaṁ no brūhy aguhyaṁ cet
kiṁ kāryaṁ karavāma te
Translation
Whence have you come, crossing the impassable sea, and for what purpose? Explain all this to Us if it is not a secret, and tell Us what We may do for you.
Text 36
evaṁ sampṛṣṭa-sampraśno
brāhmaṇaḥ parameṣṭhinā
līlā-gṛhīta-dehena
tasmai sarvam avarṇayat
Translation
Thus questioned by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who incarnates to perform His pastimes, the brāhmaṇa told Him everything.
Purport
The word gṛhīta may be translated as “grasped or caught,” and thus, exactly as in English, may also mean “to perceive or understand something.” Therefore Lord Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental body is perceived, understood, or in other words, grasped by the devotees when the Lord comes to exhibit His transcendental pastimes. These pastimes are not whimsical, but are a part of the complex program, structured and executed by the Lord Himself, for awakening the conditioned souls to their natural love and devotion for Him and bringing them back to Godhead.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj :
So Krishna has been asking the brahmana about his welfare. Through that He shows His great respect for the brahmanas. Of course, He is also indicating that the kings should protect the brahmanas. So, this brahmana has come to the Supreme Lord with a certain purpose. And to do that he has undergone some difficulties. So that’s why Krishna says “you are crossing impassable sea, some very great obstacle was there, nevertheless you managed to come to see me.” So, because the Lord respects the brahmana, He also asks what can I do for you. And then the brahmana begins to describe in the next verses, his actual purpose.
So here the brahmana is actually acting as a messenger, which means he is kind of like an employee. Krishna acts as a messenger for the Pandavas. In other words, Krishna acts as the servant of the Pandavas. And here the brahmana is acting as a servant of Rukmini. Now of course the brahmana shouldn’t be anybody’s servant. And similarly Krishna should be nobody’s servant. Nevertheless we see that Krishna does this and the brahmana is doing this. So though we have certain positions, the position is such that the person who is taking that position can always do something else, he is free to act.
So Krishna is the Supreme Lord, everybody serves Him, but if the Lord wants, He can serve the devotees. So similarly brahmana is on the top of the society but if he wants, he will serve in certain ways for those he prefers to serve. So this shows that this system of varnashrama where Brahmanas is on the top, then the kshatriyas, the vaisyas and the sudras, is a material arrangement. But service to the Lord overrides any of the principles of that system. So, to serve the Lord, anybody in any position of the varnashrama system, he can do that and it should not be criticized.
So the king is the leader of the society, he shouldn’t serve others but king serves the Supreme Lord. So we see the king of Puri, he is serving Jagannath by sweeping in front of the Rath Cart. So enemies think “O what a foolish king, King sweeping the floor”. He is so weak, he is doing Sudra work. However, the king is a devotee of the lord, so he can serve him in this way and no one can criticize. So that was the position of king Prataprudra.
He was a king, but he regarded himself as a servant of Jagannatha.
So that of course is also a principle of Dharma itself. Everybody should be a servant of the Lord. The king should also be a servant of the Lord. So, Brahmana, the head of society, should not serve anybody, but he also serves the lord. In this case, the Brahmana is directly serving the Lord. So he is the instrument for the marriage of Krishna and Rukmini. So his so-called service, which is something low or whatever, is actually very elevated because he is participating in the lord’s pastime.
So a brahmana who is proud of his position, a materialistic brahmana, will think twice, why should I serve the king like this and carry messages? Such a person will hesitate to participate in the Lord’s pastimes even. But the real brahmana understands that he is also a servant of the Supreme Lord. He will act according to the lord’s will.
Similarly, in Vrindavan, everybody is a servant of Krishna. Of course, the elders are much older than Krishna, why should we listen to Krishna, He is just a little boy. But Krishna was watching how Nanda Maharaj and the elders were preparing to worship Indra, and then Krishna said, don’t do that. This is nonsense. So Nanda Maharaj said, this is our tradition, we worship Indra, Indra gives rain, the cows are happy. And then Krishna gave all sorts of false arguments. And then Nanda Maharaj says, okay, even if these are bad arguments, Nanda Maharaj says, okay, we won’t worship Indra, So he just agreed with whatever Krishna wanted. So a materialistic parent will say, oh, you’re just a child, you don’t know anything, keep your mouth shut. But because Nanda Maharaj is a great devotee, he will listen to Krishna, even if what he says does not make sense.
So the devotees are all servants of the Lord and they eagerly want to serve in all times. And material position, position in Varnashrama, is secondary consideration. We see that principle is taken by Krishna himself. So Krishna is the Supreme Lord, everybody serves Krishna. But Krishna likes to serve the devotees. So He serves the Pandavas. He acts as their messenger. He acts like their minister, giving advice. And at the Rajasuya sacrifice, he was welcoming the guests and washing their feet. So service is a great activity. Though in the material world, it is considered to be a low activity. So the sudras, they serve. But the Vaishya, Kshatriya and Brahmana are said to be independent, they don’t serve others.
But of course, we also know everybody has to serve the king. But the Brahmana doesn’t serve anybody. Brahmana is at the top. But a good Brahmana with good understanding will definitely always serve the Lord. So in this case, of course, the Lord is the king, who is in a lower position, but he will gladly serve Him.
Okay, Hare Krishna.
Q & A
1)How far was the residence of Rukmini from where Krishna is in Dwaraka, right? So how many days, how many months did the Brahmana walk from which place to which place?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Vidarbha.
Devotee: Vidarbha is where?
Another Devotee : Vidarbha is actually in Maharashtra.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Maharashtra somewhere. Not so far.
Translator devotee: Which name ?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : Vidarbha. Is it still there ? Vidharbha.. ? Vidharbha is Nagpur
Devotee: Yes, Nagpur.
Devotee & HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj : [Audio not clear] So just pass, go to Gujarat, and then ride. It must be over 500 kilometers. It takes 7, 8, 10 days.
2) Maharaj, there is one point. If it is not secret, can you tell us?
Aguhyam. Aguhyam, yeah. So he’s asking here, verse 35 says, Aguhya, you tell me if it is not secret. Of course, obviously the Brahmana is coming to Krishna, he’s going to say something. Obviously, It’s not going to be a secret. However, he uses this word out of politeness. Yes, certainly it is a secret from other people. And that is exactly why Rukmini sent the Brahmana, so that it would be very secret. So he came to Krishna, and then he will reveal the message to Krishna. So by saying Aguhyam in one sense it is well are you telling to me with the certain message or it is for somebody else.
3) In which language Rukmini wrote the message?
No, it’s not stated, I would suppose, just as it was. Sanskrit. They are all speaking Sanskrit, it looks like.
4) How to understand this point, like you send message now the message will be delivered after 1 month. Like in Srila Prabhupada’s time also, somebody will write letter with some problem, Prabhupada received after 1 month.By that time the problem may be already solved. And then Prabhupada replied again one month after. So how this works? You have problem now and you get solution after two months?
So in the material world we will get these delays. Of course, in the modern world, not much delay in one sense still it’s material, so there’s still some imperfection. So, the pastimes of the Lord are not material, so in one sense there should be no obstacle of time and whatever like that, in relaying messages, etc. Of course, we could also say, well, there’s no need to send a message, Krishna already understands.However, to have pastimes, we have a resemblance of time and obstacles and things like that. So, according to the pastime, some things may take a long time, other things will be done very quickly. So, from the point of view of Rukmini, yes, it was a long time, and she was waiting and waiting and waiting and didn’t get any reply, brahmana didn’t come back. So, this added to the sense of separation and it also adds to the excitement of the story. So, Krishna, when he got the message, then he reacted very quickly and very quickly he went to rescue Rukmini.
5) How about Shrila Prabhupada’s time? Srila Prabhupada’s time, the problems and letters?
Well, as I said, in the material world, we do have delays in communication. In fact, if you go back further, there was more delays, further in time. We get further more delays if we go back 50 years or 100 years. I think in the 1980s, fax was considered to be fast, fax machines. We don’t hear about fax machines anymore, 40 years ago I mean. And before that I guess they would have, a long ago – telegrams. Telegrams were very very slow. And of course, they had telephones. (Marconi was there) But before that, they didn’t have telephones, so it’s just letters. But then, they didn’t have paper. At a certain time, paper, about 1500 or something, they invented paper. So before that, they didn’t even have paper to write letters on. What did they write on?
Devotee : In the jungle, they communicated with the drum.
Maharaj : In India, there’s smoke signals.
Devotee : So in some way, they’re communicating. Birds, they have a bird that flies in India.
Maharaj : So how did they write letters 5,000 years ago? They have stone tablets, they write and carried it. So always there’s some material impediment in the material world.
Of course Krishna would write a message on little leaves also to Radharani.
6)This act of Rukmini is very bold. Generally, a woman is shy and she doesn’t protest. Even Gopis also act very boldly like this.
So this was emergency situation, her brother wanted to marry her to Sisupala, a big demon. And of course, Rukmini is Lakshmi. How can Lakshmi marry a demon? So she had to take some action to prevent that, so she wrote the letter. This, of course, is all pastime and it shows her great attachment to Krishna. Even though she had never met Krishna, never seen Krishna. So it shows the strength of her love for Krishna.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam Ki.. Jai ! Srila Prabhupad Ki.. Jai !!