Srimad Bhagavatam – 10.77.10-30 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Japan | November 4, 2025 |
jaya rādhā-mādhava kuñja-vihārī
gopījana-vallabha giri-vara-dhārī
yaśodā-nandana vraja-jana-rañjana
yamunā-tīra-vana-cārī
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Jaya Prabhupāda Jaya Prabhupāda
Prabhupāda Jaya Prabhupāda
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevaya
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 10 Chapter 77 Verse 10.
ŚB 10.77.10
rathaṁ prāpaya me sūta
śālvasyāntikam āśu vai
sambhramas te na kartavyo
māyāvī saubha-rāḍ ayam
Synonyms
ratham — chariot; prāpaya — bring; me — My; sūta — O driver; śālvasya — of Śālva; antikam — into the proximity; āśu — quickly; vai — indeed; sambhramaḥ — bewilderment; te — by you; na kartavyaḥ — should not be experienced; māyā-vī — a great magician; saubha-rāṭ — lord of Saubha; ayam — this.
Translation
[Lord Kṛṣṇa said:] O driver, quickly take My chariot near Śālva. This lord of Saubha is a powerful magician; don’t let him bewilder you.
Text 11
Thus ordered, Dāruka took command of the Lord’s chariot and drove forth. As the chariot entered the battlefield, everyone there, both friend and foe, caught sight of the emblem of Garuḍa.
Text 12
When Śālva, the master of a decimated army, saw Lord Kṛṣṇa approaching, he hurled his spear at the Lord’s charioteer. The spear roared frighteningly as it flew across the battlefield.
Text 13
Śālva’s hurtling spear lit up the whole sky like a mighty meteor, but Lord Śauri tore the great weapon into hundreds of pieces with His arrows.
Text 14
Lord Kṛṣṇa then pierced Śālva with sixteen arrows and struck the Saubha airship with a deluge of arrows as it darted about the sky. Firing His arrows, the Lord appeared like the sun flooding the heavens with its rays.
Text 15
Śālva then managed to strike Lord Kṛṣṇa’s left arm, which held His bow Śārṅga, and, amazingly, Śārṅga fell from His hand.
Text 16
Those who witnessed this all cried out in dismay. Then the master of Saubha roared loudly and addressed Lord Janārdana.
Text 17-18
[Śālva said:] You fool! Because in our presence You kidnapped the bride of our friend Śiśupāla, Your own cousin, and because You later murdered him in the sacred assembly while he was inattentive, today with my sharp arrows I will send You to the land of no return! Though You think Yourself invincible, I will kill You now if You dare stand before me.
Text 19
The Supreme Lord said: O dullard, you boast in vain, since you fail to see death standing near you. Real heroes do not talk much but rather show their prowess in action.
Text 20
Having said this, the furious Lord swung His club with frightening power and speed and hit Śālva on the collarbone, making him tremble and vomit blood.
Text 21
But as soon as Lord Acyuta withdrew His club, Śālva disappeared from sight, and a moment later a man approached the Lord. Bowing his head down to Him, he announced, “Devakī has sent me,” and, sobbing, spoke the following words.
Text 22
[The man said:] O Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, mighty-armed one, who are so affectionate to Your parents! Śālva has seized Your father and taken him away, as a butcher leads an animal to slaughter.
Text 23
When He heard this disturbing news, Lord Kṛṣṇa, who was playing the role of a mortal man, showed sorrow and compassion, and out of love for His parents He spoke the following words like an ordinary conditioned soul.
Text 24
[Lord Kṛṣṇa said:] Balarāma is ever vigilant, and no demigod or demon can defeat Him. So how could this insignificant Śālva defeat Him and abduct My father? Indeed, fate is all-powerful!
Text 25
After Govinda spoke these words, the master of Saubha again appeared, apparently leading Vasudeva before the Lord. Śālva then spoke as follows.
Text 26
[Śālva said:] Here is Your dear father, who begot You and for whose sake You are living in this world. I shall now kill him before Your very eyes. Save him if You can, weakling!
Text 27
After he had mocked the Lord in this way, the magician Śālva appeared to cut off Vasudeva’s head with his sword. Taking the head with him, he entered the Saubha vehicle, which was hovering in the sky.
Text 28
By nature Lord Kṛṣṇa is full in knowledge, and He possesses unlimited powers of perception. Yet for a moment, out of great affection for His loved ones, He remained absorbed in the mood of an ordinary human being. He soon recalled, however, that this was all a demoniac illusion engineered by Maya Dānava and employed by Śālva.
Text 29
Now alert to the actual situation, Lord Acyuta saw before Him on the battlefield neither the messenger nor His father’s body. It was as if He had awakened from a dream. Seeing His enemy flying above Him in his Saubha plane, the Lord then prepared to kill him.
Text 30
Such is the account given by some sages, O wise King, but those who speak in this illogical way are contradicting themselves, having forgotten their own previous statements.
Purport
If someone thinks that Lord Kṛṣṇa was actually bewildered by Śālva’s magic and that the Lord was subjected to ordinary mundane lamentation, such an opinion is illogical and contradictory, since it is well known that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, transcendental and absolute. This will be further explained in the following verses.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So, here we had a description in the Bhagavatam of how Salva apparently killed Vasudeva and Krishna was lamenting. And then this verse says all of this is false statements, it’s the wrong description [Laughs]. And the reason is, it is contradictory to other statements. So because scripture is all perfect, there should be no contradiction. However, sometimes, there appears to be contradiction. And the reader then has to somehow resolve the contradiction. If the contradiction remains, then we have to reject the scripture because it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes we say, you cannot approach scripture with logic.
So in Nectar of Devotion, Rupa Gosvami explains that yes, you cannot understand Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu by material logic. We can understand it, if we have a taste for Bhakti. And the reason is, if we rely totally on material logic, we can actually not come to any conclusion. He says that logic is insubstantial, has no solid foundation. This means that one logician, wise intelligent, defeats another logician. And then another logician, who is more intelligent, will defeat the other logician and establish a new conclusion. And then another logician will come along, he will defeat that conclusion. So, this will continue forever, so we have no final conclusion [Laughs]. And the reason is, that is the nature of material logic, there’s finally no conclusion [Laughs]. So, on the other hand, Rupa Gosvami says, this does not mean that we reject logic. If there looks like contradictions in scripture, we have to use logic to resolve the contradiction.
So many sages have given principles by which we can resolve all these different problems. Particularly Jaimini has given a lot of rules. So in Tattva Sandarbha, Jiva Gosvami also discusses this point. And he points out that statements may be strong or weak. So we have to take the stronger statement as defeating the weaker statement [Laughs]. And when we look at statements, we do have to get the proper meaning. So the basic principle is that as much as possible, we take the direct meaning, we don’t interpret. The more we explain the contradictions by giving more and more interpretations, the less convincing it is [Laughs]. The more interpretation that we have, the weaker your interpretation is [Laughs].
So Caitanya Mahaprabhu also mentions this in the Caitanya Caritamrita. Abidha, or direct meaning, is stronger than interpretation, Lakshana. However, sometimes we are forced to interpret, or to use Lakshana. Otherwise, the statements don’t make any sense at all [Laughs]. So therefore, we have to be intelligent to decide what we take as direct meaning, where we have to interpret. So one simple thing is to see the main point of the particular work. So the main point of Bhagavatam is ‘Krsnas tu bhagavan svayam’ (SB_1.3.28), Krishna is the Supreme form of God [Laughs]. And the whole aim of Bhagavatam is to show that, through various pastimes and various statements. If in the Bhagavatam we find statements which contradict this, then we have to start interpreting, we cannot take the direct meaning.
So in this particular pastime or description, we see that Krishna becomes bewildered, Krishna starts lamenting as if you know, He’s the body and Vasudeva has material bodies. So this contradicts the main theme of Bhagavatam, that Krishna has got a sat-cit-ananda body which is eternal, and He’s got eternal knowledge. How can He fall into delusion? So in this particular verse, then there’s a direct statement that all these statements are false [Laughs], they’re not really true.
So therefore, scripture is the ultimate truth, but to get the real meaning, we do have to use some intelligence. And it’s by using this intelligence also that we’ll choose, what are the authorized scriptures. If we feel we don’t have enough intelligence, then we rely on the conclusions of the Acharyas. And then we read the explanations which resolve the contradiction, and we see, is this a reasonable explanation or not? So therefore, we do have to use some intelligence in reading scripture, we can’t just blindly accept scripture [Laughs].
Hare Krishna.
Q & A:
1.) You mentioned that Rupa Goswami said we cannot understand scriptures by logic ?
By logic alone, at least [Laughs]. So, then he says, you need Ruchi, you need taste. And then he says, well, we do need some logic [Laughs]. So then he explains, yeah, logic we need, but it should follow after the meaning of scripture, not reinterpret scripture completely, according to what we think is proper [Laughs].
So we see, for instance, that we have scripture, Shankaracharya gives one interpretation. And in his interpretations, he uses a lot of logic. Using logic, then he establishes that the Supreme is impersonal Brahman [Laughs]. So, that heavily relies on logic. It relies a lot, or a great amount of logic is used to establish this conclusion. And in doing so, then he actually does not take the total context of the scripture, for instance [Laughs]. He resolves contradictory elements through logic to support his conclusion. Not according to scripture, but according to his conclusion of what it should be. So we see that many philosophers accept the Vedas. So we have the logicians, we have the Karma mimasakas and Jaimini. We have Patanjali and Yoga, and who else do we have.. Vaisesika philosophy, whatever. They all accept the Vedas, they come to completely different conclusions, some of which are atheistic even. So they have their conclusions fixed and then use scriptures and logic to try to support that [Laughs].
So, the correct way is to look at the scripture and just see what is the scripture trying to conclude. Like Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita to surrender unto him, give up all dharmas, we don’t try to make some other conclusion and try to reinterpret that statement according to what we think.
2.) Hare Krishna Maharaj, Thank you for the wonderful class. I was remembering that Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, he also said, I mean he also requested not to study so many literatures, so that we can become confused. So my question is, Maharaj, if we are done with our main literatures like Srimad Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrta and your divine grace also give us the access of so many Gaudia Vaishnava literatures, so would your divine grace kindly give us a progression or flowchart like how or which authors we should study first and then whom we should study after studying the Shastra given by Srila Prabhupada? Because we can become also confused if we suddenly start very difficult subject matter study. So do you have any comment on that?
So in the Nectar of Devotion itself, in the 64 Angas of Bhakti, Rupa Goswami mentions one of them is, don’t study too many scriptures. But that statement also comes with an explanation. And of course, one explanation is that, this means non-devotional scriptures, don’t read all logic and material philosophies, etc. And the goal of the study should be very clear. If the goal is to get knowledge to defeat others and get famous, then that is rejected.
If we read devotional scriptures to understand the meaning more thoroughly, in order that we can perform bhakti better, then that is fine. If we see all the Gaudia literature, a lot of it is centered around Bhagavatam. So we see that, Santana Goswami, Jiva Goswami, Baladeva Vidya Bhushan, Viswanatha Chakravarti wrote commentaries on Bhagavatam. So that is simply so we get the correct meaning, not some imaginary meaning of the Bhagavatam. And if it looks like contradiction, then it resolves the contradictions. So that’s a large part of the work. And then we have the Sat-sandharbas, which is also basically an explanation of Bhagavatam. And then we have Nectar of Devotion and Ujjwala Nilamani to explain the process of bhakti based on Bhagavatam.
Devotee: Yes, thank you so much Maharaj, Hare Krishna !
3.) Maharaj, regarding this yoga ladder concept that you spoke, is that using logic or what is that?
So in the Bhagavad Gita itself, we see that Krishna presents Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Astanga Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. But we should not assume that they are equal and they give the same goal. They are given different names, because actually they lead to different goals [Laughs]. So we have to define what is the highest goal, then we can put everything else in proper place. So Krishna himself makes it very clear, what is the superior process. At the end of Chapter 6, he says Jnana is better than Karma Yoga and Astanga Yoga is better than Jnana and Bhakti is better than Astanga Yoga.
So all these processes are there as a sort of purification, that’s all. So we can progress from one to the other as we get qualified. This is similar to the Varnas. So the Sudra cannot do the same activity as the Brahmana or the Vaishya, etc. But by doing the activities of the Sudra, he becomes purified, then he can be a Vaishya, then he can be a Kshatriya, then he can be a Brahmana. So different Yogas are prescribed for people in different gunas.
However, Bhakti is nirguna. So then we’ll say, well, in order to do Bhakti, we have to have no gunas, we have to be completely transcendental. Who can perform Bhakti then? [Laughs] So the answer is, yes, Bhakti is the highest, Bhakti is the rarest, Bhakti is the purest, but it is non-different from Krishna. And by the mercy of Krishna, any person, in any guna, can practice Bhakti. So that is the meaning when Krishna says, give up all dharmas and just surrender unto me.
4.) In Bhagavad Gita Chapter 10, Krishna says, among the logicians I am Usana ?
Usana ? Was that Sukracharya ? I think Usana is Sukracharya. He is actually the guru of the demons [Laughs].
I think, he said in different Vadas, I am the conclusion, he says. Of different Vadas, different types of speaking.
OK, anything else?
Hare Krishna.
Devotees: Thank you very much. Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!!