Srimad Bhagavatam – 8.24.16~30 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | 4 March 2025
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
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
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatham Canto 8 Chapter 24 Text 16:
ŚB 8.24.16
tasyā dīnataraṁ vākyam
āśrutya sa mahīpatiḥ
kalaśāpsu nidhāyaināṁ
dayālur ninya āśramam
Synonyms
tasyāḥ — of the fish; dīna-taram — pitiable; vākyam — words; āśrutya — hearing; saḥ — that; mahī-patiḥ — the King; kalaśa-apsu — in the water contained in the water jug; nidhāya — taking; enām — the fish; dayāluḥ — merciful; ninye — brought; āśramam — to his residence.
Translation
The merciful King, being moved by the pitiable words of the fish, placed the fish in a water jug and brought Him to his own residence.
Text 17 – Translation
But in one night that fish grew so much that He could not move His body comfortably in the water of the pot. He then spoke to the King as follows.
Text 18 – Translation
O My dear King, I do not like living in this waterpot with such great difficulty. Therefore, please find some better reservoir of water where I can live comfortably.
Text 19 – Translation
Then, taking the fish out of the waterpot, the King threw Him in a large well. But within a moment the fish developed to the length of three cubits.
Text 20 – Translation
The fish then said: My dear King, this reservoir of water is not fit for My happy residence. Please give Me a more extensive pool of water, for I have taken shelter of you.
Text 21 – Translation
O Mahārāja Parīkṣit, the King took the fish from the well and threw Him in a lake, but the fish then assumed a gigantic form exceeding the extent of the water.
Text 22 – Translation
The fish then said: O King, I am a large aquatic, and this water is not at all suitable for Me. Now kindly find some way to save Me. It would be better to put Me in the water of a lake that will never reduce.
Text 23 – Translation
When thus requested, King Satyavrata took the fish to the largest reservoir of water. But when that also proved insufficient, the King at last threw the gigantic fish into the ocean.
Text 24 – Translation
While being thrown in the ocean, the fish said to King Satyavrata: O hero, in this water there are very powerful and dangerous sharks that will eat Me. Therefore you should not throw Me in this place.
Text 25 – Translation
After hearing these sweet words from the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the form of a fish, the King, being bewildered, asked Him: Who are You, sir? You simply bewilder us.
Text 26 – Translation
My Lord, in one day You have expanded Yourself for hundreds of miles, covering the water of the river and the ocean. Before this I had never seen or heard of such an aquatic animal.
Text 27 – Translation
My Lord, You are certainly the inexhaustible Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, Śrī Hari. It is to show Your mercy to the living entities that You have now assumed the form of an aquatic.
Text 28 – Translation
O my Lord, master of creation, maintenance and annihilation, O best of enjoyers, Lord Viṣṇu, You are the leader and destination of surrendered devotees like us. Therefore let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You.
Text 29 – Translation
All Your pastimes and incarnations certainly appear for the welfare of all living entities. Therefore, my Lord, I wish to know the purpose for which You have assumed this form of a fish.
Text 30 – Translation
O my Lord, possessing eyes like the petals of a lotus, the worship of the demigods, who are in the bodily concept of life, is fruitless in all respects. But because You are the supreme friend and dearmost Supersoul of everyone, worship of Your lotus feet is never useless. You have therefore manifested Your form as a fish.
Text 30 – Purport:
The demigods like Indra, Candra and Sūrya are ordinary living entities who are differentiated parts and parcels of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord expands Himself through the living beings (nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). His personal viṣṇu-tattva forms, which are all spiritual, are called svāṁśa, and the living entities who are differentiated parts are called vibhinnāṁśa. Some of the vibhinnāṁśa forms are spiritual, and some are a combination of matter and spirit. The conditioned souls in the material world are different from their external bodies made of material energy. Thus the demigods living in the upper planetary systems and the living entities living in the lower planetary system are of the same nature. Nonetheless, those living as human beings on this planet are sometimes attracted to worshiping the demigods in the higher planetary systems. Such worship is temporary. As the human beings on this planet have to change their bodies (tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ), the living entities known as Indra, Candra, Varuṇa and so on will also have to change their bodies in due course of time. As stated in Bhagavad-gītā, antavat tu phalaṁ teṣāṁ tad bhavaty alpa-medhasām: “Men of small intelligence worship the demigods, and their fruits are limited and temporary.” Kāmais tais tair hṛta jñānāḥ prapadyante ’nya-devatāḥ: those who do not know the position of the demigods are inclined to worship the demigods for some material purpose, but the results of such worship are never permanent. Consequently, here it is said, yathetareṣāṁ pṛthag-ātmanāṁ satām, padopasarpaṇaṁ mṛṣā bhavet. In other words, if one is to worship someone else, he must worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Then his worship will never be fruitless. Svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt: even a slight attempt to worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead is a permanent asset. Therefore, as recommended in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, tyaktvā sva-dharmaṁ caraṇāmbujaṁ hareḥ. One should take to the worship of the lotus feet of Hari, even if this means giving up the so-called occupational duty assigned because of the particular body one has accepted. Because worship in terms of the body is temporary, it does not bear any permanent fruit. But worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead gives immense benefit.
HH BHANU SWAMI MAHARAJ:
So this chapter is about the appearance of Matsya, a fish. But this is not an ordinary fish as we see from the story. This is an avatar of the Supreme Lord.
Avatar meaning he’s actually a form of the Supreme Lord. In the Purport, Prabhupada mentions about svamsa and vibhinamsa. So ‘amsa’ means actually part or a portion.
But there are different types of portions. So the ‘svamsa’ – ‘sva’ means His own. So ‘svamsa’ means His own portion. And then we have vibhinamsa. ‘Vibhinam’ means different. So it means a different type of part or portion. So there are two types of beings. Some are svamsa, parts of the Lord Himself, which means we call this expansions. So they are very similar to the Lord. They are not like the Jivas. So that’s why the word ‘sva’ is used. They are like the Supreme Lord, but they are also amsa.
They are expansions from him.
However, we should not think that this means that the Lord takes a little portion, cuts it off and makes a part of Himself [Laughs]. This is material conception of amsa. The spiritual amsa is a little different. Spiritual amsa of course means actually the Lord cannot be cut. Even the Jiva cannot be cut. So in one sense, there is no amsa of the Jiva or amsa of the Supreme Lord. So when we use that word amsa, we use it figuratively or somewhat metaphorically. So in terms of the Lord, we use the word amsa to mean that and of course the Lord cannot be split in any way because there is only one Supreme Lord. There are no two Lords or three Lords or four Lords. So when we talk about avatars, we should not think they are different gods. It is all one Supreme Lord – Bhagavan, but He takes different forms. So in that sense they are called amsa.
Of course, amsa of what? because they are all one. So we differentiate. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, Krishna is called Bhagavan svayam and all the other forms of Bhagavan are there. So all one Bhagavan, but take different forms. And then we have the Supreme Bhagavan, that is Krishna. They are all one, but nevertheless one entity can take different forms, unlike us. So one Bhagavan takes many different forms. One is complete. The others, are they incomplete? They cannot be incomplete, because they are all one [Laughs]. So they are all Supreme Lord. But we say that they are secondary or amsa, partial, because they partially manifest the qualities of the Lord.
Whereas one form – Krishna, manifests all the qualities completely. Like full moon shows 100% light. If we go to the next one, pratipat or whatever, the moon gets a little smaller and a little smaller, shows lesser and lesser light. One moon – but shows lesser light. So we have one Supreme Lord – Krishna, like Purnima. And then we get Rama, like pratipat [Laughs], a little bit less qualities showing, a little bit less power showing. Still the same Lord, but in that form, He manifests a certain amount of qualities, not all the qualities completely. But it’s the same Lord, like the moon is the same moon. But manifests in that particular form, less qualities. In that sense, they are called amsa. But it’s one Supreme Lord. One is not imperfect or whatever. They are all perfect, but one form manifests all the qualities completely. So this is number one.
We say Krishna is the source of everything or whatever. It doesn’t mean that once there was only one Krishna, then He decided, I will make another form or another form. They are all eternal. They are all Bhagavan. But we call them amsa simply to show that one is the complete form. So that is Krishna. So Krishna is there. He is called the amsi, source of the amsas, source of His expansions. And then we have sva-amsa forms. So these are all the Vishnu forms, the Caturvyuga forms in the spiritual world, the avatar forms. These are called sva-amsa.
Then we have the other amsas. These are the Jivas. So they are also similar to the Lord because they are conscious, they can know things, they can experience bliss, etc. In that sense, similar.
But they are also different, quite different, and therefore they are called ‘Vibhinamsa’, differentiated amsas. So they are similar to the Lord, so they are still parts of the Lord, etc., But they are also subject to ignorance, etc.
And there are many, not one. Lord is one with many forms. They are still one. Jivas are many. It is not just one Jiva. There are many Jivas. And they are all separate. Each Jiva is a separate spiritual particle with separate consciousness, separate identity. Billions and billions and billions. We cannot count the number of Jivas. So this is very different from the Lord. Lord is one with many, many forms, but one. And Jivas are not one, they are many, many, many. So these Jivas are amsas, parts of the Lord in a sense, because they are similar with consciousness, etc. But they are also very, very different in a sense they are many of them. Secondly, they are prone to ignorance, unlike the Lord.
And they are also said to be anu, small [Laughs]. In comparison to that, the Lord is called vibhu, everywhere. We cannot measure the size of the Supreme Lord. But a Jiva is anu [Laughs]. We can compare them to other things, small, small, small, very, very small.
Another aspect of the Jiva is, different from the Lord is, Jiva is dependent. Supreme Lord is independent. Nobody controls Bhagavan. And Jivas are controlled by the Lord. Their existence depends on the Lord. Of course, the Lord wills them to exist eternally [Laughs], so He doesn’t interfere with that. But it all depends on the will of the Supreme Lord. So in that sense, everybody is Krishna das, everyone is a servant of the Lord. So the Jivas are therefore different from the Supreme Lord. They are called Vibhinamsa. So that is the distinction.
So the Lord, in his avatar forms, these are Sva-amsa forms. They are the Supreme Lord, but they are also expansions, so to speak. Forms of the Lord which don’t manifest all the qualities, but many of the qualities. So in the Srimad Bhagavatam, we have a list in the first canto, also in the second canto of these different avatars, all of which are different. So they are different in form. They are different in their qualities and different in their activities. Part of that difference of qualities and activities is determined by the very form they take.
So here we have Matsya avatar, fish. So what do fish do? They live in the water [Laughs]. That’s exactly what this fish is doing. Give me a bigger place, bigger piece of water, bigger piece of water, bigger piece of water. And it kept expanding. And water is His abode. So this becomes functional, because there was a big flood. And everything was covered with water. So who’s the best person to survive in the flood? The fish [Laughs]. But it’s a big fish. It’s a huge fish, Supreme Lord. So He’s the one that saves Satyavrata and animals and plants and living entities like Noah in the Bible. So He’s the one that does it. But Lord in the form of a fish, because He can survive in the water. So according to the form, then we have a certain pastime which is typical of that form. So here is the fish form has a water pastime, living in the water, saving the living entities, etc. So this form helps to define the pastimes of Matsyavatar.
Similarly, we find Varaha. Varaha is a boar. A boar, of course, is a land animal. And what’s his particular nature? He has tusks [Laughs]. And he likes to dig in the earth. But what does Varaha do? He jumps into the water, and then He dives into the water. And when He digs out of the water, he pulls the earth out of the water. Like the boar pulls out there, what is it, roots, potatoes, or whatever, and eats them. So He goes into the water, and with His tusks, He pulls the earth out, and He puts it on His tusks, and puts the earth back in its position again. So this is the boar function. So He takes that particular form to carry out this particular pastime of lifting up the Bhumandala out of the Garbhodaka Ocean. The form is suitable to the particular pastime. So in this way, the form determines certain pastimes.
As for qualities, each particular form, of course, will show a certain amount of qualities according to those particular pastimes. And of course, the main purpose of all of these forms of the Lord who come into this world as avatar is to give benefit to all the living entities. Some, of course, by saving them in dangerous situations like the earth falling into the Garbhodaka Ocean, or in this case, flood, and all the living entities have to survive the flood.
But the higher purpose behind this is to give joy to the devotees, because they can see the Lord, and they can admire His prowess, His activities, His compassion, etc. And they understand that, this is Supreme Lord. So it’s proof of the Supreme Lord in the material world. So this gives joy to the devotees.
So in this way, the Lord doesn’t appear once. He appears throughout the day of Brahma, every day of Brahma, for the whole of Brahma’s life, and the next Brahma, and the next Brahma, and the next Brahma. So the Lord is constantly appearing in the material world. It is not that the Lord appears once, and if you don’t surrender to him, then you’re finished. You’ve got another chance. But it may be a long time, a few yugas down the line. Of course, the Lord appears in every yuga as a yuga avatar also.
But then He appears as these lila avatars. They don’t appear all the time, but less frequently. So of course, Krishna appears only once in the day of Brahma, of Rama once, of Nrsimhadeva once, but then Vamana appears only three times, and Matsya appears fourteen times. So they appear at different frequencies within the day of Brahma. But nevertheless, this shows that the Lord is always ready to help the living entities and deliver the living entities, and He always inspires the devotees time and time again by appearing within this material world.
So ‘avatar’ means, of course, to descend, come downwards. So where does the Lord come down from [Laughs]? – Spiritual world. So technically He is in spiritual world, but He appears within the material world. But He’s still the Supreme Lord. He doesn’t become like a Jiva, full of ignorance, subject to karma.
So He remains in his transcendental position, even if He appears in the material world. But He appears in the material world, and then people can see Him. So what does this mean? God has a form. He’s not formless. If God appeared in the material world and didn’t have a form, who would see Him? Who would appreciate Him? Nobody [Laughs]. So avatar means the Lord appears with a form in the material world.
But it does not mean, there’s one impersonal Brahman somewhere up there in the sky, and suddenly He decides to take a form of an avatar, so we can see Brahman in a physical form. It doesn’t mean that. He has eternal spiritual form who appears within the material world with that form, and by His mercy we can see him. But it’s still spiritual form. It’s not a material form. So that is the nature of the Lord.
So many religions have a problem with the form of the Lord. They don’t want to have a form of the Lord because a form is limiting. We make a form of the Lord that He may be three feet high, two feet high [Laughs], one and a half feet wide. Ah, it’s limiting the Lord. How can you limit the Lord?
So true, the Lord is unlimited. He is Vibhu. Nevertheless, out of His mercy, he has forms which we can comprehend, that our senses can take in nicely. That’s the mercy of the Lord. So he has all these eternal forms in the spiritual world, which the Jivas can see, if not just some unlimited thing you cannot see. He takes these forms for the pleasure of the devotees and for blissful pastimes. So the Lord appears in the material world and He has eternal forms. So this is a concept, of course, which is quite different for many religions who don’t accept the form of the Lord at all. Secondly, not one form, but many different forms and strange forms, fish form.
Who would think the Lord would become a fish? Who would think the Lord would become a turtle? Who would think the Lord would become a snake? We don’t want to see these forms. But the Lord becomes these forms and He’s all beautiful. He’s all attractive. So we think, okay, the fish and the turtle and the snake are detestable forms, reptiles and things like this, useless. But when the Lord becomes one of these forms, they’re the most beautiful, most attractive. So the Lord can take so many, not just one form.
Most religions struggle with the idea of God having any form. We want to speak of one form. We could say not one form but infinite forms. The Lord can take so many different forms, not just many forms but many different forms – the fish, the turtle, the bird, snake, whatever. So the Lord is unlimited.
So these different forms show the unlimited nature of the Supreme Lord and his supreme power. He can have all these forms and they’re all spectacular. They’re all attractive and they do astonishing activities. So all this shows the extraordinary nature of the Supreme Lord.
Of course, behind all of this, the form, etc., and the pastimes is that the Jivas can establish a relationship with the Lord. That’s the most important aspect. So the Lord displays these wonderful forms to please and attract the devotees. What happens? The devotees develop attraction for the Lord. They develop what type of attraction is this? It’s not a material attraction because it’s an attraction for spiritual form. It’s an attraction of love. So it is prema. That is the attraction of the Jivas to the Lord – prema. The Lord has prema for the Jiva. The Jiva has prema for the Lord. And it’s focused on a particular form. So the Lord appears in these forms and then the devotees become attracted to those forms and develop a relationship with prema.
Why do we need prema? Because prema gives bliss, Ananda. Of course, we have the correspondence, the dull reflection of this in the material world. Everybody wants bliss in the material world. As Prabhupad says that people go to try to worship Devatas just to get the svarga loka because they think they’re going to be happy. But that so-called bliss is temporary and it’s interrupted and they fall back to earth and they suffer again. So we want bliss, but we want eternal bliss.
But it’s impossible in the material world [Laughs], because our bodies are also temporary and we have limited senses, imperfect senses, whatever. So we never find that eternal happiness. Nevertheless, we have a quest for bliss in the material world. So we can get bliss by different things in the material world using our senses. So you can see beautiful things, get bliss through seeing, from hearing, from tasting, like to eat food. So using your various senses you can get all sorts of bliss. Athletes will get bliss because they can use their bodies in certain ways. So we have all these different ways we can get bliss in the material world. But even if we get that type of bliss, people are still unsatisfied. Why? Because the highest bliss for the human being is relationships, a relationship of love. So the ideal bliss for a human being is to have an ideal, blissful, loving relationship.
So therefore everybody gets married. They think, now I’m going to be happy. And then it goes to the wife, and then they get children, and they get relationships again. Through this we get our bliss. But that’s the highest bliss you can get in the material world. Some people get some of it, some people get zero of it, because everything fails. So the world is not perfect.
Nevertheless, the highest type of bliss in the material world is relationship, which we call ‘rasa’. You get a taste, a certain taste through your affectionate relationship with the wife and the children and friends and whatever like that. If you have everything else, you’ve got the money and you’ve got the car and you’ve got the house and whatever, and you travel everywhere, but you have no relationship, then you’re still not happy. So when you get a relationship, then you can feel the happiness. Of course, it’s not perfect. It’s a failure. But this is a material rasa. So therefore, even in the material world, people strive for this rasa of relationships. But it’s not perfect, because we have imperfect senses, imperfect bodies, imperfect mind. Everything is temporary and it fails.
So the perfect bliss we will get in the spiritual world, we get it through rasa also. That’s the ‘real rasa’. So rasa with the Supreme Lord. This will give birth to the bliss in the spiritual world. So therefore, the whole purpose of the incarnations is to stimulate the Jivas to develop the attraction and develop that rasa. Then the Jivas become blissful. So the Jivas are finally fulfilled. Spiritual rasa with the Lord is eternal and completely satisfying and perfect. So it’s different from the material rasa. So if we establish that, then we get perfection.
So that is expressed in our philosophy and in the scriptures itself. So Lord Caitanya says the topics of scripture are only three things – Sambandha, Abhidheya, and Prayojana. Sambandha is the philosophy, what’s what. Jivas, Supreme Lord, Devatas, material energy, all this, what’s what. We’ve had discussions in the third canto, fourth canto, all about that. Abhidheya means a process, action. What does the Jiva, human being, Jiva do in the material world? What is he supposed to do? Karma yoga, jnana yoga, astanga yoga, bhakti yoga, etc. It’s there. And it all depends, finally, our action will depend on the goal. So what is the goal? Of course we could have Svargaloka or whatever, Satyaloka, liberation, but final goal is Prema. And that’s where the rasa is in Prema.
So the whole goal of scripture is to attain rasa. How? Through bhakti. And how do we get that? Through the knowledge that I am a Jiva, Supreme Lord is there, this is the material world, we get the spiritual world, etc. So Sambandha, Abhidheya, Prayojana. These are the three topics of scripture which we should know. And we have to know all three in order to get to that goal of Prema.
So there is prema for any form of the Lord, and the eternal bliss, rasa, etc. However, the whole point of Bhagavatam is to show that Krishna is the most perfect form of the Lord. And consequently we establish a relationship with Him, we get the most perfect rasa. Of course it’s all perfect in one sense, because all the forms are perfect, but we get the most complete expression of rasa with Krishna by performing bhakti to Krishna. We worship Krishna. So that’s the whole point of Bhagavatam. Worship Krishna, attain relationship with Krishna, and then you get the highest bliss. And that’s the whole point of Bhagavatam.
However, to get there, Krishna is described in the tenth canto of Bhagavatam, but to get there, then we have all these descriptions of all the different avatars. So here we have Matsya, previously we have Varaha, we have Vamana-deva also, Narashinga-deva, and Ramachandra in canto nine, and then we get Krishna. So we have the various forms of the Lord. Why we all need all these forms? Just worship Krishna in this tenth canto, we don’t need other cantos at all really [Laughs], in one sense. But they’re there to show us the variety in the Supreme Lord. But that the final form is Krishna, and all others are like aspects of Krishna, because they’re amsa, they’re svamsa, they’re like portions of Krishna. So whatever Matsya can do, whatever form he can show in his big fish form floating around in the water, very astonishing, but it’s all in Krishna also. Krishna can do the same thing. We see Narashinga-dev tearing apart Hiranyakasipu and all his soldiers and whatever. All that power is in Krishna.
Whatever is in any of these forms, all their lila qualities and pastimes and whatever, heroic deeds are, all in Krishna also. So all these descriptions are here just to give us some attraction for the forms of the Lord. Finally, we see that all of these attractive features are also in Krishna, plus Krishna has more as well. So that we should appreciate in the tenth canto of Bhagavatam. So we should therefore understand the nature of avatars, and also nature of Krishna. And this way we can appreciate everything.
Hare Krishna.
Q & A
1) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Thank you for nice class. In Chaitanya Charitamarita, it says that Balarama is the chief expansion, and from Him all the purusha avatar is expanded from Him. So I just want to understand, is the lila avatar expansion of Balarama as well?
Yeah. It’s described in the first canto actually [Laughs].
We have all the avatars, and then finally it comes to Vasudeva, and then Krishna and Balarama [Laughs]. So they’re considered in one sense like among the lila avatars. But at the same time, Krishna is pointed out as svayam bhagavan.
So He’s classed as an avatar, but at the same time, He’s also classified as a source of all avatars. So we also call Him avatari. Now Balarama is special because he is the brother of Krishna. So Krishna is svayam bhagavan, and Balarama is almost like that.
So He’s also in Vrindavan. His form is like Krishna, except His color is different. He has similar ornamentation, and he has the same rasas. So there are devotees in Dasya rasa, Sakya rasa, Vatsalya rasa, and Madhurya rasa with Balarama. He has His own rasa lila and everything.
So in this way He’s almost as complete as Krishna. So He’s almost like avatari. But nevertheless, even Balarama recognizes, I am not the same as Krishna. This was illustrated in the Brahma vimohana Lila, where even Balarama was bewildered for one year. He did not know that the cows and cowherd boys were all expansions of Krishna, and the real boys were that cows were sitting in a cave or whatever. He didn’t know that they were all Krishna.
Suddenly He realized that, this is very strange. The mothers are so attracted to their children, and the cows are attracted to those calves more than they were before. What’s wrong? Something is wrong here. Then He realized, some maya is taking place, but who can bewilder Me? Only Krishna can bewilder Me. So then He realized Krishna was doing something. So in other words, Balarama also recognizes Krishna’s got even more power than He, but He’s very similar.
2) Is it safe to say that when we’re offering, for example, prayers to Lord Nrsimhadeva, is that indirectly prayers offered to Balarama, because He’s an expansion of Balarama?
All these different forms have, like Nrsimhadeva has his particular form with the lion head or whatever like that. And of course, what are lions? They’re ferocious. They like to attack and whatever.
So the distinguishing feature of Nrsimhadeva is He’s very ferocious against Hiranyakasipu and the demons, tears them apart with His claws or whatever. So that’s the ferocious nature of the Supreme Lord against the enemies, against the materialists, against the demons, etc. So like Balarama and other forms do not show such ferocity. This is a particular nature of Nrsimhadeva’s form. So of course, everything is Krishna or everything is in Balarama, etc. But they don’t really manifest that so explicitly as we see in Nrsimhadeva.
So that’s his special nature. Nevertheless, we can say it’s all within Balarama and all within Krishna. So Balarama, of course, is the first expansion from Balarama. Then we get other expansions in the spiritual world. And his other expansion is Mahashankarsan, who is Mahavishnu, who is another form like that. So we get all sorts of expansions of Balarama.
One is because He is also in charge of the Sandini Shakti, which is the Shakti responsible for maintaining everything in the spiritual world. So He’s the Dham also. And His other form is Anantashesha, who holds up[Laughs] the whole Dham and also holds up the Bhumandala on earth.
So these are all expansions of Balarama to show His great strength.
3) Hare Krishna Maharaj. Thanks for the class. In the spiritual world, in the Vaikuntha lokas, the forms of the Lord, are they Vishnu forms under the names of like Matsya, etc.? Or they are actually like the form of Matsya and the form that they appear in this material?
So we have these, and I think it’s also on the cover of the old Bhagavatam, the spiritual world there with all the Vishnu forms, and also described in Chaitanya caritamrta. And there’s, you know, the different forms like Matsya and Kurma and whatever also there. But there they’re described as having Shankha, Chakra and certain configurations.
So these are Vishnu forms, like that. And even there’s Nrishma also, so they’re like Vishnu forms. But the forms of Nrishma and Vamana and Varaha, etc., are also eternal.
So they also exist in the spiritual world. So there is a Matsya loka with the fish form, a Nrishma loka with the lion, and of course we have Rama loka with Ramachandra. So we have all these forms also in the spiritual world.
The forms which appear as avatars are also eternal forms in the spiritual world.
Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatham ki jai!!!
Srila Prabhupad ki Jai!!!
HH Bhanu Swami maharaj ki Jai!!!