Krsna Book Audio Dictation - Chapter 73
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Next, Seventy-third Chapter. Subject: "Lord Kṛṣṇa Returns to the City of Hastināpura."
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The kings and the princes released by Lord Kṛṣṇa after the death of Jarāsandha were rulers of the different parts of the world. Jarāsandha being too much powerful by his military strength, he conquered over all these princes and kings, numbering about 20,800. All of them were concentrated within a hill cave especially constructed for this purpose as fort for keeping these imprisoned rulers, and for a long time they were kept in that situation. When, however, they were released by the grace of Lord Kṛṣṇa, all of them were looking very unhappy, their dresses very niggardly and their faces almost dried up for want of proper care of the body. They seemed to be very weak on account of hunger, and they lost all beauty and luster of the face. Actually, being imprisoned for a long time, every part of their body became slackened and invalid.
But because in that miserable condition of life they had the opportunity of thinking about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, immediately they saw Lord Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Viṣṇu. They saw that the color of the transcendental body of Lord Kṛṣṇa was exactly like the hue of newly arrived cloud in the sky, and the same was nicely covered by yellow color silk garments. Lord Kṛṣṇa appeared before them having four hands like Viṣṇu, carrying the different symbols, namely the club, the conchshell, the disc and the lotus flower. There were marks of golden line on the chest, and the nipples of His breast appeared to be like the whorl of lotus flower. His eyes appeared to be spread like the petals of lotus flower. His smiling face exhibited the symbol of eternal peace and prosperity. The glittering earrings were shaped as shark fish, and the helmets were bedecked with valuable jewels. His beautiful necklace of pearls, bangles, bracelets, all of them were exhibiting a transcendental beauty in the proper place on the body of the Lord. Kaustubha jewel hanging in His chest was also glittering with great luster, and over and above them there was flower garland hanging beautifully.
After so much distressed condition, when the kings and the princes saw Lord Kṛṣṇa in that beautiful, transcendental feature, all of them began to see the Lord to their hearts’ content, as if they were drinking the nectarean through their eyes, they were licking the body with their tongues and they were smelling the flavor of His body with their nose. Plus they were embracing the Lord with their arms. Certainly, just being in front of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, all reaction of their sinful life was already washed off. Therefore, without any reservation, immediately they surrendered on the lotus feet of the Lord.
As it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that unless one is freed from all kinds of sinful reaction of life, one cannot fully surrender unto His lotus feet without any duality. All the princes thus seeing Lord Kṛṣṇa forgot all their past tribulation in the present life. Thus with folded hands and in great devotion, they began to offer prayers to Lord Kṛṣṇa as follows: (within quotation) "My dear Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, master of all demigods, You can immediately remove all pangs of Your devotees because they are fully surrendered unto You. My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, the eternal Deity of transcendental bliss and knowledge, You are imperishable, and we are offering our respectful obeisances unto Your lotus feet. By Your causeless mercy undoubtedly we have been released from the imprisonment of Jarāsandha, but now we pray unto You to give us release from the imprisonment of this illusory energy—material existence. Please stop, therefore, our continual cycle of birth and death. We have now sufficient experience of this miserable material conditional life in which we are fully absorbed, and having tasted the bitterness of it, we have come to take shelter under Your lotus feet. My Lord, please therefore give us Your protection.
"My dear Lord, the killer of the demon Madhu, we can see now clearly that Jarāsandha was not in fault in the least. But actually, by Your causeless mercy we had been bereft of our kingdom because we were very much proud of calling ourselves as the rulers and the kings. Any ruler or king who becomes too much puffed up with his false prestige and power do not get the opportunity of understanding his real, constitutional position and eternal life. Such foolish so-called rulers or kings become falsely proud of their position, influenced by Your illusory energy, exactly like the foolish person who considers as reservoir of water the reflection in the desert. Such foolish persons think that their material possession would give them protection. Persons who are foolishly engaged in sense gratification accept this material world as a place of eternal enjoyment.
"My Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we must admit that before this we were too much puffed up with our material opulences. It was something like intoxication. Thus we were attacking one another...
(break) My dear Lord, before this imprisonment by Jarāsandha we were very much puffed up of our material opulences, so much so that we were all envious of each other and wanted to conquer over one another, and therefore engaged always in fighting.
(break) ...of so many citizens." (quotation close)
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This is the disease of political power. As soon as a king or a nation becomes enriched in material opulences, he wants to dominate over other nation or country by military aggression, as much as the mercantile class of men also want to monopolize a certain type of business and just control over other mercantile group. Dictated by such false prestige and infatuated by material opulences, the human society, without being in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, create a havoc in the matter of peaceful living condition, and thus naturally they forget the real purpose of life: to attain the favor of Lord Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
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The princes continued to say: (within quotation) "In this way, my Lord, we were simply engaged in abominable task of killing art, making the citizens unnecessarily killed to satisfy our political whims. At that time, we did not consider that Your Lordship is always present before us in the form of cruel, formidable death. In other words, we are so much fools that we became the cause of death for others, forgetting our own death. But, my dear Lord, the repercussion of time element, which is Your representation, is certainly unsurmountable, and it is so strong that nobody can escape the influence of time and its reaction on our atrocious activities. As such, we are now bereft of all opulences and stand before You as street beggars. We consider this position as Your causeless, unalloyed mercy upon us, because at present we can understand how much falsely we were puffed up and how our material opulences could be withdrawn within a second by Your indication. By Your causeless mercy only, now we are able to think of Your lotus feet. This is our greatest gain.
"My dear Lord, at present we are sufficiently aged, and instead of being falsely puffed up of our bodily strength, we are getting weaker, weaker, day by day, and it is known to everyone that this body is a breeding ground for all kinds of diseases. Naturally, at the present moment, we are no longer after sense gratification or such happiness derived through the accidency of this material body. We are no more interested in such false happiness. By Your grace, we have now come to the conclusion that hankering after such material happiness is exactly like searching water in the desert, captivated by mirage. We are no longer interested in resultant action of our pious activities, like performing great sacrifices to be elevated in the heavenly planet, because we have now understood that such elevation to the higher standard of life in heavenly planets are simply very much relishable to hear, but actually there cannot be any happiness within this material world.
"Now we pray before Your Lordship to favor us by instruction how we can be engaged in the transcendental loving service of Your lotus feet so that we may not ever forget our eternal relationship with Your Lordship. We do not want liberation from the entanglement of material existence. By Your will we may take birth in any species of life, it does not matter. Simply we pray that we may not forget Your lotus feet at any circumstances. My dear Lord, we are now surrendering unto Your lotus feet, offering our respectful obeisances unto You, because You are the Supreme Lord Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, son of Vasudeva, the Supersoul in everyone’s heart, and You are Lord Hari, who can take away all miserable condition of material existence.
"My dear Lord, Your name is Govinda, the reservoir of all pleasures. One who is engaged in satisfying Your senses, automatically he satisfies his own senses also; therefore, You are known as Govinda. My dear Lord, You are ever famous that You can finish all kinds of miseries of Your devotees. Please, therefore, accept us as Your surrendered servants." (quotation close)
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Lord Kṛṣṇa, who is always protector of the surrendered soul and is the ocean of mercy for the devotees, after hearing the prayers of the kings released from the prison house of Jarāsandha began to reply them as follows in His transcendental sweet voice, and gravity full of meaning. Lord Kṛṣṇa said: (within quotation) "My dear kings, I bestow upon you My blessings that from this day you will be attached to My devotional service without fail, and I give you this benediction as you have desired. For you may know it from Me that as Supersoul I am always sitting within your heart, and because you have now turned your face towards Me, so as master of everyone I shall always give you good counsel so that you may not forget, and gradually you may come back to home, back to Godhead.
"My dear kings, your decision that now you give up all conception of material enjoyment and turn your face towards My devotional service is factually the symptom of your good fortune. Thus, henceforward you shall always be blessed in blissful life. Whatever you have spoken about Me in your prayers, they are all factual, and I confirm them one and all. It is a fact that one who is not fully Kṛṣṇa consciousness, his possession of material opulences is the cause of his extravagancy, and thus he becomes the victim of the illusory energy. In the past there were many extravagant kings, like Haihaya, Nahuṣa, Vena, Rāvaṇa, Narakāsura. Some of them were demigods and some of them were directly demons, but because of their false perception of material possession they became degraded from their exalted posts, and thus they remain no longer the kings of their respective kingdoms and were lost in the violentness of abominable conditional life.
"Every one of you must understand it that anything material, it has got a starting point, growth, expansion, deterioration and then again vanished. All your material bodies are subjected to these six kinds of material condition, and similarly, any relativities that has grown up on account of this body must be definitely subjected to such destruction. Therefore, nobody should place his attachment on these perishable things, and so long one is within this material body, he should be very much cautious in the dealings of worldly affairs, and the most perfect way of life is that one should live in this material world simply being devoted in My transcendental loving service and honestly execute the prescribed duties of a particular position of life.
"So far you are concerned, you all belong to the kṣatriya families, royal order. You should therefore live very honestly, just according to the prescribed function befitting a kṣatriya, and make your citizens happy in all respects. If you keep therefore in that standard life of a kṣatriya and do not beget children out of sense gratification, but simply to take charge of the welfare activities of the people in general. Everyone takes birth in this material world in continuation of his previous life, and as such he is subjected to the stringent laws of nature in the matter of birth and death, distress and happiness, profit and loss. But one should not be disturbed in such position of dualities, but he should be always be fixed up in the service of Me and thus remain in equipoised condition of mind, satisfied in all circumstances, considering as given by Me. And thus without being deviated one's mind from the engagement of devotional service, one can live a very happy and peaceful life even within this material condition.
"In other words, one should be practically callous and unaffected with this material body and its production and shall remain only satisfied in the interest of the spirit soul, being engaged in the service of the Supersoul. One should only engage his mind in Me, one should simply become a devotee of Me, one should simply worship Me and one should simply offer his respectful obeisances unto Me. In this way, one shall be able to cross over this ocean of nescience very easily and at the end come back to Me. In conclusion, the business of your life should continually be engaged in My service." (quotation close)
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In this way Lord Kṛṣṇa, after delivering His instruction to the royal orders, immediately arranged for their comfort and thus asked many servants and maidservants to take care of them by nicely bathing and giving nice clothing, so that immediately they may look very happy and gentle. King Jarāsandha had his son of the name Sahadeva. Lord Kṛṣṇa asked Sahadeva to supply all these necessities to the kings and also asked him to show respect and honor befitting all those kings. Sahadeva also, in pursuance of the order of Lord Kṛṣṇa, offered them all honors and necessities of ornaments, garments, garlands and all other paraphernalias. After taking their bath and dressing themselves very nicely, by the order of Lord Kṛṣṇa they were supplied very nice, good foodstuff for eating. Lord Kṛṣṇa supplied them everything for their comforts, befitting a royal order.
The kings thus being mercifully treated by Lord Kṛṣṇa felt too much happiness, and all of them appeared to be so much bright-faced, exactly like the stars in the sky look after the end of the rainy season. All of them were nicely dressed and ornamented, and especially their earrings were very much glittering. After this, each one of them were seated on a nice chariot which was bedecked with gold and jewels and drawn by nice decorated horses, and thus greeting them very well in sweet voice asked them to return to their respective kingdoms.
Lord Kṛṣṇa thus, by His very liberal behavior unparalleled in the history of the world, released all those kings from the clutches of Jarāsandha. And the kings also, being fully satisfied, began to engage then always in chanting His holy name and thinking of His holy form and in glorifying the Supreme Personality of Godhead, about His transcendental pastimes. And thusly they reached their respective kingdoms. The citizens of their kingdoms were very much pleased to see them coming back, and when they heard the kind dealings of Lord Kṛṣṇa, all of them became very much happy. The kings also, under instruction of Lord Kṛṣṇa, began to manage affairs in their kingdom, and all of them, the kings and their subjects, passed their days very, very happily.
This is the vivid example of Kṛṣṇa consciousness society. If the people of the world, in terms of their respective material qualities, divide the whole society into four orders for material and spiritual progress, centering around Kṛṣṇa, and follow the instruction of Kṛṣṇa as they are stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, the whole human society undoubtedly be happy, as we have taken lessons from this incidence.
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Lord Kṛṣṇa thus caused the annihilation of Jarāsandha by Bhīmasena, and all of them, namely Lord Kṛṣṇa, Bhīmasena, Arjuna, being properly honored by Sahadeva, the son of Jarāsandha, all of them returned to the city of Hastināpura. When the three reached the precincts of Hastināpura City, they blew their respective conchshell in Indraprastha, and by hearing the sound vibration everyone became immediately cheerful, understanding their arrival. But at the same time, by hearing the same sound, the enemies became very, very sorry. The citizens of Indraprastha felt their heart being so much enlightened simply by hearing the vibration of their conchshells. Immediately they could understand that Jarāsandha has been killed.
Now the arrangement for performing the Rājasūya sacrifice by King Yudhiṣṭhira was almost certain. All of them, namely Bhīmasena, Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, reached before King Yudhiṣṭhira and offered their respects to the king. The king very patiently heard all the narration in the matter of killing Jarāsandha and setting free the kings. He also heard the tactics which was adopted by Kṛṣṇa in the matter of killing Jarāsandha. King Yudhiṣṭhira was naturally affectionate to Kṛṣṇa, but after hearing this story he became still more bound up in love for Kṛṣṇa. Tears of ecstasy were gliding from his eyes, and thus almost he become stunted, without speaking anything to them.
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Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta purport of Chapter Seventy-three in the matter of "Lord Kṛṣṇa's Return to Hastināpura."