Devanagari
परीक्षितोऽथ राजर्षेर्जन्मकर्मविलापनम् ।
संस्थां च पाण्डुपुत्राणां वक्ष्ये कृष्णकथोदयम् ॥ १२ ॥
Verse text
parīkṣito ’tha rājarṣer
janma-karma-vilāpanam
saṁsthāṁ ca pāṇḍu-putrāṇāṁ
vakṣye kṛṣṇa-kathodayam
Synonyms
parīkṣitaḥ
—
of King Parīkṣit
;
atha
—
thus
;
rājarṣeḥ
—
of the King who was the ṛṣi among the kings
;
janma
—
birth
;
karma
—
activities
;
vilāpanam
—
deliverance
;
saṁsthām
—
renunciation of the world
;
ca
—
and
;
pāṇḍu
—
putrāṇām — of the sons of Pāṇḍu
;
vakṣye
—
I shall speak
;
kṛṣṇa
—
kathā — udayam — that which gives rise to the transcendental narration of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead .
Translation
Sūta Gosvāmī thus addressed the ṛṣis headed by Śaunaka: Now I shall begin the transcendental narration of the Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa and topics of the birth, activities and deliverance of King Parīkṣit, the sage amongst kings, as well as topics of the renunciation of the worldly order by the sons of Pāṇḍu.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
I will speak about the birth, activities and death of King Parīkṣit, and the death march of the Pāṇḍavas, which will give rise to discussions about Kṛṣṇa.
Purport
Lord Kṛṣṇa is so kind to the fallen souls that He personally incarnates Himself amongst the different kinds of living entities and takes part with them in daily activities. Any historical fact old or new which has a connection with the activities of the Lord is to be understood as a transcendental narration of the Lord. Without Kṛṣṇa, all the supplementary literatures like the
Purāṇas
and
Mahābhārata
are simply stories or historical facts. But with Kṛṣṇa they become transcendental, and when we hear of them we at once become transcendentally related with the Lord.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
is also a
Purāṇa,
but the special significance of this
Purāṇa
is that the activities of the Lord are central and not just supplementary historical facts.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
is thus recommended by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as the spotless
Purāṇa.
There is a class of less intelligent devotees of the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa
who desire to relish at once the activities of the Lord narrated in the Tenth Canto without first understanding the primary cantos. They are under the false impression that the other cantos are not concerned with Kṛṣṇa, and thus more foolishly than intelligently they take to the reading of the Tenth Canto. These readers are specifically told herein that the other cantos of the
Bhāgavatam
are as important as the Tenth Canto. No one should try to go into the matters of the Tenth Canto without having thoroughly understood the purport of the other nine cantos. Kṛṣṇa and His pure devotees like the Pāṇḍavas are on the same plane. Kṛṣṇa is not without His devotees of all the
rasas,
and the pure devotees like the Pāṇḍavas are not without Kṛṣṇa. The devotees and the Lord are interlinked, and they cannot be separated. Therefore talks about them are all
kṛṣṇa-kathā,
or topics of the Lord.
Commentary (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The question of how a great yogī like Śukadeva became inclined to hear Bhāgavatam has now been answered. Now the other question of how Parīkṣit heard the Bhāgavatam while fasting till death and other topics such as his astonishing birth will be explained. Vilāpanam means death. Or it can mean talks about the Lord, since the verb lap means to talk. The suffix lyuṭ (the letters ana) is added at the end. Saṁsthām means a walk till death. These topics give rise to talks about Kṛṣṇa, since they relate to the aim of the Bhāgavatam.