Devanagari
आस्ते तेनाहृतो नूनं तच्छ्रुत्वा सत्वरं प्रभु: ।
जलमाविश्य तं हत्वा नापश्यदुदरेऽर्भकम् ॥ ४१ ॥
Verse text
āste tenāhṛto nūnaṁ
tac chrutvā satvaraṁ prabhuḥ
jalam āviśya taṁ hatvā
nāpaśyad udare ’rbhakam
Synonyms
āste
—
he is there
;
tena
—
by him, Paṣcajana
;
āhṛtaḥ
—
taken away
;
nūnam
—
indeed
;
tat
—
that
;
śrutvā
—
hearing
;
satvaram
—
with haste
;
prabhuḥ
—
the Lord
;
jalam
—
the water
;
āviśya
—
entering
;
tam
—
him, the demon
;
hatvā
—
killing
;
na apaśyat
—
did not see
;
udare
—
in his abdomen
;
arbhakam
—
the boy .
Translation
“Indeed,” the ocean said, “that demon has taken him away.” Hearing this, Lord Kṛṣṇa entered the ocean, found Paṣcajana and killed him. But the Lord did not find the boy within the demon’s belly.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
"Indeed," the ocean said, "that demon has taken him away." Hearing this, Lord Kṛṣṇa entered the ocean, found Paṣcajana and killed him. But the Lord did not find the boy within the demon's belly.
KB 10.45.41
On hearing this, Kṛṣṇa dove deep into the water and caught hold of the demon Paṣcajana. He killed him on the spot but could not find the son of His teacher within his belly.
Purport (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The ocean said, "I have not taken the boy. The daitya named Pancajana has taken the boy. He is a powerful demon whom I cannot defeat." The last part of verse forty and the first part of verse forty one are one sentence. There is also an additional line added according to Vaisnava tosani (aste tenahrto nunam tac chrutva satvaram prabhuh).Prabhu becomes the subject of the next line.
Taking the conch shell, he mounted his chariot which he had left on the shore of the ocean. Though Krsna is omniscient, and knew that the boy was not in the ocean, he left Balarama on the shore along with the chariot, and went into the ocean with the pretext of searching for the boy to obtain his own conch shell. The conch shell was a product of the body of the asura panca jana (tad anga prabhavam). But because the conch was spiritual, it was also eternal. Like Jaya and Vijaya the conch had temporarily attained the qualities of a powerful asura according to some explanations. The Avantai Khanda of the Skanda Purana says "Having killed Pancajana, the great asura in the form of an aquatic, Krsna took the conch which had been swallowed by him previously (tan madhya stham)." From this evidence some people explain that the conch was residing within the demon’s body (and merely came out of the demon’s body (tad anga jatam) when Krsna killed him .
Purport (Jiva Goswami)
The last line of this verse is spoken by Śukadeva. He entered the waters which quivered in fear. He could not even find the bones of the boy in the belly of the demon. He searched, thinking, “Even if I obtain the bones, by the grace of guru, I can bring the boy back to life.” He acted in this way to show worldly pastimes to the ocean. Singular is used to indicate that Kṛṣṇa entered alone. Viṣṇu Purāṇa says:
Ity uktvontarjalaṁ gatvā hatvā pañcajanaṁ ca tam /
kṛṣṇo jagrāha tasyāsthi prabhavaṁ śaṅkham uttamam //
When the ocean spoke thus, Kṛṣṇa entered the water and killed Pañcajana. He took his shell which was the best of powerful conches arising from his bones.
Balarāma remained on the shore to protect the chariot.