SB 11.12.13 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

मत्कामा रमणं जारमस्वरूपविदोऽबला: । ब्रह्म मां परमं प्रापु: सङ्गाच्छतसहस्रश: ॥ १३ ॥

Verse text

mat-kāmā ramaṇaṁ jāram asvarūpa-vido ’balāḥ brahma māṁ paramaṁ prāpuḥ saṅgāc chata-sahasraśaḥ

Synonyms

mat — Me ; kāmāḥ — those who desired ; ramaṇam — a charming lover ; jāram — the lover of another’s wife ; asvarūpa — vidaḥ — not knowing My actual situation ; abalāḥ — women ; brahma — the Absolute ; mām — Me ; paramam — supreme ; prāpuḥ — they achieved ; saṅgāt — by association ; śata — sahasraśaḥ — by hundreds of thousands .

Translation

All those hundreds of thousands of gopīs, understanding Me to be their most charming lover and ardently desiring Me in that way, were unaware of My actual position. Yet by intimately associating with Me, the gopīs attained Me, the Supreme Absolute Truth.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

All those hundreds of thousands of gopīs, desiring me, the supreme Brahman, not knowing my form of power, attained me, a lover who gave them pleasure because of association. Thus they attained me. Desiring me, they attained me, the supreme Brahman, who gave pleasure to them (ramaṇam). Śukadeva said: bhagavān api tā rātṛīḥ śāradotphulla-mallikāḥ vīkṣya rantuṁ manaś cakre yoga-māyām upāśritaḥ Kṛṣṇa, seeing those autumn nights scented with blossoming jasmine flowers, decided to give pleasure to the gopīs, using his yoga-māyā. SB 10.29.1 They attained me, not as a husband, but as a lover (jāram). They did not know my svarūpa of power, since they experienced only my great sweetness. Or the meaning of asvarūpa-vidaḥ can be “they did not attain sārūpya, forms similar to mine like other devotees.” If they had attained forms similar to Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa could not perform rāsa dance with them. Another meaning of asvarūpa-vidaḥ is “they did not know the beauty of their own forms, but experienced the beauty of my form.” Or another meaning is “gopīs whose svarūpas no one knew.”

Purport

The words asvarūpa-vidaḥ (“not understanding My actual position or form”) indicate that the lovely gopīs were so completely absorbed in conjugal love for Lord Kṛṣṇa that they were not aware of the Lord’s unlimited potencies as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains this and other meanings of the word asvarūpa-vidaḥ. In Sanskrit the word vid also means “to acquire.” Thus, asvarūpa-vidaḥ indicates that the gopīs, like other pure devotees of the Lord, were not interested in achieving sārūpya-mukti, the liberation of acquiring a bodily form similar to the Lord’s. Were the gopīs to obtain a bodily form like the Lord’s, how could the Lord execute His conjugal pastimes of dancing with the gopīs and embracing them? Since the gopīs had realized their eternal spiritual forms as servitors of the Lord, the word svarūpa also may indicate their own spiritual bodies, and thus asvarūpa-vidaḥ means that the gopīs never thought, as materialists do, of their own bodily beauty. Although the gopīs are the most beautiful girls in the Lord’s creation, they never thought of their own bodies but rather were always meditating on the transcendental body of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Although we cannot imitate the gopī’s exalted conjugal feelings, we can follow their superb example of practical Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They naturally took shelter of Lord Kṛṣṇa and achieved the highest perfection of life.