SB 3.9.15 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

यस्यावतारगुणकर्मविडम्बनानि नामानि येऽसुविगमे विवशा गृणन्ति । तेऽनैकजन्मशमलं सहसैव हित्वा संयान्त्यपावृतामृतं तमजं प्रपद्ये ॥ १५ ॥

Verse text

yasyāvatāra-guṇa-karma-viḍambanāni nāmāni ye ’su-vigame vivaśā gṛṇanti te ’naika-janma-śamalaṁ sahasaiva hitvā saṁyānty apāvṛtāmṛtaṁ tam ajaṁ prapadye

Synonyms

yasya — whose ; avatāra — incarnations ; guṇa — transcendental qualities ; karma — activities ; viḍambanāni — all mysterious ; nāmāni — transcendental names ; ye — those ; asu — vigame — while quitting this life ; vivaśāḥ — automatically ; gṛṇanti — invoke ; te — they ; anaika — many ; janma — births ; śamalam — accumulated sins ; sahasā — immediately ; eva — certainly ; hitvā — giving up ; saṁyānti — obtain ; apāvṛta — open ; amṛtam — immortality ; tam — Him ; ajam — the unborn ; prapadye — I take shelter .

Translation

Let me take shelter of the lotus feet of Him whose incarnations, qualities and activities are mysterious imitations of worldly affairs. One who invokes His transcendental names, even unconsciously, at the time he quits this life, is certainly washed immediately of the sins of many, many births and attains Him without fail.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

I surrender to the Lord without birth, whose names, invested with the powers of the Lord’s qualities and activities, chanted at the point of death even without attention, immediately destroy lifetimes of sins and allow men to achieve the uncovered, true form of the Lord. Announcing the greatness of the Lord’s highest mercy by giving his abode to those people who are like animals, by only nāmābhasa, and without a trace of knowledge of worship and the object of worship just mentioned, Brahmā reveals his own surrender to the personal form of the Lord. According to the Sandarbha, viḍambanāni nāmāni means “names having similar powers to the qualities and activities of Lord’s avatāras.” Or it can mean names which are represent the Lord’s qualities and actions as enacted by actors. Or it can means names not suitable to represent the qualities and activities of the Lord, since they are also used for one’s own sons and brothers. When used for one’s sons, names become degraded by saying “This is Kṛṣṇa. This is Rāma. This is Nārāyaṇa.” Qualities become degraded by describing those qualities in common people. “This Dāmodara is merciful, friend of the fallen (dīna-bandhu).” Actions of the Lord become degraded by addressing ordinary people as “Govinda, Giridhara, Madhuṣudana.” People like Ajāmila who utter these names at the point of death without reference to the true meaning (vivaśaḥ), immediately gave up heaps of sins (śamalam) and attain the Lord’s form of eternity, knowledge and bliss (ṛtam) without coverings (apāvrṭam). The usage ṛtam to mean “true form” is found in the following verse: ātma-tattva-viśuddhy-arthaṁ yad āha bhagavān ṛtam brahmaṇe darśayan rūpam avyalīka-vratādṛtaḥ Worshipped by sincere devotion, revealing his true, spiritual form, the Lord spoke to Brahmā the four essential verses of Bhāgavatam in order to give knowledge about himself. SB 2.9.4

Purport

The activities of the incarnations of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are a kind of imitation of the activities going on in the material world. He is just like an actor on a stage. An actor imitates the activities of a king on stage, although actually he is not the king. Similarly, when the Lord incarnates, He imitates parts with which He has nothing to do. In Bhagavad-gītā (4.14) , it is said that the Lord has nothing to do with the activities in which He is supposedly engaged: na māṁ karmāṇi limpanti na me karma-phale spṛhā. The Lord is omnipotent; simply by His will He can perform anything and everything. When the Lord appeared as Lord Kṛṣṇa, He played the part of the son of Yaśodā and Nanda, and He lifted the Govardhana Hill, although lifting a hill is not His concern. He can lift millions of Govardhana Hills by His simple desire; He does not need to lift it with His hand. But He imitates the ordinary living entity by this lifting, and at the same time He exhibits His supernatural power. Thus His name is chanted as the lifter of Govardhana Hill, or Śrī Govardhana-dhārī. Therefore, His acts in His incarnations and His partiality to the devotees are all imitations only, just like the stage makeup of an expert dramatical player. His acts in that capacity, however, are all omnipotent, and the remembrance of such activities of the incarnations of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is as powerful as the Lord Himself. Ajāmila remembered the holy name of the Lord, Nārāyaṇa, by merely calling the name of his son Nārāyaṇa, and that gave him a complete opportunity to achieve the highest perfection of life.