SB 5.18.15 · Srimad-Bhagavatam

Devanagari

केतुमालेऽपि भगवान् कामदेवस्वरूपेण लक्ष्म्या: प्रियचिकीर्षया प्रजापतेर्दुहितृणां पुत्राणां तद्वर्षपतीनां पुरुषायुषाहोरात्रपरिसङ्ख्यानानां यासां गर्भा महापुरुषमहास्त्रतेजसोद्वेजितमनसां विध्वस्ता व्यसव: संवत्सरान्ते विनिपतन्ति ॥ १५ ॥

Verse text

ketumāle ’pi bhagavān kāmadeva-svarūpeṇa lakṣmyāḥ priya-cikīrṣayā prajāpater duhitṝṇāṁ putrāṇāṁ tad-varṣa-patīnāṁ puruṣāyuṣāho-rātra-parisaṅkhyānānāṁ yāsāṁ garbhā mahā-puruṣa-mahāstra-tejasodvejita-manasāṁ vidhvastā vyasavaḥ saṁvatsarānte vinipatanti.

Synonyms

ketumāle — in the tract of land known as Ketumāla-varṣa ; api — also ; bhagavān — the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Viṣṇu ; kāmadeva — svarūpeṇa — in the form of Kāmadeva (Cupid or Pradyumna) ; lakṣmyāḥ — of the goddess of fortune ; priya — cikīrṣayā — with a desire to bring about the satisfaction ; prajāpateḥ — of Prajāpati ; duhitṝṇām — of the daughters ; putrāṇām — of the sons ; tat — varṣa — patīnām — the ruler of that land ; puruṣa — āyuṣā — in a human lifetime (about one hundred years) ; ahaḥ — rātra — the days and nights ; parisaṅkhyānānām — which equal in number ; yāsām — of whom (the daughters) ; garbhāḥ — fetuses ; mahā — puruṣa — of the Supreme Personality of Godhead ; mahā — astra — of the great weapon (the disc) ; tejasā — by the effulgence ; udvejita — manasām — whose minds are agitated ; vidhvastāḥ — ruined ; vyasavaḥ — dead ; saṁvatsara — ante — at the end of the year ; vinipatanti — fall down .

Translation

Śukadeva Gosvāmī continued: In the tract of land called Ketumāla-varṣa, Lord Viṣṇu lives in the form of Kāmadeva, only for the satisfaction of His devotees. These include Lakṣmījī [the goddess of fortune], the Prajāpati Saṁvatsara and all of Saṁvatsara’s sons and daughters. The daughters of Prajāpati are considered the controlling deities of the nights, and his sons are considered the controllers of the days. The Prajāpati’s offspring number 36,000, one for each day and each night in the lifetime of a human being. At the end of each year, the Prajāpati’s daughters become very agitated upon seeing the extremely effulgent disc of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and thus they all suffer miscarriages.

Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)

In Ketumāla, the Lord resides with Lakṣmī in the form of Cupid to please Prajāpati’s daughters and sons, who are the masters of the land and who number 360,000, the human life span in days and nights. The daughters’ fetuses are aborted and die at the end of the year, destroyed because the daughters’ minds are agitated by the kāla-cakra of the Lord. Kāmadeva means “one who plays (dīvyati for deva), using the pastimes of Cupid.” The Lord resides (verb should be added to the sanskṛt sentence) in Ketumāla with this form to please Prajāpati’s sons and daughters, the devatās presiding over the day and night. The śruti says samvatsaro vai prajāpatiḥ: Prajāpati is the year. Prajāpati is made of the year, or is the devatā presiding over the year. In mentioning the lifespan of man as a hundred years, the speaker of that time is speaking in anticipation of the lifespan of humans in Kali-yuga. By calculating a hundred years of days and nights, one attains a total of 360,000 days and nights. The fetuses of these 360,000 married daughters (which means nights along with the days of human life) are destroyed by the power of the kāla-cakra (mahā astra) of the Lord. The fetuses refer to the time with its minutes and seconds, or to the prārabdha-karma results of the inhabitants enjoying in that land. Because the nights act as the cause of enjoyment of karmas, they are called the fetuses of the daughters. At the end of gross time in the form of a year, with the end of enjoyment, they are aborted. These presiding deities of days and nights, the ordinary inhabitants of Ketumāla, by worshipping the Lord, will attain forms of the Lord’s devotees for serving the Lord in prema in Vaikuṇṭha. That should be understood to be the result of their worship.

Purport

This Kāmadeva, who appears as Kṛṣṇa’s son named Pradyumna, is viṣṇu-tattva. How this is so is explained by Madhvācārya, who quotes from the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa: kāmadeva-sthitaṁ viṣṇum upāste. Although this Kāmadeva is viṣṇu-tattva, His body is not spiritual but material. Lord Viṣṇu as Pradyumna or Kāmadeva accepts a material body, but He still acts spiritually. It does not make any difference whether He accepts a spiritual or a material body; He can act spiritually in any condition of existence. Māyāvādī philosophers regard even Lord Kṛṣṇa’s body as material, but their opinions cannot impede the spiritual activity of the Lord.