Devanagari
श्रीयुधिष्ठिर उवाच
अहो अत्यद्भुतं ह्येतद्दुर्लभैकान्तिनामपि ।
वासुदेवे परे तत्त्वे प्राप्तिश्चैद्यस्य विद्विष: ॥ १६ ॥
Verse text
śrī-yudhiṣṭhira uvāca
aho aty-adbhutaṁ hy etad
durlabhaikāntinām api
vāsudeve pare tattve
prāptiś caidyasya vidviṣaḥ
Synonyms
śrī
—
yudhiṣṭhiraḥ uvāca — Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira said
;
aho
—
oh
;
ati
—
adbhutam — very wonderful
;
hi
—
certainly
;
etat
—
this
;
durlabha
—
difficult to attain
;
ekāntinām
—
for the transcendentalists
;
api
—
even
;
vāsudeve
—
in Vāsudeva
;
pare
—
the supreme
;
tattve
—
Absolute Truth
;
prāptiḥ
—
the attainment
;
caidyasya
—
of Śiśupāla
;
vidviṣaḥ
—
envious .
Translation
Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira inquired: It is very wonderful that the demon Śiśupāla merged into the body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead even though extremely envious. This sāyujya-mukti is impossible to attain even for great transcendentalists. How then did the enemy of the Lord attain it?
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Yudhiṣṭhira said: It is astonishing that the envious Śiśupāla attained Vāsudeva. This attainment is difficult for even unattached persons.
Ekāntinām means persons who are unattached to anything.
Purport
There are two classes of transcendentalists — the
jṣānīs
and the
bhaktas.
The
bhaktas
do not aspire to merge into the existence of the Lord, but the
jṣānīs
do. Śiśupāla, however, was neither a
jṣānī
nor a
bhakta,
yet simply by envy of the Lord he attained an exalted position by merging into the Lord’s body. Certainly this was astonishing, and therefore Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira inquired about the cause for the Lord’s mysterious mercy to Śiśupāla.