Devanagari
यन्निबद्धोऽभिमानोऽयं तद्वधात्प्राणिनां वध: ।
तथा न यस्य कैवल्यादभिमानोऽखिलात्मन: ।
परस्य दमकर्तुर्हि हिंसा केनास्य कल्प्यते ॥ २५ ॥
Verse text
yan-nibaddho ’bhimāno ’yaṁ
tad-vadhāt prāṇināṁ vadhaḥ
tathā na yasya kaivalyād
abhimāno ’khilātmanaḥ
parasya dama-kartur hi
hiṁsā kenāsya kalpyate
Synonyms
yat
—
in which
;
nibaddhaḥ
—
bound
;
abhimānaḥ
—
false conception
;
ayam
—
this
;
tat
—
of that (body)
;
vadhāt
—
from the annihilation
;
prāṇinām
—
of the living beings
;
vadhaḥ
—
annihilation
;
tathā
—
similarly
;
na
—
not
;
yasya
—
of whom
;
kaivalyāt
—
because of being absolute, one without a second
;
abhimānaḥ
—
false conception
;
akhila
—
ātmanaḥ — of the Supersoul of all living entities
;
parasya
—
the Supreme Personality of Godhead
;
dama
—
kartuḥ — the supreme controller
;
hi
—
certainly
;
hiṁsā
—
harm
;
kena
—
how
;
asya
—
His
;
kalpyate
—
is performed .
Translation
Because of the bodily conception of life, the conditioned soul thinks that when the body is annihilated the living being is annihilated. Lord Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the supreme controller, the Supersoul of all living entities. Because He has no material body, He has no false conception of “I and mine.” It is therefore incorrect to think that He feels pleasure or pain when blasphemed or offered prayers. This is impossible for Him. Thus He has no enemy and no friend. When He chastises the demons it is for their good, and when He accepts the prayers of the devotees it is for their good. He is affected neither by prayers nor by blasphemy.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
Because of the bodily conception of life, the conditioned soul thinks that when the body is annihilated the living being is annihilated. Because of having no false identity, the supreme controller, identifying himself as Paramātmā, different from matter and the jīva, though he is a punisher, does not have a concept of being a killer or being killed.
Though an ignorant person bound in the body thinks he has been killed when the body is killed, the Supreme Lord with no material body, identifying himself as Kṛṣṇa, cannot think of violence, since he has no false identity, since he is simply Paramātmā (kaivalyāt). The meaning is this. For all jīvas there is a body which is not ātmā and an ātmā. If Kṛṣṇa were to have a body and ātmā, then he would also have false identity like the jīvas. But Kṛṣṇa’s body is not different from Kṛṣṇa. Paramātmā, arising from Kṛṣṇa’s svarūpa, identifies himself as Kṛṣṇa, and is made completely of Kṛṣṇa. He also identifies as the antaryāmī (akhilātmanaḥ), a portion of the Lord, but does not identify himself as the jīva’s body or the jīva, which do not arise from the svarūpa of the Lord. He is different (parasya) from the jīva and anything made of māyā. Because of not identifying with things not arising from the Lord’s svarūpa, how can he hate anything, and who will hate him? Identifying himself as Paramātmā in the body which is also Paramātmā, whom will he hate and who, knowing him as Paramātmā, will hate him? Does the Lord harm persons like Śiśupāla who hate him? He punishes them for their own benefit (dama-kartuh), since he is the friend of all beings.
Purport
Because of being covered by material bodies, the conditioned souls, including even greatly learned scholars and falsely educated professors, all think that as soon as the body is finished, everything is finished. This is due to their bodily conception of life. Kṛṣṇa has no such bodily conception, nor is His body different from His self. Therefore, since Kṛṣṇa has no material conception of life, how can He be affected by material prayers and accusations? Kṛṣṇa’s body is described herewith as
kaivalya,
nondifferent from Himself. Since everyone has a material bodily conception of life, if Kṛṣṇa had such a conception what would be the difference between Kṛṣṇa and the conditioned soul? Kṛṣṇa’s instructions in
Bhagavad-gītā
are accepted as final because He does not possess a material body. As soon as one has a material body he has four deficiencies, but since Kṛṣṇa does not possess a material body, He has no deficiencies. He is always spiritually conscious and blissful.
Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ:
His form is eternal, blissful knowledge.
Sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ, ānanda-cinmaya-rasa
and
kaivalya
are the same.
Kṛṣṇa can expand Himself as Paramātmā in the core of everyone’s heart. In
Bhagavad-gītā
(13.3)
this is confirmed.
Kṣetrajṣaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarva-kṣetreṣu bhārata:
the Lord is the Paramātmā — the
ātmā
or Superself of all individual souls. Therefore it must naturally be concluded that He has no defective bodily conceptions. Although situated in everyone’s body, He has no bodily conception of life. He is always free from such conceptions, and thus He cannot be affected by anything in relation to the material body of the
jīva.
Kṛṣṇa says in
Bhagavad-gītā
(16.19)
:
tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān
saṁsāreṣu narādhamān
kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān
āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu
“Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, are cast by Me into the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac species of life.” Whenever the Lord punishes persons like demons, however, such punishment is meant for the good of the conditioned soul. The conditioned soul, being envious of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, may accuse Him, saying, “Kṛṣṇa is bad, Kṛṣṇa is a thief” and so on, but Kṛṣṇa, being kind to all living entities, does not consider such accusations. Instead, He takes account of the conditioned soul’s chanting of “Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa” so many times. He sometimes punishes such demons for one life by putting them in a lower species, but then, when they have stopped accusing Him, they are liberated in the next life because of chanting Kṛṣṇa’s name constantly. Blaspheming the Supreme Lord or His devotee is not at all good for the conditioned soul, but Kṛṣṇa, being very kind, punishes the conditioned soul in one life for such sinful activities and then takes him back home, back to Godhead. The vivid example for this is Vṛtrāsura, who was formerly Citraketu Mahārāja, a great devotee. Because he derided Lord Śiva, the foremost of all devotees, he had to accept the body of a demon called Vṛtra, but then he was taken back to Godhead. Thus when Kṛṣṇa punishes a demon or conditioned soul, He stops that soul’s habit of blaspheming Him, and when the soul becomes completely pure, the Lord takes him back to Godhead.