Devanagari
यस्याननं मकरकुण्डलचारुकर्ण-भ्राजत्कपोलसुभगं सविलासहासम्
नित्योत्सवं न ततृपुर्दृशिभि: पिबन्त्योनार्यो नराश्च मुदिता: कुपिता निमेश्च ॥ ६५ ॥
Verse text
yasyānanaṁ makara-kuṇḍala-cāru-karṇa-
bhrājat-kapola-subhagaṁ savilāsa-hāsam
nityotsavaṁ na tatṛpur dṛśibhiḥ pibantyo
nāryo narāś ca muditāḥ kupitā nimeś ca
Synonyms
yasya
—
whose
;
ānanam
—
face
;
makara
—
kuṇḍala — cāru — karṇa — decorated by earrings resembling sharks and by beautiful ears
;
bhrājat
—
brilliantly decorated
;
kapola
—
forehead
;
subhagam
—
declaring all opulences
;
sa
—
vilāsa — hāsam — with smiles of enjoyment
;
nitya
—
utsavam — whenever one sees Him, one feels festive
;
na tatṛpuḥ
—
they could not be satisfied
;
dṛśibhiḥ
—
by seeing the form of the Lord
;
pibantyaḥ
—
as if drinking through the eyes
;
nāryaḥ
—
all the women of Vṛndāvana
;
narāḥ
—
all the male devotees
;
ca
—
also
;
muditāḥ
—
fully satisfied
;
kupitāḥ
—
angry
;
nimeḥ
—
the moment they are disturbed by the blinking of the eyes
;
ca
—
also .
Translation
Kṛṣṇa’s face is decorated with ornaments, such as earrings resembling sharks. His ears are beautiful, His cheeks brilliant, and His smiling attractive to everyone. Whoever sees Lord Kṛṣṇa sees a festival. His face and body are fully satisfying for everyone to see, but the devotees are angry at the creator for the disturbance caused by the momentary blinking of their eyes.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The joyful gopīs and priya-narma-sakhas drank with their eyes Kṛṣṇa’s face, a continual festival of delight, with its playful smile, attractive with beautiful cheeks and ears shining from his makaras earrings. But they could not be fully satisfied, and became angry with the creator who made their eyes blink.
However, among the devotees, the inhabitants of Vraja, and among the inhabitants of Vraja, the gopīs and the priya-narma-sakhas, such as Subala, were the best among all for drinking Kṛṣṇa’s sweetness. They were the most fortunate of all. Of all his limbs, his face is the sweetest. His face is divided in two parts, upper and lower, giving great sweetness. However of all the great types of sweetness, the great sweetness of his smile, like an emperor, resides on his lips. This portion is described. His ears and cheeks were lit by his makaras earrings and made attractive to the viewer (subhagam) by those earrings. And on that face was a smile indicating his joy, longing and fickleness. Just as his ears were more beautiful than his earrings, making the earrings more beautiful, so his cheeks were more beautiful than those earrings. When he chewed betel nut, though both the earring and smile were charming, the smile was more splendid than his earrings, because of the smile’s purity, because of its softness, and because of its inflation caused by the betel nut inside.
Though they drank that smile with the cupped hands of their eyes, they were not satisfied with it, because of the beauty of the edges of his mouth with red lips and teeth, because of its all-controlling nature over all the types of sweetness, because of its light which extinguished all types of suffering. They were not satisfied because it created greed to drink that sweetness in their cakora-hearts, because it increased the ocean of desire in the young women, and because its very nature was to create symptoms of madness, which destroyed the self-control of the innocent young women of Vraja.
Unable to tolerate the blinking of their eyes, they became angry with the person who created blinking of the eyes (nimeḥ). Among the women, only the gopīs, and not others, exhibited rūḍha-mahā-bhāva in which they could not tolerate the blinking of their eyes. Among the men, only Kṛṣṇa’s priya-narma-sakhas, such as Subala, and not others, had such experiences, since it is possible for only the gopīs and the priya-narma-sakhas to have rūdha-bhāva. This is stated in Ujjvala-nīla-maṇi.
ādyā premāntikāṁ tatrānurāgāntāṁ samaṣjasā
ratir bhāvāntimāṁ sīmāṁ samarthaiva prapadyate
ratir narma vayasyānām anurāgāntimāṁ sthitim
teṣv eva subalādīnāṁ bhāvāntām eva gacchatīti
Some of the Lord's conjugal lovers experience the varieties of love to the stage of prema, others to anurāga. Others attain the state of mahā-bhava. The narma-vayasya friends attain up to anurāga, and Subala and his associates attain up to the stage of mahā-bhāva. Ujjvala-nīla-maṇi 14.232-233
Purport
As stated by the Lord Himself in the
Bhagavad-gītā
(7.3)
:
manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu
kaścid yatati siddhaye
yatatām api siddhānāṁ
kaścin māṁ vetti tattvataḥ
“Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.” Unless one is qualified to understand Kṛṣṇa, one cannot appreciate the presence of Kṛṣṇa on earth. Among the Bhojas, Vṛṣṇis, Andhakas, Pāṇḍavas and many other kings intimately related with Kṛṣṇa, the intimate relationship between Kṛṣṇa and the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana is especially to be noted. That relationship is described in this verse by the words
nityotsavaṁ na tatṛpur dṛśibhiḥ pibantyaḥ.
The inhabitants of Vṛndāvana especially, such as the cowherd boys, the cows, the calves, the
gopīs
and Kṛṣṇa’s father and mother, were never fully satisfied, although they saw Kṛṣṇa’s beautiful features constantly. Seeing Kṛṣṇa is described here as
nitya-utsava,
a daily festival. The inhabitants of Vṛndāvana saw Kṛṣṇa almost every moment, but when Kṛṣṇa left the village for the pasturing grounds, where He tended the cows and calves, the
gopīs
were very much afflicted because they saw Kṛṣṇa walking on the sand and thought that Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet, which they dared not place on their breasts because they thought their breasts not soft enough, were being pierced by broken chips of stone. By even thinking of this, the
gopīs
were affected, and they cried at home. These
gopīs,
who were therefore the exalted friends of Kṛṣṇa, saw Kṛṣṇa constantly, but because their eyelids disturbed their vision of Kṛṣṇa, the
gopīs
condemned the creator, Lord Brahmā. Therefore the beauty of Kṛṣṇa, especially the beauty of His face, is described here. At the end of the Ninth Canto, in the Twenty-fourth Chapter, we find a hint of Kṛṣṇa’s beauty. Now we are proceeding to the Tenth Canto, which is considered Kṛṣṇa’s head. The entire
Śrīmad-Bhāgavata Purāṇa
is the embodiment of Kṛṣṇa’s form, and the Tenth Canto is His face. This verse gives a hint of how beautiful His face is. Kṛṣṇa’s smiling face, with His cheeks, His lips, the ornaments in His ears, His chewing of betel nuts — all this was minutely observed by the
gopīs,
who thus enjoyed transcendental bliss, so much so that they were never fully satisfied to see Kṛṣṇa’s face, but instead condemned the creator of the body for making eyelids that obstructed their vision. The beauty of Kṛṣṇa’s face was therefore much more appreciated by the
gopīs
than by His friends the cowherd boys or even by Yaśodā Mātā, who was also interested in decorating the face of Kṛṣṇa.