Amar Katha Srimadbhagwata

Srimate Ramanujay Namah
Amarkatha
Srimadbhagawata
Srikrishna Prapnnachari
Amarkatha Srimadbhaagawata Contents
Contents
Background x - xxi
Skandh-1 : Parikshit Skandha
1. Parikshit saved 1
2. Parikshit crowned king 2
3. Parikshit encounters kaliyuga 2
4. Shringi curses Parikshit 2
5. Parikshit renounces kinghood 2
6. Two questions of Parikshit 2
Skandh – 2 : Samadhan Skandha
7. Shukdeo’s answers 3
8. Bhakti 3
9. Actions preceding death 3
10. Narada meets Brahma 3
11. More detailed questions to Shukdeo 4
12. Shukdeo elaborates the answer 5
Skandh – 3 : Shrishti Skandh (Vidur – Maitreya Skandha)
13. Mahabharta war 6
14. Vidura on pilgrimage 6
15. Vidura meets Maitreya 7
16. Maitretya speaks to Vidura 7
17. Version of amarkatha 7
18. Narayana begins creation 8
19. Brahma’s dilemma 8
20. Lotus seat of Brahma 8
21. Stages of creation 9
22. Matter 9
23. Time scale 9
24. Brahma’s creation 11
25. Varaha’s incarnation (avtar) 12
26. Hirnyakash and Hirnyakashipu 12
27. Kapila’s incarnation 13
Skandh – 4 : Sankalp Skandha
28. Devahuti’s daughters 15
29. Daksha Prajapati 15
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30. Sati immolates 15
31. Dhruva 15
32. Dhruva crowned king 15
33. Prithu 17
34. Prachinvarhi 18
35. Narada preaches Pracheta 18
Skandh – 5 : Jigyasa Skandha
36. Priyavrata 20
37. Jambu dweep 21
38. Bharata varsha 21
39. King Bharata 22
40. Jada Bharata 22
41. Dweep and varsha 23
42. Planetary system 23
43. Netherlands 24
44. Anant 24
45. Hell 25
Skandh – 6 : Mukti Skandha
46. Rebirth 26
47. Ajamil 26
48. Yama 26
49. Narada’s puzzle 28
50. Daksha curses Narada 28
51. Daksha’s daughters 28
52. Brihaspati quits gods 29
53. Indra kills Viswarupa 29
54. Twasta’s ygya 29
55. Diti blessed 30
56. Punsvan vrata 31
Skandh – 7 : Prem – Prakrama Skandha
57. Parikhita’s doubt 32
58. Hirnyakashipu blessed 33
59. Prahalad 33
60. Prahald’s conviction 34
61. Shukrayacharya 34
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62. Kayadhu blessed 34
63. Narsinha’s incarnation 36
64. Hirnyakashipu killed 36
65. Narsinha’s glorified 36
66. Tripurari 36
67. Sanatan dharma 37
68. Prahald meets Duttatreya 37
Skandh – 8 : kalyan Skandha
69. First manvantra 40
70. Second manvantra 40
71. Third/ Fourth manvantra 40
72. Fifth manvantra 40
73. Sixth manvantra 41
74. Durvasha curses Indra 41
75. Ocean churning (samudramanthan) 41
76. Laskmi 41
77. Mohni and amrita (ambrosia) 41
78. Mohini obliges Shiva 42
79. Seventh manvantra 42
80. Eighth to fourteenth manvantra 42
81. Mastsyavtar 42
Skandh – 9 : Rajvansha (Ramavtar) Skandha
82. Surya dynasty 45
83. Cow protection 45
84. Sage Chayavan 45
85. Revati (wife of Balaram) 46
86. Ambrisha and Durvasha 46
87. Ikshavaku 46
88. Advent of the river Ganga 47
89. Saudasa and Vashishtha 47
90. Sri Ram 49
91. Nimi 49
92. Chandra dynasty and Atri 50
93. Ila and Pururava 50
94. Pururava and ygya-arni 51
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95. Jahnu 51
96. Viswamitra 51
97. Jamadagni 52
98. Prashuram kills Sahasrarjuna 52
99. Renuka and Prashuram 53
100. Chandra dynasty (Yadu from Devayani) 53
101. Sharmishtha 54
102. Sahasrarjuna 55
103. Madhu, Vrishni, Yadu 55
104. Vasudeva 55
105. Devaki and Vasudeva 55
106. Vidarbha dynasty 56
107. Chandra dynasty (Puru from Dharmishtha) 56
108. Dushyanta 56
109. Bharata 56
110. Rantideva 57
111. Hastinapur 57
112. Jarasandha 58
113. Kripacharya and kripi 58
114. Chitrangada and Vichitriyavirya 58
115. Shantanu 58
116. Vyas 59
117. Dhritrashtra, Pandu, and Vidura 59
118. Kaurava 59
119. Pandav 59
120. Draupadi 59
121. Parikshit 59
122. Ang, vang, kaling, Andhra 59
Skandh – 10 : Leela (srikrishnavtar) Skandha
123. Brahma assured 62
124. Kans scared 62
125. Devaki’s sons 63
126. Yogmaya 63
127. Srikrishna 64
128. Devaki freed 65
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Srikrishna’s bal-leela
129. Putana 65
130. Trunavarta 66
131. Yashoda and cosmos-1 66
132. Gargacharya 66
133. Yashoda and cosmos-2 67
134. Srikrishna tied to mortar 67
135. Yamalarjuna 67
136. Rohini nakshatra 68
137. Vatsasur 68
138. Vakasur 68
139. Aghasur 69
140. Brahma steals calves and herders 69
141. Dhenukasur 71
142. Kaliya and Garuda 71
143. Kaliya salvaged 72
144. Forest fire-1 72
145. Pralambasur 72
146. Forest fire-2 73
147. Flute play 73
148. Katyayani vrata 73
149. Ygyapatni 74
150. Goverdhan 74
151. Varunlok 75
152. Brahmdaha (glimpse of vaikunthalok) 75
153. Rasleela 76
154. Python 77
155. Gopi hijacked 77
156. Aristasur 77
157. Narada comes to Kans 77
158. Kesi 78
159. Vyomasur 78
160. Akrur to vrindavana 78
161. Akrur’s vision of divinity 79
162. Nanda reaches Mathura 79
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163. Royal dress 80
164. Kubja 80
165. Kans killed 81
166. Ugrasen 81
167. School of Sandipani 82
168. Udhava comes to vraj 82
169. Akrura to Hastinapur 82
Srikrishna’s yuva-leela
170. Mathura attacked 83
171. Dwarka 83
172. Kalayavan 83
173. Srikrishna reaches Dwarka 84
174. Rukmini’s messenger 85
175. Rukmini’s marriage 85
176. Pradyumna 85
177. Syamantak mani 86
178. Satyabhama 86
179. Famine at Dwarka 87
180. Kalindi 87
181. Gandeeva to Arjuna 88
182. Mitravrinda and Lakshamana 88
183. Bhaumasur 88
184. Srikrishna’s sons and grandson 89
185. Banasur 91
186. Nruga a lizard 91
187. Paundrak and Kashiraja 91
188. Dwid 92
189. Samb 92
190. Narada at Dwarka -1 92
191. Sudharma 93
192. Messages to srikrishna 93
193. Jarasandha killed 93
194. Rajsuya ygya 94
195. Duryodhana with Pandav 94
196. Salva and Dantavaktra killed 95
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197. Balaram on pilgrimage 95
198. Sudama 95
199. Sun eclipse at Kurukshetra 96
200. Devaki’s sons 96
201. Arjuna and Subhadra 97
202. Sagun and Nirgun Narayana 97
203. Shiva and Vrukasur 97
204. Bhrigu and trinity 97
205. Brahmin’s sons salvaged 98
Skandh – 11 : sadhana skandha
206. Yaduvanshi cursed 100
207. Bhagawat dharma 100
208. Brahma prays srikrishna 101
209. Duttatrey’s 24 gurus 102
210. Duttatrey’s warning 104
Srikrishna – Udhava diaglogue
211. Bonded soul 105
212. His omnipresence 105
213. Three guna 105
214. Meditation 105
215. Yogic potential 106
216. His cosmic form 106
217. Yuga and His forms 106
218. Renunciation 107
219. Discipline 107
220. Gyan, karma, and bhakti yoga 107
221. Prakriti 108
222. purusha and prakriti 108
223. Destiny 108
224. shankhya yoga 109
225. kriya yoga 109
226. Udhava to Badrikashram 110
227. Yaduvanshi eliminated 110
228. Srikrishna’s ascension 111
229. Mathura rehabilitated 111
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Skandh – 12 : mukund maya skandha
230 Future dynasties 113
231. Advent of kaliyuga 113
232. Astronomical events 113
233. Attributes of dharma 114
234. Veda and purana 114
235. Ygayvalk 114
236. Eighteen purana 115
237. Markandeya 115
238. Cosmic manifestation 116
239. Dissolution 117
240. Parikshit departs 118
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Amarkatha Srimadbhaagawata Background
Background
How events in a real life are unpredictable can

well be appreciated by having a look at the post-
Mahabharata war developments. The scenes of
Hastinapur and Dwarka suggest that turn of events is
beyond the control of human beings. In Hastinapur, the
victory in the war for pandav was at the cost of almost
losing the entire second generation. None of their sons
could survive. The sole survivor from the third
generation of grandsons was Parikshit who was son of
Abhimanyu. When the war was almost over, and
Duryodhana was breathing his last, his sympathiser
Aswathama stealthily entered into the pandav’s camp
at night and severed the heads of sleeping sons of
Draupadi assuming them to be five pandav brothers.
This is how the second generation was wiped out
almost in a split second, and instead of enjoying the
moments of victory, the pandav’s camp fell under a
pall of mourning.
The wheel of events revolved further;
Aswathama was so much biased that instead of feeling
sorry for unethical killings of Draupadi’s sons, he
further attempted to kill the last survivor of the younger
generation and the survivor was Parikshit still in the
mother’s womb. Due to grace of Srikrishna, Parikshit
survived against his deadly attempt.
The scene in Dwarka is almost similar where
yaduvanshi were rehabilitated after deserting Mathura
under the threat of Jarasandh. Dwarka was established
before Mahabharata war. Sometime after the war
ended, Srikrishna intended to depart for His divine
abode vaikunthalok. Before leaving He got an
impression that yaduvanshi (natives of Dwarka) had
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turned arrogant of their power. It so happened that

irony of fate turned the wheel in reverse order. All the
Dwarka’s yaduvanshi fought among themselves and
with the active participation of Srikrishna and Balaram,
they were eliminated. Subsequently Balaram departed
by taking yogic meditation. Srikrishna also disappeared
into a rising flash of light after he was grievously
injured by an arrow of a hunter. As forewarned by him,
within a week of His ascension, coastal line moved
vigorously, and Dwarka, the beautiful city disappeared
overnight. However, a few natives had survived
because they vacated Dwarka on prior information by
Srikrishna. The sole youngest survivor from
Srikrishna’s family was Vajranabha, the son of
Anirudha (grand-son of Srikrishna). Since the city of
Dwarka had disappeared, Arjuna who had come there
hearing the heart-rending news of Srikrishna’s
ascension took Vajranabha and other survivors of
Dwarka back to Hastinapur and crowning Vajranabha
the king of Mathura, resettled them at Mathura.
The departure of Srikrishna to His divine abode
grieved pandav to the core of their heart, and they
decided to renounce the crown in favour of Parikshit.
Making him the king of Hastinapur, all the five
brothers left for the Himalayas with a view to withdraw
from the worldly life as a prelude to their ascension to
heaven. This evidently suggests that the period of
enjoyment of victory of war couldn’t stay longer in
face of the series of providential happenings.
Now the reigns of rule of the states of
Hastinapur and Mathura were in the hands of two
young men, Parikshit and Vajranabha respectively.
Once Parikshit met Vajranabha and learnt about his
(Vajranabha’s) concern of prevailing grim desolation in
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Mathura, the capital of vrajbhumi. They together

sought advice of the sage Shandilya who was family
preceptor of yadava. Shandilya narrated the
background story behind the cause of desolation in
Mathura. He advised Parikshit to help Vajranabha in
rehabilitating the city again. The sage further
mentioned, “Vrajbhumi is the land of Srikrishna; vraj,
literally in Sanskrit means, all pervading which is
srikrishna Himself. Although physically He is not
present but the entire environment of vrajbhumi is
impregnated with His divine spirit. He was complete
incarnation of Narayana and came to vrajbhumi in
twenty-eighth dwapar of that kalp. Every part and
parcel of vrajbhumi where he was born and brought up
(gokul, vrindavan, goverdhan and barshana ) carry the
evidence of His eternal presence. All efforts should be
made to commence and continue the celebrations of
spiritual events at all these places to glorify His leela.
Udhava, the dearest friend of Srikrishna, who is now at
Badrikashram, shall also join them soon once such
celebrations are organised. ” Thus guided by the sage,
Parikshit helped organise resettling a few traders and
other people from Indraprashtha at Mathura. Gradually
Mathura began coming back to normalcy and all the
places associated with His pastime were rediscovered.
The surviving wives of Srikrishna who were
also resettled at Mathura, once happened to meet
Kalindi, one of His principal queens who had merged
her physical identity with her genesis, the river
Yamuna to continue enjoying Srikrishna’s eternal
presence. She revealed that kusumsarovar near
goverdhan was the venue of Srikrishna meeting His
beloved gopi. She mentioned that Udhava cherished to
stay at kusumsarovar in the form of shrubs, flowers,
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bushes and plants for that would offer him opportunity

to get smeared with the sacred foot-dust of gopi who
were fortunate to get His close company. She advised
them to organise chanting of His glory at
kusumsarovar. When Parikshit and Vajranabha learnt
about the advice of Kalindi, they immediately
organised His glory chanting celebration at
kusumsarovar.
Attracted by the joyous moments of such

celebration, although Udhava was at Badrikashram, he
couldn’t help and appeared there at kusumsarovar.
Udhava noticed all present there fully engrossed in the
recitation of His glory. He became very glad and
offered affectionate respect to each of them. Udhava
embraced Parikshit for he was fortunate to get his
company who had received His special blessings
beginning from the time when he was in his mother’s
womb. He revealed to him that Srikrishna before His
ascension had disclosed that He would manifest in the
form of amarkatha srimadbhaagawata which has been
revealed in the past by Sankarshana to Sankadika, who
transferred that to Sankhyayan, and further it was
transferred to Brihaspati and Parashara. Parashara
propagated this holy katha to Maitreya, who further
recited it to Vidura and thus it got wider propagation in
the terrestrial world. Therefore he proposed to
commence the holy recitation of srimadbhagawata at
kusumsarovar also. At the same time Udhava also
advised Parikshit to win over and restrain kaliyuga
whose pangs were getting severer since its advent
following the ascension of Srikrishna. He asked
Parikshit to set out immediately on such mission.
Parikshit consenting to his proposal expressed his
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feeling of getting deprived from the opportunity of

listening to holy srimadbhaagawata which was set to
be recited soon by Udhava. Udhava advised him, “Do
not worry about this at the moment, you will have
special opportunity of listening this amarkatha recited
by Shukdeo in due course.”
While Parikshit left the place as advised by
Udhava, Vajranabha handed over the reign of rule to
his son Pratibahu, and enjoyed the listening of katha
with full concentration. By listening to holy katha he
got a pleasant vision that perpetually he got a place
among the rare icons1 adorning the sole of Srikrishna’s
right foot sole. What he found that he was merged in
the vajra icon of the lord’s holy lotus foot-sole. His
name Vajra, thus proved its worth. The benefit of
katha was immensely reaped by others also; His
surviving wives experienced a vision in which they
found themselves merged in the soothing rays
emanating from the nails of His holy lotus feet.
Once, one puzzling scene attracted the attention
of Narada at vrajbhumi (vrindavan). A young woman
attended by several beautiful maidens was trying to
raise the full consciousness of two old and wearied men
lying by her side. Her efforts appeared to be futile and
disappointing. Compassionate Narada drew closer and
enquired whether he could help them. The woman
mentioned, “ I am Bhakti and was born in Dravida
desha (Tamil Nadu) on the bank of river Tamraparni. I
have been reared young in Karnataka. In Maharashtra
people showered profound affection on me. While in
Gujarat I turned old. These two semiconscious men are
1
The divine icons over sole of Narayana’s feet are dhwaj, ankush, vajra, sankha,
chakra, and several other groups of auspicious lines.
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my sons: Jnan (gyan) and Vairagya. It is surprising

that when we reached vrindavana I regained my youth
but my two sons are still old and wearied. The
attending maidens are the sacred rivers. They are
helping me to rejuvenate the vitality of my sons.” She
offered her respected to him and continued, “O, great
sage Narada ! with your efforts Dhruva and Prahlad
have attained the ultimate bliss and release from
bondage. Be kind, bless my sons, and me as well. In
satyayuga, Treta, and Dwapar meditation, and ygya
helped in gaining salvation, but in kaliyuga they are
non-functional. Narayana sent me to the terrestrial
world with Jnan and Vairagaya my two sons, and
mukti as a maid assistant. Looking to the attitude of the
beings here, mukti found herself redundant, and was
asked to go back to vaikuntha but we remained here for
the sole benefits of the beings. In kaliyuga the greatest
means for liberation and ultimate salvation is the
recitation of the name of the Lord Narayana. Now
while coming to vrindavan I got my vitality but my
sons are still in the state of weariness. I can’t help
them. Kindly be kind on me and get my sons
revitalised.” Narada also tried by reciting several vedic
mantra in their ears to bring them back to their senses
but nothing worked. He guessed that by coming to
vrindavan they must have attained the inner pleasure of
the self and that is why they look like sleeping but in
fact they enjoy the bliss of knowing their self. This land
lovingly called vrindavan is the land of bhakti
(fondness of Lord’s pleasure). However, he assured to
come back with some remedy for them.
In the meanwhile, frustrated Narada, heard a
celestial voice “Consult saints and sages”. Narada was
a little confused since there was no further guidance in
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the celestial voice. He moved around several sacred

places and contacted several saints and sages but no
solution appeared to be emerging. In due course he
reached Badrikashrma and was contemplating to resort
to meditation. In the meanwhile he noticed sages
sanakadika, and narrated the incident of vrindavana to
them. Sanakadika advised him to organise recitation of
srimadbhaagawata katha on the sacred bank of Ganga
at Haridawar, and he also elaborated its significance for
the amelioration of the beings suffering from the
worldly afflictions. Narada was reminded as to how he
had learnt that from Brahma, which he had passed on
to Vyas who subsequently composed the amarkatha,
and the same was recited by Shukdeo, pious son of
Vyas, to Parikshit.
Immediately Narada organised the katha’s recitation as
advised by sanakadika. Large number of audience
from all walks of the lives (saints, sages, sacred rivers,
pilgrimage places, gods, human beings) assembled to
hear the katha from the sanakadika. During the
currency of the katha when its significance was being
elaborated, a miraculous scene was noticed. Bhakti
appeared dancing with her two sons, Jnan and
Vairagya, at the venue and presented an oral melodious
song of “srikrishna! Govinda! hare murare!, hey
nath! Narayan! Vasudeva!. EaIkRYNa ! gaaoivand ! hro mauraro, !
ho naaqa ! naarayaNa vaasaudova !” Sanakadika mentioned, “The
potential of srimadbhagwat katha is obvious that by
listening to its recitation Bhakti, Jnan, and Vairagya
could regain their vitality, and they have automatically
emerged from the stream of the katha being presented
here.”
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There is another story from the lives of the

domestic world. Atmadeva was a pious man born in a
village located on the bank of the river Tungbhadra.
For long time he remained issueless. Once Atmadeva
met a saint who told him that in the present life he had
no chance of any issue. On great persuasion of
Atmadeva, the saint gave him a fruit advising that his
wife should eat it with due reverence. When Dhundhuli
got that fruit from her husband she began imagining the
associated labour pains and efforts required to carry a
child in the womb for ten months. She hatched out a
plan. Her brother’s wife was pregnant and she made a
secret pact with her that she (brother’s wife) would
hand over the child to her after its birth.” Dhundhuli
didn’t disclose her game plan to anybody else and
offered that fruit to her domestic cow. She confined
herself to inside the house pretending that she was
carrying a child in her womb. When her brother’s wife
delivered a child, that child was brought to her and was
declared to be Dhundhuli’s child. The child was given
a name, Dhundhakari. On the other hand, the cow also
delivered a calf having the form of a human being but
the ear of a cow. Atmadeva was glad to see that calf
and he reared that up with due care, calling him,
Gokarna. In course of time Gokarna became learned
person and renounced the domestic life. He began
moving from one sacred place to another.
When Duhndhakari grew young, he turned out
to be very cruel. He enjoyed killing the children.
Gradually he began disrespecting his parents. His
mother, Dhundhuli died of falling in a well. Father
deserted home and became a wanderer. Duhndhakari
fell into bad company of sex workers and began
gathering money by robbing others only to please those
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women. Once when he collected large amount of

precious jewels, those women killed him and decamped
with all the money and jewels. Due to premature death
by killing, Duhndhakari became a ghost. He began
haunting the neighbours and made their life miserable.
Gokarn, once happened to visit his paternal home. He
came to know the full details about their parents and
brother. At night, the ghost (Duhndhakari ) appeared
before him but he was not able to speak. Gokarn
sprayed water over him reciting some mantra. This
made him speak and he requested his brother to liberate
him from the life of the ghost. With a view to attain his
liberation, Gokarna offered essential oblations at Gaya
and other sacred places. Nothing worked and
Duhndhakari continued in the life of the ghost.
Lastly, Gokarna organised the recitation of
srimadbhagwat katha at his parental home and invited
the neighbouring people. Duhndhakari didn’t have
visible form, so he joined the audience by finding a
place inside a bamboo piece having seven knots.
Duhndhakari listened to the katha with rapt attention,
and every day on completion of the katha, one knot of
the bamboo piece used to split producing loud sound.
On the seventh day, when the katha concluded, the last
seventh knot burst, and there came out a handsome
person. He offered a prayer to Gokarna as a mark of
obligation that he was liberated from the life of a ghost
only because of him. In the meanwhile, a divine plane
arrived and carried away Duhndhakari to the celestial
world.
Srimadbhagawat, (in short, reverently called
bhagawata) has single origin emanating from Narayana. In
different periods of time, it had been revealed through different
sources. The latest one which is found presently, is narrated
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by Suta to the sages gathered at Naimisharnya. Suta mentioned

that he learnt it from Shukdeo while being narrated to
Parikshit. Shukdeo had learnt it from his father Vyas. It was
Narada who prompted Vyas to compose bhaagawata for the
common welfare. Narada had also revealed to him that he had
learnt it on different occasions from different sources. His
sources were Brahma and Sanakadika sages.
Udhava had learnt it from Srikrishna Himself, and at
that time Maitreya was also present there. Maitreya had also
been fortunate to learn it from Parasara. Parasara had learnt
from Sankhyayan, and it was Sanakadika who revealed it to
him. The source of learning to Sanakdika is from Sankarshan,
one of the four principal emanations of Narayana.
Srimadbhaagwat mahapuran is the creation of Vyas, and is preceded by

Mahaabhaarata. Although Mahaabhaarata is the most profound epical
scripture,Vyas was not happy with his great work (Skandh-1, chapter 4, 5),
and as advised by Narada he created this one which is now-a-days most
popular among the common mass like Raamayan. The name “Bhaagawata”
itself indicates that it is dedicated to Narayana. It has twelve skandha
(books), each one containing several stories (adhyaaaya, or chapters), and
sum of all chapters is three hundred thirty five. The advent of Narayana
from time to time over earth has been in different forms: dasavtar (ten
prime incarnations picked up from 24 incarnations). Almost all His
incarnations are covered in bhaagwata giving significant deliberations on
the srikrishna incarnation in skandha-10.
The setting of the bhaagwata is narration by Suta to Shaunkadik sages. He

repeats how Shukadeva (or Shuka), the glorious son of Vyas recited the
entire bhaagwata to Parikshit (the curious king of Hastinapur, son of
Abhimanyu and grandson of Arjuna). During course of recitation, the
reference of other speakers are also there who had narrated this to other
audiences. Brahma and Narada are found to be the initiator of this work in
skandh-2.
In skandh-3, Maitreya is found to recite it to Vidura, and Maitreya

introduced its genesis from his guru, Paraasara, who had earlier received it
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from great links of sanakadik (sanak, sanandan, sanatan, and sanatkumar)

and sankarshana. All the speakers deal fully with the initiation of the
creation from Narayan to Brahma, from Brahma to sages, prajapatis and
swambhuva Manu and the succeeding inheritors. The essence of bhakti
(devotional cult) is further put into philosophic form of sankhya yoga from
the mouth of Kapila (Narayan’s incarnation), son of Devahuti (daughter of
Manu).
skandh-4 continues with the description of the first inheritors of Manu, and
the story of Dhruva (the most brilliant devotional star), and other kings
Ben, and Prithu whose contributions to the expanse of the creation have
been very significant.
Skandh-5 continues with the stories of the inheritors of Manu, after Dhruva,
and describes the structure of universe, setting of stars and planets in detail.
The subtle philosophy of devotion is well established from the story of
Bharat (Jada Bharata) describing the links to his several past and present
births and lives.
Skandh-6 stands out with the examples of Ajamil and Vritrasur who had
opted unscrupulous life style but received the direct attention of the
supreme Narayan blessing them with ultimate emancipation, bestowing
liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
Another famous devotional star, Prahlad is covered fully in skandh-7 with

the novel incarnation of Naryan as Nrisimha (man with lion’s head). The
significant code of conduct of the worldly domestic life is well described in
this skandh.
The stories of skandha-8 are about liberation of the elephant king

(gajendra), and the dwarf incarnation (vaman) who could do the most
wondrous work of (trivikram) measuring the universe by steps, in total
contrast to His body size. The magic works of delusion (maya) consolidates
among the beings, and the created lives of gods, demons including other
creatures are made more attractive and meaningful by the yields obtained
from the great exploratory adventure of ocean churning (samudra
manthan): poison, nectar, horse, lakshmi (wealth goddess), dhanvantri
(preceptor of physical well being), liquor (to exchange carnal pleasure),
super gem (kaustubha), etc.
xx
Breaking down further the expanse of creation, most of the forefathers of

solar and lunar dynasties of kings (Yayati, Ikshavaku, Nimi etc.) are dealt
at length in skandha-9. Besides incarnation of Raama, the preceding lineage
of srikrishna is described chronologically. The immunity of devotees
against evil eyes is illustrated by the instructive stories of Ambrisha. The
significance of sacrifice in life is demonstrated by the characters of
Rantideva.
Srikrishna is the rare axiom of skandh-10 incorporating in detail all the

events from His birth in a royal prison through his nomadic childhood in
Mathura and Vrundavan to His royal life in self established palatial forts of
Dwaraka. This skandh is the largest among all the twelve skandh, scripted
in 91 chapters, compared to 335 chapters of the entire bhaagawata.
The meditational essentials for a true devotee are the subject matter of
skandh-11. This skandha appears to be the essence of the entire
bhaagawata. The story of Duttatreya and his preceptors is most practical
demonstration of an ideal domestic life. The discourses with Udhav are the
gems among all stories.
Skandh-12 contains several topics rendering completion to bhaagawata.

Sublime end of Parikshit is concluded. The eternity of Narayan is once
again illustrated by a live reference to the spiritual experience of
Markandeya whom balmukunda manifested in quite a wondrous style
establishing the role and significance of ever existing real delusion (maya –
one realisable variant of purusha and prakriti). The eternal existence of
the trine structure of the creation by jeeva, jagat and ishwar is well
concluded in this last skandh.
xxi
Amarkatha srimadbhaagawata skandh - 1
Parikshit skandh (19 chpaters)

1. The great war of Mahabharata was fought in eighteen
days. It was the last day of the war when Duryodhana was
lamenting in his death bed with his broken thighs. As a
revenge of defeat, Aswathama assured him that he would
eliminate the pandav. To achieve his objective, same day after
the sunset, Aswathama sneaked into the camps of pandav. In
the darkness of the night, he beheaded (1/7)2 five sleeping sons
of Draupadi mistaking them as five pandavs. When the heads
were brought to the dying Duryodhana, he examined them and
told Aswathama that the heads belonged to the five sons of
Draupadi and not to the pandav. Duryodhana died before the
sunrise, but Aswathama nursed in his heart the hatred against
pandav. All the sons of pandav, including the last five
beheaded by Aswathama, were killed. Abhimanyu, son of
Arjun, was the great warrior and he was killed on the thirteenth
day of the war over the battle ground kurukshetra. His wife
Uttara was carrying a child in her womb. Aswathama, in a bid
to completely eliminate the inheritance of pandav, did not
spare that opportunity also, and he charged (1/8) a deadly
missile against the child in the womb. She rushed to Srikrishna
for help, who saved the child by using His sudarshana chakra.
The child was born, later, safely and came to be known as
Parikshit. In fact, he had a glimpse of Srikrishna’s divine form
with all His four hands equipped with divine symbols of
sankha, chakra, gada, and padma, in the mother’s womb
itself. After the birth, he carried that memory of the divine
form and his eyes always were in search of that form.
Although his formal name was Vishnurat (1/12), but he came
2
The figures in the parentheses are reference to the original Sanskrit text or the
author’s earlier publication in English “The Crest Jewel :Srimadbhaagawata
Mahapuran with Mahabharata”. The first figure is skandh, and the second one is
the corresponding chapter of that skandha.
1 Srikrishna Prapnnachari
to be known as Parikshit, which literally meant someone

searching or examing a definite goal or target.
2. Subsequently Parikshit was crowned king by his
grandfathers (Pandav) who renounced their kinghood and set
out for Himalayas after hearing the news of Srikrishna’s
ascension to the divine abode
3. Later, once he encountered kaliyuga (disguised as a well
dressed person- 1/17) torturing dharma (an ox limping on one
leg) and prithivi (mother earth manifested as a cow). During
satayuga dharma (ox) had four legs, the other three legs were
badly damaged by the sinful acts of the beings during the
course of treta, dwapar, and kaliyuga. Parikshit intended to
kill kaliyuga but spared him on compassionate ground.
4. Once while moving around in the forest he incurred
Shringi’s curse (1/18). He was very thirsty and in search of
drinking water, he entered into the hut of a meditating saint
(named Shamik). When the saint didn’t respond to his demand,
he got irritated. While coming out he saw a dead snake lying
on the ground. He picked up the dead snake and wrapped
around the meditating saint’s neck and left for his palace. The
saint’s son, Shringi was playing outside, and when he heard
about the incident, he cursed the king his death of snake bite in
a week.
5. Hearing about the curse, the king renounced royal life in
favour of his son Janmejaya, and took a resort to the bank of
the Ganges near Haridwar. There he got the company of saints
and sages presided by Shukdeo (1/19).
6. He put two questions to the saintly gathering: (i) What is
the most appropriate life style?, (ii) Just before dying, what
ought to be done?
Samadhan skandh
(10 chpaters)
7. Shukdeo mentioned that answers to the two key
questions of Parikshit was the topic of srimadbhaagawata
which he had learnt from his father Vyas in dwapar. He would
therefore recite srimadbhaagawata to him for his utmost
benefit and help dispel his doubts about the appropriate life
style to be followed before death.
8. In a day- to-day life one must cultivate the habit of
bhakti (devotional service) to the almighty. He should perform
this while attending to his domestic responsibilities as His
command.
9. Nearing the end of life, one ought to renounce domestic
life and take a resort at a place of pilgrimage. One should
concentrate one’s mind by reciting aum on the cosmic form of
the almighty. Alternatively, one can recite the favorite names
of Narayana and meditate on his archa form ( a form having
four hands equipped with divine symbols of sankha, chakra,
gada and padma, fully wrapped in silken cloth, decorated with
flower garlands, kaustabha gem and sri - vatsa icons over the
chest).
10. Shukdeo quotes the dialogue of Narada and Brahma to
substantiate his view points.
 Once Narada was sitting with Brahma. Narada asked
him, “ How do you perform the activities of creation?
Is it performed by you or you have got a command
from any other superior power to do so? How did you
possess the potential of creation ?
 Brahma replied, “ It is Narayana who has commanded
him to do this work. He (Narayana) takes incarnations
from time to time. I don’t recollect my past link, but
when I meditate on Him, I get guidance and things
continue to happen automatically which I never
imagined, nor planned accordingly to happen.”
 Brahma first describes the cosmic form of Narayana

(2/6) and then recounts His various incarnations (2/7).
11. Parikshit made further breakdown of his two key

questions earlier put to Shukdeo.
 “Narayana’s perceptible form” , how to perceive this?
 “His form of sound sleep” , what is its objective?
 “His wrapping of the entire creation – dissolution
(pralaya)”, how it happens?
 “Lokpal are His organs, and He Himself manifests as
Lokpal” , is it not contradictory?
 How many are intermediate units of time to measure an
era (yuga), i.e., Kalp and Mahakalp ? How is the scale
of time defined?
 How to appreciate past, present and future?
 Does a human being get a limited life?
 How does the bondage of deeds (karma) end?
 What are the different proportions of satva, raja and
tama, which when combined together create different
beings (including lesser gods)?
 How does the birth of a being (over land, in water or in
sky) or creation of objects (river, mountain etc) take
place?
 How is brahmanda (universe) dimensioned ?
 What are the characteristics of a great soul ?
 What is varnashrama dharma (community life with its
code of conduct)?
 What are the incarnations of Narayana and why do they
happen?
 What are special and ordinary duties of a human being?
 How is Narayana worshipped?
 What is adhyatma yoga (self realization)?
 What are the various forms of veda, purana, itihasa

and other religious scriptures?
 How do creation, sustenance and dissolution of the
universe take place?
 How to possess wealth, divinity and pleasure ?
 How does birth of a soul take place after the
dissolutions?
 How is Narayana independent? How does He discard
the delusion (maya) selflessly?
12. Shukdeo commenced thus, his explanations over the
king’s enquiries, “Once Brahma was in a dilemma and was not
able to commence the creation work. He heard a voice twice
asking him to perform tapa (penance). He performed penance
by meditating for one hundred divine years. Narayana pleased
over his penance appeared before him. He showed Brahma
His vaikunthloka and then explained the cause of the creation”.
Four stanzas (2/9 – sloka 32 through 35) are called chatuhsloki
bhaagawata and contain the primordial facts about the nature
of the universe. The four stanzas concisely set forth the
eternity of all the three entities: (i) universal soul (bhagwan -
God), (ii) creation (srishti, jagat, maya etc.), (iii) jeeva
(being), and the significance of bhakti (refuge in Narayana)
which helps understand the interwoven perpetuity of jeeva,
jagat and bhagwan.
Srishti skandh (Vidur – Maitreya skandh)

(33 chapters)
Initially Brahma was assigned the duty of creation. He
undertook this assignment by resorting first to mansik
srishti, i.e., creating by mental resolve only. In this process he
created several saints and sages but they didn’t help him in
expanding the creation as they resorted to the life of recluse
and remained involved in meditation. Later he created a
couple, Manu and Satrupa who obeyed his command and
expanded the creation by sexual indulgence. Subsequently
Brahma delegated his power of creation to several prajapati
in various periods of time. Among prajapatis Daksha is very
famous. He was born (skandha 6/4) from Pracheta and
Marisha (4/30 - daughter of Pramlocha), and therefore, he
was also called Pracheta Daksha. Initially he also resorted to
mental creation and created several gods, human beings etc
but none helped him in expanding his creation. Subsequently
he took to penance in Vindhyachala at aghamarahan teertha.
His prayer was hamsguhai which caused srihari to appear
before him. Srihari handed over a wife called Asikni
(daughter of Panchajana prajapati) to help Daksha create
further adopting a domestic life and by sexual indulgence
with her. The time of mansik srishti was thereafter over for
Daksha.
13. Mahabharata was over and pandav were the sovereign
of Hastinapur. Dhritrashtra and Gandhari, the parents of
kaurav adopted the forest life where they subsequently died.
Vidura was contemporary to Dhritrashtra and Pandu. Although
he was the son of a royal maid, he was given great honour in
the stately matters and he was the principal advisor to the king
Dhritrashtra.
14. Parikshit enquired, “Why Vidura deserted the royal
life and took to pilgrimage before the great war begun ?”
Shukdeo mentioned that when Vidura’s advice for doing
justice to pandav was not heeded, he preferred to quit
Hastinapur. He continued moving around various pilgrimage
centres and when he arrived in prabhas kshetra he happened to

meet Udhava. He learnt from him that after the end of
Mahabharata, Srikrishna had also departed for His divine
abode. Udhava also advised Vidura, “He should meet Maitreya
who will recite bhaagawata to him which is now the spiritual
representative of Srikrishna”. Saying this, as advised by
Srikrishna, Udhava moved towards Badrikashram. Srikrishna,
before leaving for His eternal divine abode (vaikunthalok), had
stated to Udhava that in the past lives Udhava had performed
several ygya and his punya had culminated to attain moksha to
him; he was then in his last birth only. He was also advised to
spend the balance days of his present life at Badrikashrama.
Before Udhava had left for Badrikashrma, Maitreya had also
arrived there when he was last seen with Srikrishna. At that
time Srikrishna revealed His divinity what was earlier revealed
to Brahma by Narayana, and Vyas composed the same as
chatuhsloki bhagawata in skandha-2 (adhyaya-9, sloka 32-35).
15. Vidura, on the advice of Udhava, began searching
Maitreya whom he found at Haridwar. He addressed him as
friend of Vyas who composed amar-katha (i.e.,
srimadbhaagawata). He expressed several doubts to Maitreya
about the origin of afflictions to a human being. His other
questions were regarding the cultivation of devotion to the
Lord, and how He created the universe; the role of maya;
difference between gyan and bhakti, etc.
16. Maitreya spoke, “ O! Vidura, you are worthy son of
Vyas, therefore, you are eligible to listen to amar-katha. The
creation has been commenced by Narayana Himself and first
He manifested Virat Purusha”. As regards his several other
questions he mentioned that they were covered in bhagawata
katha which he would recite to him for his benefits.
17. Maitreya mentioned, “The version3 of the katha which

he is going to recite was the one which Sankarshan (sheshjee –
the serpent couch of Narayana) bhagwan recited to Sanakadik
sages. In the netherworld Sheshjee was meditating and moved
by the prayer of the Sanakadik He opened His graceful eyes.
Sages wanted to know about the divinity of Narayana. In order
to drive home the point He recited bhagawata katha to them.
Sanakadik later recited the katha to Samkhyayan muni who in
turn recited to Parashara and Brihaspati. At the instance of
Pulstaya, I listened this katha from my guru Parashara”.
18. Once all the beings were coalesced together in subtle
form, and were merged in Narayana Who was reclining over
the serpent (seshajee) couch with His closed eyes. He
commanded (3/8) kala-chakra (time cycle) to remind Him by
the end of one thousand chaturyuga. As commanded he was
awakened by kala-chakra at the appointed time and the kala-
chakra transformed itself in a lotus stem with a flower at the
top. The stem came out of the navel of Narayana. Narayana
created four headed Brahma seated over the louts flower.
Brahma tried hard to find out his genesis and purpose of his
being there. Looking all around he couldn’t see anything. In
vain, he went up and down the lotus stem several times to find
out his origin and location. He then heard the direction for
meditation, and on completion of the same after one hundred
divine years he could be able to see Narayana sleeping over
Sheshjee in the celestial ocean. He found himself over the lotus
stem coming out of His navel. He offered a passionate prayer
to Narayana.
19. Narayana could realize the nervousness of Brahma
because of his loneliness over the stem. He revealed, “All the
subtle beings wrapped in Him would unfold steadily to him.
3
This version of Srimadbhagawata in the dialogue of Sankarshna and Sankadika
begins with the enquiry about Narayana Himself, whereas the Shukdeo – Parikshit
version is marked by the Parkishita’s queries about the worldly life.
He would never be alone and he must start the creation by

meditating on Me. Everything was in the past, and the same
would be manifested from Him in the present, and they would
continue to be in the future”.
20. It is said the lotus seat of Brahma is as large as the
expanse of bhu, bhuva and swah.
21. There are ten stages of creation and they are covered in
two broad categories of prakriti (nature), and vaikriti
(modified). (3/10)
 The first six ones are under prakriti srishti: (i)
Mahatatva, (ii) Ahankar consisting of earth, five
elements, five knowledge organs, and five action
organs, (iii) bhutha sarga, (iv) sense organs, (v) gods
of knowledge and action organs, (vi) avidya
 The last four are in vaikriti category. (vii) plants and
trees having their roots in the earth and they lack the
knowledge organs, (viii) lesser beings of animals and
birds, (ix) human beings, (x) kaumar sarga and deva
sarga combining the characteristic of prakriti and
vaikriti together. In kaumar sarga sages are covered
commencing from sanakadika, and in deva sarga gods,
pitra, gandharva, kinnara, yaksha, apsara, vidyadhara,
asura etc are covered.
22. Matter is parmanu in its smallest size and brahmand in
its largest form. Two parmanu make one anu, three anu make
one trasrenu. One can visually see the dust particles of the size
of trasrenu in the beam of sun rays coming out of a small
hole. (3/11)
23. Time taken by the sun rays to cross three trasrenu is
called truti.
 100 truti = 1 vedha; 3 vedha = 1 lav; 1 nimesha = 3
lav;
 1 kshana = 3 nimesha; 1 kashtha = 5 kshana; 1 laghu
= 15 kashtha;
 1 danda (nadika) = 15 laghu; 2 nadika = 1 muhurtha;

 1 prahar = 6 / 7 muhurtha (transition from day to night
/ night to day), 1 yama = ¼ th of day or night.
 1 day / night = 4 prahara; 1 paksha (fortnight) = 15
days and nights; 1 month = 2 paksha; 1 ritu = 2
months; 1 year = 6 ritu; 1 ayana = 6 months; 1 year = 2
ayana.
 1 day and night of pitra = 2 paksha of human beings
 1 day and night of deva (gods) = 2 ayana of human
beings
 1 samvatsar (1 year) = one complete cycle of sun in 12
zodiac signs
 1 parivastsar = 1 year of Jupiter; 1 idavatsar = 1
savana year; 1 anuvatsar = 1 moon year; 1 vatsar = 1
year of galaxy of stars
 1 chaturyuga (satyugs, treta, dwapar, kaliyuga) =
12000 divya varsha
 1 satyuga = 4000 divya varsha; 1 treta = 3000 divya
varsha; 1 dwapar = 2000 divya varsha; 1 kaliyuga =
1000 diva varsha;
 Transition from one yuga to another is measured in
hundreds of divya varsha which is double the digit used
in thousand of their period; Thus satyuga to treta = 2 x
4 = 800 divya years, treta to dwapar = 600 divya years;
dwapar to kaliyuga = 400 divya years; kaliyuga to
satyuga = 200 divya years.
 1 chaturyuga = (4,000 + 800) + (3,000 + 600) + (2,000
+ 400) + (1,000 + 200) = 12,000 divya years
 1 deva (divya varsh) year = 360 years (human beings);
1 deva day = 360 days (human beings)
 1 kaliyuga = 360 x (1000 + 200 ) = 4,32,000 years
(human beings);
 1 dwapar = 2 kaliyuga, 1 treta = 3 kaliyuga, 1 satyuga

= 4 kaliyuga
 1 day of Brahma = 1 kalp (present one is baraha kalp)
= 1000 chaturyuga
 1 kalp = 14 manvantrar (period of one Manu)
 Brahma’s night is the period of dissolution
 Brahma’s one life cycle = 100 years ( where 1 day = 1
kalp of 1000 chaturyuga). Half life 50 years is called
parardha (the present one is second parardh where the
first kalp is continuing and is called varaha kalp). The
first parardha had the first kalp as brahm kalp and the
last one as padm kalp)
24. Brahma begins creation (3/12)
 First creation of Brahma is vriti (avidya, moha,
mahamoha, tamisra, andhatamisra).
 Second creation was Sankadika (Sanat, Sandana,
Sanatana, Sanatkumar).
 Third creation is Rudra.
 Fourth creation is group of ten sages (Marichi from
mind, Atri from eyes, Angira from mouth, Pulastya
from ears, Pulha from navel, Kratu from hand, Bhrigu
from skin, Vashistha from soul, Daksha from thumb,
Narada from lap), and Kardam from shadow.
 Dharma was born from Brahma’s chest and Narayan
came from Dharma and his wife Murthi. Adharma was
born from his back who created Mrityu.
 Veda were created, rik from the eastern mouth, yajur
from the southern one, Sam from the western mouth,
and atharva from his northern mouth.
 In the same kalp Brahma discarded his body and got
new bodies again. Two significant events on discarding
his body are given below. However, besides this he
discarded his body two more times (3/20) for he was
attacked by rakshasa and yaksha. On advice of

Narayana he transformed his body into a beautiful
woman from whom they produced gandharva (celestial
singer) and apsara (celestial dancer). On another
occasion getting fascinated by his own handsome
image Brahma produced kinnara and kimpurusha who
assumed his handsomeness as Brahma discarded his
body.
 He created Sarswati and grew lust against her. It was
not proper for him and on the advice of his sons
Marichi and others he discarded his body and got a new
body. His previous body transformed into fog.
 He split his body into two parts creating Manu and
Shatarupa.
 Manu and Shatarupa had two sons (Priyavrata and
Uttanpad), and three daughters (Aakuti, Devahuti, and
Prasuti). Aakuti was married to Ruchi Prajapati,
Devahuti to Kardama (who was created from shadow
of Brahma), and Prasuti was married to Daksha.
25. Varaha avatar: Manu and Satrupa demanded place to

stay and expand the creation as desired by Brahma. The earth
was drowned in the ocean and Brahma became concerned to
retrieve the landmass back to handover to the primordial
couple, Manu and Satrupa. As he was deeply engrossed with
the problem, he saw a very tiny mass falling out of his nose.
Instantly that mass assumed a very big size of a boar and
jumped into the ocean. It came back with retrieved earth after
killing the demon Hirnyaksh. When Varaha bhagwan shook
His body, the body hair falling (3/22) on the earth produced
kusha (a type of grass used for religious offerings).
26. Hirnaykash and Hirnyakashipu: Two demons were
born from Diti (Daughter of Daksha) and Kasypa (son of
Marichi). Once it so happened that it was sunset time when
Diti prevailed upon Kasyapa to cohabitate with her instead of

performing evening sandhya (rites). There was an another
coincidence that the security guards of Vaikuntha known as
Jaya and Vijaya were cursed at the same time by Sankadik
sages to become demons. They under curse became demon and
got lodged in the womb of Diti and became known as
Hirnyaksh and Hirnyakashipu. Kasyapa had forbade Diti for
having sex during sunset time but when she didn’t listen, he
told her after the cohabitation that two sons would be born
from her and they would be notorious demons. Diti was
concerned about that but Kasyapa again consoled her that her
grandson would be a very reputed saintly figure and great
devotee of Lord Narayana.
27. Kapila incarnated (3/24 through 3/33): On the advice
of Narayana, Devahuti (second daughter of Manu) was married
to Kardama. They produced nine daughters who were married
to Marichi, Atri and others. Kapila (an incarnation of
Narayana) was born as only son to Kardama. Devahuti was
enlightened by her own son Kapila about the samkhya yoga
including the operational part of bhakti (devotional cult).4
 Her question to Kapila was about purusha and prakriti.
He explained that the soul is purusha and the creation
is prakriti. Under the influence of trine characteristics
of satva, raja and tama, the twenty-five building blocks
of prakriti lead purusha (jeeva) to bondage. Twenty-
five building blocks are made of 5 elements (prithvi,
jala, tej, vayu, akash: earth, water, fire, air, space
respectively) + 5 elemental characteristics (gandha,
rasa, rupa, sparsha, shavd: scent, taste, form, touch,
expression respectively) + 4 inheritances (mana,
buddhi, chita, and ahankar: mind, wit, conscience,
4
In essence, similar content is covered in Skandh 11 when Srikrishna
enlightens Udhava.
ego) + 10 organs (nose, tongue, eyes, skin, ear, mouth,

hands, feet, phallus, anus) + 1 universal soul (in the
form of eternal time period).
 The super-soul (Narayan - God) is omnipresent in
purusha and prakriti but alone none can define Him; all
three are eternal. Devahuti expressed her doubt, “The
characteristics of elements can’t be separated from
them, e.g., the taste is inseparable from water, scent
from earth, brilliance from fire, etc. Similarly purusha
is inseparable from prakriti, and therefore, how jeeva
could be liberated from bondage ?” Kapila clarified by
an example that fire is latent in a piece of wood, and
the fire, when brought about by rubbing two wood
pieces, burns them completely. Similarly the endeavour
of bhakti (cultivating constant contemplation over His
glory, His divine form equipped with chakra, sankha,
gada, padma, kaustabha, vanamala and ever smiling
features, and finally His lotus feet.) helps purusha
overcome the bondage of prakriti.
sankalp skandh
(31 chapters)
The skandh begins with the storys of the daughters of

Devhuti, second daughter of Manu who was married to
Kardama and had produced nine daughters. They were
married to respective sages. The major part of the skandh is
thereafter devoted to the legends about the inheritance of
Uttanpad, the eldest son of Manu. The reputed among them
are Dhruva, Prithu, and Pracheta. The name sankalp skandh
is for strong resolve of Dhruva to attain an eternal seat
against the transitory lap of his father which was denied to
him by his step mother Suruchi.
28. The daughters of Devahuti (the second daughter of
Manu) were married to Atri, Angira, Pulstya, Bhrigu, Vasistha
and others.
 Atri was married to Anusuya and produced three sons
as representative of three trinity: Brahma, vishnu and
mahesh.
 Angira produced brilliant son Brihaspati, the preceptor
of gods, from Shradha, one of the daughters of
Devahuti.
 From Pulstya and his wife Havirbhu were born Agastya
and Vishrava. The latter had two wives, Idvida and
Keseni. Kuber was born from Idvida, where as Ravana,
Kumbhakarna and Vibhishna were born from Keseni.
 Bhrigu was married to Khyati, and later one of their
sons, Kavi produced Shukracharya (also called Usna),
the preceptor of demons.
 Other saints were married: Vasishatha to Arundhati,
Marichi to Kala, Pulaha to Gati, Kratu to Kriya,
Atharva to Shanti.
29. Prasuti, the third daughter of Manu was married to
Daksha prajapati and gave birth to sixteen daughters. One of
them was Sati who was married to Shiva. Besides, thirteen
were married to Dharma, one (Swaha) was married to Agni,

and one (Swadha) was married to four pitra.
30. Later, Sati committed self-immolation at her father’s
place when she noticed disrespect to her husband (Shiva) in
the ygya organized by Daksha. In retaliation of her death,
Shiva disrupted the ygya and beheaded Daksha, who later
survived by having goat’s head on the initiative of Brahma
when due respect was showered on Shiva on resumption of the
ygya. (4/3 – 4/7).
31. Dhruva was born (4/8) from Suniti and Uttanpad (one
of the two sons of Manu). Suruchi, another wife of Uttanpad,
once hurled an insult on Dhruva when he tried to sit in the lap
of his father. Hurt by her stepmother’s behaviour Dhruv
resolved to attain an eternal seat and undertook a severe
penance to please Narayana. He became successful following
the guidelines of Narada who asked him to go to Madhuvana, a
forest on the bank of the river Yamuna, near Vrindavan. There
he recited uninterrupted the dwadash mantra “! namaao Bagavato
vaasaudovaaya aum namo bhagwate vasudevaya” given to him by
Narada. His meditation was so sincere on Srihari, that he
stopped taking breath in the fifth month of his penance. He
was in a standing pose on one leg, and his this pose caused an
eccentric loading on the earth which induced a tilt to its
rotating axis. His breathless state of meditation caused short of
breathing to common beings in the universe. Srihari was
persuaded to take action on this. He rushed to Dhruva and
showering His blessings on him, granted him an eternal focal
seat in the universe around which all stars and sages
circumambulate.
32. Dhruva was crowned king by his father, Uttanpad. His
unmarried step brother, Uttama, son of Suruchi, was killed by
yaksha. Dhruva was having two wives and one of his sons was
Utkal who later became king when he went to Badrikashram
renouncing his royal outfit after ruling for thirty six thousand
years. From there he rose to vishnuloka. His mother Suniti was

also awarded the same divine status. Utakal was not interested
in royal order and he renounced in favour of his cousins.
33. Further in the lineage of Dhruva, Vena was born from
Ang. He was a cruel king who was later destroyed by the
wraths of the sages and saints. The churning of the arms of
Vena produced Prithu (with his wife Archi) the great emperor
of the earth. He is said to be partial incarnation of Srihari as
he carried divine symbols of chakra on his palm. He is
credited to discover several articles from the earth’s womb
(4/18).
 Once there was a severe famine causing large scale
starvation deaths. With a view to penalize the earth, he
began chasing her who had appeared in the form of a
cow. Ultimately she gave up and asked Prithu to use
calves to milk the useful items from her. Several calves
from all walks of the universe were invited to facilitate
milking the earth cow: Manu for grains (pot was
palm), Jupiter (Brihaspati) by saints for veda (pot was
mind), Indra for nectar (golden pot) by gods, Prahlad
milked wine and liquor for demons in iron pot,
gandharva used viswavasu for beauty and music (in
lotus pot), Takshaka for poison by snakes and
scorpions (pot their mouth), banyan by trees for sap,
Himalayas by mountains for minerals and metals,
Rudra by yaksha and pisacha for blood liquor in skull,
Garuda by birds for insects and fruits, and likewise.
 He performed one hundred aswmedha ygya despite the
hindrances created by Indra out of jealousy. Indra tried
to steal the ygya horse several times in different
disguises. His numerous disguises created several
pseudo-religious sects which mislead people to observe
Indra as their principal deity. In each of his ygya
srihari appeared to honour his respect to Him and

blessed him.
 Later, Prithu renounced his royal life in favour of his
son, Vijitaswa and took to forest life of a recluse with
his wife, Archi. Once Archi saw him dead; she lit the
pyre and merged her identity in fire with her husband.
34. In the continuation of the lineage of Prithu from his son
Vijitaswa, there was Prachinvarhi whose wife was the daughter
of ocean, Shatdruti. During marriage her rare beauty caught the
fancy of fire god also. She gave Prachinvarhi, ten sons called
Pracheta (4/24). Pracheta instead of procreating and expanding
their inheritance preferred meditation of srihari. On advice of
Shankara, who handed over rudra- stuti (Shankara’s prayer to
please sirhari) to them, they succeeded in pleasing srihari by
its recitation for ten thousand years standing in water.
35. In the meanwhile Narada came to Prachinvarhi, father
of Pracheta, who was engaged in following karmkand (rituals).
Narada explained him the futility of following rituals devoid of
devotion to the lotus feet of srihari. To drive home his point he
narrated the story of Puranjan (4/25 – 4/29). There were two
friends, Puranjan and Avigyat. Puranjan moved around to find
a life partner. He reached a beautiful city having nine entrances
and guarded by a five hooded servant. He could see there a
beautiful girl in an orchard attended by equally beautiful
maids. Both were attracted to each other at their first glance.
They stayed together for a pretty long time and produced
several sons and daughters. The city was once attacked by
Chandvega, the leader of gandharva. The five hooded serpent
fought them continuously. In the meanwhile yavan also
attacked the city. The serpent lost the battle due to long drawn
fighting. He followed the enemies and Puranjan was killed.
While dying he was anxious about the state of his wife. He
took a birth as a female child. Prachinvarhi couldn’t get the
moral of the story. Narada explained, “ Puranjan is jeeva; city
is his body. Nine gates are the sense organs i.e., two eyes, two
nostrils, two ears, one mouth, one anus, one phallus. Five
hooded protector serpent is the five elements of the body.
Gandharva the invader is the time, yavan is old age. Avigyat is
God.”. In order to get rid of the worldly attraction one has to
devote time in meditation of srihari.
 Srihari impressed by Pracheta’s penance appeared
before them and blessed them. He also advised them to
marry the daughter of Kandu rishi. They followed His
instruction and married together to the same woman.
They lived for long years expanding the creation.
Lastly on advice of Narada they took renunciation to
meditate on srihari crowning their sons as the kings.
Jigyasa skandh
(26 chapters)
The skandh covers mainly the legend about Priyavrata and his
inheritors. Priyavrata made seven rounds of the earth on the
speed of the sun and the wheels of his chariot created seven
oceans as well as seven different earth spheres. Bharat is the
most illustrious inheritor whose name caused the country’s
(India’s) name as Bharatvarsh. His (Bharat’s) successive births
as deer and Brahmin illustrate the cause of cycle of rebirth
influenced by the karma. In the birth of Brahmin he became
famous as jada bharat leading the life of a detached being, and
on coincidence he once had a chance to be with the king
Rahugan. The king was highly impressed by his response and
curiously made several spiritual enquiries which are covered in
detail in this skandh and that is why this skandh has been called
jigyasa (curiosity) skandh, means curiosity to reveal more and
more. The later part of the skandh gives details of seven different
terrestrial worlds including the present earth known by
Jambudweep. The planetary details around Jambudweep is the
content of the later chapters. The skandh, before reaching
concluding chapter, gives the details about sankarshna who as
Anant keeps the equilibrium of position of all the terrestrial
worlds and their planetary system by virtue of his divine
potential of creating appropriate force of attraction among
different planetary / celestial masses. The misdeeds of a being is
well accounted for in the system of karma, and accordingly one is
penalized by the afflictions of the spell in hell, is detailed in the
last chapter.)
36. Priyavrata, the other son of Manu was initially not

inclined to take up domestic life. Manu couldn’t convince him,
but on the pursuance of Brahma he was initiated into domestic
life and he offered all his actions as a service to the lotus of
feet of adinarayana. He was having two wives. He was
blessed with ten sons and one daughter from one wife and
three sons from the other. His daughter was married to

Shukracharya whose daughter was Devayani.
 He was deeply involved in the rule of sovereignty.
Once he noticed that half of the earth was only lighted
by the sun. He resolved to light the entire earth at a
time and for doing that he drove his brilliant chariot
seven times as faster as sun which kept half the earth
lighted by the brilliance of his chariot as the other half
was lighted by the sun. In doing so, the wheels of his
chariot made seven deep and wide ruts which are
known as seven oceans which happens to have water of
different tastes: salt, sugarcane, wine, ghee, milk,
butter-milk, and sweet. The seven separate earth
sphere’s were created and they are called Jambu,
Plaksha, Shalmali, Kusha, Kroncha, Shaka, Pushkar.
The reign of seven earths were given by him to his
seven sons.
37. Agnidhra was in control of Jambu dweep. While doing
penance at Sundrachala, he was attracted by a fairy,
Poorvachitti, sent by Brahma. She gave him nine sons who
became the king of nine independent parts of Jambu dweep.
His eldest son Nabhi performed ygya for a son. Srihari having
eight hands equipped with His divine weapons, appeared and
blessed Himself to come as his son.
38. As a result Rishabhadev was born to Nabhi who from
the beginning took interest in the domestic life and ruled the
state excellently maintaining high standard of morality (5/3 –
5/5). He produced one hundred sons from his wife Jayanti
(daughter of Indra). The eldest one Bharat, was very capable
and on his name Ajnabhkhand of Jambu dweep has been
renamed as Bharatvarsha5. Handing over the reign to his able
5
The king Bharat, son of Dushyant (Skandha 9/20 ) is also credited with similar
legend on whose name the present India is called Bharatvarsh.
sons, he adopted the life of complete renunciation so much so

that unmindfully he continued to remain naked with long
grown hairs and nails. He was so self-contained that even
hunger couldn’t influence his life style and he maintained
complete silence in his later life. At the end of his life he was
in Karnataka where he was burnt to ashes in a sudden break
out of a deadly forest fire. His life style at the end of his life
gave birth to a religious sect who mistook him as an atheist
and propagated his life style to be imitated for peace and
prosperity in the life (5/6).
39. Bharata (5/7) ruled the kingdom very effectively. He
performed several ygya and the punya phala of ygya was
offered to vasudeva Himself. He never longed for any personal
benefits from the ygya. At the end of his life he decided to stay
on the bank of Gandaki river, near Pulha ashram near
Harihara kshetra in Bihar. He worshipped sun god as a direct
manifestation of Narayana Himself. Once he was reciting
pranava mantra on the bank of Gandaki, that he saw a female
deer fast crossing the river being chased by a lion. She was
pregnant and she delivered the calf in the water stream and
died while crossing. Bharata took care of the calf and
gradually he got completely attached to the deer calf. He died
contemplating about the calf, and therefore he was reborn as a
deer. Due to his sacred past karma he died quietly as a deer
and was again reborn as a Brahmin.
40. He spent the life of a self–realized soul completely
detached from the worldly life. Once he was inducted into the
carrier group of the palanquin of the king Rahugana. His
movement to save insects and worms caused jerks and
discomfort to the king riding the palanquin. He warned
Bharata to carry him without any jerk otherwise he would be
penalized. Despite the king’s warning he couldn’t improve.
Consequently the king stopped and began reprimanding him.
Bharata ignored all his shouting by saying that one could
penalize the body but not the soul. The king was a learned man
so he turned towards Bharata and initiated a spiritual discourse
with him. Bharata reminded the king that self realization could
be attained by complete surrender to the Narayana’s feet and
not by learning spiritual scriptures. The body of the king and
the body of Jada Bharata are made of the same five elements
and both are prone to decay and aging. Thus the king was
enlightened by Bharata who was also called jada Bharata (jada
means inert or insensitive to worldly happenings) (5/12 –
5/14).
41. Chapters 5/16 – 5/20 describe the formation of dweep
and varsh. In fact, before the movement of Priyavrata around
the sun, there was one earth with one landmass. Subsequently
it was divided into seven parts. The part which is called Jambu
dweep is the present earth and the other six dweep are six
different globes with oceans of different liquids surrounding
them. The other six dweep are kept in equilibrium by their
respective gravitational forces like the planetary systems
surrounding the present day known earth. At that time, Jambu
dweep was divided into nine zones called varsh. The human
habitation was known only over the Bharat varsh and other
varsh were occupied by demi-gods as extra-terrestrial beings.
The present day seven continents have been formed out of
Bharatvarsh. Little is known today about the other eight varsh
of Jambu dweep. The other six dweep are hardly known in the
present day knowledge system. They make other terrestrial
systems having their separate and independent planetary
systems and little is known about them.
42. Chapters 5/21 – 5/24 describe the planetary system
around the present earth sphere (i.e., Jambu dweep). The sun of
Jambu dweep is said to have three simultaneous motions called
uttarayan, dakshinayan, and vishuvat. The sun is said to have
one main axle with a single wheel at one end of the axle such
that the wheel moves over the top of mansottara mountain, and
the other end of the axle without any wheel rests over the Meru
mount. There is one sub-axle attached to the main axle at its
Meru end which extends to the Dhruva lok and the free end of
the sub-axle in Dhruva lok is without any wheel. The single
wheel of mansottra mountain has a large trajectory marked by
four cities in four cardinal directions each having their separate
presiding deity, i.e., Indra (east), Varuna (west), Yama (south),
and Chandra (north). The sun has got a charioteer known as
Arun who doesn’t have legs and sit opposite to the sun god in
his chariot. There are about sixty lacs sages (balkhilya) who
stay praying the sun in the chariot. The chariot of the sun is
pulled by seven horses. There are different rates of movement
of the sun in different time which complete one cycle in
approximately twenty four hours. Chapter 5/22 describes the
position of other planets (Moon, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus,
Saturn etc.) with respect to sun. The entire planetary system is
in the form a coiling serpent which is called shishumara chkra
(5/23) and its different limbs represent the location of different
planets and constellation of stars (called nakshatra).
43. Below the earth there are seven netherlands called:
atal, vital, sutal, talatal, mahatal, rasatal, and patala.
Mayadanav famous demon architect lives in atal. In vital lives
hatkeshwar mahadev on the bank of river hataki which
produces gold. In sutal lives the widely known demon king
Bali whose gates are guarded by Narayana Himself. In talatal
lives a demon called Maya who is reputed for his devotion to
shankar. In mahatal lives the serpents inheritors of kandru.
The community of kaliya and sushena are scared of garuda,
mount of srihari. There live pani demons, the foes of gods in
rasatal. Patal is occupied by another community of snakes
known for brilliant gems over their hoods, and their chief is
vasuki who helped the churning of ocean by gods and demons.
44. Below patal is the seat of anant who has one thousand
hoods. He has potential of traction of a very high order who
can draw all materials towards him, and because of this special
power he is called sankarshan. The entire earth looks like a
mustard seed over his head. During the dissolution time, he
produces eleven rudra having three eyes and equipped with
trident in their hands. They perform the destruction process of
the dissolution.
45. The last chapter 5/26 is devoted to the description of
twenty one varieties of hell. The affliction in life comes from
the prohibited deeds undertaken by a being. Specific hell with
a particular type of torture is assigned for a given misdeed in
the life.
Mukti Skandh
(19 chapters)
(i) The skandh is devoted to the legends of salvation (mukti) of
two sinner souls: Ajamila and Vritrasura.
(ii) How Daksha prajapati performed on the command of

Brahma to expand creation is covered from 6/4 – 6/6. This part
of skandh requires a close study with the skandh 4/2 and 4/30.
At one place Daksha is shown as son of Brahma but here he is
son of Pracheta. His wife is Prasuti as per skandh 4/2, but here
in sixth skandh his wife is asikni who gave him sixty daughters
as well as two thousand sons. Prasuti’s daughters (4/2) were only
sixteen and they were married to Dharma, Kasyapa and others.
Asikni daughters are also shown to be married with Dharma
and others but the numbers differ.
(iii) The revelation of Narayana-kavacha (6/8) by Viswrupa to

Indra is worthy of observance for spiritual and worldly
successes.
(iv) The last two chapters of the skandh end with the story of
birth of forty-nine marudgana and the details of a year- long
observance of punsvana vrata
46. Deeds are the seeds of rebirth. Endless attachment to

the worldly gains cause rebirth. But if one realizes his mistake
and repents over his misdeeds he is absolved of the sins. The
realization of, and repentance over, misdeeds help purify a
being from the consequent sins. But this process of securing
exoneration from sins is really very difficult to happen, and
therefore, one can surrender everything to the feet of srihari to
attain the ultimate relaxation and this qualifies for the greatest
repentance.
47. In this context the story of Ajamil is noteworthy. He
was a learned Brahmin and used to perform religious rites
meticulously. Once he fell a prey to his sexual urge seeing a
charming woman. His association with her increasingly grew

and he sacrificed everything (his family and paternal
properties) for sake of her happiness. He indulged in robbery,
theft, and all sorts of immoral acts to earn money to maintain
his association with her. He got ten sons from her, and the
youngest was named Narayana. He was deeply attached to the
youngest son. When he was breathing his last he felt
unbearable pang of death and became desperate to save
himself. He called out loudly the name of his son Narayana to
help him save from dying. This caused wonder. The
messengers of the death-deity (Yama raja) couldn’t touch him
because he had uttered Narayana while dying. Srihari’s
messengers had also arrived hearing his desperate utterance of
calling out Narayana. They drove away the Yama’s
messengers. Ajamil got his breath back and he immediately
realized the misdeeds he had committed in his life by
sacrificing everything for the sake of the pleasure of an
indulgent life with a sex-worker. He repented and deserted the
association of the woman and went to Haridwar. There he
began meditating deeply on the lotus feet of srihari on the
bank of the Ganges. After sometime, he discarded his mortal
remains and was taken to ultimate divine abode of srihari from
where none comes back to the worldly cycle of birth.
48. Yama’s messengers got doubts over the authority of his
master (6/3). They enquired from him about the truth.
Yamaraja illustrated by an example, “The entire creation is
like a piece of cloth which is made of threads and those threads
are Narayana Himself representing different types of creatures,
matter and beings of His creation. He is supreme and His
authority is the ultimate. This truth is known to only twelve
persons besides him, and they are Narada, Sankadik (group of
four under-teen saints), Kapila, Swambhuva Manu, Prahlad,
Janak, Bheeshma, Bali (the gem of demons’ king), and
Shukdeo.”
49. Daksha twice produced, each time a group of one

thousand sons; the first ones were collectively known as
Haryaswa and they stuck to meditation and penance on the
advice of Narada. They were convinced by Narada’s puzzles
(with underlined solutions within parntheses) given below that
offered them enough clue to renunciation.
 (i) Have you seen the end of the earth? (Ling sarira is
the earth); (ii) there is a country which has only one
single man (this single man is soul ensnared by the
body designated as country, and the body attracts the
soul to the worldly affair,); (iii) there is a ditch from
where no one can come back (hell in the nether-land
doesn’t allow the return journey; similarly once
initiated to srihari is not allowed return journey to the
worldly muck); (iv) there is a woman who bears seven
faces (wit); (v) there is a man who is married to this
woman (soul); (vi) there is one river which flows both
ways: upwards and downwards (maya – delusion
causing creation and destruction); (vii) there is a home
built of twenty five elements (karmendriya,
gyanindriya, mana, ahankar etc.); (viii) thee is one
hansa (royal swan) which has an amazing story (holy
scriptures – shastra);, (ix) there is one constantly
revolving chakra made of knives and bolts (time).
50. Daksha was concerned about his sons becoming
mendicant on the advice of Narada and they didn’t obey his
command to procreate. Utterly disgusted, he cursed Narda that
he won’t find a permanent place for his stay, and would remain
a wanderer for his whole life.
51. Daksha produced sixty daughters (6/6) from Asikni out
of which ten were married to Dharma, thirteen to Kasyap,
twenty seven to moon, two to Bhoota, two to Angira, four to
Tarchya-kasyap, two to Kuruashaswa. (Refer 4/1 where
Daksha is said to have sixteen daughters from Prasuti, the
third daughter of Manu which seems to refer to different

period of the time).
52. Once in the court of Indra, Brihaspati felt insulted
when Indra didn’t offer him proper respect. He disappeared
and the gods were without any preceptor. The demons were
instigated by their preceptor, Shukracharya to charge attack
over gods. In absence of the preceptor gods began loosing to
demons. On the advice of Brahma, Indra appointed Viswarupa
as their preceptor. He taught (6/8) Indra, Narayana-kavacha
(shield). This divine shield has the combined potential of two
mantra ““! namaao naarayaNaaya ! namaao Bagavato vaasaudovaaya (aum namo
narayanaya + aum namo bhagwate vasudevaya). Besides the
twin mantra, this invokes the protection in different period of
day and night, at different places, by various forms of srihari
which He took in several incarnations, viz., matsya protects in
water, narsinha protects in forest. Kesava protects in the
morning with gada (mace), and so on.
53. Viswarupa’s mother was from the demons’ family, so
he had a soft corner for demons also. While offering his
oblations, one part he silently offered in the name of demons.
Indra got apprehensive of demons getting stronger by the share
of offering of Viswarupa. He cut asunder all the three heads of
Viswrupa, and those heads turned into three species of birds.
His head which was used for soma pan became papiha (a type
of cuckoo), the one used for sura pan became goraiha
(sparrow), and the one used for food became titir. Indra was
afflicted by the sin of killing a Brahmin. His sins were shared
by earth, water, women and trees. Due to this shared sin, earth
possesses desert, water carries muck, women encounter
menstrual days, and trees go barren.
54. Viswarupa’s father, Twasta was a known personality,
and he became angry on the killing of his son. He invoked the
fire god and offered oblations to produce the killer of Indra. It
is said while offering the oblations the Brahmins
accompanying Twasta had mis-spelt the mantra and

pronounced which meant “to be killed by Indra”, instead of
“killer of Indra” (6/12). Thus came out of the fire, Vritrasura
holding a trident. He gradually assumed a large and dreadful
dimension and challenged Indra. To eliminate him, Narayana
advised gods to pursue Dadhichi for his bones. Dadhichi
agreed and his bones were used to make a powerful bolt which
Indra used to kill Vritrasura. In the battle field, the vocal duel
between Indra and Vritrasura was about the eternity of
Narayana which reflected a deep spiritual past life of
Vritrasura. The story goes that in his past life he was a king
known as Chitraketu. On the advice of Narada and Angira he
had accomplished a spiritual power of pleasing sankarshna
(one of the four emanations of srihari: vasudeva, pradyumna,
anirudha, and sankarshna). Once while hovering around on
his plane in the sky he happened to see shankra and parvati
surrounded by saints and sages. He passed a remark against the
sitting posture of parvati holding close shankra. This
infuriated her, and she cursed him to be a demon.
Consequently he became the demon Vritrasura coming out of
the oblation fire of his father, Twasta, but he never lost the
memory of srihari for he had pleased sankarshna by his
spiritual penance.
55. Kasyapa had gods and demons from his wives Aditi and
Diti. Two mighty demon sons of Diti, Hirnyaksha and
Hirnaykshipu were killed by srihari. All has happened at the
instance of Indra. She wanted to take revenge from Indra. She
served hard her husband and pleased him. He wanted to oblige
her and he gave words to fulfil her desire. She asked him to
bless her with the killer of Indra. Committed Ksaypa had no
option. Diti conceived (6/18) and he set a strict code of
conduct to observe during the pregnancy stage failing which
her desire won’t be fulfilled. She followed the directions
strictly but once she erred by going to bed with the unwashed
feet. Indra got the chance due to non-observance of her

conduct to penalise her. He was serving her in disguise of a
Brahmin, and with his subtle form he entered her womb and
made seven pieces of the still born mass. On crying each of the
seven pieces were further made into seven pieces which made
them altogether forty-nine, but they were never killed. Indra
was told by them that they were his marudgana brothers.
Happily Indra left the place with them.
56. Punsvan vrata (6/19) is about the worship of Lakshmi and
Narayana. The worship continues for one full year with due
observance of sacredness and pious life, commencing from the
first day of bright fortnight of margashirsha, and concludes on
the last day of the dark fortnight of margashirsha.
Prem-parakram skandh
(15 chapters)
(i) The skandh is devoted primarily to the legends of Prahlad
and incarnation of nrisinha bhagwan (the body having upper part
of a lion, and the lower part of a human being) .
(ii) The skandha begins with Narada dispelling the doubts of

Yudhishthra when Shishupal was killed by Srikrishna in his
aswamedha ygya and awarded His divine abode, eternal
salvation.
(iii) Prahlad reveals (7/7) to his fellow students, “When
Hirnyakashipu was doing penance at Mandrachala, gods
attacked the demons world. Kayadhu, his mother was pregnant
carrying him in her womb, she was given a shelter by Narada.”
(iv) Nrisinha incarnates and kills Hirnyakashipu (7/8) . Prahlad
is crowned king (7/10)
(v) The balance chapters are on varnashrma dharma(712-7/15) .
and Prahlad once meets Duttatreya (7/12)
57. Parikshit expressed his doubt over the impartiality of

srihari for He had been found bestowing favour to Indra and
killing his opponents. Shukdeo cited an example of similar
doubt expressed by Yudhisthra to Narada. It was the occasion
of aswamedha ygya and Shishupal’s spirit was seen to be
merging with Srikrishna when he was beheaded by the chakra
of Srikrishna. Yudhishthra wanted to know, “Why Shishupal
was granted the ultimate emancipation although he always
misbehaved with Srikrishna”?. Narada explained, “Whether it
is with bad intention or good intention, if someone
concentrates fully on Him, He bestows the ultimate
emancipation. Shishupal and Dantavaktra were passing
through the last and third birth of the life of a demon under the
curse of sanakadik. Initially they were known as Jaya and
Vijaya, and were in the security of srihari at vaikunthalok. For
holding the entry of sanakadik saints to vaikuntha, they
incurred the wrath of those sages and were cursed to become

demons for three consecutive births. In the first birth in sat
yuga they were Hirnyaksha and Hirnyakashipu. The former
was killed by varaha bhagwan, and the latter was killed by
Nrisinha bhagwan. In the second life in treta yuga they
became Ravan and Kumbhakarna, and were killed by sriram.
It was the last birth, so Shishupal and his accompanying friend
Dantavaktra, both of them were granted ultimate
emancipation.”
58. Yudhishthra further wanted to know the details about the
killing of Hirnyakashipu. Narada narrated the story that after
killing of Hirnyaksh, his brother Hirnyakashipu consoled the
wife (of Hirnyaksha named Rushabhanu) and children of his
brother and took a vow to settle the score with srihari. With a
view to attain high potential, he undertook a severe penance
(7/3). The potency of penance caused emission of strong
brilliance from his meditating body, and that caused the break
out of fire in the outside world. Seeing the extraordinary
development, Brahma with Bhrigu and Daksha came to bless
him. Hirnyakshipu asked three blessings: (i) he should be as
powerful as Brahma himself, (ii) He would never be killed by
any of the creations of Brahma, (iii) His death should neither
be during day nor night; it should be neither on the earth, nor
in water, nor in sky; he will not die of any weapon. All his
demands were to ensure his immortality forever. Brahma
blessed him to be so. Being so blessed, Hirnyakashipu began
perpetrating torture over the sages and banned all the ygya and
religious offerings to srihari. So much so that Indra with other
gods were driven out of heaven.
59. Hirnyakashipu had three sons, and the youngest one was
Prahlad. He appointed two reputed teachers for Prahlad, and
they were Shanda and Amarka, sons of the preceptor of the
demons, Shukracharya. Once Hirnyakashipu enquired from
Prahlad about the lessons he learnt from his teachers. Prahlad
told him about the inherent transitory nature of the worldly life
and explained nine salient ways of attaining srihari who can
only provide the ultimate peace and emancipation. Nine salient
ways are called nawadha bhakti which comprises of shrwan
(to listen to His glory), keertan (recite His glory), smaran
(remember Him), pad sevan (worship His feet), archan
(worship Him), vandan (pray Him), dasya (be subservient to
Him), sakhya (fond of Him), atm nivedan (seek refuge in
Him). Hearing that Hirnyakashipu lost his cool and asked
explanations from the teachers as to what they were teaching
him. He also directed them to take special care of Prahlad and
watch whether anybody else comes to teach him.
60. Prahlad returned to the folds of his teachers. They
maintained special vigil over him and took all measures
including carrots and sticks to mend his ways of learning.
Once again Hirnyakashipu got a chance to enquire from
Prahlad about his lessons learnt from the teachers. When
Prahlad again expressed the supremacy of srihari, under great
rage, he dashed him heavily over the ground. He asked his
courtiers to kill him for he appeared to be supporter of his arch
enemy, Vishnu. Hirnyakashipu’s all efforts to kill him went in
vain. He survived the attacks of any of the sharp weapons,
trampling of the elephants, bites of snakes, pushing down from
the hill tops etc.
61. His teachers advised Hirnyakashipu to wait for the arrival
of Shukracharya who was out of station at that time. Prahlad
was put in the fetters of snakes waiting for the arrival of
Shukracharya. After coming back, Shukracharya also tried in
vain to drive home the point into the mind of Prahlad that
artha, dharma and kama were most important aspects of the
life. Once again he was sent to the teachers for improvement.
62. Once while his teachers were out, Prahlad addressed all his
fellow students (7/6) in the school and emphasised over the
necessity of worship of srihari who is the only bestower of
ultimate pleasure since all the worldly sources of comfort and

luxury are transitory. He quoted that once Narada told him
which he had learnt from Nara- Narayan, that srihari is very
easily attainable provided one offers everything to Him.” The
fellow students expressed their surprise how Prahlad came in
contact with Narada because since childhood he had never
been allowed any chance for such opportunity of meeting
Narada. Prahlad revealed, “ My father was engaged in
penance at Mandrachala. Indra with other gods plundered our
capital and took hostage of my mother, Kayadhu (7/7). My
mother was carrying me in her womb. Narada interfered and
liberated my mother mentioning that a great devotee of
Narayana was in her womb. My mother stayed at Narada’s
hermitage until the father returned. Narada used to recite the
bhagawat dharma which I picked up from the womb. I
remember them but my mother hardly remembers anything
now.” All the fellow students were convinced that Narayana is
both, worldly objective (swarth) as well as divine objective
(parmarth) of a domestic life.
63. On return, the teachers noticed the prevalence of Narada’s
following among the students. They intimated the
developments to Hirnyakashipu. Hearing that he became upset,
and decided to kill Prahalad himself. He asked Prahlad as to
where was his Narayana. Prahlad replied about His
omnipresence. Hirnyakashipu asked whether He was in the
pillar near him also. Prahlad replied in affirmative.
Hirnyakashipu struck heavily the pillar and defied that if He
was there why didn’t He come out. Lo and behold ! a peculiar
large creature with a loud sound came out of the pillar. His
upper portion was of a lion with wide open mouth and the
lower body was of a human being. He was having thousands of
hands with long grown nails. The body was covered with
moon-lit white long hair. Eyes were showering fire balls, and
the brilliance around His body caused blindness. It was

nrisinha incarnation of srihari.(7/8)
64. Hirnyakashipu taking that as an illusion of Vishnu attacked
over Him. He was such a giant size that Hirnyakashipu looked
real dwarf before Him as if a snake was in the clutch of
Garuda. Initially He allowed Hirnyakashipu to play around but
thereafter He took hold of him and putting him in His lap sat at
the threshold of the room which was neither outside nor inside
the room. Honouring all the boons granted by Brahma to him,
He tore off the chest of Hirnyakashipu by his nails when it was
the dusk time, neither day nor night. The blood oozed out and
marked His body with piebald spots.
65. Seeing Hirnyakashipu killed, other demons attacked over
Him. He used all His hands and soon finished all the demons
alone. Brahma, Indra, Rudra and other gods appeared in the
sky and began showering flowers over Him. They all offered
their sincere prayer to Him. His wrath didn’t appear to be
cooled down. No being could dare go near Him. Even Lakshmi
was scared for never before she had seen Him in that form.
Lastly Prahlad, at the instance of Brahma drew close to Him
and prostrated over His feet. He picked him up and blessed
him with His hands over his head. Prahlad offered an excellent
prayer glorifying His leela. On asking for any boon, Prahlad
opted for love of dispassionate devotion and nothing else. He
granted that and crowned him as king (7/10) for one
manvantar. He assured Prahlad before leaving that after one
manvantar he would discard his body and join the assembly
closest to Him in vaikunth.
66. Narada narrated another story depicting how Shankara was
helped once in winning over a demon called Mayadanava.
That demon was a great magician and had a tank full of nectar
in his possession. He also had three invisible aeroplanes
(called tripur) made of gold, silver and steel (7/10). He used
them to make an attack over gods. The demons who were
killed by gods were given back their life with the use of nectar.
Gods approached Shankara for help but he was concerned
about the nectar in his possession. Srihari and Brahma helped
him. The former became a cow and the latter was a calf. They
entered tripur and drank the entire nectar from the tank. Thus
devoid of nectar, tripur was finally destroyed by Shankara
which earned him a new name Tripurari.
67. Asked about the sanatan dharma, Narada mentioned to
Yudhishthra, “sanatan dharma is devised by srihari and it has
two main pillars of varna (community) and ashram (phases in
domestic life). varna has four divisions: Brahmins, kshatriya,
vaisya, shudra. Four stages of a domestic life are
brahmcharya, garhastha, vanaprastha, and sanyas. The role of
Brahmins is to lead and enlighten the people in the realm of
spiritualism. The necessity of practising gyan, karm and
bhakti is fully exemplified by them in their day to day life.
They need to sustain their life without any possession nor on
beggary. The role of kshatriya is to protect the people and
collect taxes except from Brahmins for the welfare of the
society. vaisya is required to perform enterprises and involve
in interactivity for the growth of the society. shudra is required
to serve with diligence the need of the society.
68. Once Prahlad was moving around to watch the welfare of
the people of his state. He happened to pass the zone of Sahya
hills and found Duttatreya lying covered with dust on the bank
of the river Kaveri. He enquired from him, “What makes you
so healthy although you don’t take food ?” Duttatreya replied
that it is hankering (trishna) which eats away the vitality of the
beings. Once a being becomes free from hankering he will
have self pleasure and would possess a healthy state of mind
and body.
Kalyan (Gajenda-moksha) skandh

(24 chapters)
(samudra manthan, vamanavtar, matsyavatar)
(i) The skandh is devoted to the legends in brief about other
incarnations of Narayana in six manvantra preceding the one in
which Parikshit happened to meet Shukdeo. Six manvantra had
elapsed of a given kalpa and the seventh was the current one in
which Shukdeo narrated to Parikshit the bhagawatakatha. In the
fourth manvantra, He incarnated to liberate Gajendra from the
deadly clutches of grah (8/3).
(ii) In fifth Manvantra he incarnated by the name of Vaikuntha
and established an excellent divine resort for Lakhsmi called
vaikunthlok(8/5) .
(iii) In sixth, his incarnation was as Ajit, who helped churn the
ocean for nectar (8/5).
(iv) When Indra’s elephant trampled the garland given by
Durvasha, Indra was cursed and he lost his heaven to demons.
(v) To win back the lost glory, on the advice of Narayana, ocean
churning (samudra-manthan) was organized as a joint venture of
gods and demons. Ten precious items came out of ocean. The
last one was nectar which became a bone of contention and
Mohini managed to distribute that among gods. Later this
caused a break out of war between gods and demons but gods
remained victorious.
(vi) Aftermath of nectar distribution brought up war between
demons and gods. Demons were badly demoralized. Bali was
killed but his body was revived back to life by Shukraycharya.
He performed viswajeet ygya, due to which Bali again won back
heaven from Indra and gods were driven out of their celestial
homes. Aditi, mother of gods, on the advice of her husband,
Kasyapa, observed payovrata in the bright fortnight of phalguna,
and as a result Narayana incarnated as Vamana to her. He won
back the entire world from Bali as a gift. Lost glory of gods
were revived and Bali was made king of sutala.
(vi) skandh ends with the legend of matsyavatar which had taken
place in the last kalp of the previous prardha.
69. When Parikshit was listening to bhagawata from Sukdeo,

it was the period of seventh manvantra of that kalp. First
manvantra was ruled by swambhuva Manu when he was
blessed with daughters Akuti and Devahuti. Former was
blessed with Ygyapurusha who protected dharma. The latter
was blessed with Kapila. At the fag end Manu and Shatrupa
took sever penance and during that period hungry demons to
kill them, but they were protected by Ygyapurusha.
70. Second manvantra was ruled by Swarochisha Manu who
in his later lineage had Narayana incarnated as Bibhu and
eighty eight thousand saints had become follower of Bibhu.
71. Third manvantra had Uttama as Manu. Fourth
manvantra had Tamasa as Manu who was brother of Uttama,
Manu of the previous manvantra. During this period
Narayana incarnated to protect gajendra against graha (8/3).
In the previous life graha was a gandharva, Huhu. He was
cursed by Deval. Gajendra was king of pandya desha in his
previous birth. He was cursed by Agstya. Once the king was
deeply engaged in his worship and he couldn’t notice the
arrival of Agstya. Offended saint cursed him to be an elephant,
for he apparently behaved like an arrogant elephant. In the
birth of elephant he was called Gajendra, and he stayed at
Trikoot, a mountain in the milky ocean (ksheersagara). Once,
he in a group of elephants went to drink water in a lake. His
legs were caught by a crocodile and with the best of his efforts
including the efforts of his companion elephants, he couldn’t
be liberated from the clutches of the crocodile. Seeing no way
out to save his life he passionately offered his prayer to
Narayana. Lord listened to his prayer, and rushed to the site
and rescued him by killing the crocodile.
72. Raiwat ruled the fifth manvantra. In his lineage, later,
there was an incarnation of Narayana, who was known as
Vaikuntha. It is Vaikuntha, who established an excellent divine
abode to please his consort Lakshmi and this abode was later
known as vaikuntha, on His name.
73. Sixth manvaantra was ruled by Chakshusha. In this period
Narayana incarnated by the name of Ajit (who transformed
Himself to a tortoise and supported mandrachala) who helped
churn the ocean and produced nectar for the protection of gods.
(8/5)
74. Once Durvasha got a flower garland from Narayana as a
token of blessings. He offered that garland to Indra who threw
that over the head of his elephant mount. The garland was
thrown on the ground and trampled by the elephant. Durvasha
cursed Indra who lost his fortune of heaven to demons. On
fervent prayer of gods and Brahma to Narayana, He advised
gods to have patience and organized samudramanthan. This
became a joint venture by gods and demons.
75. The products from samudramanthan and their receivers
are: (i) kalkuta poison (Shiva), (ii) kamdhenu cow (saints), (iii)
Uchaishrava horse (Bali, demon king), (iv) Airawata elephant
(Indra), (v) kaustubha diamond (Ajit – Narayana), (vi)
kalpavriksha – celestial tree (gods), (vii) apsra – celestial
dancers (gods), (viii) Lakshmi (Narayana), (ix) varuni
(demons), (x) amrita (Mohini managed to distribute among
gods 8/9).
76. When Lakshmi appeared from the churning, she was given
warm reception (8/8)
77. When Mohini managed (8/9) to distribute nectar among
gods, demons felt cheated and they charged attack over gods.
Eventually, gods won. The dead body of Bali was taken to
Shukracharya who helped him revive (8/11). To boost their
morale, Shukracharya organized viswajeeta ygya. Bali became
invincible after this ygya and he attacked Amravati, the abode
of Indra. Gods were driven out and the heaven fell into the
hands of Bali. Aditi, the mother of gods was very upset on the
plight of her sons. On advice of Ksyapa, she performed
payovrata (in the bright fortnight of phalgun). Consequently,

Narayana incarnated as Vamana, and he won over the entire
world from Bali in a gift. Bali vacated Amravati and gods were
resumed to their lost homes. He was made king of sutala.
(8/23)
78. Shiva couldn’t get chance to see Mohini initially. He
enquired Narayana about His Mohini’s manifestation.
Narayana again redid that and Shiva enchanted by Mohini’s
beauty ran behind her. He couldn’t check his semen falling out
(8/12) and the earth got impregnated by gold and silver where
ever that semen fell.
79. Seventh manvantra is ruled by Vaivaswat Manu.
Incarnation is as younger brother of Aditya, from the womb of
Aditi (wife of Kasyapa). seventh manvantra is the present
time.
80. Coming seven manvantra are also described (8/13). Eighth
Manu is Sawarni. Vamana incarnates in this period and wins
the three worlds from Bali in gift. Ninth Manu is
Dakshinavarni. Narayana incarnates as Rishabha. Tenth
Manu is Brahmsavrni and incarnation of Narayana is as
Viswaksena. Eleventh Manu is Dharmasavarni, and
Narayana incarnates as Dharmasethu. Twelfth Manu is
Rudrasawarni and incarnation is as Swadhama. Thirteenth
Manu is Devasavarni and incarnation is Yogeswara.
Fourteenth Manu is Indrasavarni and incarnation is of
Brihadbhanu to help revive karma-kanda (rituals and rites).
81. The skandha ends with the legend of matsyavatar. There
was a king called Satyavrata. His period was previous kalp
(i.e., last kalp of the first prardha). In this prardha, which is
second one, he was born as a son of viviswan (son god), called
Shradhadeva. He became Manu of the present (seventh)
manvantra and is called Vaivasvat Manu. In his previous life
of Satyvrata he was blessed with the manifestation of
Narayana as a fish in his pot when he finished bathing and
came out of a river. His form grew day by day and soon he was
to be dropped in ocean by Satyavrata. While being dropped in
ocean He had disclosed to Satyavrata that on seventh day a
great deluge would submerge the entire landmass. He would
come in the form of a boat to rescue him. Fish Narayana was
thus incarnated to protect veda which was stolen by a demon
called Hayagreeva, when Brahma was sleeping at the end of
the last kalp of the first prardha.
Rajvansha (Ramavatar) skandh

(24 chapters)
(Chayavan rishi - 9/3, Balram marries Revati – 9/3, Ambrisha
– 9/4, Bhagirtha – 9/9, Ikshavaku – 9/6, Ram - 9/10, Nimi,
Janak – 9/13, Pururava – 9/14, Sahsrarjun, Prashuram – 9/15,
Nahusha + Yayati – 9/18, Puru, Dushyanta, Bharat – 9/20,
Rantideva – 9/21, Kuru – 9/22, Vasudev – 9/24)
(i) The skandh covers the legends of surya and chandra vansh
(dynansty from sun and moon). Later lineage of Chandra vansh
has two streams from Yayati. Devayani was his legitimate wife,
and Sharmishtha was the maid to her. Sons from Devayani
form the key lineage of Yadu dynasty, where as the sons from
Sharmishtha lead the lineage of Puru dynasty. Kuru dynasty is
in the stream of Puru (genesis in Sharmishtha), while Vasudev
father of Srikrishna has been in the Yadu’s lineage (genesis in
Devayani). Vidarbha, and Bhojavansh yadava have their genesis
also from Devayani.
(ii) The half of the chapters is devoted to the legends about
inheritance of Vaivasvat Manu ( descendant of Sun) who got
among several glorious sons, Ikshavaku from his nostrils is one
among them. In the lineage of Ikshvaku is the advent of Ram, an
incarnation of Narayana.
(iii) It is the second son of Ikshvaku who is called Nimi, and he
got Janaka and Seeta as his descendant. Nimi was cursed by
Vasishtha (9/12) to loose his physical body, and thereafter he
was granted perpetual invisible form and position by deva
(gods) over the eye lids of the beings. The physical body of Nimi
was churned to revive his inheritance which yielded Janak who
was called Videha as well as Mithila. The former means one who
came from the body of someone who discarded his physical
form, and the latter means the one who was born from
manthana (churning). Several rungs down the lineage of Janak
was Seeradhwaja who got Seeta from tilling of the land. This
suggests that Janak has become the title of this dynasty.
(iv) In Chandra vansha (soma vansha) famous kings were born
and its lineage begins from Atri. Pururava, Nahusha, Yayati,
Dushyanta, Bharat, Puru, Kuru, Yadu, Rantidev, Vasudev.

Bheeshma from Shantanu, Dhritrashtra, Pandu and others are
from the lineage of Puru.
(v) The skandh ends with Vidarbha dynasty who are descendant
of Vidarbha in the direct lineage of Yadu.
82. Surya dynasty: The inheritance of Vaivasvat Manu (who

is the ruler of the present, and seventh manvantr) is from
Brahma – Marichi – Kasyapa (wife Aditi) – Vivswan ( sun
god) – Shradhdeva (also called Vaivasvat). For long time he
was issueless. On the initiative of Vasishtha, he performed
mitravarun ygya for child. Her wife wanted a female child, so
hota recited the mantra accordingly and she was blessed with a
daughter Ila. The king was not happy and again Vasishtha
offered prayer to Narayana for a male child and Ila was
transformed into a male child called Sudumn. Once he went
into a forest where except Shiva everybody used to turn into a
feminine gender. He also with his group turned feminine.
Roaming around as a woman (s)he met Budha and
subsequently got a child from him called Pururava. On coming
back to kingdom, Vasishtha again invoked Shiva and got
managed to keep him male for a month, and female in the
following month.
83. Later Vaivasvat got ten more children and one of them,
Purushdhra was put on the service of cow rendering for
Vasishtha. One night when a tiger had attacked the cowherd,
he by mistake killed a cow and the tiger escaped partially
injured. Vashisth cursed him to become shudra.
84. Vaivasvat’s another son, Saryati was blessed with a
daughter Sukanya. While moving in the forest, she mistook,
meditating Chayavan’s body as a heap of earth and pricked his
eyes with kusha. In a compensatory measure of causing
blindness to him, she was married to him and stayed with him
for his service.
85. In further inheritance of Vaivasvat, a female child was

called Revati (father was Anart, whose father was Sharyati).
She was married to Balaram on the initiative of Brahma.
86. Further in the inheritance, Ambrisha was born to Nabhaga.
He was a staunch observer of ekadashi (keeping fast on the
eleventh day of each fortnight). Once Durvasa arrived at the
end of ekadashi. On the request of the king he agreed to take
his food with him and went out to Ganges for bath. After
observing ekadashi one always breaks his fast in dwadshi.
Dwadashi was running out and seeing the delay in his coming
back, Ambrish broke his fast with srihari’s charnamruta.
When Durvasa came back, he learnt about his breaking of fast,
and he became angry. He invoked kritya to destroy Ambrisha.
Ambrisha stood undisturbed, and Sudarshnachakra of srihari
came forward to protect Ambrisha. Kritya was destroyed and
chakra began chasing Durvasa. He found no refuge and
eventually on the advice of srihari he came back to Ambrisha
and fell on his feet. Chakra got calmed down seeing the
compassion Ambrisha demonstrated towards Durvasa.
87. Once Vaivasvat Manu had a sneeze which yielded a boy
from his nostril; this boy was Ikshvaku. Three eldest among
his one hundred sons were Vikukshi, Nimi and Dandaka. Sri
Ram was the descendant in the lineage of Vikukshi. Later in
the inheritance chain, Kakutastha became famous to defeat
demons by riding Indra as a bull in the battle field. His initial
name was Purnjaya, and since he rode a bull (with a hump
called kakud) was called Kaukutastha; the bull was Indra in
disguise so he was called Indravaha also (9/6). Further down
the lineage, Yuvnasva performed a ygya for progeny. During
ygya period, one night he felt thirsty and silently he took the
water from the pitcher of the ygya. Consequently, he gave birth
to a male child who came out tearing his abdomen. The boy
was weeping and the male king couldn’t give him milk. Indra
put his nectar finger in his mouth which helped him survive.
Indra also advised the child not to weep (ma dhata), which
caused him the name Mandhata.
88. Further down was born Trishanku, Harischandra, Sagar.
Mother of Sagar was poisoned by her companions when she
carried a child in the womb. Due to blessings of a sage, no
harm could reach her and nor to the child. The child was born
with poison (sa + gar), so called Sagar. He became very
famous and when his ygya-pashu (horse) was stolen by Indra,
his sons dug the entire earth and reached the nether world in
search of the horse. The horse was located at the hermitage of
saint Kapil and they mistook him as a thief. They found the
saint meditating with closed eyes. Their presence caused
disturbance at the hermitage and that caused the saint to open
his eyes. The moment the irritated saint looked upon them,
they were burnt to ashes. Sagar had another wife and her
grandson, Anshuman went out to locate the horse. He found
his uncles’ ash and the horse at the Kapila’s ashrama. The
saint, pleased by his behaviour narrated the story and
mentioned that the Ganges water could help emancipate his
uncles. The horse was taken back leading to completion of
ygya. Later, Dilip’s son Bhagirtha, grandson of Anshuman,
brought the Ganges down the earth and emancipated his
grandfathers. His penance had pleased Ganga and she wanted
some arrangement to withstand her force while she would
dawn on the earth. Bhagirtha by his further penance pleased
Shankara who became ready to receive the onslaught of
descending Ganga over his head.
89. Further lineage goes like this (9/9): Saudas, Asmak, Mulak,
Dasratha, Advid, Viswasaha, Khatwang, Dirghvahu, Raghu,
Aj, Dasratha, Ram+Lakshman+Bharat+Shatrughn. Saudas had
once gone to forest where he killed a demon. The demon’s
brother, to take revenge, came in disguise of a cook and
pleased Saudas. Once he secretly cooked meat which was
served to Vasishtha. The saint detected the meat in food and he
cursed the king, Saudas to become a demon. On prayer of the

queen, the saint blessed him to be freed of the demon’s life
only after twelve years . Saudas knew that he was innocent and
he never intended to serve meat to his preceptor. When he was
cursed to become demon, he became angry and in retaliation
took a resolve with water in his palm to curse Vasishtha for
inflicting unreasonable punishment over him. When, on the
queen’s pleading, the saint yielded, Saudas got calmed down,
and he wanted to take back his resolve of cursing his
preceptor. With a view to safeguard other beings, he poured
the resolved water, which was charged with his potential
mantra, over his foot and his foot turned black. This caused
him his another name kalmashpad. While leading the demon’s
life, he once caught hold of a cohabitating Brahmin couple. He
killed and ate the male Brahmin ignoring the pleading of his
wife. She cursed him a death if he attempted a cohabitation
with his wife. Subsequently at the end of twelve years when he
returned home and tried to be with her wife in a compromising
posture, she reminded him about the curse of the brahmin’s
wife. He remained issueless, and later, on the initiative of
Vasishtha, his wife carried a child who remained seven years
in the mother’s womb. It was Vasishtha who hit the belly of
his wife with a stone, and thereafter, the child was born. His
name was Asmak, which meant one who was hit by a stone.
Mulak, the son of Asmak, was the last survivor among
kshatriya after the elimination spree of kshatriya from the
earth by Prasuram. He hid himself among women and
therefore he was also called Narikavach. Since kshatriya clan
again resumed from him, he is called Mulak (means origin). In
the further lineage, Khatwang was a great warrior who spent
his life fighting demons in favor of deva (gods). It was only
last two ghati (forty-eight minutes) of his life that he was
reminded by gods about closing end of his life. Knowing that
he meditated deeply on Srihari and attained salvation.
90. Later Sri Ram had a glorious stint (9/10, 9/11)in the same
lineage. He killed Ravana to eliminate the fears of saints and
sages. Vibhishan was crowned king for a tenure of one kalp
(one day of Brahma, 1000 chaturyuga). Four brothers were
blessed, each with two sons. Ram had Lav and Kusha;
Lakshaman had Angad and Chitraketu, Bharata had Taksha
and Pushkala; Shatrughna had Subahu and Shrutsena. Ram
was so sensitive to the people’s comments that once he heard a
washer-man chiding his wife and citing the example of Seeta
that he was not Ram that he would accept her even if Seeta
was under siege with Ravan at Lanka. Ram immediately
banished Seeta, and she got a refuge at Valmiki’s ashram. She
was pregnant and she gave birth to two sons at Valmiki
ashram. Seeta, ultimately offered her sons to the saint and she
asked her mother earth to provide refuge to her. The earth split
and she entered inside forever. On hearing the departure of
Seeta, Ram also renounced his royal life and took agnihotra
(fire oblation) for thirteen thousand years, and thereafter he left
for his divine abode.
91. Nimi was the second son (9/6, 9/12) of Ikshvaku. Once he
invited Vasishtha for conducting ygya. The saint was busy
with his prior appointment at Indra’s place, so he advised him
to defer it until he came back. Nimi couldn’t wait, as he was
afraid of the transitory nature of life, and he began ygya with
the help of other ritwiza (Brahmin performers). When
Vasishtha came back and saw other performers engaged by
Nimi, he cursed Nimi to lose his physical form. Nimi upset
over his innocence also cursed the saint to lose his body. Both
lost their body; Vasishtha was born again from Urvashi and
Mitravaruna. Nimi’s body was maintained by ritwiza until
ygya was concluded. On the prayer of ritwiza the gods pleased
and blessed Nimi back with his body. Nimi didn’t consent to
that and he preferred to live without any physical form. Gods
gave him a place over the eyelids. Later, his body was churned
and Janaka (Videha, Mithila) was produced. Several

generations down the lineage of Janaka was Seeradhwaja (also
called Janak) who got Seeta while tilling the land who was
married to Ram.
92. Chandra dynasty begins from the saint Atri (9/14). He got
Chandrama from his eyes. He was beautiful and Brahma made
him the ruler of the herbs. He later, abducted Tara, wife of
Brihaspati. A grim battle broke out between Chandrama and
Brihaspati for Tara. Indra, Shankra and other gods joined from
Brihaspati’s side, while Shukracharya and demons favoured
Chandrama. Ultimately, on the initiative of Brahma,
Chandrama returned Tara back to Brihaspati. Tara was
pregnant and Brihaspati asked her to discard the child
prematurely. She obliged him and seeing the brilliance of the
discarded child, both Chandrama and Brihaspati again locked
their horns. When Brahma mediated, Tara consented that the
father of the brilliant child was Chandrma. The child was
called Budha.
93. Budha was married to Ila and Pururava was born. Urvashi,
the celestial dancer was enamoured by his charming
personality. They decided to stay together but on the
conditions: (i) her two lambs shall be protected by Pururava,
(ii) she will take ghee only, (iii) Pururava would never be seen
naked except with her in the bed room. Thus her stay with
Pururava made her absent from the court of Indra. He sent out
messengers to find her. They found her with Pururava and
stole her lambs. It was night time and she was lying with
Pururava. Hearing the lowing lambs she reminded Pururava for
not keeping his words of protecting them. In the impulse of
challenge, he ran out with sword to save the lambs. He came
back with them, but he was seen naked out of her room
running behind the abductors. Urvashi deserted him as her
conditions were not kept up. Although later, she continued
meeting Pururava once a year, and they produced several

children.
94. Pururava is also responsible for revealing three veda, and
arni for producing fire in ygya from the rubbing of two timber
elements made of sami ( one of the auspicious trees).
95. Down the rungs of lineage was Jahnu who wholly
swallowed the river Ganga. Later, Gadhi was born who got a
beautiful daughter called Satyavati. A saint, Richika (9/15),
wanted to marry her. The saint appeared a mismatch for her,
and therefore the parents put a condition to the saint to bring
one thousand white horses having one ear black to each of
them. The saint managed the horses from Varuna and married
Satyavati. Once Satyavati and her mother both prayed the saint
for child. The saint prepared charu (sweetened milk and rice)
separately for them. Satyavati’s mother exchanged the charu
with her daughter. The saint told his wife, Satyavati, that she
would be blessed with a son very strict disciplinarian famous
for punishing others, and her mother would get a bramha-vadi
(knower of god) son. On the potential of the saint the advent of
Satyavati’s son was delayed for a long time. She got a child
called Jamdagni. Satyavati herself, later turned into a river
called Kaushaki6.
96. Gadhi had a son, Viswamitra (9/16) whose reputation is
known for attaining Brahmin’s status in his life although by
birth he was a kshatriya. Thus Kaushaki was his sister. He had
one hundred sons, and among them the fiftieth son,
Madhuchanda was dearer to him. His all other sons were
popularly known by a common name of Madhuchanda. Once
he adopted the son of his sister in his family fold and asked
his sons to treat him as his eldest brother. Madhuchanda and
younger fifty sons obliged him but the elder forty-nine didn’t
6
Present day koshi nadi in Nepal and Bihar
agree. He cursed them to become maleksha. His lineage later

became known in kaushik gotra.
97. Jamdagni, son of Satyavati, was married to Renuka, the
daughter of a saint and he got the eldest son called Vasuman;
the youngest was Prashuram. It is said Prashuram was an
incarnation to liberate the earth from the misdeeds of kshatriya
who had resorted to tamoguni (indulgent) life. His
contemporary was Sahsrarjun who was a mighty kshatriya
king of Haihaya dynasty of Mahismatipuri. Being a yogic
practioner, he (Sahsrarjun) was blessed by bhagwan
Duttatreya and had got one thousand hands which were able to
access any place he liked by an automatic extension. Once he
was enjoying the water game in Narmada river and his hands
raised a bund to store water so that he could enjoy the pool of
water. Ravana, the great demon king happened to be near that
place on upstream and his camp was submerged due to the
bund of Sahsrarjun hands. He got angry and rushed to
Sahsrarjun to settle the score. Sahsrarjun, like a magician’s
feat, extended his hands to him, and lifted him bodily like a
kid’s toy. Ravana was humiliated and became a captive over
his palms; later he was released by the intervention of his
grandfather Pulstya.
98. Once Sahasrarjun (9/15) happened to pass by the hermitage
of Jamdagni, and he took away the celestial cow (kamdhenu
gaay) by force to his capital. Prashuram was out at that time
and when he came back he stormed his way to Mahismatipuri,
and after killing the king and his forces liberated the cow.
Jamdagni was not happy over the killing of the king by his son
Prashuram. He advised him to inculcate the brahminic traits of
tolerance, and for that he was instructed to go to several
pilgrimage places as a measure of repentance of killing the
sovereign king which was severer sin than killing a Brahmin.
Prashuram obeyed his father’s command and after completing
his pilgrimage to several places he came back after one year.
99. Once his mother (9/16) Renuka had gone to fetch water
from the nearby river for the purpose of daily worship of her
husband. She was delayed in watching the water-game of a
gandharva and a group of beautiful women, while she was on
way to the river. On her arrival back with water, Jamdagni
could read her mind engaged in a game with another man. He
got angry and called out his sons to kill her. No one turned up,
but Prashuram obliged his father by killing his mother as well
as his brothers. Jamdagni was pleased with him. On his asking
for a boon for obeying him, Prashuram got revived his mother
and brothers with a state of mind carrying no previous
impression of the killing.
100. Chandra Dynasty (Yadu dynasty from Devayani):
Grand son of Pururava, named Nahusha (9/18) was a famous
king. He was dethroned because of his immoral character to
grab Indra’s wife. His son Yayati was made the king. Once
while coming back from the forest Yayati felt thirsty. He saw a
well and when he tried to take water from the well, he noticed
a naked girl inside the well. He helped her come out of the
well. The girl was Devayani, daughter of Shukracharya. She
and her girl friend Dharmishtha (daughter of Vrishaparva, a
demon king) were dragged into a personal conflict on the issue
of exchange of dress. Both along with their other girl friends
were together bathing naked in a tank. Seeing Shiva and
Parvati passing that way they hurried out of the tank and by
mistake Dharmishtha put on the Devayani’s dress. Latter took
this seriously and both fought on this issue. Dharmishtha
prevailed upon her, and she stripped her naked and under
impulsive anger pushed her inside that well. After narrating
this incidence, Devayani proposed to marry Yayati. He agreed,
although he had initial hesitation for she was a brahmin and he
was a kshatriya. A story goes that Kach, the son of
Bruhashapati (gods’ preceptor), was student (in disguise) of
Shukracharya to earn the potential of dealing mrutasanjivani
(the art to revive the dead). When, on completion of his

course, he was leaving, Devayani the daughter of
Shukracharya proposed to marry him. Kach denied this
relation, because he considered the child of his guru as his
sister, because a disciple is also considered as child of guru.
Devyani, in disgust cursed him that he would lose the potential
he earned from his guru. In retaliation, Kach also cursed her
that no Brahmin would ever accept her as consort.
101. When Shukracharya knew about the incident of
Sharmishtha misbehaving with Devayani, he threatened
Vrishparva (Sharmishtha’s father) to desert him. The issue was
settled when Dharmishtha was offered as a maid servant to
Devayani on the condition that she would never indulge with
Yayati to produce children. Yayati married Devayani and
Dharmishtha used to serve them as a maid. He was blessed
with two sons from Devayani, among them Yadu was the
elder, and the younger was Turvasu. Stealthily, when
Devayani used to pass through menstrual courses, Yayati
cohabitated with Sharmishtha and produced three sons from
her: Druhu, Anu and Puru (9/18). The truth of Dharmishtha’s
getting sons from Yayati was revealed later to Shukracharya
by Devyani and he cursed Yayati to lose his youth and become
old and ugly. On great persuasion of Yayati and Devayani, the
curse was relaxed, “if anybody offered him his youth he can
regain his initial youthfulness.” Yayati tried with his elder sons
(Yadu and others) but nobody obliged. His youngest son Puru
(from Dharmishtha) could help him and both exchanged their
physical condition. Yayati further enjoyed his indulgence with
Devayani for long. Once he realized (9/19) the futility of
unending indulgence, and he decided to renounce the kingly
outfit in favour of Puru, the youngest son from Sharmishtha.
Puru became the sovereign but his younger brothers were
given the divisional lordship, i.e., Devayani’s sons Yadu of the
south, Turvasu of the west; and Sharmishtha’s sons, Druhu of
the south-east, Anu of the north. He returned the youthfulness

to his son, Puru which he had borrowed from him, and he
himself along with Devayani attained salvation with due
meditation on Srihari.
102. Down the lineage of first son of Yadu, called
Sahashrajeet, were born great kings (9/23) viz., Arjun
(Kritavirya Arjun also called Sahshrarjun; he was son of
Kritavirya so he was first called Kritavirya Arjun). He pleased
Duttatreya and got in boon tremendous yogic potential. It is
said if someone had lost valuables that would be retrieved by
simply remembering Sahashrarjun’s name. Among his one
thousand sons only five could survive and all others were
killed by Prashuram.
103. Madhu and Vrishni down the lineage lead the
important community of Yadava, i.e., Madhava, Varshneya
and Yadava are after the names of Madhu, Vrishni and Yadu.
104. Srikrishna’s father, Vasudev (9/24) was born from Shur
(also called Shursen and he was in the lineage of Vrishni) and
his wife Marisha. He had ten brothers. It is said when he was
born the musical instruments in the heaven produced music on
their own. Therefore his another name is Anakdundubhi.
Shursen had a friend Kuntibhoja who had no issue. Shursen
gave his eldest daughter Prutha to him in gift who remained
with him as an adopted child. She, later, learnt from Durvasa
to invoke gods. Once on a trial basis she invoked Sun god. He
gave her a son, who became famous as Karna. Since she was
not married, she discarded the child in a casket in flowing
Ganges water. He was subsequently picked up from water and
brought up by Adhiratha in the lineage of Rompada (in the
stream of Anga 9/23 from the Sharmishtha’s family tree)
105. Vasudev produced several sons from several wives.
Rohini gave him Balram, and Devaki was blessed with eight
children, Srikrishna is the youngest and most famous among
several incarnations of Narayana. Subhadra was the daughter

of Devaki.
106. Vidarbha dynasty (9/24) is after the name of the
illustrious king Vidarbha who hailed in the lineage of second
son of Yadu, named Kroshta. Shishupal was in the same
lineage and he was called Chediraj because he was born from
Chedi down the family rungs of Vidarbha. Further down this
lineage was born Satvat whose one of the seven sons was
Mahabhoja, a great king, and after his name the subsequent
inheritance is called Bhojavanshi yadava.
107. Chandra dynasty (Puru Dynasty from

Dharmishtha) : As stated earlier, Dharmishtha also pleased
Yayati and secretly got three sons from him. Among them
Puru, the youngest, became the forefather of the upcoming
dynasty lead by Dushyant and Bharat.
108. Down the Puru’s lineage was born Dushyanta. He was
enamored by the beauty of Shakuntala when he met her at the
hermitage of the saint Kanva. Shakuntala was born from
Rambha, a celestial dancer and Viswamitra. The child was
discarded in the forest and Kanva rishi brought her up. Both
Dushyanta and Shakuntala got married and they produced
Bharat who became very reputed king, on whose name the
country of present India has been named as Bharatvarsha. He
performed one hundred thirty-three aswamedha ygya (9/20)
from gangotri to gangasagar (55 numbers) , and from
yamunotri to pryag (78 numbers).
109. Bharat was married to three daughters of the king of
Vidarbha and was blessed with sons. He was not sure about
their capability. On his doubtful remarks the queens chose to
kill their sons. Later, after performing one ygya Marudgana
gave him a child called Bhardwaja who lead the lineage
further. Actually the child was born to Mamata, the wife of
brother of Bruhspati. She (Mamata) was pregnant and
Bruhaspati wanted to have sex with her. Despite being warned

by the child in the womb, he forced her for sex. She carried in
her womb another child from Bruhaspati also. Since carried
(bhara) by mother and seeded from two (dwaja), he was called
Bhardwaja (his second name was Vitath also). The child was
discarded in dispute, but Marudgana took care of the child and
it was this child who was offered to Bharat by Marudgana as a
gift in return of performing marutstoma ygya.
110. Further was born in the lineage (9/21), Rantideva. He is
known for his sacrifices. He used to take food served to him
without any asking. Once he couldn’t take food for forty-eight
days. When he got some food on the forty-ninth day, he got
guests asking for the food. He went on sharing with the
coming guests one after another. At the end, when he tried to
take the left over water only, that was also sought by a visiting
guest. Pleased by his sacrifices, Narayana appeared and
blessed him the ultimate peace and concentration which he was
looking for as his ultimate objective. He was such a gentle and
sacrificing soul that he never desired ultimate salvation rather
he longed for enhancement of his personal capability so much
so that he could happily bear the sufferings and pains of the
others.
111. Down the lineage Hasti (9/21) was born who
established Hastinapur. He had three sons and the eldest
Ajmeedha produced Brahmins also. Kuru (9/22) was born
from the grandson of the second son of Ajmeedha, who was
married to Tapti, the daughter of Sun. Kuru established
Kurukshetra. In continuation of the heritage, Kritwi became
the bride of this dynasty. Kritwi was the daughter of
Shukdeo (who narrated bhaagawata to Parikshit). When
Shukdeo renounced home, he left his shadow ( called his
daughter Kritwi) to look after the arrangements at the home.
She produced great tatvavadi in the family. This chapter
carries story of producing Brahmins in the family of

kshatriya.
112. Jarasandha was born in the lineage of Ajmeedha (9/22)
and he was born in two parts but was joined together by Jara, a
magician female demon.
113. In the coming generations of the second son of Hasti
known as Dwimeedha, were five sons collectively called
panchal, and they were: Mudgal, Yavanir, Bruhadishu,
Kampilya and Sanjay. Mudal, the eldest amongn them had
become Brahmin. He had twin children, the son was Divodas,
and the daughter was Ahilaya. The latter was married to the
sage, Gautam who produced Shatanand, and in the third
generation of Shatanand was born a great archer, Sharadwan,
who once had an involuntary emission of his semen after
having a look at Urvashi. The emission fell on the munj grass
and a pair of male and female child was born. They were
brought up on compassion by Shantanu who happened to find
them lying desolated in the wild bush of munj grass. The male
child was Kripacharya, and the female child was Kripi who
was later married to Dronacharya.
114. In the lineage of Divodas of panchal dynasty Drupada
and Draupadi were born. In the parallel heritage originating
from Jahnu (the second son of Ajmeedha who was the eldest
son of Hasti) were Shantanu and Bheeshma (9/22). Bheeshma
was born from the womb of Ganga. The second wife of
Shantanu was the daughter of Dashraja who produced
Chitrangada and Vichitrivirya.
115. It is said Shantanu had a mircalous power of turning an
old into young by simple touch of his hand and this has caused
him this name since it dawned peace (shanti) on those who
were transformed young from old. His elder brother, Devapi
had sacrificed kinghood in his favour. It is said Devapi is
engaged in meditation in Kalapgram even today, and he would
be credited to revive the lost inheritance of Chandra dynasty

when satyuga commences after the end of kaliyuga.
116. Another daughter of Dashraja called Satyavati was
married to Parasara who gave birth to Srikrishna
Dwaimpayana Vyas.
117. The second son of Shantanu, Vichitrvirya was married
to Ambika and Ambalika. Vichitrvirya died issueless and Vyas
produced from his two wives Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Vidura
was also born from a maid by an effort of Vyas.
118. Dhritarashtra was married to Gandhari and had one
hundred sons together called kaurav, the eldest being
Duryodhana. Duhshla was the lone sister of kaurav.
119. Pandu was married to Kunti and Madri but couldn’t
produce any child under fear of a curse. Kunti invoked gods
and got Yudhishthra from Dharma, Bheem from Vayu, and
Arjun from Indra. Madri could get two sons Nakula and
Sahdev by invoking Aswinikumar (the celestial physician).
120. Draupadi, daughter of Drupad was married to pandav
and gave five sons (9/22) to them. Her sons were Prativindhya
from Yudhisthar, Shrutsen from Bheem, Shrutakirti from
Arjun, Shatanik from Nakul, and Shrutikirti from Sahdeo.
Besides, Yudhishthir had Devak from his another wife named
Pauravai; Bheem had Ghatochak from Hidimba, and Sarvgat
from Kali; Arjun had Eravan fromUlipi (Nagvansha bride),
and Babhrubahan from his wife from Manipur. Sahdeo had a
son Suhotra from Vijaya; Nakul had a son Naramitra from
Keranumati.
121. From Arjun and Subhadra was born Abhimanyu.
Uttara, wife of Abhimanyu produced Parikshit. Janmejaya was
the eledest among four sons (other three: Shrutsen, Bhimsen,
Ugrasen) of Parikshit and Janmejay’s son Shataneek, proved a
great tatvavadin (accomplished scholar).
122. In the lineage of Anu, the eldest of Sharmishtha’s sons,
were Ang, Vang, Kaling, Suhya and Aandhra who established
six independent states in the east on their own names. In the

immediate lineage of Ang was born a great king Rompad who
was a close friend of Dasaratha (father of Ram in the
suryavansha). Rompad had another name Chitraratha and he
was issueless. He was gifted by Dasaratha his own daughter
Shanta. She was married to Reishyshringa, a great saint born
from the womb of a doe and a saint called Vibhandaka. Once
when a severe famine stalked Rompad’s kingdom, he brought
Rishyashringa with the help of female dancers and musicians
and it was his presence that fetched rains. Later, Rompad and
Dasaratha, both the friends were blessed by sons due to
sacrificial (yagya) oblations of Rishyashringa.
Leela (Srikrishnavatar) skandh

(49 +51 = 90 chapters)
(i) Dwapar was in the concluding quarter to give way to the

advent of Kaliyuga. The skandh begins with the misery of the
mother Earth which has culminated to the rampant rise of
demonic activities. She narrates her misery to Brahma in
presence of other gods. They together offer a passionate prayer
to srihari. At the end of the prayer Brahma went into deep
meditation, and srihari appeared in his vision. He indicated that
he would appear to mitigate the miseries of the mother Earth.
His advent would be in yaduvansh.
(ii) skandh 10/3 mentions about His advent, but it is only in
skandh 10/11 that his natal star, rohini is mentioned.
(iii) skandh 10/13 and 10/15 show that when He was five He was
allowed to graze calves only, and when He became six he was
permitted to graze cows.
(iv) skandh 10/20 dwells upon the natural mechanism of
advent of rains. It is evapo-transpiration which causes rains.
During four months of a year rains cause closure of all the
educational institutions. Social and commercial activities are
suspended as well during this period.
(v) Srikrishna praised the lives of the trees (10/22) which is
meant for the benefits of the others.
(vi) The legend of Ygyapatni of 10/23 is now identified as
bhatraur biharijee near vrindavan, which is about 2 km on its
outskirts towards Mathura. The place is near dwarkadhish
bageecha and is located on a very high earth mass accessible by a
stair way having about 75 risers. By bhatraur is meant bhat
(boiled rice) offered to biharijee.
(vii)The reference of skandh 10/31 is revealing. Lakshmi, divine
consort of Narayana, also resided quietly, in vrajbhumi and
witnessed as well as enjoyed His pastimes. 10/47 also refers to
lakshami. The venue of maharas is also mentioned in 10/47
quoting that lakshmi was not given any special importance
during that dancing spree.
(viii)Dwarka established in the length and breadth of 153 km

was located deep inside the western coast where Mathura’s
natives were rehabilitated.
(ix) Romharshan Suta was a low cast person (10/78) but by
virtue of his upright style of life and learning he was appointed
chairperson by all the Brahmins who used to periodically gather
at Naimisharnya with an objective to solve several spiritual
riddles and issues.
(x) In 10/79 special mention is made about the sacred rivers,
places including Venkatachala, the famous shrine of Balajee.
This suggests the eternal presence of Balajee over the earth.
Anantsayan at Thiruanantpuram of Kerala, and Srirangam at
Tirichy of Tamil Nadu are also mentioned.
123. Dwapar was in the concluding quarter to give way to

the advent of Kaliyuga. The skandh begins with the misery of
the mother Earth which has culminated to the rampant rise of
demonic activities. She narrated here misery to Brahma in
presence of other gods. They together offered a passionate
prayer to srihari. At the end of the prayer Brahma went into
deep meditation, and srihari appeared in his vision. He
indicated that he would appear to mitigate the miseries of the
mother Earth. His advent would be in yaduvansha. Brahma
advised other gods to go to the earth in several manifestations
to help Him perform His wishes.
124. Mathura was the capital of yadu dynasty since Shursen.
The marriage of Devaki and Vasudev was solemnized with
great celebrations at Devak’s place (father of Devaki). On the
occasion of the farewell after the marriage, Kans, the son of
Ugrasena who was the king of Mathura, was driving the
chariot carrying the bridal couple. On way he heard a celestial
voice warning Kans that the eighth child of Devaki would kill
him. Kans wanted to kill Devaki immediately but persuaded by
Vasudev he spared her on his promise that all the children
would be handed over to Kans immediately after the birth.
Subsequently, the first child of Devaki named Kirtiman, was

brought to Kans by Vasudev. Kans spared the life of the child.
125. In the meanwhile Narada (10/1)visited Kans’s place
and convinced him about the presence of gods in disguise of
Devaki, Vasudev and others over the vraj land. Their objective
is to liberate the earth from the demonic activities. Kans
immediately put Devaki and Vasudev into prison and grabbed
the reign of the state by dethroning his father Ugrasen. He
apprehended that Vishnu’s advent was imminent since his
previous life of Kalnemi when he was killed by Him, he
nourished enmity against Him. He began killing the children of
Devaki immediately after the birth; first six7 (9/24) killed by
him were Kirtiman, Sushen, Bhadrasen, Riju, Sammardan,
and Bhadra. When it was the time of the seventh child (10/2),
on the inspiration of srihari, the child was extracted from
Devaki’s womb by His yogmaya and installed in the womb of
Rohini, another wife of Vasudev who resided with Nand in
Gokul. Consequently, Rohini delivered the child known as
Balaram. He was incarnation of sheshajee and is also called
sankarshan (which means one who is extracted). In ramavatar
he was Lakshman, the younger brother of Ram. This time he
came as an elder brother.
126. Kans knew that it was miscarriage of the seventh child,
and he became strictly vigilant awaiting the advent of the
eighth child. In the meanwhile, Yogmaya was directed by
srihari to appear in the womb of Yashoda, wife of Nand in
Gokul. Srihari Himself appeared in the womb of Devaki and
gave a divine glimpse to Vasudev. Brahma and other gods
7
In Skandh 10/85 it is mentioned that celestial couple Marichi and Ur na had six
sons. When Brahma developed lust against his own creation, Sarswati, they had
ridiculed him for doing so. Brahma cursed them to become demons. Firs they
became sons of Hirnyakashipu, later yogmaya put them in the womb of Devaki and
their names were different (compared to 9/24): Smar, Udageetha, Parishwang,
Patanga, Kshudrabhruta, Ghruni.
visited Him in the prison and offered their prayer for His
kindness to come over the earth.
127. Srihari appeared in his divine form with four hands all
equipped with His insignia (chakra, sankha, gada, padma).
Vasudeva and Devaki offered their prayer. Srihari revealed,
“In one of the previous births, Devaki was Prusni, and
Vasudev was Sutapa prajapati. Because of your sever
penance I came as Prusnigarbha since you wanted a son like
me. Later, when Devaki was Aditi, and Vasudeva was Kasyap,
I came as Upendra also known as Vaman. Now, third time, I
am again your son.” Both of them prayed Him to hide His
identity and accordingly He became a newly born infant.
Vasudev, under divine inspiration, took him in his hands and
came to the locked gate. It was midnight, but his cell gate
opened up automatically. He continued moving forward. He
crossed Yamuna which was in flood. He reached Gokula and
saw Yashoda lying unconscious after delivering a female child.
He picked up that child and kept his child in her place and
came back to prison in Mathura. When he entered his cell all
doors got locked themselves. Hearing the cry of the nascent
child Kans came running getting information from his guards.
Devaki pleaded, “This being a female child could never be
your killer. Moreover, you killed all my previous sons, my
female child could be spared.” Kans didn’t listen and dashed
the child against a rock. The child being Yog-maya herself,
transformed in her real divine form of eight hands all equipped
with the divine insignia and instead of being dashed over to the
rock went up in the sky; she revealed to Kans that his killer
was born elsewhere and disappeared. This Yog-maya is now
worshipped on the earth as goddess known by different names
at different places (10/2), viz., Ambika, Sharda,
Vindhyavasini, Bhadrakali, Narayani, Vashnavi, Ishani,
Vijaya, Madhavi, Kumuda, etc.
128. Ashamed Kans apologized with Devaki and Vasudev

and freed them from the fetters of the prison. His ministers
advised Kans to kill all the newly born children in the area.
The killing spree was made operational with immediate effect.
Gokula was busy in celebrating the birth of the first child to
Nand as since then, although he was in advanced age, was
issueless. This child was no less than srihari, and came to be
later known as Srikirshna.
Srikrishna bal-leela (pastime of His childhood)
129. Putana was a dreadful female demon (10/6). In Gokul

she entered the house of Nand in disguise of a beautiful
woman. In presence of Rohini and Yashoda she picked up the
child in her lap and gave her poisonous breast in His mouth
and went up in the sky. The child Srikrishna sucked her life
through her breast and she fell dead over the ground with
Srikrishna playing over her chest. He was picked up by other
women and prohibitive rituals were performed to ward off the
future evil incident.
Utkach, son of Hirnyaksh was cursed by Lomash rishi to lose
his body since he was in the habit of wantonly damaging and
destroying trees (10/7). On his sincere prayer, the sage under
compassion, predicted his liberation by the touch of the holy
feet of Srikrishna. This demon transformed as a wooden cart
got a position in the courtyard of Nand. Srikrishna as a child
had begun taking side turns. Such movement of the child being
a happy indicator of health, was being celebrated in the
presence of a large number of guests. The child Srikrishna was
made to lie under the shade of the cart while the cart was made
a store of milk products being collected to honour the guests.
Srikrishna got up from His sleep and began moving
vigourously his legs which hit the cart and the cart was thrown
tumbling up and down. This emancipated the demon and this

incident is known as shakat-bhanjan.
130. Trunavart was another (10/7) demon and close friend
of Kans. He was king of pandu-desh in his previous birth.
Once he was enjoying the river bank with his wife and didn’t
give recognition to passing Durvasha. The sage cursed him to
become a demon. One day Srikrishna was in the lap of His
mother but she felt Him too heavy to hold in her hands. She
put him on ground. Immediately after that a heavy storm
lashed Gokul and the child Srikrishna lying on the ground was
picked up in the sky. It was due to the evil deed of Trunavart.
Child Srikrishna increased his weight and Trunavart in the
form of a heavy storm couldn’t hold him up in the sky.
Srikrishna also gagged his throat causing him to drop down
dead. The moment Trunavart was killed the storm was over.
Women picked Him up and performed several rituals to ensure
His forthcoming days free from impending troubles.
131. Once Srikrishna was sucking milk from His mother
Yashoda’s breast (10/7). His mouth was full and the milk
overflowed over His cheeks. Yashoda, in fit of curiosity,
opened His mouth to see the quantity of milk therein. Lo and
behold ! she saw the entire cosmos inside. She couldn’t bear
the scene and shut her eyes.
132. Once, Gargacharya, the guru of Nand visited Gokul
(10/8). Nand requested him to fix the auspicious time to
organize the naming ceremony of both the children, one form
Rohini and the other from Yashoda. Gargacharya forbade
Nand to openly organize the naming ceremony with a view to
keep the children away from the attention of Kans. He took
both the children inside a cowshed and designated the
handsome looking son of Rohini as Ram and since he was
bony and stocky he added bal also and called Him Balram.
The child of Yashoda was of dark complexion so he called
Him Srikrishna.
133. Every month of His growing was adding notoriety in the

name of Srikrishna. He used to steal pots of butter and sweat
curd from neighbouring houses, and break them after eating.
His friends lend all help to Him in such accomplishments. A
complain was once brought to the attention of Yashoda about
Him of chewing clay (10/8). She forced open His mouth. She
was bewildered to see again the cosmos inside. She could see
herself also therein at vrajbhumi. Bewildered Yashoda, began
praying Him, and she was soon restored to her normal state of
mind.
134. Yashoda had such a great affection for Him that seeing
Him her breasts used to automatically drop milk (10/9)
drenching her upper garments. Once on such a development
she picked Him up and gave her breast in His mouth. He was
sucking milk, and in the meanwhile she could see the boiling
milk spilling over the fire. Putting Him down she went to save
the milk. Srikrishna got angry by the interruption to His milk
feeding. He sneaked to the corner where the pots full of milk
products were stored. In search of fresh ones he began
destroying and sharing with the monkeys the pots which
contained the previous days’ old products. Seeing His
notoriety, Yashoda rushed to Him with a baton in her hand. He
was a great dramatic actor since childhood. Seeing a baton in
her hand, He began pretending as if He was weeping. His
hands rubbed the eyelids over the eyeballs. The kajal was
smeared around His dimple cheeks. Yashoda enamoured by
His handsome face spared the rod but thought of punishing
Him by tying Him to a wooden mortar which He used as a tool
to access the hanging pots of butter from the ceiling. She
brought a rope to tie Him around the mortar, but it fell short a
little. She tried several extensions but all went short. She was
upset, and seeing her frustrated, He got tied.
135. In the courtyard, there was a pair of arjun tree called
yamlarjun (10/10). Srikrishna tied with the mortar crawled
towards the trees. There was a small space between the two
trees through which He managed to pass his body but the
mortar getting oblique got stuck. When He tried to pull
forward the mortar also, the trees fell down. Two brilliant
souls came out of the trees and before dispersing they offered
a sincere prayer to Him for their emancipation. They were
known as Nalkuvar and Manigreev, two sons of Kuber (the
celestial treasury officer). They had ignored once the presence
of Narada when they were enjoying their private life with their
wives on the bank of Mandikini at Kailash. Their wives
noticed Naarada coming and the women put on their cloths but
they didn’t care. This worked up Narada and he cursed them to
become inert trees on the earth. He however also predicted
their emancipation by Srikrishna sometime later when He
would incarnate on the earth.
136. Experiencing rise in evils at Gokula, Nand with other
gop shifted their habitation along with their cowherd to
vrindavan (10/11). One day when it was rohini nakshatra, the
natal star of Srikrishna, both the brothers were dressed up in
new cloths and a festivity was celebrated at vrindavan.
137. Now Srikrishna along with Balrama was able to go to
the forest for cow grazing. Once a demon (called vatsasur)
disguised as a calf merged in the grazing herd (10/11).
Srikrishna realized this and He took the calf by his rear legs
and lifting up gave a round in the air. The demon was dead.
138. Once vakasur another demon and great friend of Kans,
disguised as a white crane (10/11) with long beaks came to
Srikrishna when He was taking water from a nearby pond in
the grazing forest. The bird could grab Him and swallowed
down his throats. Soon, the bird vomited Him out and tried to
attack Him with his sharp beaks. Srikrishna held the beaks and
pulled them apart until it reached his throat. The demon was
dead.
139. An interesting incidence (10/12-10/14) is associated

with the killing of aghasur, another demon who happened to
be younger brother of putana and vakasur. Srikrishna was five
and He was allowed to graze only calves in the forest. The
herd of cows were taken separately by elders and youngsters
were allowed to graze only the calves in a separate herd. The
news of killing of aghasur reached the gop in vrindavan after
one year. The delay was caused by Brahma, who in the
intervening period had stolen away the calves and the young
gop accompanying Srikrishna in the forest. Aghasur had
assumed a form of huge python with open mouth. The boys in
the grazing forest were mistaken by the peculiar site made of a
huge rock cave. They under curiosity entered the opened
mouth of the python. Srikrishna had sensed the rat and when
he was entering, the demon wanted to close his mouth and
grind Him under his teeth. Srikrishna assumed a large form
and the snake couldn’t close the mouth and died gasping for
breathing. The boys who had entered the belly had died, but
they were salvaged by Srikrishna. The demon after the death,
had assumed a brilliant form and merged into the body of
Srikrishna. This was noticed by gods in heaven. They
celebrated the occasion and showered flowers over Srikrishna.
Somehow, this glorification to Srikrishna was not relished by
Brahma. He came to the earth to test His divinity.
140. At that time after the death of aghasur, all the boys and
Srikrishna were taking lunch over the flat sandy bank of
Yamuna river. Brahma took away the grazing calves and hid
them inside a cave. Boys, while taking lunch, could realize the
missing calves. Srikrishna assured them and advised them to
continue taking lunch and He would see the calves. Srikrishna
with hands spotted with rice and curd moved around in vain to
locate the calves. While coming back to the river side, where
He had left the boys taking lunch, He found them also missing.
Then He realized that Brahma was behind all the
developments. He immediately transformed Himself into

calves and boys. They all went back at sunset time to
vrindavan. No body in vrindvan could realize the difference
between their own sons and calves and the new ones created
by Srikrishna Himself. Every belonging was Srikrishna. All
the rings around the neck of the calves, the decorative pieces
over the heads of the calves, the upper and lower garments of
the boys, every thing possessed by calves and boys were
Srikrishna Himself. The mothers (animals and human beings -
both cows and gopi) had an enhanced affection to their sons
(Srikrishna in disguise). The days passed by but nobody could
realize the truth. One day it so happened that the cows could
see the calves in the forest from a distant place and they came
running to their calves as if some magnetic force was working
between them. Balram could realize the extra ordinary
situation. He meditated and came to reveal the truth (10/13)
that every calf and boy were Srikrishna Himself. He enquired
about the incident from Srikrishna. He narrated the entire
deeds of Brahma to Balram. In the meanwhile, Brahma came
to the earth to see the further development and by this way one
year had passed. To his utmost surprise, calves and boys were
sleeping in the cave as he had put them, but the same number
of identical calves and boys were in the forest also. He
couldn’t bear the scene and time and again he tried to confirm
the reality by coming to the cave and to the group of calves
and boys in the grazing forest. He could then had a vision of
srikirhna in His divine form with four hands decorated with
insignia of chakra, sankha, gada and padma. He could also see
that Srikrishna was still with hands having trace of rice and
curd as if he was taking lunch with the boys. All this put him
in great confusion, and finally, he prostrated over the feet of
Srikrishna realizing His ultimate divinity. He restored back the
scene of one year back: calves grazing and Srikrishna coming
back to the boys with trace of rice and curd over his hand.
None of the boys could know about the entire incidence and
nor realize that one year had passed. They went back home in
the evening and narrated (10/14) the story of killing of aghasur
a deadly huge python by Srikrishna.
141. When He turned six (10/15), he was allowed to graze
cows. One day on the request of His friends, Sridama,
Stokakrishna and Saubala he went with Balram to the palm
grove protected closely by a demon called Dhenukasur. The
demon was in the form of an ass. Balrama killed the demon by
lifting him by his rear legs and dashing against one of the palm
trees. Earlier, ripeand tasty palms were not accessible to any
body but after the killing of the demon, the palms became
freely available to everybody.
142. Kaliya was a deadly serpent (10/16-17) residing in the
deepest pool of the Yamuna river near vrindavan. Earlier he
used to stay at ramanak dweep, the inhabiting island of snakes.
His mother Kadru, and the mother of Garuda, Vinita were
having bitter relations. Consequently Garuda used to perform
wanton killing of snakes. Brahma, in order to save the species,
set a rule that one snake would be offered to Garunda at the
end of every dark fortnight. Kaliya defied this rule. Garuda
was after his life. Kaliya fled away from the ramanak dweep
and got an asylum in the river Yamuna. The place was safe
because Garuda under the curse of Saubhahri rishi couldn’t
come to Yamuna due to fear of losing his life. Gaurda earlier
used to kill fish from Yamuna. Once he killed the king of the
fish and that caused great panic among them. Saubhari moved
by their panic, cursed Garudua that if he visited Yamuna again
he would lose his life.
143. The pool of Yamuna where Kaliya stayed had become

poisonous and nobody survived taking the water from there.
So much so that the wind coming from the pool used to burn
the green vegetation in its immediate vicinity. Several innocent
cows, birds and human beings had lost their lives after taking
water from the pool. In order to liberate the pool from Kaliya,
srikirshna once jumped into the pool water from the kadamb
tree over the bank. The great splash of his leap into the water
incurred the wrath of Kailya, and he attacked over Srikrishna
by coiling around him closely. Srikrishna inflated His body to
the extent that Kaliya could release the coil and began looking
for a chance to attack over Him with his one hundred one
hoods. Srikrishna managed to walk vigorously over his hoods.
He gradually increased His weight causing grievous injury to
his hoods. Kaliya’s wives and children rushed to the scene to
save him by offering a mercy appeal to Srikrishna. On
compassionate ground He granted relief to Kaliya with a
condition to leave Yamuna immediately and go back to
ramanak. Since His foot prints were marked over his hoods,
He assured Kaliya not to be afraid of Garuda any more. In the
meanwhile, Yashoda, Balrama, Nand and others had also
arrived to wish Srikrishna’s welfare against the fight with the
deadly Kaliya nag. Initially, seeing Srikrishna under coil of
Kaliya, Yashoda was about to jump into the pool to rescue
Him but she was forbade by Balrama since he knew His
potential. Everybody watched the whole incidence from the
bank, and Srikrishna came out victorious which created an
occasion for a great celebration in vrindavan.
144. At the night they all stayed outside celebrating the
occasion. At the dead of the night wild fire broke out (10/17).
They cried for help and Srikrishna had to swallow the entire
gamut of fire and saved the people of vrindavan.
145. In an another incident (10/18) a demon, pralambasur,
disguised as a gop joined the playing teams with view to kill
both the brothers. Srikrishna realized the game plan and he
divided the players into two groups such that both the brothers
were in different groups, and Pralmaba was in Srikrishna’s
group. The rule of the game was that the defeated team was to
carry over shoulder the victorious group. Srikrishna group lost

and Pralamba was to carry Balaram. He took him away over
his shoulder with an intention to kill him. Balaram sensed
some foul, and he hit over his head due to which Pralamaba
revealed his demonic form and lifted him up in the air.
Ultimately, Balram prevailed upon him and killed him in the
air and the demon fell dead like a big chunk of rock.
146. In one more incident a fire broke out entrapping
(10/19) the cows in the grazing jungle known as munjavati
where cows didn’t get water either to drink. Ultimately
Srikrishna, when called upon to help, asked them to shut their
eyes. He swallowed the wild fire and they were safely brought
back to vrindavan.
147. The flute play (venu geet) (10/21) in one of the autumn
(sharat) months is notable feat of Srikrishna. The natural
entities (trees, river, birds, goverdhan parvat, etc.) of
vrindavan including the human beings were spell bound by His
flute play.
148. It was the month of margsheersha (hemant ritu – the
season preceding winter). The maiden gopi observed katyayani
vrata (10/22) on the bank of Yamuna. Vrata is performed by
taking bath before sunrise and figure out with the help of sand
the image of goddess (variously called mahamaye, katyayani)
on the river bank itself. The image is offered flowers,
fragrance, sweetened rice with milk (havishayanna). They
sustain until next morning on single time food of havishayanna
offered to the goddess. This continues for the whole month and
the objective is to get Srikrishna as their husband. As usual the
maiden gopi came to Yamuna river before sunrise for bath.
They put-off their cloths and entered into water. Srikrishna
came, in the meanwhile, and after picking up their cloths
climbed up the kadamb tree on the bank of the river. He
announced from the tree top that those who wanted their cloths
had to come to Him. Gopi pleaded in vain about their
nakedness. They threatened to complain about His mischief to

Nand baba. Nothing worked, and eventually they came out of
water securing their privacy by palms. Srikrishna reminded
them about their sin by taking naked bath in the river water.
The deity of the water varun, and goddess Yamuna were not
happy with them, and that would be a hindrance to the
completion of their vrata. He advised them to beg pardon with
folded hands. They obliged by doing what He advised. He
assured them that He would meet them in the next autumn and
fulfill their wishes.
149. Once the accompanying friends of Srikrishna and
Balaram felt hungry in the forest. On their request to arrange
some food, Srikrishna advised them to visit a nearby place
where Brahmins (10/23) were performing angirasa ygya and
request them that Srikrishna and Balaram were hungry and
they wanted some food. The boys returned empty handed.
They were again sent back with the same message to their
wives. The moment they narrated the message of Srikrishna
and Balaram to the female-Brahmins (ygyapatni) they rushed
with the available food items to the place of His stay. On their
arrival with food Srikrishna was very happy and He advised
them to immediately go back and join their husbands in the
ygya because their absence might be a constraint in successful
completion of the ygya. The female Brahmins were happy to
see Him and wanted their eternal relation with Him. He
blessed them and sent them back.
150. It was customary to offer annual oblation to Indra, the
rain god (10/24). Srikrishna forbade Nand in doing that any
more. He advised to perform ygya in hounor of the mountain,
giriraj, called Goverdhan. Srikrishna manifested Himself in
the form a huge peak over giriraj and asked them to offer the
ygya materials. There was a great festivity and all sorts of food
were offered which He accepted gladly. Indra became angry
on such development that he was ignored and in retaliation he
thought of teaching them lesson. He caused in vraj heavy

down pour. To protect the natives, Srikrishna managed to hold
aloft the Goverdhan mountain over His hand (10/25), and
everybody including the live stock got a safe shelter
underneath which worked like a mammoth umbrella. After
seven days of torrential rains Indra gave up. The normalcy was
restored and natives began their normal routine life. Conceding
his defeat Indra was in the look out to pay honour to Him.
Indra could fiund (10/27) a lonely moment of Srikrishna and
offered his crown over His feet and begged for pardon. The
celestial cow (kamdhenu) who also came to pay her respect to
Srikrishna offered a milk bath to Him. After the milk bath was
performed, Indra arranged through his mount, airavat
elephant, water from akashganga (celestial ganges). He was
given a good bath and thereafter decorated with lots of flowers
and this concluded with a sincere prayer by other gods also.
After this coronation, Srikrishna got a new name of Govinda,
which means the one who is Indra (king) of cows (go in
Sanskrit means cow).
151. In the bright fortnight of the month of kartika Nandjee
observed ekadashi (keeping fast on eleventh day of each
fortnight) and pretty early in the following morning before
dawn he went to Yamuna for bath to observe (10/29) the
dwadashi (the following day of ekadashi, at the
commencement of which the fast is broken). Since it was wee
hours before break of the day, and human beings were
enjoined by holy scriptures from entering river water so early,
he was caught by the messengers of varuna, god of water. He
was brought a hostage to varun lok. When gopa learnt about
this, they urged upon srkrishna to find him out. He went to
varunlok and got him released.
152. Gopa (the natives of vrindavan) have by that time fully
realized the divine potential of Srikrishna. They insisted to
show them His divine abode, vaikunthloka. Subsequently, He
took them to the deepest pool of Yamuna, which later became

known as bramhadaha. They were asked to take bath there.
No sooner they entered the water and took a dip than they
realized about their own eternal individual entity (everyone
as a separate soul, or called jeevatma) (10/28) beyond the
physical body and different from the universal spirit. After
enjoying for sometime the tryst with their soul, they were
taken to parampad – vaikunthlok. Amongst several divine
peculiarities, they saw Srikrishna being constantly prayed by
veda manifested in the physical form of divine beings. After
sometime, each one of them came out of water fully satisfied
and happy.
153. Srikrishna, being the universal spirit, knew how to
discipline the individual souls. His rasleela is an example of
such exercise. Even if gopi were having some physical lust for
Him, He invited them to join the rasleela in the moonlit night
of aswin purnima (full moon night of the bright fortnight) over
the camphor- white sands of the river Yamuna. First he
advised them to go back to their homes as they had come to
Him (10/29..10/32)8 hearing His flute notes suspending their
domestic engagements. Later when all the gopi indicated their
sole objective of refuge under His lotus feet, He agreed to
entertain each one of them by exchange of pleasantries and
being with each of them simultaneously. Then He suddenly
disappeared and the gopi began searching Him among
themselves. He was not found and they got disappointed; they
ran to the nearby bushes and forest but He was not traceable.
They engaged themselves by dividing themselves into two
groups, one represented Srikrishna, and the other represented
the gopi. Srikrishna group of gopi behaved like Him, began
embracing and dancing with the other group of gopi. This
8
In first sloka of 10/31 it is mentioned that His consort goddess lakshmi has also
come down to vrajbhumi leaving vaikunthaloka; No direct name is mentioned
throught out the text but this may be an indication towards Raadhaa.
imaginary source of enjoyment couldn’t last long and in His

real absence they began feeling desolated. Suddenly, He
appeared again (10/33) and manifested in multitude, to be
with each of them in a dancing ring. It was the scene of
performing all sorts of dances with classical movement of the
various organs of the body, the anklets, the bracelets and other
ornaments. A sublime scene of ultimate happiness and
pleasure devoid of physical lust permeated the site. The night
ended; moon began peeping back from the western horizon;
sun began knocking on the eastern horizon. He commanded
them to go back to their homes and happily they went back.
154. It was shivratri (13th day of dark fortnight of phalgun
month) and Nand with the natives went to ambikavana to
worship shiva and ambika. At night a python attacked him and
began swallowing him down its throat. Srikrishna came to his
(10/34) rescue and His simple touch by His feet changed the
whole scene. The python became a handsome man and he
prayed Srikrishna for his liberation. In his previous birth, he
was known as Sudarshan and was a wealthy and a handsome
gandharva. His arrogance of handsomeness, incurred him a
curse from the sages of the lineage of angira for ridiculing
them for their ugliness.
155. In an another incident, a yaksha called Sankhchuda,
(10/34) hijacked the group of gopi forcibly. Seeing Balaram
and Srikrishna following him, he dumped those gopi and ran
away. But Srikrishna didn’t spare him; He chased and drew a
severe blow over his head. He fell dead, and the crown from
his head was gifted to Balaram.
156. One evening a mighty ox with a large hump stormed
into vrindavan. He was a demon, Aristasur in disguise.
Srikrishna very easily took him by his horns and he was killed
after some sporting moments.
157. Narada once again went to Kans and informed him,
“Vasudev and Devaki had a son known as Srikrishna and He is
now with Nand. Balarma another son of Vasudev from his

wife Rohini, is also at vraj staying with Nand. These boys are
going to be your killer. The female child (10/36) that had
escaped from your hands, was the daughter of Yashoda.”
Hearing that Kans became very furious and put back again
Devaki and Vasudev in prison. He sent for his advisors and
chalked out a plan to invite Nand with those boys to Mathura
to enjoy the archery celebration. He commanded Akrur (a
known yaduvanshai personality) to visit vrindavan to invite
them. His (Kans’s) game plan was that once Srikrishna arrived
at Mathura, the mighty elephant Kuvlayapeeth, would be
provoked to kill Him. If He escaped that, He would be killed
by Chanur and Musti the reputed wrestlers of his (Kans’s)
court. He also, in the meanwhile, sent another demon Kesi to
vrindavan to eliminate those brothers.
158. Kesi, in disguise of a horse, thronged (10/37) the streets
of vrindavan. Seeing Srikrishna he charged an attack over
him. Srikrishna very swiftly held the horse by his hair, and
when he wanted to bite Him, He pushed his hand into his
mouth causing immediate death.
159. Another demon, (10/37) Vyomasur disguised as one of
the gopa joined the playing team of the boys. He began
carrying the boys one by one to a cave and put them inside by
closing the entry to the cave with a heavy rock piece.
Srikrishna sensed his foul play, and He charged over him. The
demon revealed his real form and tried to kill Srikrishna. But
He foiled his bid by holding him firmly by his throat until he
died.
160. Commanded by Kans, Akrur set out to invite Nand
with Srikrishna and Balaram to Mathura. While on his way, he
imagined himself very fortunate that he was going to meet
Srikrishna, who is a rare object of meditation for saints and
sages. When entering vrindvan, he noticed the foot-prints
carrying the symbols of bolt, barley, lotus etc. he came down
the chariot and prostrated over those footprints of Srikrishna.

On reaching vrindavan, he was enchanted by the handsome
personality of Srikrishna and Balaram. He met Nand, (10/38)
and informed him about the special celebration being
organised at Mathra. He extended the invitation of Kans to all
the natives of vrindavan along with Srikrishna, Balarama to
visit Mathura to participate in the celebration. Nand made all
the preparations and in the morning along with all the natives
left for Mathura. His carts carrying milk and its products as a
gift for Kans were lead by the chariot of Akrur carrying
Srikrishna and Balaram. Gopi were upset from the separation
of Srikrishna, but got solace by some indications of His
coming back.
161. On way, Akrur stopped and went to river Yamuna for
bath. Srikrishna and Balaram also drank water from the river.
When Akrur had a dip, he found both the brothers sitting
inside the water. Puzzled, he craned his neck out of water to
verify the reality. To his utmost surprise, both the brothers
were seen seating in the chariot. Again when he dipped, he got
a divine glance of sheshajee inside the water holding Narayana
on his lap in sleeping posture. He offered his sincere prayer
and came out of water. He began chanting His eternal glory
(10/40) of ten principal incarnations of matsya, hayagreeva,
kachapa, varaha, nrisimha, vamana, prashurama, rama,
budha, and kalki . When he came out of water and after
performing his sandhya, he began driving the chariot.
Srikrishna enquired as to why he looked a little puzzled. He
expressed that He was carrying the supreme spirit in His
chariot and nothing can be more puzzling than this.
162. They reached Mathura where Nand had already arrived
with his group. They stayed in an orchard on the outskirt of the
city. Srikrishna and Balram stayed with Nand and Akrur went
alone to Kans to inform about their arrival. Before separating,
when Akrur requested Srikrishna to visit his home, He assured

that He would visit his home (10/41) after killing Kans.
163. Following day in the afternoon both the brothers
accompanied by some gopa (herders) entered Mathura city. On
way they found a washer man carrying good garments.
Srikrishna asked one of them for Himself. The washer-man
didn’t oblige rather threatened Him for His audacity and
consequent punishment leading to imprisonment if he asked
for the royal garments (which he was carrying to be delivered
to the palace of the king, Kans). Hearing that Srikrishna
slapped over his cheek and instantly he dropped dead. Both the
brothers and his friends dressed themselves with the choicest
dress from the lot and moved around the city. On way, a tailor
met (10/41) them, who enchanted by His charming personality
offered voluntarily his services to fix the dress properly over
them. Moving further He entered the house of a gardener
(named Sudama) and got decorated with lot of fragrance and
flowers enhancing His charming personality.
164. Further (10/42) on His way they met a hunchbacked
woman (named Trivakra, also called Kubja) with charming
face carrying sandal paste. She was a royal maid of Kans, but
she offered them voluntarily the sandal paste she was carrying.
Srikrishna smeared the yellow paste over His face and body,
while Balaram used the red paste. In return of service,
Srikrishna blessed her by pulling her hands up anchoring her
feet under His feet which helped eliminate her physical
deformity. That made her look younger and beautiful. On her
request to go with her to her home, He assured to visit her
home later. He moved forward by making enquiry about the
rangshala (the venue) where the bow was placed for the
celebration. He entered the place ignoring the security ring and
lifted the bow in His hands which broke into pieces the
moment He pulled the string. When attacked by the security
forces He dealt them firmly using the broken pieces of the
bow and victorious he came out of the rangshala. When Kans

learnt about the episode he became upset, and at night he had
bad dreams indicating his imminent end.
165. Next day all the preparations (10/43) were made in the
wrestling ground. Nand and other invitees were given due seat
among the audience while Kans himself held a royal seat
among other dignitaries. While entering the wrestling ground
Srikrishna and Balaram were stopped by the Kuvalayapeeda,
the royal elephant guarding the security. Srikrishna took the
challenge with the elephant and soon the elephant was killed.
With the broken tusks in His hands and his cloths spotted with
the elephant’s blood, He with Balaram entered the wrestling
court (10/44). Initially He declined the invitation to fight with
Chanur, but challenged by Chanur he took the contest and soon
killed the royal wrestler. Balaram was engaged with Mushtika,
another wrestler, whom he also killed easily. Other wrestlers,
Kuta, Shal, and Toshal were killed when protested the killing
of Chanur and Mushtika. Upset with unbelievable
developments, Kans commanded his security forces to kill
both the brothers and arrest Nand along with his
accompanying herders. In the meanwhile, Srikrishna leapt up
to the podium of Kans. While Kans was drawing his sword, He
pushed him down the podium, and came over him holding his
hair in His hands. Kans fell dead. When protested, his eight
brothers were also killed by Him and Balaram. Immediately
after that He went to see Vasudev and Devaki in the prison,
and touched their feet in utmost reverence. Vasudev and
Devaki were released from the prison but realising His
supreme divinity, under great awe, they couldn’t dare show
their parental affection to Him.
166. Ugrasena was crowned the king of Mathura (10/45).
Nand and other vraj people were given a warm farewell. They
left for vraj with heavy heart leaving Srikrishna and Balaram
in Mathura. Vasudev and Devaki invited Gargacharya (their
family preceptor) for investing ygyopaveet sanskar (investing

the sacred thread) to Srikrishna and Balaram. The occasion
was celebrated and they were initiated to gayatri mantra (!
BaUBa-uva:sva: tt\ saivatu-varoNyaM Ba-gaaodovasya QaImahI iQayaao yaaona: p`caaodyaat\ ) by
Gargacharya.
167. Subsequently both the brothers were sent to Ujjain to
join the school of learning run by Sandipani. On completion of
the schooling, (10/45) they were asked by Sandipani as a token
of fee of education, to get back his son who was drowned in
the ocean. When Srikrishna arrived at the coast, the ocean god
came out and informed Him that the boy was killed by a
demon called Sankhasur residing deep inside the ocean.
Srikrishna entered the ocean and killed the demon but the boy
was not found. Further, He went to the god of death, Yamraj to
retrieve the child. The child was offered back to Him, whom
He brought to Sandipani. Both the brothers left the school for
Mathura after receiving Sandipani’s blessings.
168. On the initiative of Srikrishna, (10/46)Udhava one of
His close friends and a known person of vrishni dynasty, came
to vraj to pay respect to Nand, Yashoda and convey His
assuring solace to gopi. He remained there for months (10/47)
and comprehended fully the unalloyed love of gopi to
Srikrishna. He paid a visit to all the places of His pastime at
vraj. While moving around he preferred to stay as creepers in
vraj to allow him to get the cover of His foot-dust. After
several months he came back to Mathura to apprise Him about
the latest of vraj.
169. As assured earlier when He entered Mathura,
Srikrishna with Udhava obliged Kubja by paying a visit to her
home. He stayed there for quite sometime as desired by her.
(10/48). To honour His words He visited (10/48) place of
Akrur also. He impressed upon him to visit Hastinapur to
collect the latest welfare of pandva who had come to
Hastinapur after the death of their father Pandu. Akrur went to
Hastinapur and (10/49) stayed there for quite some time

meeting Dhrutrashtra, Kunti, Dronachrya, Bheeshmapitamatha
and others. He noticed the split affection of Dhrutrashtra to his
own sons than to Pandva. Kunti recounted her days at Mathura
and offered a sincere and tearful prayer to Srikrishna seeking
the ultimate welfare of her sons. Akrur came back to Mathura
and apprised Srikrishna of the status of pandva at Hastinapur.
Srikrishna vaibhava -leela (pastime of potential)
170. Daughters of Jarasandh, Apti and Prapati were the

wives of Kans. On his death, they approached (10/50) their
father to avenge the murder of their husband. Jarasandh
gathered a huge army and attacked Mathura. Srikrishna and
Balarama got two celestial chariots to face the enemy. The
chariot of Srikrishna was driven by Daruka and the flag over
His chariot was marked with Garuda, where as the Balaram’s
chariot carried the flag marked with palm tree. Jarasandha
suffered a humiliating defeat for he lost his entire army. He
went back and attacked seventeen times over Mathura, each
time to go back defeated.
171. Before eighteenth attack over Mathura by Jarasandh,
Srikrishna established a new city deep inside the western coast
(10/50). The new city (Dwarka) was 48 kosa (= 96 miles =
154 km) long and equally wide and the natives of Mathura
were rehabilitated there.
172. Kalayavan on the advice of Narad had surrounded
Mathura with his huge army. Balaram remained alone inside
Mathura, and Srikrishna came out of Mathura on foot wearing
a garland of lotus flower. Kalayavan could immediately realise
that He was srirkrishna Himself. Seeing Him unarmed,
Kalayavan also threw his arms. He followed Him, challenging
to fight. Srikrishna was running away closely being followed
by him. He lead him into a mountain cave and managed to go
out of his sight. Kalayavan, instead found a man sleeping

covered in a wrapper and he mistook that Srikrishna in
disguise. When he kicked (10/51) the sleeping man, he opened
his eyes with anger which burnt Kalayavan to ashes. The
sleeping man was Muchukund of Ikshavaku dynasty, son of
Mandhata. He was relieved by Kartikeya to relax after he
fought a long battle against demons in favour of gods. He got a
boon from gods that whoever would disturb his sleep would
burn to ashes. This has caused the end of Kalayavan.
Srikrishna appeared before Muchukund, who when knew He
was Srikrishna, offered a sincere prayer to Him and got blessed
for a dispassionate service to Him in his next birth.
173. While coming back to Mathura after elimination of
Kalayavan, He defeated the huge army laying seize of
Mathura. He also collected huge wealth from the defeated
army and He was about to enter Mathura that Jarasandh made
an attack over the city. He left the huge wealth behind to be
possessed by Jarasandh, (10/52) and with Balaram ran away
from Mathura. Jarasandh followed Him and until he climbed
pravarshan mountain from where He became traceless.
Jarasandh, finally put the whole mountain under fire which
caused Srikrishna and Balaram to jump down the mountain
and made their way to Dwarka. On way, Balaram was married
to Revati, daughter of Raivata the king of Anarta.
174. While at Anarta, Srikrishna got a message (carried by a
Brahmin) from Rukmini, the daughter of Bheeshmak, the king
of Vidarbha (Kundinipur). The Brahmin narrated her message,
“Rukmi, my elder brother has fixed my marriage with
Shishupal. I always cherish You as my husband, therefore,
You should rush immediately and rescue me. The marriage
date is day after tomorrow.” Srikrishna immediately rushed to
Kundinipur with the Brahmin messenger. He found Rukmini
coming out in a procession to offer family worship to the
goddess Ambika (10/53) before marriage. When she finished
her worship and came out of the temple, Srikrishna hijacked

her in His chariot. Shisupal the would-be groom with his
friendly kings had already arrived at Kundinipur. Balaram also
had arrived there with a large contingent of forces when he
heard that Srikrishna had left alone for Kundinipur on message
of Rukmini.
175. Srikrishna was attacked by Shishupal and his other
friendly kings, viz. Jarashadh, salva etc. With the help of
Balaram the enemies were defeated badly and Srikrishna with
Rukmini rushed towards Dwarka. In the meanwhile he had to
face Rukmi also who came chasing Him because he took that
incident as his personal insult. Rukmi with his army was
humiliated to a bad defeat. On the request of Rukmini, his life
was spared by Srikrishna. He made him hostage and put him
tied with his wrapper after cutting his hair and moustache. He
was later freed by Balaram. Rukmi had taken a vow that he
would not comeback to Kundinipur until he killed Srikrishna.
He established an another city Bhojcut, in honour of his vow
and didn’t go back to Kundinipur (10/54). After reaching
Dwarka, marriage with Rukmini was solemnised with great
show of celebration and festivity.
176. Subsequently, Pradyumna was born to Rukmini. He
was as handsome as Srikrishna and was said to be the
incarnation of Kamdev (cupid). When he was ten days old, a
demon called Sambrasur abducted him from natal home and
threw him in the ocean. He was afraid of him as he was
predicted to be his killer (10/55). In the ocean a fish swallowed
him and the same fish fell in the net of fishermen and it was
sold to Sambrasur. In the kitchen when the fish was cut
Pradyumna came out alive and the maid servant in the kitchen
Mayavati (she was Rati, wife of Kamdev in disguise working
with Sambrasur) adopted the child for rearing. Narada came to
Rati and hinted about the child as her husband. In course of
time he became young and with the help of Rati, killed the
demon and both arrived happily to Dwarka. Initially nobody

could recognise them, but Narada came and narrated the entire
story to Rukmini and then his arrival was celebrated as a
festive occasion.
177. Satrajeet, a native of Dwarka pleased the sun god by
his worship (10/56) and got a brilliant gem (called smayantak
mani) as a boon from the sun god. Everyday he used to get
about eight bhar (8 x 10 gm = 80 gm) of gold after its due
worship in the morning. Srikrishna advised to offer that gem to
the king, Ugrasen (who was the king of Dwarka on migrating
from Mathura) but he didn’t oblige. Once his brother,
Prasenjeet put that gem around his neck and went to the forest
for hunting. A lion killed him with his horse and took away the
gem. Jamvan (a mighty bear associated with ramavatar) also
resided in that forest. He killed the lion and took the gem in his
possession. When Prasenjeet didn’t come back home, Satrajeet
accused killing Prasenjeet for the gem. Srikrishn with a few
persons went in the forest and could locate the dead bodies of
Prasenjeet, his horse and the lion. Following some footprints
He entered a cave alone advising His men to stay outside.
Inside the cave he saw some children playing with that gem. In
the meanwhile, seeing the stranger in Srikrishna, the children
raised the alarm. Jamvan stormed at the scene, and engaged
Srikrishna in a duel. After fighting for twenty eight days
Jamvan felt exhausted and at the same time he also realised
that in Srikrishna it was His master of thretayuga, Sriram. He
surrendered before Him, and when he knew that He had come
searching that gem, he offered back the gem to Him. He also
offered his daughter, Jamvanti to remain in His service for
ever.
178. Srikrishna returned the gem to Satrajeet after coming
back from the forest. Satrajeet felt ashamed of false accusation
to Srikrishna and in return he offered his daughter Satybhama
to be married to Him. He also offered the gem to Him. The
marriage with Satybhama was celebrated with great festivity

and Srikrishna returned the gem to Satrajeet and asked him to
give only the gold to the king Ugrasen which he used to get
regularly from the gem.
179. Being provoked by Akrur and Kritvarma, Shatdhanva
killed Satrajeet for the gem. At that time Srikrishna and
Balaram had gone to Hastinapur hearing the incidence of
burning of Pandva in lakshgriha. Satyabhama rushed to
Hastinapur to apprise Srikrishna of killing of her father. They
immediately came back to Dwarka in search of Shatdhanva.
(10/57) When Shatdhanva asked help from Akrur and
Kritvarma, they denied the help against Srikrishna. He
dropped the gem to Akrur and left Dwarka. Srikrishna and
Balaram chased him and he was caught in Mithilapur. On his
killing, the gem was not found in his possession. Hearing the
killing of Shatdhava, Kritvarma and Akrur left Dwarka. After
their leaving of Dwarka famine stalked that area. The story
goes that Swafalk, the father of Akrur was married to Gandini,
the daughter of the king of Kashi in return of his ability to
fetch rain. Seeing the grim situation due to famine, Srikrishna
sent a messenger to find out Akrur who was on pilgrimage
performing ygya, to get him back to Dwarka. On his coming
back, normalcy returned in Dwarka. It is also said that the
presence of the gem drives away all sorts of evils from that
area. Akrur gave the gem to Srikrishna which was in his
possession and mentioned that afraid of Him, Shatdhanva, had
given that to him. Srikrishna showed the gem to Balaram and
his wives including the natives of Dwarka to convince them
that the gem was not in His possession rather it was possessed
by Akrur. Srikrishna praised him for performing several ygya
at several sacred places. He returned the gem to Akrur and
asked him to give the gold to be obtained from that.
180. After lakshagriha incidence, Srikrishna again (10/58)
made a sympathy visit to Pandva who were residing at
Indraprastha. This place was developed by Viswakarma

himself. Once when Arjun and Srikrishna were out in the
forest they met Kalindi meditating on the bank of Yamuna.
She was daughter of the sun god, and she had long cherished to
get Narayana as her husband. On the initiative of Arjun she
consented to accept Srikrishna as her husband.
181. While they were moving around they reached khandva
forest. Srikrishna had blessed fire god (davanal) to satisfy his
hunger by burning the khandava forest. The entire forest
(10/58) was burnt but Maydanava was saved by Arjun. In
gratitude, Maydanava built a strange hall at Indraprashtah
where Duryodhana mistook dry place as place full of water
and place having water was mistaken as dry land. Fire god was
also pleased with Arjun, and he gifted him a celestial chariot
driven by horses, gandeeva dhanush, two quivers ever full of
arrows, a kavacha to shield the body against injury of arrows
and other weapons.
182. On way back to Dwarka Srikrishna married Mitravinda
(10/58) sister of the kings of Avanti (Ujjain). Later, he
married Satya the princess of koshal king by satisfying the
condition of taming seven mighty oxen. Further he married
Bhadra the princess of kaikeya desh. In one another race of
brides, He won the hands of Lakshamaana, the daughter of the
king of madra.
183. Bhaumasur (also called Narkasur) was the son of the
goddess earth. (10/59) He established his capital at
Pragjyotishpur and was famous as a notorious and mighty
demon. He had grabbed the umbrella of Varun (god of water),
the ear-rings of Aditi (mother of the gods), and the top of
meru (maniparvata the favourite resort of gods). Indra
requested Srikrishna to control the atrocities of Bhaumasur.
Srikrishna with Satybhama mounting garuda visited
Pragjyoishpur. Initially he faced a five headed ferocious
demon Mur. When Mur was killed, his seven sons attacked
Him and they were also killed. At the end Naraksur attacked
with his strong contingent of elephants. Soon he was also
killed. Mother earth appeared on killing of his son and offered
a prayer to Srikrishna. Her prayer i
Slaaok 
 
   
namh pankaj nabhaya, namh pankaj maline, namh pankaj
netraya, namaste pankajanghrye” has become popular
among devotees as one of the most sanctified prayers. He
liberated sixteen thousand and one hundred princesses from
the prison of Bhaumasur. They all wanted Him to be their
husband. He conceded to their proposal and sent them one by
one, in His personal monitoring, mounting palanquin to
Dwarka. Srikirshna while coming back went to the heaven and
returned ear-rings of Aditi. While leaving heaven for Dwarka,
to fulfil the desire of Satyabhama, He lifted parijat (celestial
flower plant). For that He had to face the protests of Indra and
other gods but He succeeded in taking that to Dwarka where it
was planted in His favourite garden. He solemnised marriage
with all the sixteen thousand and one hundred women liberated
from the evil clutch of Bhaumasur. He led a happy life with
each of them simultaneously which surprised Brahma and
other gods for His leela is incomprehensible.
184. Srikrishna got ten sons from each of His eight principal
queens as well as from sixteen thousand and one hundred
wives (10/61). His son Pradyumna (from Rukmini) was
married to Rati as well as Rukmvati (daughter of Rukmini’s
brother Rukmi). Later, Anirudha, the son of Pradyumna was
married to Rochana, granddaughter of Rukmi. The marriage
was solemnised at Bhojcut. Srikrishna and Balaram had joined
the marriage procession at Bhojcut. Although, Rukmi the
brother of Rukmini had animosity against Srikrishna he
organised this marriage to please his sister Rukmini. While

they were at Bhojcut, Balaram engaged in a dice game with
Rukmi and he was by false tricks defeated in the game.
Enraged Balaram killed Rukmi and injured his other
supporting friends.
185. Baanasur was the eldest son of demon Bali who is
associated with the legend of lord vaman. His capital was at
Sonitpur. He was a great devotee of Shiva and was blessed
with one thousand hands. Once when Shiva performed tandva
nritya (cosmic dance), Baanasur using his one thousand hands
presented an excellent musical orchestra alone. Shiva was
highly pleased with him. His daughter, Usha once dreamt
about her love with Anirudha (the son of Pradyumna, grandson
of Srikrishna). She was not aware of who this Anirudha was
nor had she ever met him except in the dream. Taking hints
from her dream, (10/62) Chitralekha (her close friend with
yogic capabilities) drew the sketches of several persons and
finally she could identify the one whom she met in dream, and
it was Anirudha son of Prdyumna. Chitralekha using her yogic
potential brought Anirudha form Dwarka while he was asleep.
Usha and Anirudha loved each other and stayed longer
together without knowledge of Baanasur. Somehow Baanasur
came to know about the presence of Anirudha in the fort of his
daughter. He inspected the palace and found them together.
Anirudha was arrested and put in nagapasha (serpent fetter) by
Baanaasur. Narada arrived at Dwarka (10/63) and broke the
news of the where-about of Anirudha. yaduvanshi army lead
by Srikrishna, Balaram, Pradyumna, Satyaki etc., surrounded
Sonitpur. Fierce fighting took place between demons and
yaduvanshi. Shiva, Kartikeya had also joined the battle in
favour of Baanasur. Ultimately, the demons’ army was routed
and all the hands of Baansur except four were cut down by
Srikrishna. His life was spared because of Shiva’s interferece.
He handed over Usha and Anirudha to Srikrishna. When they
came back, a great marriage ceremony was celebrated at

Dwarka.
186. Nruga was a great king (10/64) known for his liberal
charities and ygya. He used to donate lacs of cows to the
Brahmins. Once a cow came from the house of a dispassionate
Brahmin and merged in the herd of the royal cows. The herd
was donated to some other Brahmin in gift. The first Brahmin
in search of his cow spotted her in the herd donated by the
king. He went to the king and complained about his cow
donated to the other Brahmin by the king. The king couldn’t
get back that cow because the second Brahmin was not ready
to change that cow by any other cow. The king offered another
cow with more wealth to the first Brahmin but the Brahmin
didn’t accept the offer anything other than his own cow and
returned disgusted. When the king died, he was punished for
this sin, and he became a lizard. He was lying in a dry well of a
forest near Dwarka. When Srikrishna once went there with his
kith and kin, the lizard was spotted in the well. Srikrishna took
the lizard out when others failed to bail out the lizard out of the
well. Due to His touch the lizard was transformed into a
human being with a charming personality. He was king Nruga,
and he offered a sincere prayer to Him and being blessed by
Him left for heavenly abode.
187. Paundrak and Kashiraj (10/66) were two royal friends,
former being the king of Karush and the latter the king of
Kashi. Paundrak had decoratd himself in the form of Narayana
by way of having four hands equipped with sankha, chakra,
gada and padma. He contested srikirshna that he (Paundrak)
was the real incarnation of Narayana. On his challenge,
Srikrishna came to Kashi with his large army and after
destroying the army of Paundrak and Kashiraj, he killed both
of them. The son of Kashiraj, Sudakshina wanted to take
revenge of his father. He pleased Shiva who advised him to
obtain a deadly being from the oblation in the fire. Kritya thus
came out of the fire who attacked Srikrishna but being chased
by chakra of Srikrishna, Kritya came back and killed
Sudakshina and other Brahmins who were involved in putting
oblation in the fire. Srikrishna’s chakra finally destroyed
Kritya.
188. There was a mighty monkey Dwid, a great friend of
Bhaumasur (10/67). He was brother of Maind and secretary to
Sugreeva in treat yuga. On hearing the news of death of
Bhaumasur, he became upset and vowed to avenge his friend’s
killing with Srikrishna. He created several anarchic situation to
provoke the anger of Srikrishna. By chance, one day his
misdeeds caught the attention of Balaram and he was killed in
the duel fight.
189. Samb was Srikrishna’s son from Jambvati. He fell in
love with Lakshamana, (10/68) the daughter of Duryodhana.
Consequently he was once caught with her and was put behind
the bars by the kaurav. Balaram, hearing the news of his arrest
by kaurav, came to Hastinapur and tried to persuade them to
release Samb with Lakshamana. When they didn’t listen to his
words, he applied his plough and pestle to tear the part of the
land encompassing Hastinapur and drown that in the river
ganga. Realising the imminent catastrophe of getting drowned
in the river ganga, kaurav accepted his terms and Samb was
married to Lakshamana.
190. Once Narada came to Dwarka (10/69) with a view to
find out how Srikrishna interacted with his over sixteen
thousand wives. First, he happened to enter the mansion of
Rukmini, where He was being fanned by her. Narada was
given a warm welcome by them and after a while he left the
palace and entered another palace where Srikrishna was
playing dice with Udhava and one of His wives. Here also
Narada was given due respect as if He didn’t meet him
immediately before that at Rukmini’s palace. Thus Narada
made a round of all the mansions, and Srikrishna was found
present at a time at all the places doing quite different things

what he was seen doing at other places. He was highly
impressed by His cosmic and infinite personality engaged in
multitude of activities simultaneously. He bowed down at His
lotus feet and on offering his prayer he left playing his guitar.
191. Normally, Srikrishna in Dwarka, (10/70) used to
observe a strict routine of getting early in the morning before
sunrise. He would devote sometime in deep meditation,
recitation of gayatri mantra, and thereafter He would get ready
after taking bath. Dressing Himself beautifully with new and
attractive garments and ornaments He would ride His chariot
driven by Daruka, and attend sudharma (publicly meeting the
citizens) in the afternoon in the royal conference hall of
Dwarka. He was accompanied by His wives and would give
audience to all sorts of presentations for His entertainment.
192. Once while He was in sudharma, He met a messenger
(10/70) of the kings imprisoned by Jarasandh for their
immediate liberation from the clutches of Jarasandh. At the
same time, Narada came to Him to extend an invitation of
Yudhishthra to attend the rajsuya ygya being organised by
him. Assuring the messenger of imprisoned kings for
immediate action, He left immediately for Indrprastha with His
eight principal queens to attend the rajsuya ygya of
Yudhishthra. At the ygya place He was accorded warm
welcome by five pandav, Kunti, Draupadi, Subhadra and
others.
193. Before commencement of the ygya royal messengers,
represented by four brothers were sent to four cardinal
directions (Sahdev in the South, Nakul in the West, Arjun in
the North, Bheem in the East) to ensure sovereignty of
Yudhisthir. Excluding Jarasandh (10/73) all other kings
accepted and gave valuable gifts for the successful completion
of the rajsuya ygya. Arjun, Srikrishna, and Bheem disguised as
Brahmins went to meet Jarasandh. Jarasandh was liberal to
Brahmins and had been known for meeting their demand.

These three also asked for the assurance of Jarasandh that he
would meet their demands. Jarasandh assured them to satisfy
them to his utmost capacity. Srikrishna disclosed their identity
and sought a physical fight with him. Jarasandh rejected
Srikrishna as weak and fugitive, Arjun was also rejected being
too young to face him, and finally he chose Bheem his match.
They got first engaged in mace fighting, and later took to
wrestling which continued for twenty seven days. At night
Jarasandh treated Bheem as his friend but during day hours
they were engaged in fierce fighting. On the twenty-eighth day
Srikrishna hinted a trick to Bheem which worked and he tore
Jarasandh into two parts running from foot to head. Both the
parts were thrown in opposite directions, and thus came the
end of Jarasandh. His son, Sahdev was crowned king by
Srikrishna, and all the kings who were imprisoned by
Jarasandh were released.
194. Rajsuya ygya commenced with due vedic practices.
Among all the revered saints, sages, kings, and elite elders
present, Srikirshna, by consensus, was nominated the observer
(10/74). Shishupal objected to this move, and he began abusing
Him recalling His previous misdeeds of lifting Rukmini.
Srikrishna allowed him to continue abusing Him, but when he
crossed the limit of one hundred abuses, He moved His chakra
and he was beheaded. Rajsuya ygya was successfully
completed.
195. After the ygya, Duryodhana once came with his
brothers to meet pandav and while entering the palace of
pandva at Indraprshtha he was mistaken by the features of the
land carved out beautifully by the famous architect
Mayadanav. Where it was dry land he prepared himself to
wade through water (10/75), and where it was water he got
trapped unaware and wet his cloths. This made others to laugh
at him and he took that as his personal insult by pandav and

left the place in great anger.
196. To avenge the killing of Shishupal, Salva worshipped
Shiva and got an invisible plane in boon. He wreaked havoc
over Dwarka aboard the invisible plane. He was however, later
killed by Srikrishna (10/77). His other friend, Dantavaktra who
was a friend of Shishupal was also killed (10/78) when he
came to help Salva.
197. Once passing through Naimsharnya, while he was on
pilgrimage, Balaram got angry with Romharshan Suta. His
(Suta’s) fault was that on his arrival, while all Brahmins rose
to welcome him but Suta seated on a high pedestal didn’t get
up. Balaram charged a kusha against him and that killed him
(10/78). On the advice of the Brahmins, Balaram appointed his
son (Ugrashrava Suta) as the chairperson of the spiritual
conference, and after killing the demon Balvala who had
wreaked havoc at Naimisharnya, he himself took to other
pilgrim places to exonerate himself against the sin committed
by killing Romharshna Suta. He visited all the pilgrimage
places (10/79) and sacred rivers including gaya, venkatachala,
srirangam, shivakanchi, vishnukanchi etc and came back to
Naimisharnya and performed ygya to honour Brahmins.
198. Sudama was His childhood friend (10/80) when
Srirkishna studied at the gurukul of Sandipani. They didn’t
meet after they separated from school. Sudama and his wife
were in dire poverty but they maintained constant worship of
srihari. Once on the behest of his wife, Sudama came to see
Him in Dwarka. Srikrishna accorded a warm welcome to His
childhood friend and enjoyed the gift of flaked rice brought by
him. When Sudama got back to his home, he found that his old
hut was transformed (10/81) into a fort with all facilities of
luxury. Although he never longed for that Srikrishna had
blessed him because He had enjoyed his gift of flaked rice.
199. It was a rare occasion of occurrence of complete sun

eclipse. There was a large gathering at kurkshetra, a famous
pilgrimage place established by Prashuram where he head
created panch-samantaka (five great lakes filled with the blood
of demonic kshatriya). All kaurvava, pandav, natives of
Dwarka, and vrajvahsi including Nanda, gopa and gopi had
gathered there to have glimpse of the eclipse. After the eclipse
was over (10/82), they had taken their bath in the panch-
samantaka and offered liberal gifts to the Brahmins. This
occasion proved a great get together also since natives from
vrindvan had met Srikrishna after a long time. Gopis were glad
to meet Him again. Draupadi was busy in interacting with the
wives of Srikrishna. All His eight queens (Rukmini,
Satyabhama, Jambvati, Satya, Maitravinda, Kalindi, Bhadra,
and Lakshamana) narrated (10/83) the incidence leading to
their marriage with Him. On the behest of Narada, Vasudev
performed ygya (10/84) at kurukshetra and invoked the
blessings of all the saints gathered there. Natives of Dwarka
were the last to leave kurukshetra after they bade farewell to
others.
200. The earlier children of Devaki who were killed by Kans
were brought to her womb by yogmaya. Initially they were
sons of Marichi and his wife U r n a (10/85) a godly couple of
the heaven. Seeing Saraswati, his own creation, lust prevailed
upon Brahma. The sons of U r na openly ridiculed Brahma’s
act. This made Brahma angry and he cursed them to become
demon. In the first birth of demons they were sons of
Hirnyakashipu, and in later birth they became sons of Devaki.
On the request of Devaki they were brought back from sutala
lok of Bali by Srikrishna and Balarama. Devaki became so
emotional to see her six dead sons back to her, that her breast
began oozing milk automatically. They all took her breast milk
and became enlightened. They offered their prayer to Devaki,
Vasudev and Srikrishna and left for heaven.
201. Balaram wanted to marry his sister, Subhadra to

Duryodhana. This was against the collective choice of
Srikrishna, Vasudev and Devaki. Consequently, Arjun was
invited (10/86) and he abducted Subhadra for marriage.
202. Hearing all the pastimes of Srikrishna, Parikshit again
asked (10/87) Shukdeo to clarify as to how Narayana maintain
both sagun and nirgun form simultaneously. Shukdeo
mentioned that there was hardly any difference between the
two, and to support his view point he mentioned that the same
query was made to Sandana in one of the spiritual gatherings.
He had replied that even if a step falls on grass or stone the
load is finally taken by the earth. Another example he
mentioned was of honey which is the wonderful blend of all
the fragrances of flowers...............so is the case with Narayana.
203. As advised by Narada, Vrukasur got success in getting
a boon from Shiva (10/88) that if he put his hand over
anybody’s head that would cause immediate death of that
person. To grab Parvati, wife of Shiva, Vrukasur wanted to try
the boon over Shiva’s head. Shiva ran away and he began
chasing him. Narayan came to Shiva’s rescue in the form of a
Brahmin. He convinced Vrukasur that the boon of Shiva was
ineffective and he could try that over his own head. Vrukasur
put his hand over his own head and dropped dead and Shiva’s
trouble was over.
204. In order to chose the presiding deity of their ygya,
saints once deputed Bhrugu to try three of the trinities,
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (10/89). When Bhrugu went to see
Brahma, he deliberately didn’t pay his salutation to him.
Brahm became angry over his lack of initial courtesy of doing
a salutation. From there he went to Shiva. At the first sight, He
was embraced by Shiva but Bhrigu demonstrated a lukewarm
response to Shiva. This irritated Shiva who wielded his trident
over his audacity. Bhrigu had to hurriedly leave the place after
intervention of Uma. When Bhrigu went to Vishnu, he was
sleeping. He kicked in his chest. Vishnu got up and with due

humility took the saint’s feet in his hands and enquired
whether his foot was injured by his hard chest. He also assured
the sage that since onwards he would always hold his footprint
over His chest. This pleased Bhrugu and Vishnu thus got the
position of the presiding deity in the ygya of the saints.
205. There was a Brahmin in Dwarka who lost his three
sons (10/89) in succession immediately after their birth. The
Brahmin assessed the cause of their death as the sin of the king
of Dwarka, Srikrishna. Arjun couldn’t tolerate this accusation
and he assured the Brahmin that his fourth son would be
protected by him using his mighty gandiva failing that he
would self-immolate. Despite Arjun’s sincere efforts of
cordoning the brahmin’s house with his arrows, the fourth
child was born but mysteriously disappeared. When Arjun was
about to self-immolate, Srikrishna intervened and took him on
his chariot to a far flung place surrounded by pitch darkness.
The way was lit by sudarshna chakra. There they met bhuma
purush seated over anant. Srikrishna offered a prayer to bhuma
purush who on getting pleased welcome them and mentioned
that Arjun and Srikrishna were incarnations in the form of Nar
and Narayana sent to the earth to liberate the earth from the
demonic influence. Srikrishna later, from there picked up the
dead sons of the Brahmin. On coming back those children
were handed over to the Brahmin.
Sadhana skandh
(31 chapters)
(i) Dwarka turns into a desolated place as all the yaduvanshi

fight among themselves. The last survivor shifts to
Mathura after the ultimate ascension of Srikrishna to
vaikunthalok.
(ii) Before His ultimate departure Srikrishna divulges ways
and means to attain Him with a view to consolidate one’s
devotion on Him.
(iii) The topic of bhagawata dharma is covered from chapters
11/2 though 11/5 in the form of legend of Nimi attending
nine ascetic sons of Rishabha.
(iv) Significance of katha nadi and ganga nadi are cited by
Brahma in chapter 11/6 when he came to meet
Srikrishna and reminded Him that He was over the
planet earth for over 125 years.
(v) The conversation of Srikrishna with Udhava (11/7)
revealed that on the seventh day ocean would submerge
Dwarka and the yaduvansha was on the brink of
elimination due to inner fighting. He would then leave
for His divine abode and immediately after His ascension
advent of kaliyuga would take place.
(vi) The style of living can be shaped through either way of
life, i.e., gyan yoga, karm yoga, and bhakti yoga (11/20) .
In 11/27, details of kriya yoga is given for regular
performances.
(vii) River sarswati is mentioned in 11/30 to be west flowing
near Dwarka before it falls into the ocean. It seems this
was another sarswati river than the one said to merge at
Allahabad, prayagraj because that is said to merge with
ganga and Yamuna.
(viii) 11/31 completes the full circle of events which were set
out in 1/14 and 1/15.
206. Once Samb (son of Jambvati) and his other friends

were in the forest for picnic. His friends played a joke (11/1)
with the sages assembled at that place. They took Samb
dressed as pregnant woman to the sages and asked whether the
child would be male or female. The sages replied that an iron
pestle would be born and that would annihilate the
yaduvansha. They returned a little perturbed over the forecast
of the sages. When Samb was undressed an iron pestle was
found under the garb. It was taken to Ugrasen and the story
was narrated. It was decided to destroy the pestle by grinding
that in the powder form. It couldn’t be completely ground, and
one small piece was still left over. The entire powder with the
one small piece was thrown into the ocean. All these events
were never brought to the knowledge of Srikrishna.
o The grounded powder got flocculated over the
water along the coast line and turned into long grasses.
It was these long grass-blades which were used to kill
each other, later when yaduvanshi began fighting
(11/30) among themselves
o The left over one small piece was swallowed by
a fish which fell in the trap of a hunter, called Jara.
While processing the fish the hunter got that piece,
and he used that to make pointed tip of one of his
arrows. He, coincidently, used that arrow to hit
Srikrishna’s sole of the left feet (11/30), mistaking His
red sole as the red eye of a deer, and that brought
about the end to His life.
207. Narada used to frequently pay visits to Dwarka. Once

he met (11/2) Vasudev and learnt how he was blessed with
Srikrishna as his son. During the discourse Vasudev enquired,
“ How can one get rid of the cycle of birth and death ?”
Narada mentioned that the observance of bhagwat dharma
would only do that. Narada cited the reference of a similar
question asked by Nimi to nine ascetic sons of Rishabha in

the lineage of Priyavrata. First ascetic had mentioned that
doing everything as the command of srihari is the crux of
bhagawat dharma. The second ascetic told that those who see
srihari in all the beings is the bhagawat (devotee) of the first
order. Those who hate anti-bhagawat followers is bhagawat of
the second order. Those who don’t care about any of the
bhagawat followers and worship only archa-vigrah (statue of
srihari as deity) in the temples, is the bhagawata of the third
order. The third ascetic (11/3) covered the characteristics of
maya. The fourth one explained how to get over maya. The
fifth one dwelt upon the ultimate form of Narayana. Karmyoga
was the topic of the sixth ascetic. He discussed the meaning of
karma, akarma and vikarma. The do’s according to scriptures
are the karma, and don’ts of the scriptures are in the category
of akarma. The deeds performed violating the guidelines of the
scriptures are vikarma. All the incarnations of Narayana was
covered in detail (11/4) by the seventh ascetic. The eighth one
explained about the consequences (11/5) of unending
hankering for the worldly pleasures. The ninth one was
requested to specify the suitability of worshipping which form
of Narayana at what time.
208. Once Brahma (11/6) and other gods came to see
Srikrishna in Dwarka and they submitted that He was on the
earth over 125 years and He was prayed to come to vaikunth.
Srikrishna confided that yadu were growing arrogant, and
steadily their behaviour had become similar to the cruel
demons. He wanted them to be eliminated before He left for
vaikunth. Brahma and other gods thus informed (by Him) left
the place. Srikrishna was once informed about lot of bad omen
experienced by the natives of Dwarka. He advised them to visit
prabhash kshetra and offer oblations to pitra and devas with
due respect to Brahmins. He also mentioned that it was this

place where Chandrama got rid of his physical afflictions

caused by the curse of Daksha.
209. When Udhava learnt about the hint of Srikrishna
leaving for His divine abode, he came (11/7) with a heavy
heart to Him. Srikrishna revealed that it was true and on the
seventh day whole of Dwarka would be submerged into ocean.
The day of His ascension would bring the advent of kaliyuga
also. He advised Udhava to move freely on the earth enjoying
the self-pleasure of meditating deeply inside his heart about the
universal spirit. Udhava offered a sincere prayer on His lotus
feet and wanted to know more about most appropriate mode of
devotion. Srikrishna cited the example of the conversation
between the king Yadu and the mendicant Duttatreya. Similar
question was made by the king to the mendicant. Duttatreya
revealed to the king that he learnt the art of self-concentration
from twenty four teachers present around in various natural
forms, and they are: earth, air, sky, water, fire, moon, sun,
pigeon bird, python, ocean, moth, bee, elephant, bee
keeper, deer, fish, Pingla (a sex worker), kurar bird, child,
maiden girl, arrow-smith, snake, spider and bhrungi
(wasp) insect.
(i) Earth teaches to observe endurance
(ii) air’s message is contentment
(iii) sky demonstrates the expanse to infinity. Everything
including rain, winter, summer goes under the sky but the sky
is not involved in those happenings. Similarly a household
should keep himself like the canopy of sky and not get
involved into the murky worldly happenings.
(iv) water is the best cleaner
(v) fire absorbs everything
(vi) moon is dispassionate and is not worried about waxing and
waning. Similarly, the incidents might influence the physical
body but not the soul

(vii) sun absorbs water but discards them as rain. Soul may
absorb through senses but must discard them finally
(viii) pigeon bird is attached to their family to the extent of
death. Once a pair of pigeons were nesting over a tree. In
course of time they got offspring. One day, while they were
out a hunter had entrapped their fledglings. The female pigeon
when returned saw the condition of their children and under
emotion she dashed into the trap of the hunter. The male
pigeon could understand the implications but he also couldn’t
help and fell prey to the hunter. Thus the entire family was
eliminated. Similarly a household should learn that he should
not fall prey to elimination under emotion rather take use of
the prudence.
(ix) python never hunts his food. It comes to him on his own.
(x) ocean is not affected by summer or rains
(xi) moth sacrifices life fascinated by the glow of the flames
(xii) bee has the traits of collecting the finest things
(xiii) elephant is trapped by the hunters deceived by the
presence of a female elephant. A ditch is covered with green
branches near the female elephant. When the mighty male
elephant comes closer to her, he is trapped in the ditch.
Women are the ditch and one should learn the lesson from the
elephants.
(xiv) beekeeper robs the collection of the bees. Over possessed
wealth is bound to be robbed
(xv)deer / doe is enchanted by the sex inciting music which
lays a trap by the hunter. Vibhandak rishi produced
Rishyshringa from the womb of a doe. Although he was an
accomplished saint, he was influenced by female dancers and
musicians and brought back to the kingdom to his father-in-
law (Rompad) to fetch rains for his kingdom was stalked by
famine (9/23). The message is to keep away from sex inciting
music.
(xvi) fish under temptation of food is trapped by the angler
(xvii) Pingla was a sex worker of Mithila. She used to have

several unslept nights expecting a visitor. She was once
enlightened, and stopped expecting any visitor. She began
enjoying the sound sleep. Her message is that the object of
expectation should only be god in one’s heart, and nobody
else.
(xviii) A kurar bird when in possession of a meat-piece is
attacked by several other birds. Be dispassionate, and never
possess more than required.
(xix) child is always care free and self-immersed in his
pleasure
(xx) once a maiden girl was preparing rice using pestle in a
mortar to honour the guests. Her bangles produced sound on
every movement of her hand. She broke them until only one
bangle remained on her wrist. Even two were producing
sound; the message is that self pleasure is attained alone and
not in a group.
(xxi) arrow smith works with full concentration and story goes
that once an arrow smith couldn’t notice the marching army by
his side. Self-concentration needs to be of this nature.
(xxii) snake never build a resort and keeps enjoying by moving
around
(xxiii) like spider god creates and wraps up the world
(xxiv) wasp transforms a nascent insect with the traits of a
wasp by constant buzzing around that.
210. Duttatreya also warned against the various demands of
the body. One should be self contained and hankering after
satisfying the need of the senses (eye, nose, palate etc.) need to
be discouraged. The life of a human being is precious since it
is endowed with the faculty of comprehending the presence of
god. Srikrishna also advised (11/9) Udhava to learn from this
story.

Srikirshna – Udhava diaglogue
211. When asked about the characteristics of a bonded soul

and a free soul, Srikrishna mentioned (11/11) that these states
are caused by avidya and atmvidya respectively. Another query
about the traits of a true devotee was addressed by the presence
of compassion in him towards all beings.
212. Srikrishna advised that keeping company of His
devotees (11/12) is the paramount requirement to please Him.
His devotees, viz., Prahlad, Dhruva, Jamban, Sugreeva,
Hanuman and others are one of the dearest to Him not because
of their learning or knowledge but their unalloyed devotion to
Him. Regarding His omnipresence He mentioned, “There are
infinite ways I am present. Invisible fire is a brilliant example.
It manifests when effort is made to get it. Sound is another
example. Someone speaks because of Me only. It is I who first
enters mooladhar chakra as para vani which only devotee with
sincere meditation can hear. When para vani rises to
manipurak chakra (navel) it is psyanti vani. Further upwards at
vishudhi chakra (throat) it is madhyma vani. Thereafter it
comes out of mouth as vaikhari vani (expression) and is
audible as well as comprehensible by the beings.
213. About three guna (i.e., satva, raja and tama) (11/13),
Srikrishna clarified, “They are not the attributes of soul rather
they represent nature which comes in physical world’s domain.
One can mend his ways and adopt satva guna by overcoming
the tendency to indulge in raja and tama guna. This can
conveniently be achieved by constant contemplation on Me.”
214. On the form (11/14) of meditation, Srikrishna said, “Sit
erect on ground with legs folded. Put the hands in the lap.
Close the eyes and practice slow inhale and exhale intervened
by (either followed or preceded by) no breathing for a
comfortable time. By practice extend the time of no breathing
and imagine the letter aum (!) is inscribed in the heart.
Further to this, imagine that inside the heart is the louts flower
where sun, moon, and fire are placed one over the other.
Narayana is surrounded and lighted by the fire. He is in
standing posture and His four hands have chakra, sankha,
gada and padma. He is wrapped up in yellow silk
(peethambra) magnified by several ornaments over His body
dominated by srikaustabha and srivats over the chest. He is
smiling with a benign forward sight.”
215. He further revealed that such meditation brings yogic
potential and the devotee attains several extraordinary powers
(11/15). There are eighteen such powers, out of which eight
are His attributes (to be shared with only rare blessed ones)
and the rest is conveniently attainable by the able devotees.
216. Udhava asked, “How does a being lose His sight when
He is omnipresent ?” He clarified by citing an example of
Arjun when he was puzzled on the battle field with kaurav and
He had shown him His cosmic form. He mentioned that His
infinite form can well (11/16) be comprehended by imagining,
“Among subtle things I am jeeva. I am aum (!) among the
alphabets. Among verses I am gayatri. Among gods, I am
Indra. Among vasu, I am agni. Among aditya, I am Vishnu.
Among rudra, I am nila-lohita. Among demons, I am Prahlad.
Among stars I am moon. Among sidha, I am Kapila. Among
pitra, I am aryma. Among prajaptis I am Daksha. Among
birds, I am Garuda. Among cows, I am kamdhenu. Among
brahm-rishi, I am Bhrugu. Among royal sages, I am Manu.
Among divine sages, I am Narada.
217. When asked about His different forms (11/17) in
different yuga, He mentioned, “During satya yuga only one
community hans was there. Pranava was the veda. People
were self contended and perfect (krita-kritya). That is why this
yuga is also called krita yuga. He Himself was in form of
dharma, represented by bull having four legs of tapsya
(penance), sauch (purification rites), daya (compassion), and
satya (truth). During treta my form was of ygya. There are

four communities: Brahmin from My mouth, kshatriya from
my arms, vaisya from my thighs, shudra from My feet. One’s
life is put into four stages of brahmcharya (studentship),
grahstha (household), vanprashtha (retirement), sanyas
(renunciation). Among all communities and stages one needs
to perform appropriate actions as My command.
218. Upon extent of necessity of adopting renunciation
(11/19) , Srikrishna cited the dialogue of Bheeshma and
Yudhishthra. Bheeshma mentioned, “Actions performed to
attain heavenly pleasure is futile because such pleasure is
transitory in nature. Concentrate on contemplation of His lotus
feet and love reciting His glory. His devotees should be
respected more than Him.”
219. Certain disciplinary practices (11/19) are essential to
perform consistently for they help in straightening the path of
devotion and they are yama, niyama, sham, dam, titiksha,
dhairya, dana, tapasya, shoorta, satya, rita, tyaga, ygya,
dakshina etc. (conduct, regularity, control, restrain,
contentment, endurance, charity, austerity, confidence,
consistent, modesty, sacrifice, oblation, offering).
220. Elaborating on gyan, karm and bhakti yoga (11/20) ,
He (Srikrishna) mentioned, “gyan yoga is dispassionate state
of mind expecting nothing in return against performances /
actions / deeds. Karm yogi has passion for action / work and he
also nurses expectation of return, but he never laments in
adverse situations. Bhakti yogi is like karm yogi and he is
involved in actions and expects return but he does everything
in His name and he consistently loves recitation of His glory.
He further quoted from veda (11/21) that there are three
principal sections in veda and they are gyan, upasana, and
karm. Neither of them has any demerit and any one of them
can be independently practiced.

221. Spiritual building blocks (11/22) are termed as tatva

and their grouping and numbering have been done variously
but broadly they are all the same. There are nine natural
elements + eleven physical elements + five knowledge
elements + three guna = 28. Some people count them only
twenty five when gun are considered to be assimilated in other
elements. Nine natural elements are purush, prakriti,
mahatatva, ahankar, akash, vayu, jal and prithvi. Eleven
physical elements are defined by action organs (5), sense
organs (5), and mind (1). Five action organs are vak (mouth) ,
pani (hand), pad (feet), payu (phallus), and upastha (anus) ;
five sense organs are shrotra (ear), twacha (skin), chakshu
(eye), nasika (nose), and rasana (tongue). Five objects of
knowledge elements are shavda (oral expression), sparsha
(touch), rupa (sight), rasa (taste), and gandh (smell). Three
guna (traits) are satva, raja, and tama (dispassion, passion, and
greed)
222. When Udhava wanted to know about the difference
(11/22) between purush and prakriti, He clarified that one is
soul and the other is body. Regarding carrying of karma from
past life, He mentioned that mind is built by the residue of the
past lives and it helps in the functioning of the body. He also
specified that soul is quite different from them, i.e., the mind
and the body.
223. To elucidate His points, Srikrishna narrated one story
(11/23). There was a wealthy Brahmin in Ujjain. He was a
great miser. He neither shared his expenses with his friends or
relatives nor spent any money for religious purposes.
Subsequently he lost his property and became a pauper. He
sustained on alms but he observed complete and continued
silence and never reacted to anybody’s provocation. Wisdom
had dawned upon him by a simple incident when he injured his
tongue with his teeth while eating. It occurred to him that
neither tongue nor teeth was at fault. It was just an incidence.
Similarly, in one’s life inevitable occurs automatically and life

is an incidence. Proper contemplation brings about salvation.
Pururava is another example of this. (11/26)
224. Srikrishna explained sankhya yoga to Udhava, while
explaining the process involved in creation (11/24). He
revealed, “ It is prakriti which created large expanse of
causative water body. I was sleeping afloat over My serpent
couch in water. From my navel Brahma sprouted over the lotus
stem who created bhuh (earth), bhuvh (space), and svah
(heaven). Earth became the resort of human beings and others.
Space is occupied by lesser gods, and other creatures, and
heaven is the abode of gods. Mahar lok, tap lok and Jana lok
were created as a resort of saints, sages and siddha . For
demons the nether-world of several categories was created,
viz., atal, sutal, vital etc. Beyond all these is the resort of my
devotees (bhakta), and this is known as param dham.
225. He further explained (11/27) the procedure of kriya
yoga. This involves the stages of worship to archa vigraha
(deity). Deity could be of any material. If it is made of sand on
a river bank, it requires invoking Him in the beginning and on
conclusion it requires a warm send off. The idols of metal,
stone etc require invoking (pran pratishtha) only once when it
is installed for the first time. No send off is required for the
idols on conclusion of daily wroship. The images on paper or
painting hardly require any invocation or send off. The devotee
after bath performs anga nyas and kara nyas (which means
invocating Him on devotees various organs) by sitting opposite
to the deity. He fills with water three small pots of argha,
padya and achamaniya. Before filling the pot with water,
devotee should concentrate on me by pronouncing pranava
mantra and carry out pranayam thrice reciting the aum mantra
(! namaoa naarayaNaaya) and touch the pots to be filled with water. Nine
goddesses (vimala, utkarshini, gyana, kriya, yoga, prahni,
satya, ishana and anugraha) are invoked to be present,
followed by invoking My divine insignia (sudarshan chakra,

panchjanya sankha, kaumodaki gada, nandak khadag, sarang
dhanusha, vana, hala and moosala.) and imagining them to be
positioned in eight directios. They are worshipped with my
srivatsa, kaustabha and vaijanti mala. Thereafter My eight
spiritual attendants (nand, sunanda, prachand, chanda,
mahabala, bala, kumud, kumudekshna), are imagined to be
welcome and postioned appropriately with due worship.
Garuda and Hanuman are worshipped in my front, whereas
durga, vinayaka, vyas and viswaksena are worshipped in four
cardinal quarters. My worship should continue with offering
me sandal paste, scents, fragrance, flowers, delicious sweets
and food items. Burning of ghee lamp and incense should be
continued during my worship. Recitation of sixteen stanza of
purusha shukta is dear to me. The worship is concluded by
offering oblation of ghee in fire reciting mantra (! namaoa naarayaNaaya)
and always imagining me to be accepting the oblations in fire
in chaturbhuja form equipped with divine insignia. At the end
prostration is performed to the deity seeking shower of
blessings from Me. My divine attendants are respectfully
offered a farewell send off.
226. Udhava finally offered his sincere prayer to Him.
Srikrishna advised him to go to Badrikashrama (11/29) and
stay there on the bak of alaknanda; and never lament for His
absence. While moving out Udhava sought his foot-sandal
(charanpaduka) to be carried with him as an idol of worship.
He put the charanpaduka over his head and set out for
Badrikashrama.
227. Once holding the sudharma conferences, (11/30)
Srikrishna proposed that to ward against the bad omen being
witnessed regularly by the natives of Dwarka, it is advisable to
visit sankhodar kshetra by elders and children, and prabhas
kshetra by young people. They were to offer respects and
liberal gifts to Brahmins at those sacred places. Accordingly
accompanied by Srikrishna and Balaram, they set out for the

sacred places crossing the west flowing saraswati. After the
necessary religious rites, they lost their orientation and took to
liquor which vitiated their mind. Fierce fighting began among
themselves and soon they began killing each other. Srikrishna
and Balaram also joined the spree and using the blade of grass
grown from the powder of the cursed iron they killed the
arrogant natives. Balaram, thereafter, took to ultimate
meditation and left behind his mortal remains. Srikrishna
moved, subsequently to a nearby peepal tree and sat over a
pedestal with His left leg resting over the right one. One
hunter, Jara, in the meanwhile mistook the sole of His foot as
an indicator of presence of a deer and he charged his deadly
arrow over Him. The arrow has tip of the cursed iron piece.
When Jara came near Him, he was deeply grieved and offered
a sincere prayer to Him. In the meanwhile, Daruka, his
charioteer also came and he saw that His divine insignia
sudarshan chakra, panchjanya sankha were circum-
ambulating Him and soon they moved towards His divine
abode. The chariot also disappeared in thin air. Daruka began
weeping and crying but he was consoled by Srikrishna and
advised to go immediately to Dwarka and advise all surviving
natives to move to Indraprashtha because soon Dwarka would
be submerged into the ocean.
228. As advised Daruka (11/31) moved to Dwarka. He
narrated the entire event to Vasudev and Ugrasen. In the
meanwhile gods assembled near Him and began showering
flowers. He closed His louts eyes and His physical form turned
into a sight of lightening and vanished instantly into the
cosmos.
229. All survivors from Dwarka, rushed to the site of His
departure. Vasudev, Devaki, Rohini couldn’t bear the sight and
dropped dead over the ground. The principal queens of
Srikrishna also entered the burning fire. Several others
followed the suit. Arjun also came to the site but he could
compose himself by virtue of His teaching of Geeta. He
performed the last rites of yadava and took Vraj to
Indraprashtha. He was sole survivor and being the son of
Anirudha was crowned inheritor king of Yadu dynasty. Third
day, the ocean expanded and engulfed entire Dwarka except
His palace, and this palace is said to enjoy His eternal presence
for the benefits of His devotees.

Amarkatha srimadbhaagawata
subject index
Mukund maya skandh

(13 chapters)
The future kings and rulers of kaliyuga is predicted.
Creations of veda and purana elaborated
Markandeya visulaises balmukund and experiences His divine
manifestations
Parikshit gets salvation on the conclusion of srimadbhaagawata
by Shukedeo.
230. Several dynasties (12/1) in varying spans of time had

been predicted to rule. Later, down the eras, Chanyakya (also
called vatsyayan, kautilya) is referred to cause the end of Nand
dynasty and help establish the mauryavanshai kings, lead by
Chandragupta Maurya. Pushyamitra Shung the commander of
the mauryanshi king will grab the kinghood by killing the
existing ruler. He will establish the rule of shung vansha.
Thereafter kanv vansha will succeed.
231. The advent of kaliyuga (12/2) is marked by change in
nature of the rulers. They would mostly be cruel and robbers in
nature. The tyranny of misrule shall end by the incarnation of
kalki known as Vishnuyasha in the Brahmin family from the
place known as Shambala. It is also mentioned that brother of
Shantanu (father of Bheeshma) named as Devapi, and another
person Maru, from Ikshavaku dynasty said to be staying in a
village called Kalap, would help initiate the varnashrma
dharma while kalki would establish the rule of law.
232. The astronomical signs (12/2) marked by presence of
saptarishi (alpha-ursa-majoris) in magha nakshatra testifies
the advent of kaliyuga, end of Mahabharata and crowning of
Parikshit as the sovereign king. sapthrishi stays in one
nakshatra for a period of one hundred years. This is the period
when Shukdeo narrated srimadbhaagawata to him. The end of
kaliyuga and beginning of satyayuga are said to be marked

subject index
with the presence of saptarishi in aswini nakshatra. The sun,

moon and Jupiter will have their union in pushya nakshatra.
233. It is said in satya yuga, dharma has four attributes:
truth, penance, compassion, and charity (12/3). In treta it loses
one quarter (truth), and the other three remains. In dwapar
only last two quarters remain, while in kaliyuga the last quarter
of charity marks the dharma. Normally what one achieves in
satya yuga by meditation, is attained by performing ygya in
treta. What is obtained from following rituals in worship in
dwapar, is attained by recitation of His glory in kaliyuga.
234. Veda and Purana: Veda has its genesis from Brahma
(12/6). Initially Brahma heard anahata nada in the form of
Aum (!). He gave an expression to this, and this became veda
which was handed over to Marichi and others. In dwapar
seeing the short memory of human beings, Srikrishna
dwaipayana vyas put veda into four parts. First one called rik
veda was given to Paila. The second one called yaju veda was
given to Vaishampayana. Jamini was given sam veda, and
Sumantu got the last one atharva veda. These parts are also
variously called bahvarucha for rik, nigada for yaju, chandoga
for sam, and angiras for atharva.
235. There is a famous story. Ygyavalk (12/6) was an

illustrious disciple of Vaisampayana. The latter was afflicted
by the sin of killing a brahmin. His other students offered to
perform a ritual called charkadhvaryu to free him from the sin.
Ygayavalka didn’t agree because that ritual was not enough to
get rid of the sin. He offered a penance, he would perform on
behalf of his guru. Vaisampayana didn’t like the proposal and
he became displeased with Ygyavalka. He asked Ygyavalka to
leave his ashram and disown the knowledge imparted to him
about yaju veda. Ygyavalk, while leaving the ashram,
vomited out what he had learnt from his guru. Other students
who wanted to learn the veda wanted to take the vomited
subject index
material but it was not permitted for brahmins to pick up the

vomited stuff. They therefore transformed into tittir birds and
picked up the stuff. That is why, thus collected and retrieved
yaju veda, is also called taittereya sanhita. Later, Ygyavalk
pleased sun god, and learnt yaju veda from him, which became
famous as vajsaneya sanhita.
236. Vedas were followed by compostion of other scriptures

(12/7) called purana. This has again the genesis from Vyas,
Romharshan, and six students of the latter. These six students
were Traiyaruni, Kasyap, Savarni, Akritvarna, Vaisampayan
and Harit. Suta had learnt purana from his father
Romharshna as well as from six of his illustrious students.
Purana are eighteen in numbr: Brahma purana, Padma
purana, Vishnu purana, Shiva purana, Ling purana, Garuda
purana, Narada purana, Bhagawata purana (this book), Agni
purana, skandha purana, Bhavisya purana, Brahmvaivartya
purana, Markandeya purana, Vamana purana, Varaha
purana, Matsya purana, Kurma purana, and Brahamand
purana.
237. Markandeya was a great meditating saint having his

ashram (12/9) near the Himalayas on the bank of
pushpabhadra river. His deep meditation invited the jealousy
of Indra. He tried to disturb his performance and sent several
celestial dancers but all went in vain. Srihari pleased by his
meditation came to him in the form of Nara and Narayana.
They blessed him and enquired whether he wanted any boon.
Markandeya was a self conteneded saint. He expressed his
desire for the vision of His maya. Nara and Narayana blessed
him to be so and left for Badrikashrama. Once when the saint
was in deep meditation, he felt that there was all around heavy
down pour. Nothing was left unsubmerged and there was only
water and water all around. He began running for shelter. He
subject index
could see a banyan tree. On the northern branch of the tree

there was a basket made of the leaves. Inside the basket a
charming child (balmukund) was lying on His back holding
His left foot thumb in His mouth. He was smiling and
breathing very vigorously. The moment Markandeya went
closer to Him, he was drawn inside His stomach pulled by His
vigorous breathing. Inside he saw the entire cosmos. His
hermitage was also seen inside. When he could finish the
glimpse inside he was suddenly ejected out. His meditation
was disrupted and he began searching to locate the tree he saw
in his vision. He couldn’t find anything, neither rain nor water.
He could realise the entire scene as the manifestation of
srihari’s maya because everything He showed him was caused
by balmukund.
238. Srihari is known to have infinite manifestations

(12/11). Earth is His feet. Heaven is His head. Sky is His
navel. Eyes are sun. Nose is air. Ears are cardinal directions.
Prajapati is His phallus. Death is His anus. Directional deities
are His arms. Moon is His mind. Yama makes His eyebrows.
Dignity forms upper lip, greed forms lower lip. His teeth are
moon-light. Maya is His smile. Trees form His body hair.
Clouds make hair over His head. Human beings are His palm.
The kaustabha mani over His chest is the universal
consciousness. Srivatsa is the brilliance of the gems. Guna
(satva, raja, tama) make the vanamala. The song of the verses
make His peethambra. Sankhya and Yoga are his ear-rings.
Brahmaloka is His crown. His gada is super consciousness.
Chakra is fire. Sankha represents water element. His saranga
bow is time. Sky is His sword. Brilliance, wealth (lakshmi),
knowledge and renunciation make the lotus in His hand.
Nature is His couch (shesha sayya). Vaikuntha is His divine
umbrella. His self power is laksmi. Garuda is Vedas. Scriptures
are His commanders, viswashruta and viswaksena. Eight sidhis
subject index
are made of anima, garima etc. He Himself manifests in

Vasudeva, Sankarshan, Pradyumna and Anirudha. Sun and
fire are His direct manifestations worthy of all sorts of
worship.
239. Pralaya (dissolution) : The end of the creation,
dissolution (pralaya) (12/4) is of four types: nitya, naimittik,
prakritik, and atyantik.
o Every moment, everything in the creation is changing
like the flowing stream of water. This ever changing
natural phenomena is called nitya pralaya.
o The end of one day of Brahma (called kalp) takes place
after repeat of cycles of one thousand sets of the four yuga
(satya, treta, dwapar, kali). Fourteen Manu rule during
one kalp. At the end of one kalp, the night of Brahma
begins, and he goes to sleep. The creation is wrapped up
in Brahma, and such phenomena is called naimittik
pralaya.
o The pralaya after one hundred years of Brahma (end of
two prardha) is called prakritik pralaya when everything
including Brahma is wrapped up in Narayana. The earth
experiences outbreak all pervading fire caused by
shankarshana. No organism or life exists at all over the
earth. This continues for one hundred years (on kalp
scale). This is followed by rains for one hundred (kalp
scale) years. The earth dissolves completely in water and
there is no trace of any land mass. Only Narayana exists
afloat on His serpent couch. Thereafter, strong wind
prevails and the water is totally evaporated leaving only
sky all around. The whole gamut of development is called
prakritik pralaya.
o When the ultimate liberation of an entity is attained, it

is called atyantik pralaya of that entity because after that
it never falls again in the cycle of creation.
subject index
240. Parikshit Departs: Shukdeo finally concluded (12/5)

his week -long discourse and reminded Parikshit not to worry
about the impending end of life. The repeated cycles of birth
and death continues until the soul severes the contact with
body. It is like wick and oil, that when they are in contact lamp
exists. One has to meditate only on Him to liberate from the
cycle of death and birth. Concluding thus, Shukdeo left the
place. Parikshit maintained complete silence after offering him
last prayer and warm send off. He contemplated on Narayana.
In the meanwhile (12/6), Takshak the famous deadly snake,
disguised as Brahmin moved out to bite his target, Parikshit.
Before biting, he persuaded Kasyapa (a known Brahmin for
curing a snake bite) and managed him to go back by offering
him huge wealth. The bite of Takshak caused break out of
immediate fire in the body of Parikshit and he was burnt to
ashes. His son, Janmejaya was so much grieved by this
incident that he organised the ygya where snakes were invoked
as oblations. Several snakes lost their lives. Takshaka had
sought asylum at Indra’s place. Janmejaya caused the
invocation for both of them and when they together (Indra and
Takshaka) were pulled towards the fire, Bruhaspati, the
preceptor of gods, intervened and dissuaded Janmejaya in
doing so. Janmejaya eventually reconciled with the inevitable,
and took a peaceful refuge in the lotus feet of Narayana.
Srimann Narayana charnau sharanam prapaddye.
EaImanna\ naarayaNa carNaaO SarNama\ p`p_o .
i
The prayer offerd by Kunti (skandh-1, adhyaya-8, shloka-22) when
Parkishita was saved in his mother’s womb, and the prayer of mother earth
after salvation of Bhauamsur contain the same shloka (skandh-10,
adhyaya-59, shloka-26).

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Amar Katha Srimadbhagwata

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Srimate Ramanujay Namah

How events in a real life are unpredictable can

turned arrogant of their power. It so happened that

Mathura, the capital of vrajbhumi. They together

bushes and plants for that would offer him opportunity

Attracted by the joyous moments of such

feeling of getting deprived from the opportunity of

my sons: Jnan (gyan) and Vairagya. It is surprising

the celestial voice. He moved around several sacred

There is another story from the lives of the

women. Once when he collected large amount of

by Suta to the sages gathered at Naimisharnya. Suta mentioned

Srimadbhaagwat mahapuran is the creation of Vyas, and is preceded by

The setting of the bhaagwata is narration by Suta to Shaunkadik sages. He

In skandh-3, Maitreya is found to recite it to Vidura, and Maitreya

from great links of sanakadik (sanak, sanandan, sanatan, and sanatkumar)

Another famous devotional star, Prahlad is covered fully in skandh-7 with

The stories of skandha-8 are about liberation of the elephant king

Breaking down further the expanse of creation, most of the forefathers of

Srikrishna is the rare axiom of skandh-10 incorporating in detail all the

Skandh-12 contains several topics rendering completion to bhaagawata.

Parikshit skandh (19 chpaters)

to be known as Parikshit, which literally meant someone

 Brahma first describes the cosmic form of Narayana

11. Parikshit made further breakdown of his two key

 What are the various forms of veda, purana, itihasa

Srishti skandh (Vidur – Maitreya skandh)

centres and when he arrived in prabhas kshetra he happened to

17. Maitreya mentioned, “The version3 of the katha which

He would never be alone and he must start the creation by

 1 danda (nadika) = 15 laghu; 2 nadika = 1 muhurtha;

 1 dwapar = 2 kaliyuga, 1 treta = 3 kaliyuga, 1 satyuga

attacked by rakshasa and yaksha. On advice of

25. Varaha avatar: Manu and Satrupa demanded place to

Diti prevailed upon Kasyapa to cohabitate with her instead of

ego) + 10 organs (nose, tongue, eyes, skin, ear, mouth,

The skandh begins with the storys of the daughters of

were married to Dharma, one (Swaha) was married to Agni,

years. From there he rose to vishnuloka. His mother Suniti was

srihari appeared to honour his respect to Him and

36. Priyavrata, the other son of Manu was initially not

three sons from the other. His daughter was married to

sons, he adopted the life of complete renunciation so much so

(ii) How Daksha prajapati performed on the command of

(iii) The revelation of Narayana-kavacha (6/8) by Viswrupa to

46. Deeds are the seeds of rebirth. Endless attachment to

charming woman. His association with her increasingly grew

49. Daksha twice produced, each time a group of one

third daughter of Manu which seems to refer to different

accompanying Twasta had mis-spelt the mantra and

feet. Indra got the chance due to non-observance of her

(ii) The skandha begins with Narada dispelling the doubts of

57. Parikshit expressed his doubt over the impartiality of

incurred the wrath of those sages and were cursed to become

ultimate pleasure since all the worldly sources of comfort and

the brilliance around His body caused blindness. It was

Kalyan (Gajenda-moksha) skandh

69. When Parikshit was listening to bhagawata from Sukdeo,