Canto Ten / CHAPTER SIXTY

Lord Krishna Teases Queen Rukminī.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī poetically notes that in this chapter Rukminīdevī is like fragrant camphor crushed on the grinding stone of Lord Krishna’s speech. In other words, the lovely, chaste qualities of Rukminī will become manifest as a result of Lord Krishna’s apparently insensitive words, just as camphor’s fragrance becomes manifest when granules of camphor are crushed by a grinding stone. The ācārya further points out that Rukminī is personally serving the Lord because He is jagad-gurum, the spiritual master of the universe, and patim, her husband.

As stated in the Sixth Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.3.19) dharmam tu sākshād bhagavat-pranītam: “Religion is the law established by God.” The word setu means a “boundary” or “limit,” as in the case of a dike. Earth is raised up on both sides of a river or canal so that the water will not deviate from its proper path. Similarly, God establishes laws so that people who follow them can peacefully progress along the path back home, back to Godhead. These laws, which are meant to guide human behavior, are thus called setu.

A further note on the word setu: Earth that is raised up to separate agricultural fields, or to form a causeway or bridge, is also called setu. Thus in the Ninth Canto the Bhāgavatam uses the word setu to indicate the bridge Lord Rāmacandra built to Śrī Lankā. Since the laws of God act as a bridge to take us from material life to liberated, spiritual life, this additional sense of the word setu certainly enriches its use here.

According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, Rukminī’s palace was quite famous then, as now, and these descriptions give a glimpse into its opulence. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī adds that the word amalaih in this verse may also be read arunaih, which would indicate that when this pastime took place the moon had just risen, bathing the entire palace in beautiful ruddy moonshine.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī points out that as Queen Rukminī fanned her Lord with broad strokes, the jewels and gold on her beautiful limbs resounded with her effort.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī has quoted an interesting verse, spoken by Śrī Parāśara in the Vishnu Purāna:

“When the Lord appears as a demigod, she [the goddess of fortune] takes the form of a demigoddess, and when He appears as a human being, she takes a humanlike form. Thus the body she assumes matches the one Lord Vishnu takes.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī adds that as Lord Krishna is even more beautiful than the Lord of Vaikuntha, Lord Krishna’s consort Rukminī-devī is even more attractive than the goddess of fortune in the Vaikuntha world.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments on this verse as follows: “The Lord’s mentality here can be understood as follows: ‘When I gave Rukminī a single flower from the heavenly pārijāta tree, Satyabhāmā showed such a torrent of fury that I could not pacify her even by bowing down at her feet. Only when I gave her a whole pārijāta tree was she satisfied. Rukminī, however, did not display any anger even when she saw Me give Satyabhāmā the whole tree. So how can I enjoy the nectar of angry words from this wife, who never feels jealousy, who is supremely sober and who always speaks pleasingly?’ Thus considering, the Supreme Lord decided, ‘If I speak like this to her, I will be able to provoke her anger.’ This is how some authorities explain Krishna’s speech to Rukminī.”

According to the ācārya, here the words balavadbhih krita-dveshān prāyah indicate that Lord Krishna opposed almost all the contemporary kings during His incarnation, befriending only a few, such as the Pāndavas and loyal members of His dynasty. Of course, as stated in the beginning of the Tenth Canto, Lord Krishna appeared specifically because the earth was overburdened by innumerable bogus kings and He wanted to remove this burden.

Finally Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī points out that the word tyakta-nripāsanān, “giving up the king’s throne,” indicates that after Lord Krishna killed Kamsa He humbly gave the royal throne to His grandfather Ugrasena, although the Lord Himself was entitled to it.

Like the Lord, His devotees are uninterested in material sense gratification, being awakened to the superior pleasure of Krishna consciousness. Those who are intoxicated by material wealth cannot appreciate the supreme wealth of the kingdom of God.

Persons of superior and inferior qualities may live together in a relationship of master and servant or teacher and student, but marriage and friendship are proper only between those of equal status. The word bhava, in the context of marriage, indicates that a couple should have a similar capacity to produce good offspring.

Lord Krishna here presents Himself as materially unqualified. In fact, the Lord does not have any material qualities: He lives in pure spiritual existence. Thus all the Lord’s opulences are eternal and not of the flimsy mundane sort.

Lord Krishna continues to tease His beautiful wife, trying to provoke her loving anger.

Shocked by Lord Krishna’s words, Rukminī could not understand that the Lord was only teasing, and thus she displayed these ecstatic symptoms of grief, which Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī characterizes as sāttvika ecstasies ranging from “becoming stunned” to “dissolution.”

The Lord manifested four hands so He could do all of these things simultaneously.

According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, Lord Krishna spoke the present verse because He thought that lovely Rukminī might be afraid He would again say something to disturb her, or that she might be angry at what He had done.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī explains here that normally, by the Lord’s transcendental desire, His pure devotees reciprocate with Him in such a way that they satisfy His spiritual desires. But Rukminī’s love was so strong that her unique mood predominated in this situation, and thus instead of becoming angry she fainted and fell to the ground. Far from displeasing Krishna, however, she increased His transcendental ecstasy by exhibiting her all-encompassing love for Him.

The word bhāmini indicates an angry, passionate, temperamental woman. Since lovely Rukminī did not become angry despite all provocation, the Lord is still speaking facetiously.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī lists the faults Lord Krishna had described in Himself that He claimed disqualified Him from being Rukminī’s husband. These include incompatibility, fearfulness, taking shelter in the ocean, quarreling with the powerful, abandoning His kingdom, uncertainty as to His identity, acting against ordinary standards of behavior, having no good qualities, being praised falsely by beggars, aloofness, and lack of desire for family life. The Lord claimed that Rukminī had failed to recognize these bad qualities in Him. Now she begins to respond to all the Lord’s statements.

First she responds to Śrī Krishna’s statement in text 11 of this chapter: kasmān no vavrishe ’samān. “Why did you select Us, who are not equal to you?” Here Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī says that she and Krishna are certainly not equal, for no one can be equal to the Supreme Lord. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī further points out that in her extreme humility Rukminī is identifying herself with the Lord’s external energy, which in fact is her expansion, Rukminī being the goddess of fortune.

In text 12 Lord Krishna said, rājabhyo bibhyatah su-bhru samudram śaranam gatān: “Out of fear of the kings, We took shelter in the ocean.” Here Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī points out that the actual rulers of this world are the gunas, the material modes of nature, which impel all living beings to act. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī points out that because Lord Krishna fears that His devotee will come under the influence of the modes of nature and become entangled in sense gratification, He enters the internal ocean of their hearts, where He remains as the omniscient Supersoul (upalambhana-mātra ātmā). Thus He protects His devotees. The word upalambhana-mātrah also indicates that the Lord is the object of meditation for His devotees.

In text 12 Lord Krishna also said, balavadbhih krita-dveshān: “We created enmity with the powerful.” Here Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī points out that it is the material senses which are actually powerful in this world. The Supreme Lord has taken up the battle against sense gratification on the part of His devotees, and thus He is constantly trying to help them in their struggle for spiritual purity. When the devotees become free of unwanted material habits, the Lord reveals Himself to them, and then the eternal loving relationship between the Lord and His devotees becomes an irrevocable fact.

In the same verse Krishna stated, tyakta-nripāsanān: “We renounced the royal throne.” But here Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī points out that the position of political supremacy in this world usually implicates so-called powerful leaders in darkness and blindness. As the saying goes, “Power corrupts.” Thus even the Lord’s loving servants tend to shy away from political intrigue and power politics. The Lord Himself, being completely satisfied in His own spiritual bliss, would hardly be interested in occupying mundane political positions. Thus Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī correctly interprets the Lord’s actions as evidence of His supreme transcendental nature.

Here Queen Rukminī replies to Lord Krishna’s statement in text 13:

“O fine-browed lady, women are usually destined to suffer when they stay with men whose behavior is uncertain and who pursue a path not approved by society.”

In the present verse Rukminī is taking the term aloka-patham to mean “unworldly path.” Those who are entangled in worldly behavior are trying to enjoy this world more or less like animals. Even if such people are “culturally advanced,” they should simply be considered sophisticated or polished animals. Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī points out that because the Lord’s activities are always transcendental, they are aspashta, or “unclear,” to ordinary people, and even the sages trying to know the Lord cannot perfectly understand these activities.

Here Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī replies to Lord Krishna’s statement in text 14:

“We have no material possessions, and We are dear to those who similarly have nothing. Therefore, O slender one, the wealthy hardly ever worship Me.”

Queen Rukminī begins her statement by saying nishkiñcano nanu, “You are indeed nishkiñcana.” The word kiñcana means “something,” and the prefix nir — or, as it appears here, nish — indicates negation. Thus in the ordinary sense nishkiñcana means “one who does not have something,” or, in other words, “one who has nothing.”

But in the present verse Queen Rukminī states that Lord Krishna “possesses nothing” not because He is a pauper but because He Himself is everything. In other words, since Krishna is the Absolute Truth, all that exists is within Him. There is no second thing, something outside the Lord’s existence, for Him to possess. For example, a man may possess a house or a car or a child or money, but these things do not become the man: they exist outside of him. We say he possesses them merely in the sense that he has control over them. But the Lord does not merely control His creation: His creation actually exists within Him. Thus there is nothing outside of Him that He can possess in the way that we possess external objects.

The ācāryas explain nishkiñcana in the following way: To state that a person possesses something implies that he does not possess everything.

In other words, if we say that a man owns some property, we imply that he does not own all property but rather some specific property. A standard American dictionary defines the word some as “a certain indefinite or unspecified number, quantity, etc., as distinguished from the rest.” The Sanskrit word kiñcana conveys this sense of a partial amount of the total. Thus Lord Krishna is called nishkiñcana to refute the idea that He possesses merely a certain amount of beauty, fame, wealth, intelligence and other opulences. Rather, He possesses infinite beauty, infinite intelligence, infinite wealth and so on. This is so because He is the Absolute Truth.

Śrīla Prabhupāda begins his introduction to the First Canto, Volume One, of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam with the following statement, which is quite relevant to our present discussion: “The conception of God and the conception of the Absolute Truth are not on the same level. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam hits on the target of the Absolute Truth. The conception of God indicates the controller, whereas the conception of the Absolute Truth indicates the summum bonum, or the ultimate source of all energies.” Here Śrīla Prabhupāda touches upon a fundamental philosophical point. God is commonly defined as “the supreme being,” and the dictionary defines supreme as (1) highest in rank, power, authority, etc; (2) highest in quality, achievement, performance, etc; (3) highest in degree; and (4) final, ultimate. None of these definitions adequately indicates absolute existence.

For example, we may say that a particular American is supremely wealthy in the sense that he is wealthier than any other American, or we may speak of the Supreme Court as the highest court in the land, although it certainly does not have absolute authority in all political and social matters, since it shares authority in these fields with the legislature and the president. In other words, the word supreme indicates the best in a hierarchy, and thus the supreme being may merely be understood as the best or greatest of all beings but not as the very source of all other beings and, indeed, of everything that exists. Thus Śrīla Prabhupāda specifically points out that the concept of the Absolute Truth, Krishna, is higher than the concept of a supreme being, and this point is essential to a clear understanding of Vaishnava philosophy.

Lord Krishna is not merely a supreme being: He is the absolute being, and that is exactly the point His wife is making. Thus the word nishkiñcana indicates not that Krishna possesses no opulence but rather all opulence. In that sense she accepts His definition of Himself as nishkiñcana.

In text 14 Lord Krishna also stated, nishkiñcana-jana-priyāh: “I am dear to those who have nothing.” Here, however, Queen Rukminī points out that the demigods, the wealthiest souls in the universe, regularly make offerings to the Supreme Lord. We may assume that the demigods, being the Lord’s appointed representatives, know that everything belongs to Him in the sense that everything is part of Him, as explained above. Therefore the statement nishkiñcana-jana-priyāh is correct in the sense that since nothing exists except the Lord and His potencies, no matter how wealthy the Lord’s worshipers appear to be they are in fact offering Him nothing but His own energy as a loving act. The same idea is exemplified when one worships the Ganges River by offering Ganges water, or when a child gets money from his father on the father’s birthday and buys him a gift. The father is paying for his own present, but what he is really interested in is his child’s love. Similarly, the Supreme Lord manifests the cosmos, and then the conditioned souls collect various items of the Lord’s creation. Pious souls offer some of the best items from their collection back to the Lord as a sacrifice and thus purify themselves. Since the whole cosmos and everything in it is simply the Lord’s energy, we may say that those who worship the Lord possess nothing.

In more conventional terms, people who are proud of their great wealth do not bow down to God. Queen Rukminī also mentions these fools. Satisfied with their temporary bodies, they do not understand the divine power of death, which stalks them. The demigods, however, who are by far the wealthiest living beings, regularly offer sacrifice to the Supreme Lord, and thus the Lord is most dear to them, as stated here.

Here Queen Rukminī refutes Lord Krishna’s statement in text 15:

“Marriage and friendship are proper between two people who are equal in terms of their wealth, birth, influence, physical appearance and capacity for good progeny, but never between a superior and an inferior.” In fact, only those who have given up all such material conceptions of sense gratification and have taken exclusively to the Lord’s loving service can understand who their real friend and companion is — Lord Śrī Krishna Himself.

This is Queen Rukminī’s refutation of Lord Krishna’s statement in text 16. There the Lord Krishna said, bhikshubhih ślāghitā mudhā: “I am glorified by beggars.” But Queen Rukminī points out that those so-called beggars are actually sages in the paramahamsa stage of life — sannyāsīs who have reached the highest level of spiritual advancement and thus given up the sannyāsī rod. Lord Krishna also made two specific accusations against His wife in text 16. He said, vaidarbhy etad avijñāya — “My dear Vaidarbhī, you were not aware of the situation” — and tvayādīrgha-samīkshayā — “because you lack foresight.” In the present verse, Rukminī’s statement iti me vrito ’si indicates “I chose You as my husband because You possess the above-mentioned qualities. It was not a blind choice at all.” Rukminī further mentions that she passed over lesser personalities like Brahmā, Śiva and the rulers of heaven because she saw that even though, materially speaking, they are great personalities, they are frustrated by the powerful waves of time, which emanate from the eyebrows of Lord Krishna. Therefore, far from lacking foresight, Rukminī chose Lord Krishna after an exhaustive appraisal of the entire cosmic situation. Thus she lovingly rebukes her husband here.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī interprets Rukminī’s mood as follows: “My dear husband, Your accusation that I lack foresight indicates that You did know of my deep insight into the situation. Actually, I chose You because I knew of Your true glories.”

In text 12 of this chapter Lord Krishna said, rājabhyo bibhyatah su-bhru samudram śaranam gatān: “Terrified of those kings, We went to the ocean for shelter.” According to the ācāryas, Lord Krishna finally provoked Rukminī’s anger by glorifying other men who might have been her husband, and thus in an agitated mood she here tells Him that she is not ignorant but rather that He has spoken foolishly. She states, “Like a lion You abducted me in the presence of those kings and drove them away with Your Śārnga bow, so it is simply foolishness to say that out of fear of those same kings You went to the ocean.” According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, as Queen Rukminī spoke these words she frowned and cast angry sidelong glances at the Lord.

Here Queen Rukminī refutes the ideas put forth by Lord Krishna in text 13. In fact Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī repeats Lord Krishna’s own words. The Lord said, āsthitāh padavīm su-bhru prāyah sīdanti yoshitah: “Women who follow My path generally suffer.” Here Rukminī-devī says, sīdanti te ’nupadavīm ta ihāsthitāh kim: “Why should those fixed on Your path suffer in this world?” She gives the example of many great kings who renounced their powerful sovereignty to enter the forest, where they performed austerities and worshiped the Lord, intensely desiring His transcendental association. Thus, according to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī here intends to tell Śrī Krishna, “You have said that I, a king’s daughter, am unintelligent and frustrated because I married You. But how can You accuse all these great enlightened kings of being unintelligent? They were the wisest of men, yet they gave up everything to follow You and were certainly not frustrated by the result. Indeed, they achieved the perfection of Your association.”

In text 16 Lord Krishna claimed that He was gunair hīnāh, “bereft of all good qualities.” To refute this claim, the devoted Rukminī here states that the Lord is gunālaya, “the abode of all good qualities.” In a single moment the so-called powerful men of this world can be reduced to utter helplessness and confusion. Indeed, destruction is the inevitable fate of all powerful masculine bodies. The Lord, however, has an eternal, spiritual body that is omnipotent and infinitely beautiful, and thus, as Queen Rukminī argues here, how could any sane, enlightened woman take shelter of anyone but the Supreme Lord, Krishna?

An alternate reading for the word sritibhih is śrutibhih, in which case the idea Rukminī expresses is this: “I have been bewildered by hearing from various religious scriptures about numerous rituals and ceremonies with their promises of fruitive results.” Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī gives this explanation, while Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī and Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī give an additional idea Rukminī might express with the word śrutibhih: “My dear Lord Krishna, I was bewildered by hearing about Your various incarnations. I heard that when You descended as Rāma You abandoned Your wife, Sītā, and that in this life You abandoned the gopīs. Thus I was bewildered.”

It is understood that Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī is the eternally liberated consort of Lord Krishna, but in these verses she humbly plays the part of a mortal woman taking shelter of the Supreme Lord.

According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, these fiery words of Queen Rukminī’s are a response to Lord Krishna’s opening statement, found in text 10 of the chapter. The Supreme Lord had said, “My dear princess, You were sought after by many kings as powerful as the rulers of planets. They were all abundantly endowed with political influence, wealth, beauty, generosity and physical strength.” According to Śrīdhara Svāmī, Queen Rukminī here speaks with anger, pointing her index finger at the Lord. She compares the so-called great princes to asses because they carry many material burdens, to oxen because they are always distressed while performing their occupational duties, to dogs because their wives disrespect them, to cats because they are selfish and cruel, and to slaves because they are servile in family affairs. Such kings may appear desirable to a foolish woman who has not heard or understood the glories of Śrī Krishna.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī adds that such kings are like asses because their wives sometimes kick them, like dogs because they behave inimically toward outsiders in order to protect their homes, and like cats because they eat the remnants left by their wives.

Here Lord Krishna’s chaste wife makes a quite unequivocal statement about material sense gratification based on the physical body. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments as follows on this verse: On the authority of the statement sa vai patih syād akuto-bhayah svayam — “He indeed should become one’s husband who can remove all fear” — Śrī Krishna is the real husband for all women at all times. Thus a woman who worships someone else as her husband simply worships a dead body.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments further: Rukminī thus considered that although the sweetness of Lord Krishna’s lotus feet is well known, and although He possesses an eternal body full of knowledge and bliss, foolish women reject Him. An ordinary husband’s body is covered on the outside by skin and hair; otherwise, being filled with blood, feces, flesh, bile and so on, it would be overwhelmed with flies and other vermin attracted by its bad smell and other offensive qualities.

Those who have no practical experience of the beauty and purity of Krishna or of Krishna consciousness may be confused by such uncompromising denunciations of material, bodily gratification. But those who are enlightened in Krishna consciousness will be enlivened and enthused by such absolutely truthful statements.

In text 20 of this chapter Lord Krishna stated, “Always satisfied within Ourselves, We care nothing for wives, children and wealth.” Here Rukminī-devī humbly replies, “Yes, You take pleasure within Yourself and therefore rarely look at me.”

In this regard Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī points out that Lord Krishna had already declared His love for Rukminī (Bhāg. 10.53.2): tathāham api tac-citto nidrām ca na labhe niśi. “I am also thinking about her — so much so that I cannot sleep at night.” Lord Krishna is satisfied within Himself, and if we remember that Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī is His internal potency, we can understand that His loving affairs with her are expressions of His pure spiritual happiness.

Here, however, Queen Rukminī humbly identifies herself with the Lord’s external energy, which is her expansion. Therefore she says, “Though You do not often look at me, when You are ready to manifest the material universe and thus begin to work through the material quality of passion, which is Your potency, You glance at me. In this way You show me Your greatest mercy.” Thus Ācārya Viśvanātha explains that Goddess Rukminī’s statement can be understood in two ways. And of course the Vaishnavas, after thoroughly understanding the philosophy of Krishna from the bona fide ācāryas, simply relish these loving affairs between the Lord and His exalted devotees.

Having refuted everything Lord Krishna said, Śrīmatī Rukminī, in a gracious frame of mind, now praises the truthfulness of His statements. In other words, she accepts that Lord Krishna used her as an example to elucidate ordinary female psychology. The King of Kāśī had three daughters — Ambā, Ambālikā and Ambikā — and Ambā was attracted to Śālva. This story is narrated in the Mahābhārata.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī quotes the following verse describing the pure love between Rukminī and Krishna:

“When the affectionate bond between a young man and a young woman can never be destroyed, even when there is every cause for the destruction of that relationship, the attachment between them is said to be pure love.” This is the nature of the eternal loving affairs between Lord Krishna and His pure conjugal associates.

The word dāmpatye indicates the relationship between husband and wife. Lusty and bewildered persons worship the Supreme Lord to enhance this relationship, though they know He can free them from their useless attachment to temporary things.

It stands to reason that since Lord Krishna is the source of all pleasure and all opulence, He Himself is the supreme pleasure and the most opulent. Therefore our real self-interest is to always engage in the loving service of Lord Krishna. As Prahlāda Mahārāja says (Bhāg. 7.5.31), na te viduh svārtha-gatim hi vishnum: “The ignorant do not know that their actual self-interest lies in attaining the Supreme Lord, Vishnu [Krishna].”

According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, one can easily obtain female association and other sense pleasures even in hell. We have practical experience that even such creatures as hogs, dogs and pigeons have ample opportunity to enjoy sex. It is unfortunate that modern human beings, who have a golden opportunity to become Krishna conscious, prefer to enjoy like dogs and cats. And this goes on in the name of material progress.

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī poses the following question: Since devotional service easily awards one liberation, isn’t it possible that everyone will be liberated and the world will no longer exist? The great ācārya answers that there is no such danger, since it is very difficult for envious, duplicitous, sensuous persons to faithfully serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and there is no shortage of such people in the world.

Here Lord Krishna refers to an event that will be described in the next chapter. Thus Krishna’s talks with Rukminī must have taken place after the marriage of Aniruddha.

Śrīmatī Rukminī-devī had no intention whatsoever of accepting any other husband but Lord Krishna, as she stated in her message to the Lord (Bhāg. 10.52.43): yarhy ambujāksha na labheya bhavat-prasādam/ jahyām asūn vrata-kriśān śata-janmabhih syāt. “If I cannot obtain Your mercy, I shall simply give up my vital force, which will have become weak from the severe penances I will perform. Then, after hundreds of lifetimes of endeavor, I may obtain Your mercy.” The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam firmly establishes the unique glories of Queen Rukminī-devī.

The word vidambayan means “imitating” and also “ridiculing.” The Lord acted like a husband of this world, but His pastimes are transcendental and expose the perverted nature of mundane activities aimed at bodily sense gratification.