CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE Lord Balarāma Visits Vṛndāvana

As Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī points out, Lord Balarāma’s journey to Śrī Vṛndāvana is also described in the Hari-vaṁśa (Viṣṇu-parva 46.10):

“Remembering the deep friendship He once enjoyed with the cowherd folk, Lord Rāma went alone to Vraja, having taken Lord Kṛṣṇa’s permission.” The simple residents of Vṛndāvana were aggrieved that Lord Kṛṣṇa had gone to live elsewhere, so Lord Balarāma went there to console them.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura addresses the question of why Lord Kṛṣṇa, the great ocean of pure love, did not also go to Vraja. In explanation the ācārya provides the following two verses:

“The Yadus thought, ‘The Lord’s beloved girlfriends are famous for their pure, ecstatic love, and His parents are extremely affectionate toward Him. Lord Kṛṣṇa is controlled by pure love, so if He goes to see them, how will He be able to leave them and come back to us?’ With this in mind, the Yadus prevented Lord Hari from going, knowing that He becomes subservient to the pastimes in which He reciprocates the ever-increasing love of the inhabitants of Vraja.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī gives the following verse regarding this situation:

“Let us repeatedly glorify Lord Balarāma. Although He is the original personality of eternal bliss, Nityānanda, He felt pained by His love for the residents of Vraja, and thus He went to see them, even at the cost of leaving Lord Kṛṣṇa.”

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī comments on this verse as follows: “Nanda and Yaśodā prayed to Śrī Balarāma, ‘May You, along with Your younger brother, protect us.’ Thus they expressed their respect for the fact that He is the elder brother, and they also showed how much they considered Him their own son.”

According to the ācāryas, Lord Kṛṣṇa’s beloved girlfriends were smiling with divine madness, since they were feeling extreme unhappiness in separation from their beloved Kṛṣṇa. Lord Rāma deeply respected their great love for Śrī Kṛṣṇa, His younger brother, and thus the term rāma-sandarśanādṛtāḥ carries the meaning that Balarāma honored the gopīs, as well as the given meaning, that they honored Him.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments that the gopīs would render service to Lord Kṛṣṇa by stringing flower garlands, skillfully using perfumes, and constructing fans, beds and canopies out of flower petals. By these simple acts of love, the gopīs rendered the greatest service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

According to Śrīdhara Svāmī, some gopīs speak the first two lines of this verse, and others reply in the second two lines.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī points out that the gopīs here subtly indicate that Lord Kṛṣṇa spends His time happily without them whereas they are most unhappy without their Lord. This is the difference between Him and them. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī adds the following commentary: “Considering themselves different from other women, the gopīs thought as follows: ‘If other women are together with their lovers, they live, and if they are separated, they die. But we neither live nor die. This is the fate Providence has written on our foreheads. What remedy can we find?’”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments as follows: “The gopīs thought, ‘The Kṛṣṇa moon, after piercing our hearts with the darts of His nectarean laughter, went away. So how will the city women not die when He does the same to them?’ Overwhelmed with these thoughts, the young cowherd girls began to cry, even in the presence of Śrī Baladeva.”

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī quotes the following verse from Śrī Viṣṇu Purāṇa (5.24.20), which describes the messages Lord Balarāma brought from Kṛṣṇa for the gopīs:

“Lord Balarāma consoled the gopīs by giving them Lord Kṛṣṇa’s most charming messages, which expressed sweet conciliation, which were inspired by His pure love for them, and which were without a tinge of pride.” Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī also comments that the use of the name Saṅkarṣaṇa here implies that Balarāma attracted Lord Kṛṣṇa to appear in His mind and in this way showed Śrī Kṛṣṇa to the gopīs. Thus Balarāma consoled Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s beloved girlfriends.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments that Lord Kṛṣṇa sent various messages. Some instructed the gopīs in transcendental knowledge, others were conciliatory, and still others revealed the Lord’s power. Besides its given meaning, the word hṛdayaṁ-gamaiḥ also indicates that these messages were confidential.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī states that the gopīs who enjoyed conjugal affairs with Śrī Balarāma during His visit to Gokula had not taken part in Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s rāsa dance, being too young at the time. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī confirms this statement by quoting a phrase from the Bhāgavatam (10.15.8) — gopyo ’ntareṇa bhujayoḥ — which indicates that there are particular gopīs who act as Lord Balarāma’s girlfriends. Furthermore, Jīva Gosvāmī states that during the Holī festivities celebrated when Kṛṣṇa killed Śaṅkhacūḍa, the gopīs Lord Balarāma enjoyed with were different from the ones Lord Kṛṣṇa enjoyed with. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī agrees with this explanation.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī explains that Lord Balarāma’s conjugal pastimes took place in a small forest alongside the Yamunā, a place known as Śrīrāma-ghaṭṭa, which is far from the site of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s rāsa dance.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī explains that vāruṇī is a liquor distilled from honey. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī adds that the goddess Vāruṇī, the daughter of Varuṇa, is the presiding deity of that particular divine liquor. The ācārya also quotes the following statement from Śrī Hari-vaṁśa: samīpaṁ preṣitā pitrā varuṇena tavānagha. Here the goddess Vāruṇī says to Lord Balarāma: “My father, Varuṇa, has sent me to You, O sinless one.”

According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, the goddess who appeared before Lord Balarāma is an expansion of Śrīmatī Kālindī, one of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s queens in Dvārakā. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī calls her a “shadow” of Kālindī, and Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī confirms that she is an expansion of Kālindī, not Kālindī herself. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī also gives evidence from Śrī Hari-vaṁśa — in the statement pratyuvācārṇava-vadhūm — that Goddess Yamunā is the wife of the ocean. The Hari-vaṁśa therefore also refers to her as sāgarāṅganā.

The phrase ekāṁśena (“with a single portion”) refers to the Lord’s expansion as Śeṣa. This is confirmed by the ācāryas.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī quotes from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa to show that the goddess Kānti mentioned here is actually Lakṣmī, the goddess of fortune:

“Sent by Varuna, Goddess Lakṣmī then presented Him with a garland of unfading lotuses and a pair of garments colored blue like the ocean.”

The great Bhāgavatam commentator Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī also quotes the following statement from Śrī Hari-vaṁśa, spoken by Goddess Lakṣmī to Lord Balarāma:

“O Lord, please accept as divine ornaments for Your ears this single gold earring studded with diamonds and this primeval lotus called Padma. Kindly accept them, for this act of adornment is traditional.”

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī further points out that Goddess Lakṣmī is the consort of the Lord’s plenary expansion Saṅkarṣaṇa who belongs to the second vyūha.

Anointed with sandalwood paste and other pure, fragrant substances, Balarāma resembled Airāvata, the great elephant of Lord Indra.

Lord Balarāma was enchanted by the charming pastimes of the beautiful young ladies of Vraja. Thus each night was a completely new experience, and all the nights passed as if they were a single night.