Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.16.19
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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nirīham
—
without effort, motionless
From niḥ + īhā — without endeavor. Bhagavān is nirīha — needing nothing, exerting nothing — even when wrapped in a serpent. Gauḍīya doctrine: His seeming inactivity is itself His līlā.
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mūḍha - dhiṣaṇān
—
whose intelligence had become bewildered
Compound: mūḍha (bewildered) + dhiṣaṇā (intelligence). The cowherd boys' faint is not weakness — it is the body's response to vraja-prema in crisis. Cf. Caitanya Mahāprabhu's eight sāttvika-bhāvas.
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parama - kaśmalam
—
supreme distress
Compound: parama (supreme) + kaśmala (anguish). Arjuna at Gītā 1.27 is described with the same word-field. Here it is the villagers, not the warrior, who taste the extremity.
In their grief and panic, the residents of Vṛndāvana tried to find out whether Kāliya had forcibly dragged young Kṛṣṇa from the shore into the water, or whether Kṛṣṇa had Himself jumped from the shore and fallen into the clutches of the snake. They could not understand anything about the situation, and Kṛṣṇa’s cowherd boyfriends, being unconscious, were unable to tell them anything. The cows and calves were crying out for Kṛṣṇa, and thus the whole situation was overwhelming and created a state of shock and panic among the residents of Vṛndāvana.
This verse depicts the distress of the gopas and gopis. Seeing Krsna motionless in the coils of the serpent in the lake, they asked the boys, "Tell us what happened. Did Kaliya snatch Krsna from the bank and pull him in the water, or did Krsna jump from the bank into the water? Was this his own idea or someone else’s order?" Seeing the boys wanting but not able to answer because their minds had stopped functioning, Nanda and the other cowherd men and women became even more stunned than the boys.
They saw the cowherds unconscious (mūḍha-dhiṣaṇān), scattered all over (paritaḥ) the bank. The lake was a little over a yojana in breadth. The boys were scattered on the east, south and west shores. They saw that the animals were crying intensely (sankrandataḥ) all around the lake. Unlimited animals had gathered to see Kṛṣṇa play. Now the animals remained there crying. The cowherds saw both the unconscious boys and the crying animals (ca ca). Or the first ca indicates all the boys and the second ca indicates that there were birds crying as well.
- Which painful scene in my life looks incomprehensible right now from the bank?
- Can I keep walking toward it without first solving how I got here?
From the distance, the scene is composed like a dark icon: a still boy at the center, a black coil around Him, unconscious friends on the shore, lowing cattle in a ring. Vraja arrives at its own pietà. The villagers' grief now has its image.
My note
Source: vedabase.io