Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.24.9
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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vāḥ - mucām
—
of the rain-releasers (clouds)
Compound: vāḥ (water) + mucām (genitive plural of √muc, releasers). Lovely Vedic kenning for clouds. Nanda speaks of Indra as the patiḥ — lord — of these vāḥ-muc. Kṛṣṇa will not dispute the title; He will dispute its relevance to the cowherds' actual livelihood.
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īśvaram
—
controller, lord
From √īś — to be capable, to rule. Nanda calls Indra īśvara of the clouds. Gauḍīya reading: there are many controllers under the one Supreme Controller (Bs 5.1, anādir ādir govindaḥ); Indra is a delegated īśvara, never paramaḥ īśvaraḥ.
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dravyaiḥ
—
with ingredients
Instrumental plural of dravya — physical paraphernalia of sacrifice. Notice: these dravyas are exactly what Kṛṣṇa will not waste; verse 25 will redirect 'with all the paraphernalia collected for worshiping Indra' (taiḥ) to Govardhana.
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tat - retasā
—
by his own discharge
Compound: tat (his) + retasā (instrumental of retas, seed/discharge). The grain offered to Indra grew from rain that came from Indra — Nanda himself names the closed loop. Kṛṣṇa will gently open it: by what does the rain-cloud move at all?
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kratubhiḥ
—
by sacrifices
Instrumental plural of kratu — Vedic sacrifice, especially one offered to a particular devatā. Karma-kāṇḍa par excellence. The chapter's quiet pivot is from kratu to the makha of pure bhakti — same machinery, new object.
Nanda Mahārāja patiently tried to explain the “facts of life” to his young son, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, but in fact Nanda and all the residents of Vṛndāvana would learn an astonishing lesson, as explained in this chapter.
Tata is an address to his son with affection. The hint is: "Through the mercy of devatas like Indra, I have attained a qualified son like you. Therefore you should not oppose this action. " In this sacrifice, there should be not false pride. This sacrifice is accomplished through materials created by Indra’s rain, just as worship of the Ganga is performed using Ganga water.
He addresses Kṛṣṇa as tāta out of affection, in order that he have faith in his words and understand the meaning. Not only we cowherds worship Indra for cow herding, but all men worship him. ”But the sun is famous for drawing up water by its rays and then releasing water.” Indra is the lord of the clouds and the sun’s rays.” Viṣṇu Purāṇa says: bhaumam etat payo dugdhaṁ gobhiḥ sūryasya varidaiḥ parjanyaḥ sarvalokasya bhavāya bhuvi varṣati Indra showers on earth water sucked from the earth by the rays of the sun for the benefit of all beings through clouds. He is the lord of the devatās (īśvaraḥ). If we do not worship him he will create fear. Or, “Being the highest devotees, it is not proper for you to worship devatās.” He is the lord (īśvaram). He has the vision of antaryāmī. It is proper that we worship him first with good produced by him, without claiming ownership ourselves. Otherwise we will have the fault of ingratitude. The third person is used for the verb as poetic license as in the next verse. Or the third person is used to indicate predominance of worship by all people in order to indicate that he has no fault, since he fears avoiding this worship.
- What recent gift have I 'returned' to its source as worship?
- Where am I consuming what was given without offering any portion back?
Tenant farmers always pay rent to the landlord whose seal is on the deeds in their village office, even if the king above the landlord has never visited. Nanda is doing what his community has always done — sending the rent up the chain of intermediaries, never questioning that the chain itself might be one link too long.
My note
Source: vedabase.io